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Batty People Need Lawyers Too
This morning Lisa Simeone (TSA News) brings us word of a TSA lawsuit that continues in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California:
[Nadine Hays] was arrested, handcuffed, strip-searched, and jailed after the TSA decided she was too uppity....Prosecutors later charged her with battery.
The charge was dismissed. Hays is suing the TSA.
But apparently she's representing herself in court....The latest news is that if she doesn't cut her complaint down to size (25 double-spaced pages instead of 129), her case will be thrown out.I'm on Nadine Hays's side. I hope she wins. I also hope she gets some professional legal advice.
Will Nadine Hays get some professional legal advice? There are many reasons someone might be unrepresented in her §1983 action. Among them:
She might not have sought counsel;
She might not have money to pay counsel;
Arizona Cribs its Online-Impersonation Statute from Texas; Still Unconstitutional
A proposal by Arizona legislator Michelle Ugenti to outlaw online impersonation has gotten some press in the last couple of days. Here's Arizona's proposed online-impersonation statute (PDF). It's a near-copy of Texas's online-impersonation statute, passed in 2011. There are some small stylistic differences, but the meat is the same. Here's the gist (with changes from the Texas statute to the Arizona bill redlined):
(a)A. A person commits an offense online impersonation if the person, without obtaining the other person's consent and with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate, or threaten any person, uses the name or persona of another person to do either of the following:(1) create a web page on a commercial social networking site or other Internet website; or(2) post or send one or more messages on or through a commercial social networking site or other Internet website, other than on or through an electronic mail program or message board program. (b)B. A person commits an offense online impersonation if the person sends an electronic mail, instant message, text message, or similar communication that references a name, domain address, phone number, or other item of identifying information belonging to any person and all of the following apply:(1) without obtaining The person does not obtain the other person's consent ;. (2) with the intent to The person intends to cause a recipient of the communication to reasonably believe that the other person authorized or transmitted the communication ; and.(3) with the intent The person intends to harm or defraud any person.
Narcissists Who Need Narcissists…
HOUSTON, TX – Criminal-defense lawyer Mark Bennett has recently announced his intention to take on representation of all rich people charged with crimes in the state of Texas, effective immediately. Recognizing that the filthy rich often face an unfair bias in the courtroom, Bennett, a Houston, Texas lawyer, seeks to acquit any and all rich people wrongfully charged with serious crimes.
No, not really.
It might be nice to corner the market on wrongfully accused fat cats, and even if such a press release didn't net me a single additional affluent person (why would it?), non-rich clients like to imagine that rich people get better representation, so I might get more clients of average means. But I wouldn't do it because issuing a press release like that would subject me to well-deserved ridicule* as a narcissistic asshat.
Kinda like Gary Ostrow.
Curse You, Bill of Rights!
Might we be better off today if the Bill of Rights had never been written?
If your reaction to that begins, "but the Bill of Rights gives us..." I'm halfway to my point. The Bill of Rights doesn't give us any rights. It simply confirms a few of the rights that the founders thought God had given us.
But somehow the notion became popular that the Bill of Rights gave us rights.
In a spirited discussion of scary-looking semiautomatic rifles with removable magazines ("assault rifles," which aren't technically assault rifles, but which we've allowed gunphobes to dub, so what the hell), my friend Frank pointed me to this (pre-Heller) article about the Second Amendment, in which the author says, among other things:
The Standard Model finds, squirreled away in the Second Amendment, not only a private right to own guns for any purpose but a public right to oppose with arms the government of the United States. It grounds this claim in the right of insurrection, which clearly does exist whenever tyranny exists. Yet the right to overthrow government is not given by government.
Still Trying to Keep the Chronicle Honest
The Houston Chronicle, on Harris County DA Mike Anderson's proposed new DWI deferred adjudication legislation:
Deferred adjudication is a form of probation that allows suspects who successfully complete probation to go on with their lives without a criminal conviction on their record.* * * * *Anderson's proposed change would allow first-time convictions for DWI to be erased from a defendant's record, but, unlike DIVERT, prosecutors would be able to tell juries about the DWI if there are subsequent intoxication-related offenses.The proposed change is modeled on domestic violence laws, which can be expunged for public records, but still exist in court files and can be used to upgrade future domestic violence charges.
"Without a criminal conviction on their record" is technically true, but misleading. Lawyers who describe deferred adjudication that way to their clients and judges who do so to defendants are doing them a disservice. A deferred-adjudication probation can, in some cases and at the trial court's discretion, be sealed from public view with an order of nondisclosure (read the statute), but unless and until the record is sealed there remains a public record of the charge, the guilty plea, and the probation. Employers and landlords and others who use background checks treat deferred-adjudication probation the same as a conviction. When a defendant is told, "you won't have a criminal conviction on your record" he hears, "you won't have a record."
The Nonaggression Principle and a Question
An excellent piece by our old libertarian friend Arizona cirminal-defense lawyer Marc Victor (warning: autoplay audio on that firm site): I Am a Peaceful AR-15 Assault Rifle Owner.
Our society is a sick one, certainly emotionally and arguably mentally ill. It sexualizes children and worships violence. If American society were a young man, we damn sure wouldn't want it to own an assault rifle.
But the vast majority of assault rifles are safely held by peaceable people like Victor. I would have no problem having well-armed people like Victor as my neighbors (in fact, I have, and I found that they made good neighbors in good times and great neighbors during emergencies).
Victor has a diagnosis for the sickness infecting our society:
The single biggest contributing factor to our culture of violence is that our society no longer adheres to the once basic notion that initiating force against non-aggressors is wrong.
The Parable of the Knife
With the President claiming, and Congress going out of its way to affirm, the executive's authority to detain and even kill U.S. citizens without due process, it's difficult to imagine what more is needed to convince those who doubt that tyranny is a real danger in America.
Theoretically, the courts might stand in the way of despotism, but the courts don't have the power either of the purse or of the gun, and a justice or two can be disappeared if necessary.
Theoretically, an America in which the President can order executions and unlimited detentions is different than a dictatorship because we elect the President. But our connection to the choosing of the President is tenuous at best, and none of us can say with any authority that his vote has even been counted. Besides, the process of electing a President is quaint and antiquated, and can be eliminated in the interest of security. Changes will be made after the Reichstag burns.
Jason Howard: Are You E-X-P-E-R-I-E-N-C-E-D?
Seventeen years ago, when I started representing people accused of crimes, former prosecutors didn't have to explain to potential clients why they should hire former prosecutors: the clients just knew that former prosecutors had connections in the DA's Office that would help the clients get favorable resolutions.
I never saw a criminal-defense lawyer advertising himself as "never a prosecutor" before I started doing so; when I would point out to a potential client that he was more likely to suffer than benefit as a result of the long-term relationships between a former prosecutor and him (if he has to choose between maintaining those relationships and burning bridges on your behalf, which do you think he'll pick?) his eyes would get wide. His checkbook would come out.
Jason H. Howard has no reason to remember the practice of law in those days because he was a freshman in high school, fighting acne and maybe hoping to get to second base.
Much has changed since then. Clients are now much less likely to see prosecutorial experience as a positive. Young Jason needs to work to convince the potential clients that his prosecutorial experience has value. For this former prosecutor, the benefit he provides his clients is E-X-P-E-R-I-E-N-C-E.
Three Overbroad Texas Penal Statutes
(Despite the "hey, look at me, I'm a list" title, this is a post for law geeks).
The Texas online-solicitation-of-a-minor statute, Texas Penal Code Section 33.021 (as it existed before September 1, 2015) violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution because it bars adults making sexually-related communications that are neither solicitative nor obscene to minors.
The Texas online-impersonation statute, Texas Penal Code Section 33.07, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution because it bars posting webpages using the name of another person, even if not impersonative, to post harmful content, even if truthful.
The Texas improper-photography statute, Texas Penal Code Section 21.15, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution because it bars publishing without consent an image of another made with that person's consent.
Fired Judge Suddenly Realizes …
Former Judge Mark Davidson, who often ranked at or near the top in local judicial polls, lost his bench in the Barack Obama tidal wave of 2008. He does not like what he sees now, with a polarized electorate voting along party lines, and he has no intention of running again soon.
"To run and know it doesn't matter anything about my or my opponent's qualifications – that the outcome may be determined by who is on the top of the ticket and people will vote on criteria other than my service as a trial judge – is not something I choose to do," Davidson said.
Former Judge Mark Davidson, who often ranked at or near the top in local judicial polls, lost his bench in the Barack Obama tidal wave of 2008. He does not like what he sees now, with a polarized electorate voting along party lines, and he has no intention of running again soon."To run and know it doesn't matter anything about my or my opponent's qualifications – that the outcome may be determined by who is on the top of the ticket and people will vote on criteria other than my service as a trial judge – is not something I choose to do," Davidson said.
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