Via Ernie the Attorney, a blog by a former Washington, DC lawyer now working as a public defender in New Orleans. I’m sure some will accuse him of being a big soft-on-crime librul for thinking that being accused of a crime does not erase your worth as a human being; nevertheless, good reading.
“What are we to make of a justice system that must depend on the good graces of volunteers?”
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Jan 092007
Goodbye, Mr. Ford
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Jan 072007
Yes, I am old enough to remember Gerald Ford being President. My only real commentary on his time as President was that, as a very young child, I apparently had some dim awareness of inflation and that things cost too much, and that poor people couldn’t afford food. (That would have been my dad’s explanation, I think. Mom would probably have explained price indexing.) Being, oh, four or five, it occurred to me that the solution to this problem would simply be to make a law that nothing should cost over $2. Naturally, the person to best implement such a law was the President.
Back in those days, when you wanted to write the President, you sat down and wrote a letter. On paper. And you mailed it with a stamp, not via e-mail or an online petition fercrissakes.
You also used your very best crayons for the job.
President Ford probably could have implemented my $2 into WIN for all the good it did the country, and for all I know he did. I was not appointed to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, but I did receive a thank-you letter and an autographed 8″x10″ glossy photo of the President.
It was very likely read by an intern and signed with an autopen. Even before e-mail, I doubt that Ford had time to personally read and respond to his correspondence, even amusing letters by grade-schoolers. I like to think that he might have, though. He was that kind of President.
Jan 062007
For those who have not already read it (meaning, you’re not a law student), Mayo v. Satan and His Staff is instructional in how courts handle fillings, even stupid, wackaloon filings.
The background to this case is that Mr. Mayo’s first petition was thrown out by the court as, um, wackaloon. Mayo appealed. The Court of Appeals told Judge Weber that the court cannot just decide a petition is stupid and throw it out; there must be procedural and/or substantive reasons. Which makes sense; we don’t want judges throwing out perfectly good cases simply because of their personal feeling that it is stupid.
Judge Weber’s response was an extremely dry and cite-ridden opinion that does not actually use the word “wackaloon” anywhere. It is still good law in that jurisdiction.
Jan 062007
The Bush administration seems to have decided that its visitor logs are nobody’s business. Therefore, to get around the possibility that anyone might take a look at them, the White House signed a memorandum of understanding with the Secret Service, declaring that these are Presidential records rather than (as has been the case until now) agency records. Therefore, the White House says, these are not subject to FOIA and do not need to be disclosed in response to pesky, Abramoff-scandal-related court orders requiring production. These same logs were used in the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal to show Monica Lewinsky’s comings and goings, but apparently it didn’t occur to Clinton’s legal advisers to hide evidence in this way.
Naturally, the White House has no comment.
Jan 062007
Re-Posted: Since I don’t have an EE to WordPress conversion filter, I’m going to be slacky and re-post popular items here. “Popular” means at least one person has asked me where it is so they can forward the link to somebody.
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