Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp's refusal to process 40,000 voter registrations

With less than 7 days left until Election Day thousands of eligible voters are waiting in limbo. Just today, a Georgia court ruled against The New Georgia Project in the lawsuit demanding Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp account for the more 40,000 registration forms from new voters who do not yet appear on the voter rolls.

The registrations in question come primarily from would-be first-time voters in Black, Latino and Asian communities in and around Atlanta, Savannah and Columbus.

Los Angeles woman freed after spending 17 years in prison for murder she didn't commit

Los Angeles woman freed after spending 17 years in prison for murder she didn't commit

Deborah Hastings

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

October 10, 2014

After 17 very long years of proclaiming her innocence, a Los Angeles woman was finally freed Friday by a judge who ordered her immediate release from behind bars.

"I believe that not only is Ms. Mellen not guilty, based on what I have read, I believe she is innocent," said Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold. "For that reason, I believe in this case the justice system failed."

Susan Mellen wept as the judge spoke, as did her grown children seated in the courtroom.
Then applause erupted.

The poignant moment culminated nearly two decades of battling for her freedom. Mellen was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the 1997 killing of a homeless man named Richard Daly.

Mellen had once dated the man.

Deidre O'Connor, who investigated Mellen's case for Innocence Matters, said her murder trial was completely based on the testimony of a woman who was notorious for giving bad tips to police.


June Patti, who died in 2006, testified she heard Mellen confess to the murder.

But three gang members were later linked to the killing, and one was ultimately convicted of the crime.

Mellen's children were age 7 and 9 when she was sent away.

"Although each member of this family suffered tremendously, they remain a close family unit," O'Connor said.

With News Wire Services

Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Fraud Verdict Against The California Franchise Tax Board

Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Fraud Verdict Against The California Franchise Tax Board

9/19/2014

Keith Paul Bishop  

Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP 

JD Supra

The Franchise Tax Board’s Shande

This is case that has been more than two decades in the making.  It began in the 1990s when inventor Gilbert Hyatt filed a California tax return showing that he relocated from California to Nevada.  Consequently, he reported licensing payments for only part of the year.  California was suspicious because his return reflected no moving expenses and it opened an audit.  This was really some audit, the Franchise Tax Board sent over 100 letters to third parties.  Many of these letters included Hyatt’s social security number, home address or both.  The FTB also interviewed Mr. Hyatt’s ex-wife and estranged brother and daughter.

Mr. Hyatt eventually had enough and sued the FTB in Nevada (state) District Court.  The FTB sought complete immunity based on the U.S. Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause (Art. IV, § 1) and comity.  In an unpublished order, the Nevada Supreme Court said no and the FTB appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 538 U.S. 488 (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Nevada Supreme Court’s conclusion that the FTB was only entitled to partial immunity under comity principles. (California accords full immunity to the FTB in Government Code Section 860.2(b)).

When Mr. Hyatt’s case finally went before a jury, the case lasted four months.  The jury returned a verdict awarding Mr. Hyatt damages in the amount of $85 million for emotional distress, $52 million for invasion of privacy, a little over $1 million as special damages for fraud, and $250 million in punitive damages.  No one should be surprised to learn that the FTB appealed the verdict to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Yesterday, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the special damages award for fraud and the finding of liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress.  Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 71 (2014).   The court, however, found error in the trial court’s damage award and remanded the case for a new trial on damages on the emotional distress claim.  The FTB, however, was successful in obtaining reversals of Mr. Hyatt’s other causes of action.  More importantly, the Nevada held as a matter of first impression that because punitive damages would not be available against a Nevada government entity, the FTB is immune under comity principles for punitive damages.

Although the FTB dodged a punitive damage bullet, the opinion is recounts numerous instances of misconduct on the part of the FTB.  For example, the FTB represented that it would protect Mr. Hyatt’s confidential information and then distributed his personal information to numerous third parties and revealed that he was being audited.  Without determining which doctor actually treated Mr. Hyatt, the FTB sent letters to all doctors with the same last name.  The FTB should be ashamed.

More On Yiddish And The Law

One reader wrote to let me know about a 1993 article entitled “ “Lawsuit, Shmawsuit” by Judge Alex Kozinski and UCLA Law School Professor Eugene Volokh that discusses the use of other Yiddish words in U.S. legal opinions.  You can find the article at 103 Yale Law Journal 463 (1993).  Other readers pointed out that “knell” is not the antonym of kvetch.  I had intended to type kveln.  Rather than take responsibility, I’ll blame the autocorrect function.  

Finally, I must not let a discourse on kvetch pass without mention of this 2011 speech by former SEC Commissioner Elisse Walter in which she asserts:

Let’s face it — many of us lawyers were born to kvetch. It’s simply part of our DNA...

Law protects makers of generic drugs from lawsuits

What chance does the Hippocratic oath stand against a system that protects billions in medical profits?

Do No Harm?
Cindy Nunn
Simvastin Nightmares
June 18, 2014

Many pharmaceutical companies have physicians sitting on their Board of Directors, the very same people who have taken the Hippocratic Oath, which includes the following lines:

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel.

So naturally it boggled my mind that the United States Supreme Court ruled that makers of generic drugs could no longer be held liable and sued for damages caused by their products. What kind of free society allows such abuse of its citizens? What doctor in his (or her) right mind would consider this to be fair or right? Well, when I saw George Soros listed as a main share holder of Teva Pharmaceuticals the penny dropped. It seems our government has more interests in helping billionaires to further line their pockets with money than it does in protecting the health and well-being of the people of the United States.

Somehow, this has got to be changed. When a large corporation is basically given permission to CONTINUE harming people without having to suffer any repercussions we cease to be a fair, balanced and civilized society and instead become one where the sick and the poor are just fodder to be used and sacrificed in the goals of the greedy CEOs  to add more money to the millions and billions of dollars already nicely filling up their bank accounts.

While you lay in your bed crying due to the excruciating pain caused by Simvastatin, some greedy fat cat is lounging around on his/her yacht in the Mediterranean or driving around town in a Lamborghini. And you can do absolutely NOTHING about it because the pharmaceutical companies and our own Supreme Court say that you and your sufferings are worth NOTHING, zip, zilch, nada! However, you can bet your Aunt Nellie’s knickers that if a close member of one of these powerful CEOs suffered damages from a medication they would pay out huge amounts of money to the best lawyers around to sue the hell out of the company responsible!

People need to get mad. People need to get completely, totally, insanely ANGRY that this is being allowed to happen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/opinion/a-damaging-decision-on-generic-drugs.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/business/drug-lawsuits-hinge-on-the-detail-of-a-label.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.sott.net/article/263713-Supreme-Court-rules-drug-companies-exempt-from-lawsuits

http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/supremes-say-you-cant-sue-generic-drug-make-but-fda-may-change-that/

http://www.beckerlaw.com/2013/07/01/supreme-court-rules-generic-drug-makers-not-liable-for-drug-defects/

http://my.firedoglake.com/cranestation/2013/09/25/over-easy-scotus-shields-generic-drug-manufacturers-from-liability/

http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2011/06/30/injured-by-a-generic-drug-you-cant-sue-over-inadequate-warnings/

This is why your Internet is slow; Today is the last day to comment to the FCC

Here's my comment to the FCC: "Do big business a real favor--preserve democracy, preserve the open Internet."

Daily Kos Action

Write and send your comment to the FCC urging them to preserve net neutrality

Battle for the Net PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS IN FULL BEFORE CLICKING THE SUBMIT BUTTON BELOW

September 15 marks the end of the public comment period at the FCC about the proposed net neutrality rules, which threaten the internet as we know it.

As the proposed rules stand, Big Cable and Telecom providers will lbe able to control the speed at which different websites load—including creating a fast lane for big corporations that can pay more, and slowing-down service to independent sites like Daily Kos that can't—to outright blocking content they don’t want on their networks.

Fundamentally, we are in a fight to determine who controls the internet—people or corporations...

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye's word of the day: "counter-majoritarian"

CA SUPREME COURT'S CHIEF JUSTICE TO SPEAK SEPT. 11 IN SAN DIEGO
East County Magazine
September 10, 2014
(San Diego)

California Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye will be the featured speaker at “Informed Voters—Fair Judges” , a special program on the critical role voters play in preserving our country’s fair and impartial legal system.


Commentary
Word of the day, "counter-majoritarian"
by Sharon Kramer

Yesterday, I attended a meeting [in San Diego] of which the subject matter was "Informed Voters -- Fair Judges".

Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye was the keynote speaker. In fact, besides her introduction by Justice McConnell and the announcement by a gentleman from UCSD that it was time to mingle, Tani was the only speaker.

According to Tani, her courts are "counter-majoritarian" and must be, to keep the courts "fair and free". She claims that decisions in the branch are made independently -- not by majority rule. Thus, she is practicing "counter-majoritarian" in the name of democracy.

She also stated that Chief Justice Ronald George was a "wonderful, honorable, visionary" and that McConnell has worked with him for a long time to help keep the courts fair and free from outside interests influencing the courts.

[Maura Larkins' comment: Next we need to work on preventing INSIDE interests from influencing the courts. Insiders are able to exercise an extraordinary amount of arbitrary power, in my experience. The Chief Justice could begin to fix this by providing enough money to bring back court reporters for civil cases.]

Then she stated that McConnell also worked with the President of the Cal Chamber of Commerce on the project of ensuring impartial courts. (I laughed out loud at the irony and oxymoron of this statement. Fortunately, I don't think anyone besides those sitting next to me, heard me.)

This Emmy winning short video was played. "Fair and Free"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTeFLkueTkQ

McConnell and an executive committee that she chairs, authored a pretty good little booklet to teach children of how the courts are suppose to work. Seems to me that it would be beneficial for many if she would also take the time to read it!

The CJ told an anecdotal story of a dinner she had with a legislator who she said would remain nameless. According to her, this legislator said that the trial judges report to the chief justice and the chief justice reports to the legislature.

Moans of sympathetic disgust went out in the crowd of the audacity of the statement by the imperialistic legislator. Parlaying on the audience favorable response, she then stated "and this legislator is a lawyer" and that after he said that, the dinner was over.

I got the impression that she was referring to Governor Brown and I seriously doubt that's what he actually said. I would envision it being more of "Get control of the fraud, waste and abuse in the judicial branch. The Judicial Council is not getting any more money from the legislature until you do."

Basically, it seemed like a cocktail party stop on the campaign trail to garner support for more money for the Judicial Council and their staff to control -- so they can be free to administer justice in the counter-majoritarian manner as taught by the wonderful, honorable, visionary Ron George.

Several San Diego judges and justices were in attendance including Justice Joan Irion, Nationwide Chair, Informed Voters—Fair Judges Project; and the appetizers were outstanding!.

Judge: "Who is she to question my integrity?"

Some judges feel free to violate judicial ethics, blatantly and in full view of fellow citizens, because they believe that those citizens will be ignored by the Judicial Commission and government officials.

And, I suspect, for the most part, those judges are right.

When those citizens are court personnel, the judge figures that they're afraid they'll lose their jobs if they talk. And, of course, they probably will lose their jobs. We'd have a better system if we actually enforced whistle-blower protections.

Previously, Judge Frances Kaiser served as Kerr County Sheriff.












City reviews ethics claims against municipal judge
September 11, 2014
By Jessica Hawley-Jerome
Bandera Bulletin

Citing a hostile work environment and unethical practices, the City of Bandera municipal court clerk has filed a complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct and tendered her resignation.

“The hostile environment within the court offices was created due to the lack of ethical character and the constant chaos and divided factions affected by fear-inducing verbiage and actions by Judge [Frances] Kaiser,” Laura Phipps wrote in her Sept. 8 letter of resignation.

Shortly after she began her employment in May, Phipps said she witnessed numerous questionable activities, including bypassing judicial protocol and allegedly tampering with a jury pool. She documented most of what she said she saw, primarily for her own protection. Phipps said Kaiser discussed ongoing and pending cases with friends and colleagues, and was not objective, making judgments about defendants before their hearings.

“With respect to the position of Judge Kaiser…all defendants and all case files have not been treated impartially or fairly,” Phipps said. “The fundamental elements of a municipal court are that the judge be impartial, ensure that justice is done, and oversee the general administration of the court… Intrinsic to all sections of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct are the precepts that judges, individually and collectively, must respect and honor the judicial office as a public trust and strive to enhance and maintain confidence in our legal system.”

Phipps said she confided her concerns to City Marshal Charlie Hicks, who then approached City Administrator Lamar Schulz and a City Council member. Phipps told Schulz and Mayor Don Clark about her observations and said that Kaiser had created an oppressive work environment in which she berated other city employees.

Phipps said Kaiser submitted her letter of resignation on Wednesday, Aug. 20, however it was not accepted and she was asked to return to work the next week. Schulz denied that claim, stating Kaiser never submitted anything.

“Frances never has never submitted a letter of resignation,” Schulz told the Bulletin, adding Phipps’ complaints are under review. “Right now we are doing due diligence on our side. The allegations are not totally substantiated at this point.”

Schulz said Phipps provided him with some information and copies of certain documents, and they are being reviewed...

Phipps was granted unpaid administrative leave on Aug. 28; her request for paid administrative leave or transfer to another department was denied. In an email to Schulz dated Sept. 4, Phipps asked if City Council members were aware of her complaint and her request for paid administrative leave, and whether there would be a council review. She said has not received a response.

“I refuse to accept the opportunity to return to a hostile work environment and refuse to compromise my moral or ethical values,” Phipps said. “The city population should be outraged at the lack of response by the city administration to these activities.”

Kaiser said she is shocked by the allegations made against her and vehemently denies any wrongdoing. She said she never discussed city personnel with Phipps nor did she violate the Judicial Code of Conduct.

“I’m absolutely astonished and very alarmed,” Kaiser told the Bulletin. “I never had any inkling that [Phipps] was unhappy or there was a problem. I trusted her.”

[Maura Larkins' comment: The judge apparently trusted the clerk to keep quiet about wrongdoing.]

Kaiser said Phipps’ recount of alleged jury pool tampering was misguided. Phipps said Kaiser comprised a selection of potential jurors from a list of city residents, then asked her to shred the original list once entered into the system. Kaiser said it was true that she oversaw the list, but she said she did not choose the final jurors.

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Kaiser said, adding protocol in a small-town municipal court is different from county or district court. “My integrity would be very much compromised if that happened…who is she to question my integrity?”...

Read more here.

Brouhaha in Bandera's Municipal Court
By Judith Pannebaker
BCC Editor
2014-09-11

...According to Kaiser, the dispute occurred when she and Phipps were selecting a potential jury pool for an upcoming trial. After receiving a list of names from the city utility department, Kaiser said she randomly highlighted those city residents who would receive jury summonses. "I highlighted the names randomly and methodically. I didn't know anyone living in the city," Kaiser insisted. "However, Ms. Phipps called it jury tampering."

This precipitated the meeting and Phipps' subsequent resignation...

[Maura Larkins' comment: Why didn't the judge simply choose the first names on the list, or every other name? It is simply not acceptable for her to specifically choose names, and then claim that she chose them randomly.]

Attorney Convicted of False Imprisonment for Planting Drugs in School Volunteer's Car

Kent Easter isn't the only attorney who thinks he's above the law, but he takes the concept to a new extreme of pettiness and irrationality.

Attorney Convicted of False Imprisonment for Planting Drugs in School Volunteer's Car
By deceiving police, Kent Easter caused Kelli Peters to be detained and questioned, a prosecutor said. Peters had insulted Easter's son.
By PAUL ANDERSON City News Service
Updated by By Penny Arévalo (Patch Staff)
September 10, 2014

An Irvine attorney who helped plant drugs in the PT Cruiser of a school volunteer because of a perceived insult to his son was convicted today of false imprisonment by fraud and deceit.

It was the second trial for Kent Easter, who faces up to three years in prison. Another jury last November deadlocked 11-1 in favor of convicting him, forcing a mistrial. Jurors this time around deliberated about an hour before returning a verdict.

His wife pleaded guilty last year to false imprisonment for her role in the smear attack and was sentenced to 120 days in jail and 100 hours of community service. She was released from jail earlier this year after completing her sentence and had her law license suspended in March.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals ordered Easter back to court Thursday afternoon to set a sentencing date. Goethals was inclined to have the defendant handcuffed and sent to jail today, but he asked for more time to make arrangements for the care and custody of his three children, ages 7, 8, and 11.

Goethals questioned why Easter had not made arrangements prior to today, considering the first jury nearly convicted him. Easter, 40, and his attorney argued that his 41-year-old estranged wife was “spiraling down” emotionally.

The couple are in the midst of a divorce. Kent Easter is living in Newport Beach while Jill Easter lives with their children in their Irvine home, according to defense attorney Thomas Bienert Jr....

The jury foreman said the panel was convinced by phone records that showed the defendant’s cell phone was used near the victim’s home the night the drugs were planted in her car. The jury did not believe the defendant’s claim that his wife was using his phone that night, the foreman said.

Prosecutor Christopher Duff said in his closing argument that even if the defendant did not personally plant the marijuana pipe, Vicodin and Percocet in school volunteer Kelli Peters’ car on Feb. 16, 2011, he was still guilty of false imprisonment because it was his call to police that led to her detention and questioning.

“He called police knowing these drugs were planted in the car,” Duff said. “He knew Kelli Peters didn’t put those drugs in the car. His role in the crime is complete when he makes that call to police.”

Easter’s attorney claimed that his client was an unwitting dupe of a conspiratorial, pushy wife, and downplayed the detention of the victim, as Irvine police realized within minutes the volunteer was being set up.

Duff said the Easters’ vendetta against Peters started in February 2010 when Jill Easter picked up her then-5-year-old son after classes at Plaza Vista School in Irvine. It took a few minutes to find the boy, who was a little dirty and crying when he was found but was otherwise OK, Duff said.

Jill Easter grew enraged when Peters said the boy was “slow,” meaning he lagged when it was time to line up with the other children, Duff said. Jill Easter took the comment as an insult to her son’s intelligence, Duff said.

The couple wrote a letter demanding Peters’ dismissal, filed for a restraining order against her, and then tried to file a complaint with police for false imprisonment, Duff said. They also tried to sue Peters, but she was not served with papers and the case was withdrawn.



Kent Easter admitted he called Irvine police and gave them a fake Indian name after he alerted authorities that Peters was seen driving to the school erratically and had pills in her car. Duff alleged that Easter even affected an Indian accent...

See more details HERE.

Ex-San Ysidro district superintendent Manuel Paul admits squeezing contractor for donations

If we look at the extremely high percentage of women and people of color among the officials indicted by the District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit over the years, we are forced to conclude one of two things:

1) either women and people of color are more corrupt than white males; or

2) the people who are targeted for prosecution do not enjoy the same protections and immunities that white male public officials in San Diego tend to enjoy.

I'm not saying that the DA is racist.  I don't think that's it.  I think the explanation for the gender and color imbalance is simply that the public officials with the most power tend NOT to be women or people of color.  The truly powerful public officials are mostly white males, and the DA wouldn't dare go after them.

And the big money isn't in parking lots in San Ysidro.  It isn't even in $20 million solar panel deals.

A few years ago the FBI was investigating kickbacks to public entities in San Diego from insurance companies. Nothing ever came of that. My guess is that they couldn't find an ideal defendant to indict: someone without connections in the high ranks of the San Diego political establishment.

Here is a link to my page about the County of Santa Clara vs. Driver Alliant Insurance Services, Inc., et al lawsuit.  These are the types of transactions that involve significant amounts of money.  The really big deals are not as much fun for the political establishment to talk about as a small cash envelope in a parking lot--so you don't read about them much in the paper. The big players almost always avoid criminal court. Note the lack of prosecutions in the 2009 Financial Crisis that was caused by the greed of the wealthy and powerful.

The big guys generally don't see the inside of a criminal court, and their civil cases get settled, not tried, where the public might get wind of what actually happened. (Of course, the Manuel Paul case wasn't tried in court, either. Why no trials? Who knows what information might come out in a trial that might expose a big fish?)

Here's a sample of a school district deal worth $1 billion: Superintendent John Deasy of Los Angeles Unified school district (LAUSD) probably isn't worried. I suspect that you need a lot better political connections to become superintendent of LAUSD than you do to get the top spot in San Ysidro School District.

Given that we live in a system in which huge corporation and billionaires believe they can buy elections, it's sort of embarrassing that the FBI is chasing down such small-time players.

Clearly, Bonnie Dumanis and the FBI aren't going to be able to stop campaign finance corruption.

But wouldn't it be nice if the public--and Bonnie Dumanis--started looking a little closer at some of the well-heeled districts on the north side of town?

In CVESD we also had a superintendent using his power to affect the school board election.



See all posts on white chalk crime.

Ex-San Ysidro district superintendent Manuel Paul admits squeezing contractor for donations
Channel 10 News
Aug 20, 2014

SAN DIEGO - A former San Ysidro School District superintendent pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to extracting political contributions from a prospective contractor by threatening to withhold work on future building contracts.

Manuel Paul, 63, faces up to a year in federal prison and a $100,000 fine when he is sentenced Nov. 18.

According to his plea agreement, Paul admitted he asked a contractor to contribute $3,600 to three political candidates for the 2010 School Board election...

Read more.

Prosecutor Joe Freeman Britt, no longer admired for record-breaking number of Death Row convictions

As 2 Go Free, a Dogged Ex-Prosecutor Digs In

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. 

New York Times

SEPT. 7, 2014

LUMBERTON, N.C. — The most memorable moment of the trial that put Henry McCollum and Leon Brown behind bars for three decades for a hideous 1983 rape and murder was a display of brilliant courtroom theatrics.

District Attorney Joe Freeman Britt of Robeson County, who stood 6-foot-6 and came to be known as America’s “Deadliest D.A.,” asked jurors to try to hold their breath for five minutes — the time it took the 11-year-old victim to choke to death, after her killer stuffed her panties down her throat with a stick — to get a small sense of the horror she experienced.

The jury came back with two of the more than 40 death penalty convictions Mr. Britt won over almost two decades.

Those two convictions — obtained on the basis of inconsistent, soon recanted, confessions from two mentally impaired teenagers who said they had been coerced to sign statements written by interrogators, and testimony from an informer who previously did not implicate the two young men — were overturned last week. Mr. McCollum and Mr. Brown were exonerated and set free.

Photo

Leon Brown in his death row cell block in 1987. Credit Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer, via Associated Press

Their release concluded a judicial horror story in which the two men were sent to death row though no physical evidence linked them to the murder, while a serial sex offender who lived less than 100 yards from the crime scene — and who, a few weeks after that murder, would kill a teenage girl nearby in strikingly similar circumstances — was never pursued as a suspect.

But if the case was finally closed, the episode reopened ugly memories of what critics say was a merciless criminal justice system that ran roughshod over helpless people for decades in this poor, sprawling, racially volatile county sometime known as the Great State of Robeson.

At the heart of that is the legacy of Joe Freeman Britt, who earned a spot in “Guinness World Records” and a “60 Minutes” profile for his prowess in sending people to death row. (Only two were eventually executed. The most infamous was Velma Barfield, 52, who died from lethal injection in 1984 for killing her fiancé by poisoning his beer.)

And whereas Mr. Britt, now 79 and retired, once dominated this county and won headlines for convictions, now some on both sides of the courtroom see a different tale.

The current district attorney, Johnson Britt, whose grandfather was first cousin to Joe Freeman Britt’s father, suggested that his predecessor could be tyrannical.

“He is a bully, and that’s the way he ran this office,” he said. “People were afraid of him. Lawyers were afraid of him. They were intimidated by his tactics. And he didn’t mind doing it that way.” He added: “You treat people with dignity, and you can get a whole lot more done that way than you can by trying to run over people. And that’s part of his legacy, that he ran over people.”

In a subsequent interview, Joe Freeman Britt made it clear that Johnson Britt was not his kind of prosecutor, either.

“Well, let’s say, if I was a bully, he is a pussy. How about that?” the elder Mr. Britt said...

Read more.

Remittitur issued in Stutz v. Larkins on Aug. 20, 2014--but Judge Judith Hayes issued new default judgment TWO WEEKS EARLIER

See all posts regarding this case.

On August 20, 2014 the Court of Appeal issued a remittitur in Stutz v. Larkins. 

But Judge Judge Hayes issued a new judgment two weeks earlier--on August 6, 2014--in San Diego Superior Court!  [In typical fashion, Judge Hayes didn't bother to have her clerk serve me with the judgment.  I didn't know about it until I was served with a copy by plaintiff on August 19, 2014.]

I have no idea why the Court of Appeal bothered to issue the remittitur.  Judge Hayes certainly wasn't waiting for it.



UPDATE: It turns out that there's case law that says that Judge Hayes did not have jurisdiction on August 6, 2014 to issue a new judgment:

‘Until remittitur issues, the lower court cannot act upon the reviewing court’s decision; remittitur ensures in part that only one court has jurisdiction over the case at any one time.”  (People v. Saunoa (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 870, 872.) 

So why did she do it?

Don't ask me.  I still don't understand why she felt it was in the interest of justice to throw out my opposition to summary judgment because I made a small mistake in format.  For good measure, she also threw out my evidence (which seems sort of redundant, right?) and then granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.

NO WEIGHING OF EVIDENCE, NO JURY TRIAL FOR DAMAGES

Why didn't Judge Hayes want to weigh the evidence?

And then why did she rant and rave about defamation ever since, as if the evidence had been weighed and there had been a factual finding of defamation?

There was no justification for outrage or anger when the decision was based on a pure technicality.  And there was no justification for denying me a jury trial regarding damages for four years.

Judge Hayes granted default four years after granting summary judgment.  She then awarded nominal damages of $30,000 based on the fact that there were TWO (yes, 2!!!) Internet searches for Plaintiff in a certain month. 

Here's what I wrote in my Opening Brief regarding the $30,000 in "nominal" damages:

The calculation for the $30,000 is based on a ludicrous,
unreasonable and illogical conclusion drawn from Exhibits D and E...
If the trial court had looked at Exhibit E of the prove-up, it would
have seen that visitors to Defendant’s site were looking for CVESD, CTA,
MEA, Fagen Friedman Fulfrost, Emily Shieh, Voice of San Diego Education,
Procopio, Kaiser Permanente, Vickie Gilbreath, medical records,
insurance, the new teacher project, Cornell, Bonifacio Bonny Garcia, CTA
lawyer, and Councilman Castaneda.

It isn’t until page AA 2510 that we see the

two (2!) total queries...referring to Plaintiff. 

These two queries would appear to

justify damages of $.86...

It was unreasonable for the trial court to order Defendant to pay Plaintiff
$.43 every single hit on the site, when almost all of the hits were by
Defendant herself; search robots; visitors who only stayed on the site a
second or two; people looking for health and insurance information--
particularly Kaiser Permanente; visitors wanting information about
schools, education and San Diego politics; or non-Plaintiff lawyers.

The Court of Appeal backed-up Judge Hayes, also based mostly on technicalities.

Erasing information on my websites

I've been working hard erasing web pages and blog posts that could be considered violations of  Judge Judith Hayes' injunction.

In the past couple of months I've depublished hundreds of blog posts and erased or edited several web pages.  I'm starting to erase web pages with public records:

Deposition page plus six additional pages

Motion to compel

Statute of limitations didn't start to run while defendant didn't know that evidence had been fabricated

Courthouse News Service

 

    "San Diego, Dugo, Dumanis and Lattuca attacked the claims as time barred and demanded absolute immunity.
     U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Whelan disagreed last week, however, saying that Tamara's 2004 conviction did not start the statute of limitations because, at that time, she had no reason to suspect that Marugg had fabricated evidence.
     The facts in McAnally's complaint "support Tamara's allegation that Marugg intentionally fostered a dependant and trusting relationship that he used to try to start a sexual relationship with her," Whelan wrote. "Under these circumstances, Tamara did not have reason to suspect before 2010 that Marugg fabricated evidence in her case."
     Thus, the window for Tamara to sue did not open until after her conviction was overturned in 2011, Whelan ruled."

Fresh doubts over a Texas execution; New evidence revives concerns that a man was wrongly put to death in 2004

 

 

Fresh doubts over a Texas execution

New evidence revives concerns that a man was wrongly put to death in 2004

Written by Maurice Possley, The Marshall Project

Published on August 3, 2014

 

CORSICANA, Tex. — For more than 20 years, the prosecutor who convicted Cameron Todd Willingham of murdering his three young daughters has insisted that the authorities made no deals to secure the testimony of the jailhouse informer who told jurors that Willingham confessed the crime to him.

About this project: The investigation was reported and written by Maurice Possley for The Marshall Project, a new nonprofit news organization focused on the criminal justice system. Sign up for updates on their launch.

Since Willingham was executed in 2004, officials have continued to defend the account of the informer, Johnny E. Webb, even as a series of scientific experts have discredited the forensic evidence that Willingham might have deliberately set the house fire in which his toddlers were killed.

But now new evidence has revived questions about Willingham’s guilt: In taped interviews, Webb, who has previously both recanted and affirmed his testimony, gives his first detailed account of how he lied on the witness stand in return for efforts by the former prosecutor, John H. Jackson, to reduce Webb’s prison sentence for robbery and to arrange thousands of dollars in support from a wealthy Corsicana rancher. Newly uncovered letters and court files show that Jackson worked diligently to intercede for Webb after his testimony and to coordinate with the rancher, Charles S. Pearce Jr., to keep the mercurial informer in line...

David Loy versus Sam Abed in Escondido regarding housing of migrant children

http://fox5sandiego.com/2014/08/06/aclu-appeals-escondido-rejection-of-housing-for-migrant-children/#ixzz39k1Qd2aW">ACLU appeals Escondido rejection of housing for migrant children
Fox News
Christian De La Rosa
Aug. 6, 2014

ESCONDIDO, CA — There is a new push to open a detention facility for migrant children in San Diego County. “The commission’s decision is not substantiated by the facts,” said David Loy, legal director for the San Diego American Civil Liberties Union.
The A.C.L.U. is appealing the city of Escondido’s denial of a land use permit to open a housing facility for unaccompanied minors crossing the Mexico border...
“The planning commission the decision was based purely on land use,” said Escondido City Mayor, Sam Abed.
But attorneys with the ACLU say city officials haven’t presented enough factual evidence to deny the housing facility, which would provide over 100 new jobs...
“I don’t understand why the A.C.L.U.’s position in getting involved with the land use, I think the ACLU has a political agenda,” said Abed...

Aaron Schwartz' suicide: why was this computer whiz placed in solitary confinement even after his bail was processed?

Did MIT go too far in the Aaron Schwartz case?  Why are universities so secretive about their research?  Why did the Department of Justice go after Aaron so savagely?

Aaron Swartz's father: He'd be alive today if he was never arrested

By Laurie Segall  
CNN Money
June 27, 2014

In 2013, Internet activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz ended his life while facing up to 35 years in prison for hacking.

Swartz faced multiple charges for breaking and entering into an MIT wiring closet and downloading academic journals, including two counts of wire fraud and 11 counts of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Swartz, who was battling the court, also battled with depression. Prosecutors dropped the charges after his death.

I first met Swartz's father, Robert, last year as he explained his mission to fight for his son's memory by helping to change outdated laws. He wanted answers about why he lost his son.

His son's story is now the subject of a new documentary called "The Internet's Own Boy: The story of Aaron Swartz."...

Lawyers Who Criticize Judges Are Being Punished

Andy Ostrowski points to the Pennsylvania kids-for-cash scandal, where two county judges were convicted of charges involving millions of alleged kickbacks to send children to private juvenile detention facilities, as an example where lawyers failed to do the right thing.  --M.C. Moewe

Will Complaint About Judge’s Evidence Tampering Lead to Criminal Indictment? It Should 
centerforjudicialexcellence.org
July 10, 2014

...The Marin Courts have engaged in questionable behavior for as long as anyone can  remember. The 2006 arrest of Marin’s top court official John  Montgomery on felony conflict of interest charges barely raised an eyebrow. A 2009 shredding party orchestrated by current Marin Court Executive Kim Turner, which delayed an official state audit of the Marin Family Court by more than six months, was justified in a report from the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)...

[Maura Larkins' comment: We can search the archives of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and ancient civilizations, but we destroy the records of the United States' justice system?  This is hard for me to believe.  Are the documents really destroyed?  Or are they sent to the archives in Sacramento?]

Marin Judge Evidence Tampering
 June 19, 2014
Kathleen Russell
info@centerforjudicialexcellence.org

..MARIN COURT CEO BLOCKED STATE AUDITOR WITH DOCUMENT DESTRUCTION 

Turner’s 2009 destruction of child custody mediation working files, which were frequently subpoenaed when parents wanted to challenge a mediator’s recommendation to the court about child custody, took place while she was serving as a member of the Judicial Council of California.

The evidence destruction sparked a local public protest and a call for criminal investigation. However, the Marin Court stated that the destruction took place with the knowledge and approval of the California Administrative Office of the Courts (the staff agency of the Judicial Council), and both the AOC and the Marin Court argued that the destroyed documents were not “official court records.” Read the 2010 local Marin news article about this here...
 
 ...Ironically, [Kim] Turner was the recipient of the California Judicial Council’s 2013 “William C. Vickrey Leadership in Judicial Administration Award.”  According to the Judicial Council, this award honors individuals in judicial administration for “significant contributions to and leadership in their profession.” In making the award to Turner, the Judicial Council noted that she “has been a very active member of a working group improving trial court records management.”...


Lawyers Who Criticize Judges Are Being Punished — Jonathan Turley

by MCMoewe

Daily Kos

Jul 28, 2014

One is a California family law attorney documenting alleged judicial crimes, the other a Pennsylvania civil rights attorney who has lost his law license for speaking out against judges. Both say they will continue to do what most lawyers won’t.

“They don’t speak up. The reason is you get targeted and you could lose your license,” said Barbara Kauffman of lawyers who witness judicial misconduct. Last month the California attorney contacted state officials alleging that a family court judge in Marin County tampered with court records.
Civil rights attorney Don Bailey had his law license suspended for five years in October by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. “The reason I lost my license is because I criticized judges,” said Bailey, a former Democratic Congressman and state auditor general, in a phone interview last week.
The pattern of attorneys losing their careers or facing hefty fines after speaking out against judges has legal experts worried.

The law professor and legal analyst Jonathan Turley wrote of Bailey’s license suspension, “While some would agree with the case, there is a worrisome line of cases targeting lawyers who criticize judges.”

[Maura Larkins' comment: Pennlive.com notes: "Bailey's attitude is evident from his law firm's website, on which he says he is "well known for taking on the high-profile and controversial cases many attorneys fear..'He refuses to recognize...the harm that he is causing to his clients and to the judicial system,” members of a disciplinary review committee wrote.'" 

It seems that the disciplinary committee is saying that when Bailey criticizes judges, the judges can be expected to retaliate against his clients.  Shouldn't the judges--rather than Bailey--be called to account for such retaliation? 

A justice system that sends kids to private detention so that judges will get millions in kickbacks hardly needs any help from Mr. Bailey to get a bad reputation.  Why didn't someone disbar the lawyers who sat silently while the kickback scheme proceeded?

Many lawyers harm their clients, but as long as the lawyers don't criticize judges, they are in little danger of losing their licenses.]

America’s judicial system is extremely ineffective at removing bad judges, said Kathleen Russell, the founder of the Center for Judicial Excellence, a non-profit that is working to stop family court judges from giving child custody to domestic abusers and pedophiles. “Judges are judicially trafficking children to abusers by ignoring evidence of child abuse. Even when judges behave maliciously, there is no law that holds them accountable.”

Over the past 40 years, court rulings have given judges increasingly strong immunity from civil suits under the principle that judges shouldn’t be sued by anyone unhappy with their decisions in court. Most notable is the 1978 Supreme Court decision Stump v. Sparkman that rejected a suit filed against an Indiana judge who ordered a 15-year-old sterilized without her knowledge.

The Democratic nominee for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 11th District has made a focus of his campaign curbing judicial abuses and protecting lawyers who criticize judges. Andy Ostrowski points to the Pennsylvania kids-for-cash scandal, where two county judges were convicted of charges involving millions of alleged kickbacks to send children to private juvenile detention facilities, as an example where lawyers failed to do the right thing.

“That didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Ostrowski said. “There were lawyers who were in there watching as these children were led into the courtroom in shackles without representation and led out in shackles to prison. They all knew it was wrong. Why didn’t they speak up? Simple — because they were afraid.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has taken the law license of several lawyers for criticizing judges, as described in a table that follows this story.

Fearful lawyers combined with strong immunity laws keep bad judges on the bench. Even in the kids-for-cash scandal, where the judges were criminally convicted and are serving lengthy prison sentences, experts say that civil suits filed on behalf of the children will likely have a tough time piercing judicial immunity.

In a blog post published on Thursday, Turley described how judicial immunity was used to dismiss a civil suit against a Michigan judge who was having an affair with the wife of a man before him in a custody case. “By any measure, former Wayne County Circuit Judge Wade McCree was a disgrace to the bench,” Turley wrote. “His case unfortunately could embolden other judges who consider abandoning the most basic ethical demands of their office.”

Ostrowski is one of only two political candidates in the U.S. who has signed a pledge to eradicate judicial corruption started by the Campaign for Judicial Integrity, an effort founded by disbarred California attorney Richard Fine, who was jailed for 18 months by a judge who found him in contempt.

Fine’s 2009 disbarment stemmed from court filings he submitted against judges for taking $57,000 in side pay from the county to supplement their state salaries. “Fine has long contended that the charges against him are politically motivated,” the State Bar of California summary of Fine’s disbarment explained. “The cases he filed against judges were not retaliatory, he said, but instead were based on his belief that judges who accept money from a county fund to augment their compensation have a conflict of interest in any matter involving government municipalities. 

 Fine was jailed indefinitely in March on contempt of court charges — for refusing to answer a judge’s questions and practicing law without a license.”

Fine, 74, said he is still not sure why the judge finally set him free after 18 months.  

But Allan Parachini, who was the Los Angeles Superior Court spokesman while Fine was in jail, compared his incarceration to actions more common in authoritarian countries.

“Fine was effectively a political prisoner for a year and a half,” Parachini, who no longer works for the superior court, told Full Disclosure Network in 2012. “This wasn’t about contempt. This wasn’t about getting him to disclose whatever it was he was directed to disclose. It was about getting back at him.”

[Maura Larkins comment: Judges tend to be extremely subjective regarding which attorneys are forced to turn over documents.  I have been amazed at how judges let some attorneys get away with refusing requests for production of crucial documents.]

The California Bar has not opposed three successive motions in the state Supreme Court to set aside the disbarment, but the court has yet to reinstate his law license, said Fine, a former Department of Justice prosecutor. A case to force the justices to restore his license is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“I understand why lawyers are not speaking up when they witness corruption. They want to protect their income and they want to protect their families,” Fine said. “They took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. If they did not intend to fulfill the oath and uphold the laws, they should have saved themselves and the public from their hypocrisy.”

Kauffman, the California attorney who notified officials last month of alleged criminal wrongdoing by a judge, said protecting the integrity of the U.S. justice system can be a lonely task. Last year, she filed a lawsuit against a retired Shasta County judge who had been appointed to preside over cases 208 times since 1994, never having to face election to hold the position. “I couldn’t get anyone to serve him. I had to go to his house and do it myself,” Kauffman said. The state barred the judge from serving shortly after she filed the lawsuit.

Losing her law license is not the 58-year-old attorney’s only worry. “I have concerns about safety,” Kauffman said. “For a while my office was getting broken into on a regular basis. For months, each night the alarm would go off. I had a strange man knock on my door and tell me he knew where my kids were playing.”

Being vocal is her best protection, Kauffman said...

Why law school’s love affair with economics is terrible for the American legal system

Why law school’s love affair with economics is terrible for the American legal system
Law schools are putting more and more emphasis on a cash-crazed free market ideology. Here's what's at stake
Ted Hamilton
Salon.com
July 26, 2014

Like nearly 40,000 other young Americans, I recently completed my first year of law school. For our cohort of would-be attorneys, the past 10 months have consisted of little beyond underlined casebooks, cold calls in lecture and obscure citation methodologies. The dividends, at least so we tell ourselves, are brains better equipped to parse the verbal contortions of our overly legalized society, and temperaments hardened against the drudgeries of a famously pugnacious profession.
This summer, as we fan across the world to complete internships at bright-eyed nonprofits, cash-strapped bureaucracies and sprawling mega-corporations, we’re forced to start deciding how to use those newfound skills. Lawyers are not famously honest people; as a whole, attorneys’ ethics are well within reproach. Two years shy of taking the bar and already immersed in this suspect culture of law, then, we would-be advocates have to choose whether to conform to the desultory trend or buck it — to pick either good or evil, you might say.
A year ago, I imagined — as most people probably do — that the initial year of legal studies would put a heavy emphasis on the good. I anticipated lots of lofty vocabulary about justice and rights and freedom. Attorneys may not have the cleanest reputations, but it seems fitting that an introduction to the life of the law would aim high, if only as an idealistic and rhetorical reprieve before the realities of the job market set in. But while there’s certainly some discussion of liberty and righteousness in the halls of our law schools, there’s not quite as much of it as you might think. The path to the bar is not paved with sentimental cobblestones of the Good and the Right. It’s much more pragmatic than that.
In fact, the most repeated word in my first year law curriculum was not justice, or liberty or order.
It was efficiency...

Documents Show General Motors Kept Silent on Fatal Crashes
By REBECCA R. RUIZ and DANIELLE IVORY
New York Times
JULY 15, 2014

In a truly civil society, corporate executives would do hard prison time for contributing to or covering up death and destruction.
Mike Velemirovich, Nova Scotia

How can GM corporate individuals remain completely unpunished after making such terrible decisions?? It defies logic. They are brazen... The car crash that killed Gene Erickson caught the attention of federal regulators. Why did the Saturn Ion he was traveling in, along a rural Texas road, suddenly swerve into a tree? Why did the air bags fail? General Motors told federal authorities that it could not provide answers.

But only a month earlier, a G.M. engineer had concluded in an internal evaluation that the Ion had most likely lost power, disabling its air bags, according to a subsequent internal investigation commissioned by G.M.

Now, G.M.'s response, as well as its replies to queries in other crashes obtained by The New York Times from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, casts doubt on how forthright the automaker was with regulators over a defective ignition switch that G.M. has linked to at least 13 deaths over the last decade.

They provide details for the first time on the issue at the heart of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department: whether G.M., in its interaction with safety regulators, obscured a deadly defect that would also injure perhaps hundreds of people...

Hobby Lobby demonstrates that RFRA violates the establishment clause

Hobby Lobby demonstrates that RFRA violates the establishment clause

by Armando

Daily Kos

Jul 06, 2014

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof [. . .] (First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.)

In Employment Division v. Smith, Justice Scalia wrote for the U.S. Supreme Court that:

We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition. the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes). [Emphasis supplied.]

Congress did not like this interpretation of the free exercise clause, and passed the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act by large majorities and President Clinton signed the law. What did RFRA do?  Expressly RFRA was intended to:

The purposes of this chapter are— (1) to restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

Justice Scalia could have retorted that he followed Sherbert and Yoder in Smith. So, no "restoration" was required. Justice Alito, writing in Hobby Lobby v. Burford, is dishonest (I use this word purposefully) in his opinion when he writes, as you can see below the flip:

Nothing in the text of RFRA as originally enacted suggested that the statutory phrase “exercise of religion under the First Amendment” was meant to be tied to this Court’s pre-Smith interpretation of that Amendment.

Other than the express language I quoted above from RFRA, of course. And, of course, there are Justice Alito's own words in the same opinion:

Congress, in enacting RFRA, took the position that “the compelling interest test as set forth in prior Federal court rulings is a workable test forstriking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests.” [Emphasis supplied.]

But leave the dishonesty aside, what of this interpretation of RFRA? IF in fact RFRA means what the Hobby Lobby court says it means, what of the First Amendment's prohibition that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Isn't RFRA a law intended to favor religious exercise over non-religious exercise? As interpreted by the Hobby Lobby court, it is, and thus is unconstitutional. I explored this issue in this post. I quoted Justice Stevens concurrence in the case of Boerne v. Flores:

In my opinion, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) is a "law respecting an establishment of religion" that violates the First Amendment to the Constitution. If the historic landmark on the hill in Boerne happened to be a museum or an art gallery owned by an atheist, it would not be eligible for an exemption from the city ordinances that forbid an enlargement of the structure. Because the landmark is owned by the Catholic Church, it is claimed that RFRA gives its owner a federal statutory entitlement to an exemption from a generally applicable, neutral civil law. Whether the Church would actually prevail under the statute or not, the statute has provided the Church with a legal weapon that no atheist or agnostic can obtain. This governmental preference for religion, as opposed to irreligion, is forbidden by the First Amendment. Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 52—55 (1985). [Emphasis added]

Justice Stevens' analysis is based solely on the text of RFRA. But the Hobby Lobby decision makes clear that the court's interpretation of RFRA not only will favor "religion, as opposed to irreligion," but certain religious beliefs over others. In Hobby Lobby, Justice Alito insists the decision is narrow, that this does not mean that religious beliefs that are "burdened" because the insurance coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act, which includes immunizations or blood transfusions, will be relieved of this obligation under RFRA. Alito does not explain why this is so. What is different about the religious belief against immunizations and blood transfusions versus Hobby Lobby's objection to birth control? Or, racial, gender or sexual orientation discrimination or that matter? Here is Alito's hand-waving:

Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs. Other coverage requirements, such as immunizations, may be supported by different interests (for example, the need to combat the spread of infectious diseases) and may involve different arguments about the least restrictive means of providing them. The principal dissent raises the possibility that discrimination in hiring, for example on the basis of race, might be cloaked as religious practice to escape legal sanction. See post, at 32–33. Our decision today provides no such shield. The Government has a compelling interest in providing an equal opportunity to participate in the workforce without regard to race, and prohibitions on racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that critical goal.

What is Alito saying here? Simply this: Some religious beliefs are more equal than others. Immunization? That's different. Your religious objections on that will hold no water in the court.  You object to interracial relationships? (See Bob Jones University v. United States.) Sorry, that religious belief is not respectable, so no "religious liberty" for you. So you want men and women to be segregated on a public transit bus for religious purposes? Sorry,  that religious objection gets no respect here. Whether this impulse of the court to favor certain religious objections over others is driven by political calculation or just the belief that some religious beliefs are better than others, it runs afoul of the establishment clause...

George Takei's blistering response to HobbyLobby: Could a Muslim Corporation impose Sharia Law?

George Takei's blistering response to #HobbyLobby: Could a Muslim Corp impose Sharia Law?

by Vyan

Daily Kos

 Jul 03, 2014

Some people just know how to say it, so I'm gonna shut up and let the former Mr. Sulu do so.
http://www.rawstory.com/...

"The ruling elevates the rights of a FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION over those of its women employees and opens the door to all manner of claims that a company can refuse services based on its owner’s religion,” Takei wrote. (O)ne wonders,” he said, “whether the case would have come out differently if a Muslim-run chain business attempted to impose Sharia law on its employees.”
“Hobby Lobby is not a church. It’s a business — and a big one at that,” he continued. “Businesses must and should be required to comply with neutrally crafted laws of general applicability. Your boss should not have a say over your healthcare. Once the law starts permitting exceptions based on ‘sincerely held religious beliefs’ there’s no end to the mischief and discrimination that will ensue.Indeed, this is the same logic that certain restaurants and hotels have been trying to deploy to allow proprietors to refuse service to gay couples.”

Chillingly he's not even a slightly wrong on that last point, the religious push-back against granting LGBT rights by corporations has already begun... you'll find the details just beyond the Orange Squiggle of Mordor below.

Religious Organizations and companies are in fact already attempting to push back on President Obama's brand new rules requiring LGBT equality for Federal Contractors in the immediate aftermath of Hobby Lobby. 'Cuz clearly, They. Gots. Religion.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...

The day after the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling, a group of religious leaders sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that he exempt them from a forthcoming executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people. "Without a robust religious exemption," they wrote, "this expansion of hiring rights will come at an unreasonable cost to the common good, national unity and religious freedom."
The letter didn't mention the Hobby Lobby decision directly. But one of the signees, Michael Wear, the Obama 2012 veteran, told The Atlantic that the court decision meant the administration would need to address such concerns.
"The administration does have a decision to make whether they want to recalibrate their approach to some of these issues," he said.

So just as Justice Ginsberg and Mr Takei have suggested, the Hyper-Religious are already attempting to capitalize on the SCOTUS new granting of the rights of an human individual to a corporate entity for the specific purpose of denying the rights of a human individual. One does wonder just how loudly they would squeal if a non-christian, or a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Ba'hai, a Sikh, a Jewish, a Wiccan, an Amish, an Athiest or a Satanic "closely-held" corporation were to proclaim they no longer had to abide by, respect, hire or provide services for -- Pro-Life Christians?
"Oh, no you don't - No 'Religious Freedom' for You!  Or you, or You!"
I understand that in this decision the SCOTUS Majority opinion claimed that they were not granting the equal legitimacy of such follow on requests, but they've sent up the flare signal, they've kicked open the door, and soon now the potential avalanche may follow.  I'm not really sure they can stop all that snow from crashing down with just one teeny, tiny little rhetorical umbrella of "Because, uh, no".
And why exactly would others - particularly on the hard right - not pile on?  It's not like we've seen anything resembling restraint, or tact, or reason coming from the them in the Hobby Lobby wake.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Not From Erick Erickson.
Not from Rush Limbaugh.

"Pregnancy is something that you have to do to cause. ... Yet we treat it as a great imposition that women need to be protected from. It's a sickness, it's a disease, it's whatever, and there's gotta be a pill for it," he said on his show. "Yet they wouldn't have the problem if they didn't do a certain thing. It's that simple."

Yes, that's right women who suffer from polycystic ovarian syndrome, are at a risk of ovarian cancer, Endomitriosis and heavy menstral bleeding don't need a pill, or a shot, or a patch or an IUD to help with that.  Or so the Wingnuts continue to believe.  [It does always amaze me that so many of these "Right-to-Lifers" repeatedly fail to recognize that without access to effective healthcare - regardless of cost - some of us post-embryonic-Americans Will. Not. Live.] And they also don't believe that both men an women have a civil right to enjoy sex with the (adult & consenting) person of their choosing either.
Not according to Rep Mike Lee who was asked....

"whether or not a person who runs a business should be forced to provide something that is largely for recreational behavior, if it goes against their religious beliefs." "Yea, that’s right, that’s right," Lee responded.

No, no - that's kinda wrong - because what you smell right there isn't "Recreation" - it's the very heart and soul of "Freedom, Baby, yeah!". But not Freedom for All because now we're not just having sex between Adam and Eve, or Adam and Steve, we're all having sex with Adam, Eve, Steve and Hobby Lobby.  Gee, is the Bath House is getting kinda crowded in here?  And who keeps putting all these cheesy paper-mache' flowers everywhere? Did we order these?
Takei - bless his soul - also pointed out the basic hypocrisy of Hobby Lobby's business practices in regards to religion.  Noting that...

...Hobby Lobby has invested in multiple companies that manufacture abortion drugs and birth control. The company receives most of its merchandise from China, a country where overpopulation has led to mandatory abortions and sterilizations for women who try to have more than one child.

You would think that in all the time since Hobby Lobby filed this suit in 2010 they might have considered divesting in the manufacture of the same types of drugs they now say are "intolerable" to their religious views, or that they might possibly consider cultivating a supply line that doesn't subsidize forced abortions and sterilization since one would think that might "shock the conscience" of those with such deeply "sincerely held" beliefs. Or apparently not.
The hypocrisy of this is so glaring, that even CNN took a few moments to drop their Malasyan Flight Search Goggles and take notice....
http://www.rawstory.com/...

CNN host Ashleigh Banfield on Wednesday highlighted the “hypocrisy” of Hobby Lobby for investing in companies that made the same birth control products that it refused to provide to female employees.
“The critics are calling Hobby Lobby’s 401(k) investments hypocrisy at its finest,” Banfield emphasized on Wednesday, adding that CNN had not gotten an explanation from the company after giving it “plenty of time” to respond.
“I don’t even know where to begin on this one,” the CNN host remarked. “I kept thinking to myself, this had to be an accident. But then I thought, it’s no accident when you are in the middle of the biggest political storm — all the way to the Supreme Court — and, yet, your guys aren’t aware of what your investments are in your very, very large 401(k)?”

Nope, no way, this was no boating accident, Ultimately Takei called for a Boycott of Hobby Lobby and another other company that attempts to impose it's religion on it's employee or anyone else.

“While we work to overturn this decision by legislation, people of good conscience should BOYCOTT any for-profit business, including Hobby Lobby, which chooses to impose its religious beliefs on its employees,” said Takei. “The only way such companies ever learn to treat people with decency and tolerance is to hit them where it counts — in their pocketbooks.”

One wonders - yet again- that if not only boycotters but picketers began to show up at Hobby lobby stores with meme signs that said "Corporation = Person, Blystocyst = Person, Woman = Meh!", or perhaps some giant xerox copies of their 401(k) earnings statements, or pictures of factories in china with women packed into dorms surrounded by suicide nets or maybe just a simple single bloody hanger... That Hobby Lobby would ask the Supreme Court to grant them a 35 Foot Buffer Zone? 

The Supreme Court’s baffling tech illiteracy is becoming a big problem

The Supreme Court’s baffling tech illiteracy is becoming a big problem

If one thing was clear from decisions handed down this week, it's that SCOTUS is clueless on technology Selina MacLaren
Salon.com

 Jun 28, 2014 

 

...The problem isn’t that the justices are old fogeys. The problem is that the justices were groomed in a field that emphasizes reasoning by analogy. And analogies were critical in these cases: The Aereo decision, for example, hinged on whether the company was more like an equipment provider or a cable company; the Riley and Wurie decisions addressed whether cell phones are sufficiently analogous to wallets. But emerging technology is, by definition, about breaking away from history. Perhaps reason by analogy hamstrings innovation, or perhaps it promotes impartial decision-making. In any event, it helps explain why the justices sometimes say such silly things.

Years of tortured analogies at oral arguments culminated most recently with this week’s cases, but a look back at decisions from years past reveals an abaundance of strained analogizing. In past arguments, computers were analogized to typewriters, phone books and calculators. Video games were compared to films, comic books and Grimm’s fairy tales. Text messages were analogized to letters to the editor. A risk-hedging method was compared to horse-training and the alphabet. EBay was likened to a Ferris wheel, and also to the process of introducing a baker to a grocer. The list goes on.

---

---

“I think there are very, very few things that you cannot find an analogue to in pre-digital age searches,” Justice Breyer said during the Riley oral argument. “And the problem in almost all instances is quantity and how far afield you’re likely to be going.” For the high court, a prior century or two apparently isn’t too far afield.

The justices are tickled by these analogies. Justice Kennedy, for example, appears blissfully unaware of the new definition of “troll,” and covered for his ignorance with a joke during oral argument for eBay v. MercExchange: “Is the troll the scary thing under the bridge, or is it a fishing technique?” This raised eyebrows in the patent industry, where “patent troll” is a stock phrase. Justice Bryer, during the the Riley oral argument, interrupted a discussion about the GPS capabilities of smartphones with another analogy joke: “I don’t want to admit it, but my wife might put a little note [with directions] in my pocket.” (Is the smartphone supposed to be like his wife? Unclear.)

Justice Alito, arguably the most analogy-obsessed of the bunch, best summed up the Court’s historical handicap when he teased Scalia in 2011, saying: “I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?”

But this fixation on technological analogies is more than just an idle curiosity. It has real-world implications that are not to be underestimated. Recent years have borne out that if a technology under scrutiny cannot be analogized to a historically protected invention, it may be doomed. In 2006, for example, Chief Justice Roberts doubted that eBay was an actual invention. He asked the lawyer, Seth Waxman, what the invention of eBay was, and when Waxman explained it as an electronic market, Chief Justice Roberts responded flippantly, saying, “I mean, it’s not like he invented the internal combustion engine or anything. It’s very vague.”...