Sober as a Judge? New Mexico History Calls the Expression Into Question

Judge Kirby Benedict was a prominent figure in the early days of the New Mexico Territory. Before coming to the Southwest, he had practiced law in Illinois, where he was a good friend of the young Abraham Lincoln.

Then in 1855, he received a presidential appointment as associate justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court. Five years later, President James Buchanan promoted him to chief justice. Along the way, he was elected the first president of the Historical Society of New Mexico.

In those days, people whispered that the formidable judge �was not a member of any temperance society.� That was a polite way of saying he was a heavy drinker.

Apparently, the Judge liked his cards and whiskey. The entertaining details of Judge Benedict's legend are here, from Marc Simmons of The Free New Mexican.

Mexico Holds First Public Trial

MONTEMORELOS, Mexico (AP) -- In a quiet courtroom in northern Mexico, a drunk driving case is making history: 19-year-old Alejandro Santana is before a judge, fighting charges he was drunk and crashed his car, killing a passenger and leaving another person a quadriplegic.

The case, which was nearing an end Friday, is the nation's first U.S.-style public trial, replacing a slow and secretive judicial process conducted on paper and moving Mexico a step closer toward reforms President Vicente Fox is seeking nationwide.

I didn't know that Mexico held only "paper trials." Details here from the AP via CNN.com.

D.C. Circuit Judge Gets on Supreme Court Short List

The fickle spotlight on possible nominees to the Supreme Court -- if Chief Justice William Rehnquist departs -- has swung toward D.C. Circuit Judge John Roberts Jr. It's been a long and steady climb for Roberts, who some think may combine the stealth appeal of David Souter with the unwavering ideology of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. But some of his boosters are in a quandary over this question: Can his image as an open-minded jurist co-exist with being viewed as a predictable conservative?

Details here from Legal Times via Law.com.

UPDATE (7/19/05): Judge Roberts has been nominated.

Yet Another Published Proposition 64 Case

The cases are piling up in favor of retroactivity. Today the Fourth Appellate District published Bivens v. Corel Corp., again holding that Proposition 64 applies retroactively to cases filed (and in this case, tried and appealed) before its passage.

The only case holding that it is not retroactive, Californians for Disability Rights v. Mervyn's LLC, stands alone.

Jackson Grand Jury Transcripts on Web

A popular website this morning released what it said was hundreds of pages of transcript from the grand jury proceedings that resulted in the 10-count felony indictment of Michael Jackson on charges he molested a 13-year-old boy with cancer.

The documents posted on thesmokinggun.com add little to the general outline of what is already known about the charges, but they offer more details about the alleged molestation. The veracity of the posting by the website, which specializes in obtaining court documents, could not be independently confirmed.

Details here from the Los Angeles Times, or read the transcripts at thesmokinggun.com.

High Drama, Conflict Await Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court returns next week for the second half of its term with some of the biggest issues yet to be decided: the juvenile death penalty, Ten Commandments displays and the future of its ailing leader.

Details here from the AP via Findlaw.com.

Judge Charged with DWI After Crash

A Socorro [NM] judge faces a drunken-driving charge after he drove off a dead-end road in southwest Santa Fe about 1 p.m. Friday with an open bottle of vodka in his government-owned minivan, police said.

Tom Fitch, the 62-year-old chief judge of the 7th Judicial District, had a breath-alcohol content more than twice the legal limit, Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said.

It was a bad day for Judge Fitch, who later had a heart attack. He must have been hammered. He thought he was on a highway when he was on a frontage road, and he drove over grooved pavement and past a 4 by 8 foot reflective "dead end" sign before driving off the end of the road and down an embankment. All at 1:00 on a Friday afternoon! Details (and pictures of what he did to his "government-owned minivan") here from the Free New Mexican.

Judge Kills Himself After Child Sex Abuse Inquiries

A longtime Los Angeles County judge fatally shot himself at a Valencia park Thursday after detectives contacted him about an allegation that he had molested a child, authorities said.

Lloyd Jeffrey Wiatt, a 61-year-old former prosecutor who presided over several high-profile trials, was the subject of a preliminary investigation, said Lt. Dan Rosenberg of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Details here from the Los Angeles Times.

Blackmun Papers Provide Glimpse of the High Court in Song

Nearly a year after they were released at the Library of Congress, the papers of the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun continue to yield priceless glimpses of life at the Court.

Tucked into a folder of routine correspondence relating to his law clerks is the program from the June 1996 farewell gathering of the clerks. Every June, with the justices in the audience, the clerks put on skits and sing songs, some of which boldly poke fun at their bosses. The lyrics and scripts are usually a tightly held secret.

Here, as part of a regular element of the Courtside column featuring revelations from the Blackmun papers, are lyrics from the 1996 program sung to the tune of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby."

The lyrics are after the jump, and they're pretty clever and funny:

Ah, look at all the strange appointments.
Ah, look at all the strange appointments.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Strolls into work every day 'bout a quarter past three.
Thinks we don't see.

Stephen G. Breyer,
Gave 50 speeches last year.
If they asked him, he came.
They were all the same.

(Refrain)
Crazy nominations.
Where did they all come from?
Senate confirmations.
What were we thinking of?

David H. Souter.
Cutting and pasting all night.
When there's nobody there.
He doesn't care.
Look at him working.
Writing those endless dissents that nobody will heed.
And no one can read.

Sandra O'Connor.
Votes with the left, then the right.
So that nobody knows
How the wind blows.

Nino Scalia
No one will join his invective and hyperbole.
Except for CT [Clarence Thomas].

From Tony Mauro of Legal Times via Law.com.

Judge Orders Law Firm Back to School

A federal judge in Fresno, Calif., has ordered the entire 80-lawyer firm of Lozano Smith back to school for a refresher course in ethics as a sanction for repeated misrepresentation of facts and the law in a dispute over aid for a learning-disabled student.

Fresno-based Lozano Smith represents 200 school districts in California on special-education issues and boasts on its Web site that it is "California's premier public agency law firm."

U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger sanctioned the firm recently for "misguided advocacy" over four years of opposing services for a special-education student in the Bret Harte Union School District, southeast of Sacramento.

In a scorching 83-page opinion, Wanger said Lozano Smith, its lead attorney in the case, Elaine Yama, and the district engaged in "repeated misstatements of the record, frivolous objections to plaintiff's statement of facts, and repeated mischaracterizations of the law." . .

[I]n his highly unusual sanction, Wanger ordered every one of the firm's 80 lawyers in seven cities to undergo six hours of ethics training and ordered [lead attorney Elaine] Yama to take 20 hours.

Details here from The National Law Journal via Law.com.

"Actor Tom Sizemore Fails Drug Test with Fake Penis"

As Defamer says: That's the "headline of the week, by a mile".

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Tom Sizemore has been jailed for violating his probation by failing a drug test after he was caught trying to use a prosthetic penis to fake the results, a Los Angeles County prosecutor said on Friday.

Sizemore, 43, who played a battle-hardened sergeant in the war movie "Saving Private Ryan," was placed in custody on Thursday. He was ordered to remain behind bars until a hearing on Feb. 24, unless he posts $25,000 bond, Deputy District Attorney Sean Carney said. . .

[D]uring the hearing, Sizemore's lawyer told the court that his client was destitute, living in a garage in Whittier, California, and that he was an expectant father, Carney told Reuters.

But [Judge] Baretto told Sizemore that his drug use was "out of control," adding, "I had hoped and wanted to see a positive performance."

Details here from Reuters.com.

Another Published Proposition 64 Case

Today California's Fourth Appellate District published Benson v. Kwikset Corp., No. G030956, ___ Cal.App.4th ___ (Feb. 10, 2005) out of Orange County. It holds not only that Proposition 64 applies retroactively to pending section 17200 cases, but that a plaintiff cannot cure a standing defect by amending to add new representative plaintiffs/parties.

This is even harsher than yesterday's Second Appellate District opinion, Branick v. Downey Savings, which held Prop 64 retroactive, but stated that "if a plaintiff filed a representative action under section 17200 or 17500 on behalf of the general public before November 3, 2004 and cannot meet the standing requirements under the statutes as amended by Proposition 64, the plaintiff may, at the trial court�s discretion, be entitled to amend the complaint to substitute a plaintiff who meets the standing requirements."

And it is directly contradictory to the First Appellate District's opinion in Californians for Disability Rights v. Mervyn's LLC, which held that Proposition 64 does not apply retroactively to pending cases at all.

Clearly, it's going to take a decision from the California Supreme Court to straighten this mess out.

Neurologist Wants Lawsuit Spawned by Blackout Driver Dismissed

A neurologist wants the [Pennsylvania] state Superior Court to throw out a lawsuit alleging he is responsible for a car crash that killed two people because he failed to tell a patient who suffered from blackouts -- or notify PennDOT -- that it wasn't safe for him to drive.

Attorney James A. Wood told a three-judge panel on Wednesday that past court decisions show Dr. Mark Hospodar can't be held responsible for the actions of his patient, Jack Smith, 53.

Smith was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to three to six years in prison for an October 2000 crash that killed Patricia Schick, 54, and Sherri Zeis, 27, who was nine weeks pregnant with her first child. Smith had blacked out prior to the crash.

"My position is simply that Dr. Hospodar did not have a (legal) duty to Mrs. Zeis and Mrs. Schick," Wood said after the arguments. "Unfortunately, Mr. Smith manipulated the system."

Details here from NEPA News.

State Supreme Court Judge Caught at Airport With Knife Hidden in Shoe

HARRISBURG, Pa. - You don't get to take a pocketknife on airplane - even if you are a state Supreme Court judge.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Thomas Saylor Junior faces possible legal action after a small Swiss Army type knife was found hidden in a shoe in his carry-on bag.

A police report says security screeners found the knife on his key chain and advised the justice he would have to put it in his checked luggage. Authorities say he hid it in the shoe instead.

Details here from the AP via AZCentral.com.

Judge Orders Jail Time For 'Bumfights' Producers

SAN DIEGO -- A judge in a East County courtroom sent two of the 'Bumfights' video producers to jail on Wednesday.

The "Bumfights" video, in which homeless men were paid to fight and perform dangerous stunts, stunned the nation. Many viewers found the video shocking and pathetic, but 300,000 customers apparently found it to be entertaining.

Ryan McPherson and Zachary Bubeck pleaded guilty in 2003 to staging an illegal fight and were sentenced to community service and given probation.

Prosecutors told Judge Charles Ervin in January that they wanted the men put in jail because they didn't complete court-imposed volunteer work.

Ervin agreed on Wednesday and sentenced both of the men, who were taken into custody in the courtroom on Wednesday, to 180 days in jail.

Details here from NBCSanDiego.com.