Trial Delayed Due to LSU-Ohio St. Game

Justice can wait until after the LSU game. A state judge near the home of the Tigers has agreed to postpone a trial scheduled to start on the same day LSU plays Ohio State in the BCS national championship game.

Stephen Babcock, an attorney defending Imperial Casualty Insurance Co. in a lawsuit over a car crash, requested the delay because he has tickets to the Jan. 7 game at the Superdome in New Orleans. He and other LSU fans have rented out the second floor of a Bourbon Street bar for a pre-game tailgate party.

In his written request for a new trial date, Babcock refers to Ohio State as "Slowhio" ("due to their perceived lack of speed on both sides of the ball") and notes that Allstate, sponsors of the Sugar Bowl, are not a party in the insurance case.

"All counsel to this matter unequivocally agree that the presence of LSU in the aforementioned contest of pigskin skill unquestionably constitutes good grounds therefor," Babcock wrote. "In fact we have been unable through much imagination and hypothetical scenarios to think of a better reason."

Babcock, whose law office is in Baton Rouge, said lawyers for the plaintiff in the case also have tickets to the game.

Details here from the AP via the San Francisco Chronicle.

Control Sought on Military Lawyers

Bush wants power over promotions

The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.

That sure worked well when the target was United States Attorneys. How freakin' dumb are these people? Details here from Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe. (via How Appealing)

Bill Would Penalize Judges Leaving for High-Paying Jobs

Monday in The Daily Journal of California, Lawrence Hurley will have an article that begins, "Congress may be offering federal judges a major pay raise for the first time in 16 years, but lawmakers are also embracing a plan to deter senior judges from taking high-paying jobs in the private sector."

The article can be accessed here via How Appealing.

There Goes the Judge

Just how low does a California judge have to go to be forced out of his or her job? The state's eleven-member Commission on Judicial Performance is responsible for answering that question. And, in fact, the commission rarely rules that a judge deserves to be bounced from the bench. Since 1960, this independent agency has publicly reproved 17 judges, admonished 48, and censured 41—but it has removed only 23.

The commission archives on those discredited 23 do not reveal any instances of murder or even malicious malfeasance. But they do record plenty of bad language, bad attitudes, and most of all bad judgment. Here are five of the state's most colorful tales of judicial indiscretion—with plenty of lessons on how far (and easily) the mighty may fall.

The astonishing (and amusing) details are here from California Lawyer magazine.

The Man That Got Away

Judges dreamed of having Barack Obama as their clerk. Why did he turn them all down?

Among prominent federal appeals court judges in the 1990s, Barack Obama was known as “the one who got away.”

In 1990, Obama had been elected the first African-American president of Harvard Law Review, which made him a blazingly hot prospect as a law clerk for one of the top federal appeals judges, who in turn would almost certainly send him on to the Supreme Court as a clerk.

But with a remarkable certitude that still amazes his friends and elders, Obama said no to all that, preferring to return to Chicago after graduating in 1991 to resume community and civil rights work and to write a memoir that turned into a best seller, Dreams from My Father. Now, only 16 years later, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois is a top contender for the presidency of the United States.

Eschewing a possible Supreme Court clerkship could stand as Obama’s biggest “road not taken,” a decision that would have taken him on a path toward a top law firm, law school faculty, or judgeship.

Instead, Obama plunged into Illinois politics, charting a trajectory that could put him in the position of appointing Supreme Court justices as president — or, in an alternative scenario floated recently by The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin and the Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page, serving on the Supreme Court as Hillary Clinton’s first appointee.

Details here from Tony Mauro of Legal Times. (via How Appealing)

Contractor, Homeowner at Odds Over Fortune Found in Bathroom Walls

Most folks are happy to reach into the pocket of a little-used jacket and find a long-forgotten $10 bill.

Multiply that feeling by 18,200 and you will understand how Lakewood home-improvement contractor Bob Kitts felt when he pulled a giant cache of Depression-era cash from the walls of an 83-year-old Cleveland home he was renovating.

As he was ripping plaster from bathroom-wall studs, Kitts found bundles of bills totaling $182,000 wrapped in pre-World War II Plain Dealer news pages and tucked into boxes. The money is in such good condition, and some of the bills are so rare and collectible, that one currency appraiser valued the treasure at up to $500,000, Kitts said.

But there's a hitch:

The walls from which Kitts pulled the money aren't his walls. The house isn't his house. Nobody knows for certain whose money it is.

Yet Kitts claims it as his own. He and his lawyer have dusted off an obscure, centuries-old legal doctrine called "treasure trove" - a common-law finders-keepers provision - that they believe gives him top claim to the wealth.

Ohio and most other states have no specific statute governing what happens when someone finds a once-hidden treasure, so common-law principles dating to pre-Revolutionary Great Britain come into play, said Cleveland-Marshall's Robertson.

That common law has a fairly definitive "finders-keepers" bent to it.

That's true even when the finding is done on someone else's property, as long as the finder had permission to be there, courts have established.

That doesn't mean Kitts is clearly the winner. Unless the two sides settle, a judge or jury will need to decide whether he found money that was, in a legal sense, "lost" or "mislaid," Robertson and other lawyers say.

Kitts asserts he found lost money, and court rulings in Ohio establish that treasure trove's "finders keepers" law does indeed apply to something that was lost, if there's no reason to believe any owner will reappear to claim it.

But if it was absentmindedly mislaid on private property rather than lost, the owner of the property on which the discovery was made becomes the safekeeper of the lost goods, according to case law and legal texts.

In either case, the holder must make a good-faith effort to find the original owner or heirs before cashing in.

Details here from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. (via ObscureStore)

DNA Test Clears Man After 27 Years

A man enjoyed freedom Tuesday after a DNA test proved he did not commit a 1979 rape. John Jerome White, 48, left Macon State Prison on Monday evening.

"I'm just thankful that this is behind me," White said at a news conference Tuesday morning with the Georgia Innocence Project, which had worked to free him. "When I first started out, I wondered why this happened to me," he said, breaking into tears. "I just saw it as something that had to happen because I wasn't living a moral life."

The investigation led to the arrest Tuesday of James Edward Parham, 54, of Manchester, who was on the state's Sex Offender Registry for a 1985 rape conviction, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. He was being held in the Meriwether County jail on charges of rape, aggravated assault, burglary and robbery.

A sheriff's office employee declined to say whether Parham had an attorney, and there was no immediate response from the public defender's office. There was no answer on a telephone listed at the address given for Parham in a GBI news release.

White is the seventh Georgia convict to be cleared by DNA evidence, said Aimee Maxwell, director of the Atlanta-based Georgia Innocence Project. In every case, the men were wrongly convicted on eyewitness accounts.

"This case does point out the fallibility of eyewitness identification," Maxwell said.

Detail here from the AP via the San Francisco Chronicle.

Judge's "Shocking" Words at Meeting Lead to Censure

Clark County Superior Court Judge John Wulle has been censured for "demeaning, offensive and shocking" behavior at a training conference last year.

Wulle, 57, appeared before the state Commission on Judicial Conduct on Friday in SeaTac.

The judge and seven other people from Clark County, including a deputy prosecuting attorney, a juvenile probation officer and a defense attorney, attended "Planning Your Juvenile Drug Court," July 24 to 28, 2006, in Los Angeles.

According to a nine-page document posted on the commission's Web site, Wulle used profanity, made an obscene gesture in response to a request to lower his voice, and referred to Clark County's group facilitator as "the black gay guy" while at the Los Angeles event. Also, after the facilitator said, "Clark County gets a star" for finishing an assignment, Wulle said, "I don't need a star. I'm not a Jew."

Several witnesses said Wulle smelled of alcohol, according to the censure order.

Details here from The Seattle Times.

Attorney Who Made Up Kidnapping Had 'Meltdown,' Husband Says

A pregnant Ohio attorney who admitted that she fabricated her kidnapping left her family behind because she "experienced a meltdown," her husband said Tuesday.

She never was abducted last week outside Toledo's juvenile court building or forced into a vehicle, said police Capt. Ray Carroll.

Instead, she drove by herself to the Atlanta area, where she was found three days later outside an amusement park, investigators said.

Karyn McConnell Hancock, 35, a former city councilwoman, had been having psychological issues for several years, her husband said Tuesday.

"She experienced a meltdown and attempted to handle those matters without the assistance of professional help," said Lawrence Hancock. "Karyn elected to leave everything because she felt that she was unable to continue."

Police said at a news conference Tuesday that she recanted the story Monday after meeting with investigators for about eight hours. Hancock will likely be charged with making a false police report, said Police Chief Mike Navarre.

Details here from the AP via Law.com.

Solo Convicted in Sex Scam

A San Antonio, Texas, jury has convicted solo Mary S. Roberts on five counts of theft stemming from allegations that she helped her lawyer-husband appropriate $155,000 from four men with whom she had affairs in 2001.

The jury returned its verdict Dec. 10 after a weeklong trial. Judge Sid Harle of the 226th District Court scheduled Mary Roberts' sentencing for Feb. 4, 2008. Each theft count is a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison.

In 2005, a Bexar County grand jury indicted Ted and Mary Roberts on theft charges based on allegations that after the wife had sexual liaisons with four men, the husband threatened them with litigation unless they compensated him for emotional distress. A second grand jury reindicted the couple in 2006, naming in the indictment the four men from whom the couple appropriated money.

In March, a jury convicted Ted Roberts of three theft charges for taking money from two of the men. The jury sentenced him to five years in prison.

Details here from Texas Lawyer via Law.com. My earlier posts about Ms. Roberts and her exploits are here and here.

Court Supervision of Attorney Ordered due to Lack of Civility

A New York judge has ordered court supervision of a lawyer for "objectionable conduct" toward a female opposing counsel who he said had a "cute little thing going on" during a deposition.

According to transcripts of the deposition, Thomas B. Decea of Danzig Fishman & Decea in White Plains also called Michelle A. Rice of Arkin Kaplan & Rice "hon" and "girl" and asked her why she was not wearing a wedding ring.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead ruled last week in Laddcap Value Partners, LP v. Lowenstein Sandler, PC, 600973-2007, that a special referee would oversee all future depositions in the case to monitor Decea's conduct and that all depositions would take place in the courthouse.

The judge said Decea's behavior reflected gender bias as well as "a lack of civility, good manners and common courtesy." She said the appointment of a referee was a means of "guarding against future objectionable conduct" by Decea.

Details here from the New York Law Journal via Law.com.

High Court Justices to Review Detainees' Rights Under Habeas Corpus

Former Solicitor General Seth P. Waxman has always worked to ensure that the great writ of habeas corpus does not become an empty shell. On Wednesday, Waxman will argue in the Supreme Court what is perhaps the most important habeas case in modern history. He will tell the justices that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 violates the suspension clause of the U.S. Constitution insofar as it bars Guantanamo Bay detainees from access to the writ of habeas corpus.

Details here from Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal via Law.com.

Cops: More Smoke Toad Venom to Get High

I am not making this up:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Law enforcement authorities have discovered that people are willing to go to great lengths to get high, including a troubling new method that features a frightened toad.

"Toad smoking," which is a substitute for "toad licking," is done by extracting venom from the Sonoran Desert toad of the Colorado River. The toad's venom — which is secreted when the toad gets angry or scared — contains a hallucinogen called bufotenine that can be dried and smoked to produce a buzz.

In October, a Kansas City man was charged with possessing a controlled substance after Clay County authorities determined he possessed a toad with the intent to use its venom to get high. . . .

[W]hile smoking toad venom might sound extreme, an even more disturbing method to get high possibly includes sniffing fermented human waste. Vicky Ward, manager of prevention services at Tri-County Mental Health Services in Kansas City, said she has read e-mail warnings about a drug called jenkem.

The drug is made from fermented feces and urine.

Details here from the AP.

Man Sentenced to Six Years for Threats Against Judges

An Orange County man was sentenced to more than six years in state prison Monday for making criminal threats against two judges he believed were conspiring against him.

Richard Senator, 52, of Stanton was convicted this year of making the threats against William Whitely and Norman Delaterre, both state workers' compensation judges, after unfavorable court rulings on a claim stemming from a back injury Senator sustained in the late 1980s.

Prosectors said Senator told Whitely in his chambers that he had prison contacts who would "punish" the judge. They also said Senator accused Delaterre in e-mails of being a terrorist who would have to be punished accordingly.

So far, so good. But the money quote:

Senator served six years in prison on a prior conviction for making criminal threats against a judge, commissioner and attorney in 1997.

Details here from the Los Angeles Times.

Bay Area Counties Toughest on Black Drug Offenders

San Francisco imprisons African Americans for drug offenses at a much higher rate than whites, according to a report to be released today by a nonprofit research institute.

In a study of nearly 200 counties nationwide, the Justice Policy Institute found that 97 percent of large-population counties have racial disparities between the number of black people and white people sent to prison on drug convictions.

The institute, which is based in Washington, D.C., and researches public policy and promotes alternatives to incarceration, says whites and African Americans use illicit drugs at similar rates. But black people account for more than 50 percent of sentenced drug offenders, though they make up only 13 percent of the nation's population.

San Francisco locks up a higher percentage of members of the African American community in drug cases than any other county in the study. In the county, 123 people out of every 100,000 are sent to state prison each year for drug offenses. Of those, whites are incarcerated at a rate of 35 per 100,000 white people, while blacks are incarcerated at a rate of 1,013 per 100,000 black people.

"It is not that San Francisco is sending a lot of people to prison for drug offenses, it is that the people they are sending are black," said Jason Ziedenberg, executive director of the institute. "An average citizen who uses drugs in San Francisco has a pretty low chance of going to prison, but if you are African American, the chances are fairly high."

That's not good. Details here from the San Francisco Chronicle.