Those who think we need a statute criminalizing nonconsensual porn need look no further. Texas's improper-photography statute says: A person commits an offense if the person…by…electronic means…transmits a visual image of another at a location that is not a bathroom or private dressing room…without the other person's consent; and…with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person; In a deposition in August Hunter Thomas

I’ve discussed Mary Anne Franks’s proposed state statute criminalizing revenge porn and New Jersey’s statute criminalizing revenge porn, and concluded that under current Supreme Court caselaw appellate courts will be constrained, in the face of a serious First Amendment challenge, to invalidate both as unconstitutional restrictions on free speech. What about California’s statute, which was more recently signed into law? According to that statute, misdemeanor disorderly conduct

Framingham, Massachusetts divorce lawyer Howard Lewis endorses Taylor: …and Weston: …and Rich: Also Ware: …and Bellotti: …and—oh, hell. 9,000-plus others, all of whom he couldn't possibly know: This practice of endorsing strangers on Avvo makes actual endorsements worthless. It's as bad as—worse than—falsifying client reviews. You don't think Lewis picked 9,000 strangers to endorse, do you? It's possible—he may have some paid marketeer posting endorsements to random

In Are Statutes Criminalizing Revenge Porn Constitutional? I considered Mary Anne Franks’s proposed statute aimed at revenge porn, and concluded that lower courts considering the constitutionality of the statute will be constrained by current Supreme Court precedent to find the statute unconstitutional. At least three states—New Jersey, California, and Texas—have statutes that would criminalize revenge porn. I’ve discussed the unconstitutionality of Texas’s improper-photography statute before, and California’s

There’s a movement afoot to pass statutes outlawing “revenge porn”—the malicious publication of images of intimate partners. Here’s the proposed state statute, drawn up by Florida law prof Mary Anne Franks: Whoever intentionally discloses a photograph, film, videotape, recording, or any other reproduction of the image of another person whose intimate parts are exposed or who is engaged in an act of sexual contact without that person’s

The short story: Biologist Danielle N. Lee, who blogs at The Urban Scientist, gets a request from “Ofek,” an editor at “Biology Online” to write content there for free. She politely declines. The editor responds: Because we don’t pay for blog entries? Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore? Lee writes about the experience on The Urban Scientist; Scientific American takes the post down without

In support of her attempt to limit speech to protect women from revenge porn, Mary Anne Franks, who teaches family law, criminal law, and criminal procedure at the University of Miami, demonstrates, via Concurring Opinions, some of the hazards of single-issue advocacy, accidentally providing some compelling negative rhetorical lessons, demonstrating to the world six things not to do when you're trying to persuade: Overstate your case: "[T]his kind

The last time we checked in with Robert S. Bennett, it was because Lillian Hardwick, the State Bar's ethics "expert" who was going about opining on the matter of flat fees in criminal cases, had associated herself with him to lecture and write an article on ethics. Before that, we saw Bennett appearing on a major federal criminal fraud case as a "concierge lawyer." Now he's facing

In Cohen v. California the U.S. Supreme Court said: The ability of government, consonant with the Constitution, to shut off discourse solely to protect others from hearing it is, in other words, dependent upon a showing that substantial privacy interests are being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner. That the government can shut off discourse to protect others from hearing it if substantial privacy interests are being

McClelland was driving east on Clay in the far left lane, Cannon said. He came to a stop before turning left onto northbound Travis on a green light, looked into the intersection and didn't see anyone in the crosswalk. … "He made the left turn and suddenly an adult male stepped off the curb into a moving lane of traffic," Cannon said. (Houston Chronicle, September 5, 2013.)