I am bummed that I am out of the city and so can’t participate in the celebration, but still OMG OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

And yes, I told my friend she should leave work early in case the court is persuaded to impose a stay. In the meantime, you can read the entire opinion here.

Judges always tell jurors not to do any research and not to talk to anyone about the case. Thankfully, most of them are happy to go along with the suggestion that they get specific about this and go beyond the boilerplate of jury pre-instructions.  Most people don’t think of Google as “research” and don’t think of Twitter as “talking to anyone”. They have to be told: do not look up anything about this case, including the parties and the attorneys, on the Internet, and that includes Google and Wikipedia; do not blog about this trial, do not email people, do not Twitter or send text messages.

And you can see that they didn’t think of it that way, because the nods at “don’t do research” turn to surprise when the judge starts reeling off exactly what that means. I’ve actually seen one person kicked off a jury because he would not agree to refrain from looking things up on the Internet about the case. The judge’s explanation that all information had to come in during the trial did not sway him; he was annoyed that anyone might put a hold on his sacred right to Google for any reason.

If you hate the idea of jury service, imagine what it would be like to put in eight weeks of time, only to have it end in a mistrial because some bozo couldn’t find anything else to talk about on his Facebook page.

Then they will recover, and beat you viciously and without mercy. Rhetorically speaking.

It is true that many people who aren’t lawyers to have a clear understanding of certain areas of the law, and are even able to talk about it intelligently. Unfortunately those people are vastly outnumbered by other people, who think that Wikipedia is a real legal resource, or who take one line in a judicial opinion out of context and think that’s what the law is.

It is also true that the law is full of different specialities and lawyers have different levels of competency. I’m not familiar enough with patent law to explain its complexities to you, either at a cocktail party or on the Internet. Likewise, don’t tell me that you fully understand product-liability law in California because you heard about it from your dad, a retired lawyer who used to do criminal cases in Massachusetts.

And for god’s sake don’t present your half-baked legal expertise as legal advice to others.

Yesterday, The Queen mentioned something she was doing as part of her LGBT Alliance club at school. I didn’t know she was a member. She hadn’t thought it such a big deal that she needed to make a big deal about it. It is.

John Scalzi glees over the fact that Proposition 8, the California initiative to destroy same-sex marriages will, quite accurately, be titled “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry”. Since, you know, it actually takes a right that currently exists and will eliminate it. One of the spokesperson for a group that supports this amendment complains that the language is “inflammatory” and “unduly prejudicial”. (The latter phrase, by the way, is lawyer-speak for “would be bad for me.”) They want something completely uninformative and misleading, like “Marriage” or “Rules Regarding Marriage”, something that suggests a column in Ladies’ Home Journal rather than an effort to forcibly end existing marriages because they involve icky queer people.

If you think this is nuts, remember that the Prop 8 supporters are trying to pretend that kindergartners will have to be told that same-sex marriage is the same as ‘traditional marriage’. I imagine next they’ll argue that if Prop 8 doesn’t pass, it will be legal for gay people to drown adorable kittens.

There is some tedious debate going on in the Scalzi thread from people who insist it’s possible to be against same-sex marriage and not be a bigoted assjack. Well, yes, as lawyers say, anything’s possible. I can think of a couple of non-bigoted explanations: you’re an activist who feels that all marriage is wrong and should be abolished; or, you’re a complete brain-dead moron who hasn’t given enough thought to the issue to understand that bigotry is involved.

Outside of that, yep, you’re a bigoted assjack. No, a visceral reaction to gay anal sex, or the fact that your religion doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, or some blather about “judicial activism” (dogwhistle for “result liberals like”) are not exemptions. Pretty soon, people with those opinions will be regarded the way civilized people regard those who thought of black/white marriages as “miscegenation”. Isn’t that a wonderful legacy?

Although I suppose cockroaches aren’t much concerned about their legacy. Just about getting back under that nice, dark rock.

I look forward to reading the decision to see how the faux “strict constructionalists” (*cough* Scalia *cough*) explain how the Framers took Islamofacism into account to create a mystical unwritten exception to the rule.

The forces of evil will be right back at it, though. Today we party elegantly–tomorrow back in the trenches.

Edit: Lynn points out that all three branches of government are in agreement on this. Take that, pseudo-originalist whinebots!

It is true, as the McTools point out, that this will encourage more lawsuits; what they don’t want to spell out is that it increases lawsuits because victims are not at a financial disadvantage, either paying out-of-pocket for legal fees, or hoping that their claim is worth enough to persuade a lawyer to take their case on contingency. (In other words, unless your claim is big, your insurance company can gleefully deny it because they know you won’t sue.) This makes the financial incentives to pursue a valid claim much, much bigger.

Insurance companies aren’t really in the business of insurance anymore. They’re in the business of persuading you to hand over the money they invest, and they don’t take kindly to being told they have to give some of it back.

I would suggest the term McTools for these folks. “Tools”, obviously; the ones who aren’t actually corporate masters themselves are happy in their role as paid zealous advocate, in or out of the courtroom. The “Mc” because if they hadn’t invented a distorted version of the McDonald’s coffee-injury case, they’d have to invent it, being as they are friend to anything with “Inc.” after its name that is dedicated to making money, large multinational corporations being a favorite.

Hey, they didn’t get the public’s ire up about the ATLA to AAJ name change. Why not give them something else to cause another epic fit of monocle-clutching?

In the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a gentleman named Harold Lischner filed a lawsuit for false arrest against Upper Darby Township. Apparently the President was visiting Upper Darby, and a catering facility allowed people to come onto its property to watch the motorcade go by–but forbidding protest or the displaying of signs. When Mr. Lischner nonetheless showed up with an anti-Bush sign, refusing to put down the sign or leave, he was arrested, and therefore sued the township for its police department’s illegal actions.

The defense lawyers made a motion to prevent the plaintiff from mentioning President Bush’s name during the trial, arguing that the mere mention of this unpopular fellow “”is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to defendant”. They wanted the court to agree that “it will be sufficient for plaintiff to testify that he displayed a sign in opposition of a ‘presidential candidate.’”

The Court, unsurprisingly, denied the motion. Can’t blame them for trying, I suppose.