Posts Tagged ‘suicide’

Liability roundup

Punished for attempting suicide

A “56-year-old man pleaded guilty Thursday in Caroline County District Court to one count of ‘attempted suicide’ and was sentenced to a three-year suspended jail sentence, and two years of probation.” While the Maryland legislature has not enacted any law against attempting to end one’s own life, the state’s judicial system continues (unlike most states’) to recognize a category known as common law crimes. [Justin Fenton, Baltimore Sun]

October 21 roundup

  • “Rightscorp’s Copyright Trolling Phone Script Tells Innocent People They Need To Give Their Computers To Police” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
  • “‘Affordable housing’ policies have made housing less affordable” [Matt Welch, L.A. Times]
  • South Mountain Creamery case: “Lawmakers Call for Return of Cash Seized From Dairy Farmers” [Tony Corvo/Heartland, quotes me, earlier on this structuring forfeiture case]
  • Be prepared to explain your social media trail, like by like: “Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2035” [Orin Kerr]
  • From Eugene Volokh, what looks very much like a case against assisted suicide, embedded in a query about whether state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs) might cut a legal path to it [Volokh Conspiracy]
  • “The complaint also indicated that the injuries could affect Reid’s ability to secure employment” after Senate exit [Roll Call on Majority Leader’s suit against exercise equipment firm over eye injury]
  • Amazon responds to NYT’s “everyone cries at their desk” hatchet job on its workplace culture [Jay Carney, Medium]

Police and prosecution roundup

  • Why license plate scanning is an up-and-coming front in the surveillance wars [Radley Balko]
  • Prosecutor whose lapse sent innocent man to prison for 25 years will go to jail — for ten days [Adler, Shackford]
  • “Nurse fights charges she helped father commit suicide” [Phil. Inq., Barbara Mancini case, via @maxkennerly]
  • California inmates released, crime rates jump: a Brown v. Plata trainwreck? [Tamara Tabo, Heather Mac Donald/City Journal]
  • Driver arrested under Ohio’s new law banning hidden compartments in cars even though he had nothing illicit in the compartment [Shackford] Tenaha, Tex. traffic stops, cont’d: “Give Us Cash or Lose Your Kids and Face Felony Charges: Don’t Cops Have Better Things to Do?” [Ted Balaker/Reason, earlier]
  • Arizona Republic series on prosecutorial misconduct [4-parter]
  • Few act as if they care about Mr. Martin-Oguike’s fate at hands of a false accuser [Scott Greenfield]

“Reflections on gun control by a Second Amendment advocate”

From Cato Institute chairman Robert Levy, who was co-counsel in the landmark D.C. v. Heller case. [National Law Journal] More: Trevor Burrus, The Blaze. And the New York Times takes up the topic of guns and suicide, but with some pretty big omissions [Tom Maguire, Ira Stoll/SmarterTimes]

Further: “Senate Judiciary Committee Hears from Cato on Gun Policy” [Ilya Shapiro, citing contributions by David Kopel, Randy Barnett, etc.] And while Bing’s real-time reaction tracker isn’t a scientific voter survey (though the sample size is large, and there’s a partisan breakdown) it seems I was not alone in being put off by President Obama’s demagogic “they deserve a vote” State of the Union wind-up on gun control. [Mediaite]

Education roundup

November 24 roundup

  • Jack Park on Bruesewitz v. Wyeth vaccine preemption case at Supreme Court [Heritage]
  • Incidentally happening to assure lawyers more access to work: Harvard’s Tribe devises “access to justice” initiatives for Obama administration [BLT]
  • New Haven cops accidentally photograph themselves deleting video of an unlawful arrest [Balko]
  • How elite law culture miscomprehends the military [Second Circuit chief judge Dennis Jacobs speech at Federalist Society convention, YouTube]
  • “Later, Bad Lawyer”: a blogger heads to prison [Greenfield]
  • Reform medical liability? Depends on how badly you want neurosurgeons’ services [Michael Lavyne, NYDN]
  • “Cab-rank principle” in legal ethics explained [Lawyers’ Lawyer, Australia; via Legal Ethics Forum]
  • $3.5 million award to unsuccessful suicide-while-in-custody is one of long series of such cases [six years ago on Overlawyered]

October 21 roundup

  • “Japanese landlords sue families of suicide victims” [Telegraph via Tyler Cowen]
  • Best candidate you’ve never heard of: lawprof Jim Huffman runs for a U.S. Senate seat in Oregon [Weekly Standard]
  • “Freedom of culinary expression: Chefs speak out on behalf of salt” [“My Food, My Choice” via Ponnuru, NRO]
  • “In-House Counsel Expect More Regulatory Litigation, Survey Finds” [NLJ]
  • “Oladiran’s ‘Motion of the Year’ Earns Him Sanctions” [AtL]
  • Resisting a music-delivery-system claim: “Patent Trolls and Public Goods” [Julian Sanchez]
  • More transparency for New Jersey lawyer/lawmakers? [Philly.com]
  • “Ninth Circuit: marine mammals don’t have standing…yet” [six years ago on Overlawyered]