Academic freedom. Freedom of inquiry. Free speech. That’s what Stuart Reges (photo, left), a University of Washington computer science professor, and the public interest law firm representing him, thought they were defending when he sued UW in federal court after administrators sought to punis[...]
Archive for the ‘Law and Courts’ Category
May 7th, 2024 - 4:50 pm § in Law and Courts
Book review: “The Innocent Man”
The Innocent Man by John Grisham (Wikipedia description here; on Amazon here) is that popular author’s only nonfiction book. Grisham writes pulp fiction with legal characters and plots. I don’t care much for his novels, but I’ve read a couple as a break from serious reading. I can[...]
Burden of proof
I haven’t been closely following Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, just reading headlines. It got pretty lurid today (Stormy: “it was lousy sex”), but I’m not interested in salacious details. I’m a lawyer, and my attention is directed at courtroom tactics. Pros[...]
Making abortion legal again
Abortion bans are unpopular, and voters are taking the laws into their own hands. “Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, abortion rights advocates have won in seven out of seven abortion-related ballot measures,” a Mother Jones article noted on May 4, 2024 (read i[...]
May 4th, 2024 - 7:19 pm § in Law and Courts
If you get pulled over by a dumb cop
Make some money. Look, I’m not a fan of “auditors” (like this guy) who try to provoke a police response in order to “educate” the cops about people’s rights, or drivers who antagonize cops when they get pulled over. I fully support the police who do their jobs in [...]
May 2nd, 2024 - 2:18 pm § in Law and Courts
Child-mistreating judge is reprimanded and reassigned
She was ambushed. The 13-year-old girl was in court to support her father, who was about to be sent back to jail for violating the terms of his supervised release. He worried about his daughter. They lived in a bad neighborhood, she had smoked some weed, and while in jail he wouldn’t be there [...]
The loose ends of insurrection disqualification
I didn’t expect the Supreme Court to uphold Colorado’s disqualification of Trump under the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War to keep ex-Confederates from taking control of the Federal government. The Colorado statute establishe[...]
Capitol rioter gets 12½ years for tasing Office Fanone
Daniel Rodriguez (photo, left), 40, of Fontana, California, is the rioter who tased Officer Michael Fanone in the neck during the Jan. 6 riot. A federal judge sentenced him to 12½ years in prison on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, CNN reported here. Prosecutors characterized Rodri[...]
Bosses are jerks dep’t
Miles Walker owns a car repair shop in Peachtree, Georgia. An employee, Andreas Flaten, quit after an argument. Walker refused to pay Flaten his final wages of $915, so Flaten complained to the U.S. Labor Department, which contacted Walker, who then dumped 91,500 oily pennies in Flaten’s drive[...]
John Eastman’s disbarment hearing begins
He’s the Trump lawyer behind the fake electors scheme and author of the so-called “coup memo” (details here). That got him fired from a teaching job at a Colorado law school; and now the state bar of California, where he’s licensed and has a practice, is seeking to disbar him[...]