On the Record

By: Danielle Ulman

Hello there, readers. Here’s hoping you’ve gotten your taxes in or plan to do it by tonight.

• The working relationship between two Lululemon shop employees was good before one allegedly killed the other.
• New York courts plan to lay off 400 to 500 people.
• D.C.’s medical marijuana regulations are now in effect.
• It’s all about who you know. Page Croyder looks at influence in the courtroom.
• What does the state’s new Padilla rule really mean?
• Barry Bonds’ appeal will probably focus on strange verdict.
• Romanced by a client.
• A federal judge has sanctioned administrators at Brooklyn’s Poly Prep Country Day School for covering up sexual misconduct by a former football coach who has since died.

By: Steve Lash

In his intriguing new historical novel, Then Everything Changed, political commentator Jeff Greenfield posits how events might have played out under three different scenarios: had Lyndon Johnson been elected president in 1960; had Robert F. Kennedy survived an assassin’s bullet and been elected president in 1968; and if Gerald Ford had won the 1976 election.

I will not spoil Greenfield’s masterful work by detailing his alternative history. Rather, I mention the book because it has spurred me to think of “what ifs” both historical and personal, an exercise that sparks my imagination and makes me feel grateful.

What if Clement Haynsworth or G. Harrold Carswell had won Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court? President Richard Nixon would not have had to resort to his third choice, Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the high court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade.

What if Ralph Branca had walked Bobby Thompson and pitched to the next batter (a rookie named Willie Mays)? The New York Giants might not have won the 1951 pennant.

What if Florida had electronic voting on Election Day 2000? President Gore, perhaps.

What if Jeffrey Maier had left to get a hot dog when Derek Jeter was at bat? A banner might be flying in Baltimore.

What if she weren’t in her sorority house to take my call? But I digress.

Please submit your “what ifs.”

By: Steve Lash

Let me say at the outset that I love Camden Yards – and have since its 1992 opening.

I have enjoyed many a spring and summer day (but, unfortunately, not too many in the fall) watching the descendants of Brooks, Boog, Belanger and Bumbry play in one of Major League Baseball’s most beautiful parks.

But it is not “the mecca of baseball,” as my colleague Rachel Bernstein writes in her well wrought and researched series on the O’s home. That grand title in my opinion belongs to Wrigley Field, where I spent many an afternoon (no night games then) back in the 1980s watching then-future Hall of Famers Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson give the (still) long-suffering hometown fans hope.

I even worked at the “Friendly Confines” as an usher during the summer of 1984, a season that ended with the Cubs losing the National League Championship Series to the San Diego Padres. Then there was the spring of 1987, when my girlfriend (now wife) and I took the El from Northwestern University (where we were seniors) to the Addison stop three times to see the lovable losers at that most beautiful of ballparks, at the intersection of Sheffield and Waveland avenues.

Now, I know you’re thinking that it’s not the ballpark I love so much as the youthful memories. But that’s not the case.

Read the rest of this entry »

By: Danielle Ulman

If you didn’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the news over the weekend, you may have missed a little happening in Prince George’s County, involving the arrest of County Executive Jack Johnson. Now, some are pushing for a law to help remove elected officials from office prior to conviction. More arrests are apparently on the way.

Here are some other things you may have missed:

• A local lawyer recommends looking beyond the police report.
• You can thank filmmaker Michael Moore for this one — know your jury.
• Byron Warnken offers an update on Miranda in Maryland.
• What goes better than a Bud with your baseball? Perhaps a different beer.
• The underwear bomb that launched a billion airport pat-downs.
• The lawyer running the Bad Lawyer blog, is apparently also a bad lawyer. And he’s about to do some time.

By: Danielle Ulman

It’s Monday again, but for Ravens fans, today comes with a cherry on top: Monday Night Football. Here are some law links to get your day started.

• A weekend news release trumpeted that Billy Murphy would break his silence on the Jessamy-Bernstein race for state’s attorney at a press conference today. Looks like he already spilled the beans.
• Are medical malpractice caps dead? One doc thinks so.
• One American files for bankruptcy every 15 seconds.
• Continuing their summer tour through New York, bedbugs have made their way into the Manhattan DA’s office.
• Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens may have broken the law, but Bill James argues, so did Babe Ruth.
• Laid-off attorney shopping her services as a cleaning woman.
• In South Carolina, having sex with a client’s wife is a conflict of interest.

By: Danny Jacobs

Happy Monday! While Danielle tries not to be a hurricane, finding those delicious legal tidbits is up to me. Here we go:

• Law Shucks calls it Paul Allen’s “gift to BigLaw”: the Microsoft founder is suing Google, Apple, YouTube and other Internet giants for patent violations.
• A group of Kansans is arguing the state’s selection and appointment process for Supreme Court justices violates the 14th Amendment because some commission members are only selected by lawyers. (HT: Constitutional Law Prof.)
• Thank you, Legal Marketing Blog.com!
• Meet the lawyer who will be representing Roger Clemens in the star pitcher’s federal perjury case. (HT: WSJ’s Law Blog.)
• Disturbing, potentially devastating news from the Jersey Shore. (I never thought anything could overshadow “That’s one shot!“)

By: Steve Lash

I wonder how much my 1974 Brooks Robinson baseball card is worth?

That question came to mind as I read Liz Farmer’s article on the National Sports Collectors Convention, which opens Wednesday in Baltimore.

I found the card last weekend, as my 12-year-old son and I sifted through three shoeboxes worth of baseball cards, circa 1972-1976, which I had collected when I was younger than he.

In addition to Brooks (similar ) I came across a Belanger and a Boog (but not a Bumbry); a McNally and a Cuellar (but not a Palmer); an Etchebarren; and a Grich.

There were non-Orioles, as well, including the New York Mets Jerry Koosman, Jon Matlack, Wayne Garrett, Cleon Jones and John Milner, who made 1973 a magical summer and heart-breaking fall; Pittsburgh Pirates stars Willie Stargell, Richie Hebner, Manny Sanguillen and Rennie Stennett, whom I remember watching on NBC’s Game of the Week with Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek; and there was the Los Angeles Dodgers Al Downing (who I watched surrender Hank Aaron’s 715th homerun on April 8, 1974) and Tom House (the Atlanta Braves pitcher who I saw catch the ball in the bullpen).

Yes, I wonder how much those cards are worth… On second thought, they are not for sale.

By: Danny Jacobs

I wrote back in May about Matthew Clemmens, a New Jersey man who pleaded guilty to vomiting on another fan at a Philadelphia Philies home game.

Clemmens was sentenced Friday to 30 to 90 days in jail and 50 hours of community service for his actions. Clemmens apologized in court to the off-duty police officer who was his target. But Judge Kevin Dougherty wasn’t impressed, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Your apology, I believe, was feigned,” Dougherty said, as Clemmens stood stone-faced, both parents at his side. “I don’t know if you were trying to hit a home-run with your friends that day … but you struck out.”

The analogy probably should be ruled in an error, but you have to give the judge credit for his community service suggestion — cleaning bathrooms at Citizens Bank Park.

By: Caryn Tamber

Happy disgustingly hot Tuesday! Here are some law links to start your day:

• Pat Jessamy’s office is not doing all it can for rape victims, and now it’s jumping on the blame-the-police bandwagon, the always-controversial Page Croyder writes on her blog.
• Is Wall Street 2 a spinoff or a sequel to the original Wall Street movie? The answer could mean a lot of money to Michael Douglas’ ex-wife, Diandra, writes Jim Gross at The Maryland Divorce Legal Crier.
• Mary Keating at Maryland Employment Law Developments writes that the 4th Circuit has questioned the “equal opportunity jerk” defense, sending back a sexual harassment suit filed by a female doctor against her male boss, who made crude comments to men and women alike.
• Wow, following on the heels of the Mann Bracken implosion earlier this year, another debt-collection law firm has shut down.
• “The courts need to be there when the other branches let us down,” Dahlia Lithwick writes at Slate. “Nobody’s life story made that point better than Thurgood Marshall’s. And nobody reminded us of that fact more pointedly and more effectively at the Kagan hearings than Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee.”
• The Philly Phanatic has been sued. Again. Come on, how can you not love that face? (Seriously. I love the Phanatic. It’s weird.)

By: Danny Jacobs

If I used the terms “baseball” and “vomit-inducing” in the same sentence, you’d think I was talking about the Orioles, right? In most cases, that would be correct. But not today, when a New Jersey man “admits to vomiting assault at Phillies game,” as the headline says.

Matthew Clemmens’ guilty plea will most likely result in probation when he is sentenced at the end of July, prosecutors said.

The incident happened during an April 14 game. Clemmens and friends were sitting behind an off-duty police officer and his two children, doing the things that give Philly sports fans a bad reputation. When one of Clemmens’ friends was ejected, prosecutors said he answered a cell phone call by saying, “I need to do what I need to do. I’m going to get sick.”

At that point, Clemmens stuck his fingers down his throat and vomited on the dad and one of the daughters. (Really.)

Clemmens’ uncle offered a kind-of defense for his nephew a few days later, saying Clemmens was feeling queasy from a few extra beers and “he accidentally vomited, putting his hand in front of his mouth, and vomited on the person in front of him, which was the wrong person.”

Police are still searching for the right person.