From this lengthy article in The New Yorker, it sure looks like it.

If true, what does this mean for the future of the death penalty?

ON THE COVER: Top court returns — The Court of Appeals begins its September 2009 term this week. The high court will hear cases addressing the cap on non-economic damages, legal malpractice and whether a truck driver can be guilty of vehicular manslaughter for leaving the scene of a gravel spill from his truck.

Also on the Court of Appeals — the judges recall their summer break; columnist Chris Brown ranks last year’s votes; and plaintiffs’ lawyers Henry E. Dugan Jr. and George S. Tolley III explain the importance of last term’s landmark informed-consent decision.

In Breaking News, Baltimore City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton fights new charges; an immigration lawyer is disbarred after pleading guilty to fraud; and an attorney owes fees for having filed suit without sufficient justification.

In Verdicts & Settlements, a motorcyclist receives $200,000 in damages after colliding with a hand truck that fell from a passing box truck.

U.S. District Magisitrate Judge Charles B. Day of Greenbelt has no plans to take it easy after stepping down from the Federal Magistrate Judges Association after a decade in senior posts at the group.

Stay up-to-date with our Law Digest, which includes cases from the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court, Maryland.

The plaza-side entrance to the Baltimore County Circuit Court building in Towson is currently closed to the general public because the security screening machines are not working. Only courthouse employees, jurors and lawyers with Maryland State Bar Association ID badges are being allowed through that entrance.

All other courthouse visitors must enter through the doors on Bosley Avenue.

Happy Monday!

• Collaborative divorce isn’t so great, Dawn Bowie says.
• Is this gender-stereotyping discrimination, or is it sexual-orientation discrimination? “Prowel says he was harassed because he talked in a high voice, walked effeminately, was very well-groomed, liked to talk about art and interior design, and pushed the buttons on a work machine ‘with pizzazz.’”
• The woman whose online harassment of a 13-year-old girl arguably led the girl to commit suicide has had her misdemeanor conviction officially overturned.
• Anti-abortion groups can’t challenge over-the-counter emergency contraception.
• “Your Honor, Megan’s Law made me drive drunk.”

A few news organizations, including The Sun, were fooled today by a prank Web site carrying a message that purported to be from Mayor Sheila Dixon. The backstory is this: a British official compared the city of Manchester, which has had a spate of violence, to The Wire, which was, of course, about Baltimore.

A British blogger then made up a fake Web site made to look like Dixon’s official one, in which he, as Dixon, took the politician to task. The post read, in part:

To present a television show as the real Baltimore is to perpetuate a fiction that dishonours our city. It is as pointless as boasting that Baltimore has a per capita homicide rate a fraction of that in the popular UK television show Midsomer Murders.

The Baltimore Police Department is working hard to protect the people of this city and it should be remembered that The Wire was just a television show. As this video shows, there is so much more to Baltimore than The Wire.

The site, which appears to be no longer accessible, then linked to a video showing scenes from the violent Midsomer Murders show, accompanied by the theme song from The Wire. The video points out that there are more deaths in the British show than in the American one, then ends with the “Visit Baltimore” logo.

This afternoon, Dixon’s (actual) office sent out a statement correcting the record and saying that “The city’s Law department as well as the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology have been informed and are currently investigating this violation of the city’s website for copyright infringement of the City of Baltimore and the Office of Mayor.” Mayoral spokesman Scott Peterson also forwarded an e-mail from the blogger behind the fake site:

Scott,

I made a joke for my friends that was circulated more widely than intended. No-one was supposed to be fooled beyond the words “Midsomer Murders” and just in case, I made a little video and linked to it which was in no way conceivably genuine. I registered the domain in my own name, I wrote using English spelling, I left a message in the source code and at the bottom of the page I attributed the copyright to my blog pseudonym. I didn’t imagine anyone in the US or in the UK would believe it.

Please could you pass on my apologies to anyone in your office who has been inconvenienced by this prank. I will be editing the masthead to make it clear that it’s not the real site.

Yours,

Alex Hilton

The mayor’s spokesman told me that, despite the statement about the law department investigating, the city plans no litigation against blogger Hilton. “No, at the end of the day it’s a hoax,” Peterson said.

That said, “We want to make sure people understand that this is serious,” Peterson said. “It’s not a joke when you lift the website’s information…. It is dangerous and we’re just lucky that it wasn’t anything more of a serious intent.”

The American Bar Association has made good on its threat to sue if the FTC didn’t exempt lawyers from its Red Flags Rule, Kimberly Atkins writes for our sister paper, Lawyers USA.  The lawsuit was filed today in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

The rule is designed to prevent identity theft from creditors and financial institutions, but, as our own Steve Lash reported, the FTC delayed implementation for a third time last month. The current effective date is Nov. 1.

A woman was arrested Tuesday at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport after customs agents found 2.5 lbs. of cocaine concealed in her bra. The woman put the drug in two separate bags designed to blend in with her bra, according to customs agents.

If two bags are good, 19 is apparently not better; a Massachusetts woman was arrested Aug. 16 with that many packages of crack cocaine concealed in her bra. Detectives saw the woman holding one bag in her hand, after which she revealed the others under her shirt.

I guess you could say the women were bust-ed.  

The University of Maryland School of Law gives students a lot for their money, according to new rankings.

According to a “best value” list by The National Jurist magazine, the school ranks 48th in bang-for-your-buck. The publication assessed institutions based on tuition, bar pass rate and percentage of employed graduates. The schools on the list are, unsurprisingly, state schools.

Maryland’s value ranking more or less matches its U.S. News & World Report ranking, 43. What’s interesting is how many of the high-ranking value schools, such as 1st place North Carolina Central, 3rd place Nebraska and 5th place Mississippi, are in U.S. News’ third or fourth tier.

By the way, Maryland also makes the magazine’s list of the top schools for students who want to do public-interest work, as does the University of Baltimore School of Law. Maryland is 7 and Baltimore is 14. Neither school places on the list of law schools with the most diverse faculty.

HT: TaxProf Blog via ABA Journal.

Sometimes what surprises you in life is what you don’t see, like someone gets a haircut shorter than usual.

Case in point: I was walking through a second-floor hallway on the Bosley Avenue side of Baltimore County Circuit Court building in Towson on Tuesday morning when I did a double-take. Dozens of hulking metal shelves and filing cabinets had been ripped out of the floor, leaving an open space more than 50 feet long by my rough estimate. It looked like part of a forest had been cleared for new development.

The shelves and cabinets used to hold land records, but those were removed last year after all of the paperwork was scanned into computers, according to a few title researchers I talked to. The shelves and cabinets sat empty until they were removed last week.

Tim Sheridan, the court’s administrator, said the space will remain empty for now but said it could eventually become additional office space for the clerk of the court, which currently occupies much of the second floor.

They didn’t set out to hang out their shingles — at least, not yet — but the economy made it the most attractive option for these new solo practitioners. Read The Accidental Solo, this related story on setting up shop, and these tips on running your own practice.

The University of Maryland law school’s Appellate and Post-Conviction Advocacy Clinic highlights its summer wins and is taking a setback in stride, as one of its recent clients got arrested on a charge similar to the one the clinic helped get expunged.

Topping the news are stories about the firing of Public Defender Nancy Forster and a citation against a Charles County judge for letting the air out of a court worker’s tire. In Legal Briefs, Chief Judge Bell sends another letter – this time, seeking Social Security numbers for the Client Protection Fund.

In Verdicts & Settlements, a Baltimore jury awards more than $1 million to the children of a young woman who died after surgery to resolve her blood clots. And, in Unbillable Hours, meet a Montgomery County lawyer who coaches high school football players in more ways than one.

PLUS: On the Move; columns by Legal Aid’s Joe Surkiewicz and Dolan Media’s Justin Rebello; and our weekly Law Digest, featuring eight opinions by the 4th Circuit.