Costume Drama: Disrespect for the court from both sides of the bench
For several days this week, there has been a “reality” courtroom drama unfolding as a colorful aside in the national news. Thanks to the convergence of routine court proceedings with video technology,...
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Taurus, the Bull: Quality representation isn’t proportional to cost
As required by the 6th Amendment The Justice Department and at least one Supreme Court justice have noted the sorry state of public defender representation of indigent criminal defendants. Sometimes...
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Unnatural Selection: Supreme Court rewards DNA manipulation
In a widely anticipated ruling on the patentability of pieces of human DNA, the US Supreme Court has demonstrated why it can be both hilarious and scary to entrust all manner of issues — including...
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Secret Court: A devil’s advocate might help the FISA Court, but not The...
Devil’s Advocate Trademarked Logo The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, aka the “FISA court” or just the “secret court,” is a special court of federal judges, appointed by the Chief Justice of...
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Finder’s Fee: Pennsylvania justice’s nonlawyer wife allegedly received...
For all the effort the Bar, courts, and some lawyers put into expecting the public to respect the legal process, you would think that they would be extra careful about those situations in which money...
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Getting Robed: Election of state judge gets expensive, dirty, and stupid
In some state courts the judges are appointed, usually by executive nomination and often with legislative approval. (All federal judges are appointed this way, and many for life.) In other states,...
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Prix Fixe: Setting standard legal fees is illegal price fixing
While there are other stories about the acceptance of the billable hour as a de facto standard for legal billing, this is one of the more entertaining I have seen. This is the story of how the US...
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Peer Review: Florida juries, not judges, must find death penalty facts
Thanks to TV and the occasional real-life experience, most Americans know that juries consisting of ordinary citizens are involved in many trials. What the jury actually does, and how that works in...
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Eyeballing It: The eyewitness myth
Our legal system regularly runs over the rights, and lives, of criminal defendants who are legally innocent until found guilty. In addition to faulty verdicts and unsupported charges, common issues...
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The Apprentice: Justice Scalia struggled as a junior associate
In the wave of biographical information following the untimely death of Antonin Scalia, more details have emerged about his early years, after law school, as a junior litigation associate at Jones,...
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