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Recent Blog Posts
Corporate Bully Nordstrom Speaks With Forked Tongue
Well, Blake Nordstrom hasn't yet responded to my letter of the 11th, but, as Marc Randazza notes, his company's VP of Corporate Communications, Brooke White, sent an email to InformationWeek's Global CIO Weblog, which broke the story of Nordstrom bullying a small company over a trademark, "Beckons," that the small company clearly had a right to use:
A customer of ours e-mailed us a copy of your story from yesterday expressing their unhappiness with how they feel Nordstrom has handled this issue. I'd like you to know our thoughts. Our intention from the beginning was to co-exist with Beckons in a manner that would enable Beckons to use their trademark on yoga merchandise, while we used the Beckon name for fashion apparel and accessories. We never intended to adversely affect Ms. Prater's business and we are sorry if this has happened. We are reaching out again to Ms. Prater's attorneys to reach a settlement that we are hoping she will find acceptable. When we have resolved this issue, which we are hopeful will be soon, we'll get back to you to share the outcome.
The Law on Poisoning the Jury Pool
In WWDYT: The ethics of the post-trial jury reveal - Public Defender Stuff ambimb asks:
Is it ethical for a prosecutor to reveal to a jury after that the person they just convicted or acquitted had prior criminal convictions that were excluded from evidence?
Okay, listen up, Harris County prosecutors, because one of you is going to find that this is your ticket to a grievance. (Actually, it's a marvel if none of you have been grieved for this already, but the defense bar is better educated about this issue, and less reluctant to file grievances against their adversaries for the most egregious ethical violations, every year.)
This situation is covered by Texas Disciplinary Rule 3.06(d):
After discharge of the jury from further consideration of a matter with which the lawyer was connected, the lawyer shall not ask questions of or make comments to a member of that jury that are calculated merely to harass or embarrass the juror or to influence his actions in future jury service.
A Letter to Blake Nordstrom
11 February 2009
Blake NordstromPresidentNordstrom1700 Seventh Avenue, Suite 300Seattle, WA 98101
Dear Mr. Nordstrom:
I'm not a PR expert, but I suspect that your company's efforts to crush the owners of the trademark "Beckons" are not winning you any friends - nobody likes a bully.
I hope you'll agree with me from the outset that, while it might be an amusing name for a line, say, of lingerie, "Beckon" is a meaningless (not to say dumb) name for women's handbags. Even if you think "Beckon" is a lyrical name for a line of coin purses, it's certainly not a name that is worth throwing away the more than a hundred years of goodwill attached to your own family's name.
The NAS TBI Report
National Academy of Sciences: Long-Term Consequences of Traumatic Brain Injury.
A few findings:
Sufficient evidence of an association between (among other things):
Moderate to severe TBI and long-term adverse social-function outcomes, particularly unemployment and diminished social relationships.
TBI and depression.
TBI and aggressive behaviors.
TBI and postconcussion symptoms (such as memory problems, dizziness, and irritability).
Limited but suggestive evidence of a link between (among other things):
Moderate or severe TBI and psychosis.
TBI and decreased alcohol and drug use in the 1–3 years after injury.
Also interesting: Evidence is of insufficient quantity, quality, consistency, or statistical power to permit a conclusion regarding the existence of an association between mild TBI and long-term adverse social functioning, including unemployment, diminished social relationships, and decrease in the ability to live independently.
AGs, “Predators”, and Manufactured Fear
Earlier this month, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, run out of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, issued a report stating that Internet predator danger to kids is not as high as some have claimed. The report was immediately criticized by a number of attorneys general including Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania. And on Monday, an Internet safety organization in Oregon published a study that claims that data from press releases on Corbett's own Web site fail to back up his claims about Internet dangers.....The arrest of 183 Pennsylvania Internet predators in the past four years is indeed troubling, but the CSRIU study analyzed reports about those cases and concluded that "only eight incidents involved actual teen victims with whom the Internet was used to form a relationship." Five of the cases led to inappropriate contact and in four of the incidents the teen or parents reported the contact.
Bravest of All at 451 Degrees
When I was learning to read, my favorite book was Bravest of All, by Kate Emery Pogue. This was a Little Golden Book about an old firefighter who, when all the young firefighters and shiny new equipment were out putting out a big fire, sprang into action with his old fire truck to save a family's house. It's a wonderful little book, and when our first child was born I used the magic of the internet to track down a copy, and bought it.
Books are a crucial part of many smart people's childhoods. Kids who are different than their peers, and whose teachers don't know what to do with them, can find the world (or escape to different worlds) in books.
Books endure in a way that other stuff does not; they provide a link to our childhood that can be restored. I still have a stuffed animal - a white (now gray) dog with black ears and tail - from the same era of my life as Bravest of All; there is no way, if I had lost Woof-Woof, that I would be able to find a replacement as I found a copy of Bravest of All.
Several Recent Additions to the Blogroll
Courtoons, daily legal cartoons:
Feisty Geek, "issues related to technology and the law, as well as opinion onpolitics, society, community building, music, culture, and theunderside of capitalism." Blogger facing false DWI charges.
Oedipus Lex, mature investment-banker law student. "A little pretentious... slightly opinionated and prone to post while under the influence of a decent red."
Building Common Ground "between people on the autism spectrum and those who love, work with and play with them." Lessons in social interaction from those for whom social interaction requires careful deliberation.
Blawg Reviews 198 and 199
East Central Illinois criminal-defense lawyer Jeremy Richey hosts Blawg Review 198, on the theme of "The Seven Deadly Sins."
I will be hosting next week's Blawg Review.
What's Blawg Review?
Blawg Review is the blog carnival for everyone interested in law. A peer-reviewed blog carnival, the host of each Blawg Review decides which of the submissions and recommended posts are suitable for inclusion in the presentation. And the host is encouraged to source another dozen or so interesting posts to fit with any special theme of that issue of Blawg Review. The host's personal selections usually include several that reflect the character and subject interests of the host blawg, recognizing that the regular readership of the blog should find some of the usual content, and new readers of the blog via Blawg Review ought to get some sense of the unique perspective and subject specialties of the host. Thanks to all the law bloggers who collaborate to make Blawg Review one of the very best blog carnivals of any genre.
Stand and Deliver in Tenaha
For those who like to pretend that the government can be trusted to do the right thing, I offer this Houston Chronicle article about black drivers driving through the town of Tenaha, Texas, near the Louisiana line, being pulled over and shaken down:
Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents. Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town. Some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred.....[Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Kay Russell] made legal agreements with some individuals that her office would not file criminal charges so long as the property owner waived all rights to the valuables.
The Colorado Supreme Court Notices Francis M. Pignatelli
Via John Wesley Hall's Law of Criminal Defense:
The Colorado Supreme Court Office of Attorney Regulation today announced that it has filed a petition to immediately suspend Colorado lawyer Francis (Frank) M. Pignatelli from the practice of law. The petition is now pending before Supreme Court Presiding Disciplinary Judge William Lucero.
(Thanks to federal appellate superlawyer Peter Goldberger for the heads-up.)
Frank Pignatelli was the Ohio lawyer/snitch who moved to Colorado and took criminal cases in federal court while he was still subject to federal prosecution. I wrote about him here and here.
Being naturally inquisitive, I also checked out some documents from one case in which Pignatelli acted as an informant, including the Government's response to one client / coconspirator's motion to dismiss, laying out the Government's case for Pignatelli's information not being privileged.
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