Welcome to Monday, and the 110th anniversary of the first game played by the New York Highlanders (later, and better known, as the Yankees). Here are some news items to get your week started.

– Where should Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev be tried?

– Should Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy apologize to gun makers?

– Does a car passenger have the right to leave the vehicle after the driver’s arrest for alleged drunk driving?

– Justice might be delayed but not denied in Brazil.

Welcome to Monday and the final day of the 2013 Maryland General Assembly session. Here are a few news items to get the week started.

– The dean of the Supreme Court press corps explains the same-sex marriage cases to a foreign audience.

– The National Football League will urge federal judge to kick a lawsuit out of court.

– A friend’s call for a Navy investigation of an alleged suicide sounds like an “NCIS” episode.

– New York politicians urge city to settle lawsuit that followed 1990 attack on Central Park jogger.

Happy Monday, Happy Holy Week and Happy Passover!

Here are some items to get your week of piety started.

– A look at the role of federalism in the upcoming Supreme Court arguments on same-sex marriage.

– In other Supreme Court news, the high court has agreed to hear another case involving affirmative action and college admissions.

– In case you missed it last week, “Mr. Burns” presided over the trial of “Bart Simpson.”

– Did you hear the one about the law school student who fell off a classroom chair and sued?  (HT: Above the Law)

– That laser pointer you use for your presentations might be illegal.

Another Monday, another law blog roundup. We tried to find some lighthearted stuff, but this one is written with a heavy heart.

– Slate’s Emily Bazelon on Sandy Hook Elementary School and gun culture

– For John Bratt’s feelings on a certain aspect of written discovery, the title of his Baltimore Injury Lawyer blog post says it all.

– An interesting look at the intersection of gay marriage and affirmative action at the Supreme Court

– The right way to address students when a professors screws up giving the final exam. (HT: Above the Law)

Welcome to Monday and the morning after a crushing Ravens defeat. Here are some news items to start the recovery.

– This smuggling case is for the birds.

– Banks face lawsuits despite nationwide settlement.

– First televised criminal trial in Illinois raises a question of privilege.

– Woman who owes $163 million judgment might be hiding on island paradise.

What do sentencing guidelines say about chutzpah?

A Baltimore man convicted of Social Security fraud in federal court this week not only was fraudulently collecting disability benefits, but he also did it while he worked for the Social Security Administration.

Christopher George Perry, 50, was found guilty by a jury in U.S. District Court in Baltimore of Social Security disability fraud, federal health benefit program fraud and health care fraud.

Perry began receiving Social Security long-term disability payments in 1996, according to evidence during the four-day trial, but he went back to work during that year while continuing to draw payments. Two years later, Perry added Medicare benefits under his disability and then, in 2007, he got a low-income prescription subsidy via Medicare.

However, Perry was working various jobs and attending college during this time. In 2007, he got a job with the Social Security Administration as a benefits authorizer. His work assignment? Long-term disability cases. He would certainly seem to have some expertise in that area.

At trial, Perry was said to have collected more than $150,000 he wasn’t entitled to. Sentencing is in January.

And this kind of double-dipping is far worse than anything George Constanza ever did.

Before the story of Ronald Post veers into “odd news” territory, here are the sobering facts: Post was convicted in 1985 of murdering a hotel desk clerk two years earlier and sentenced to death. He is scheduled to die in January.

But his lawyers have argued that the 6-foot-3-inch, 480-lb. Post should not be executed because he is “morbidly obese.” They argued in a federal court filing late last week that Post’s weight and poor veins “have a substantial likelihood of causing severe complications with attempts at an intravenous execution,” meaning his death could be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Post’s lawyers say their client wants to lose weight and has even been denied gastric bypass surgery by prison officials. Post’s attempts to keep weight off have been thwarted by back and knee problems, the lawyers said, and he had been using an exercise bike “until it broke under his weight.”

I started reading a related story that included some details about failed attempts of inserting IVs into large inmates but I got woozy halfway through.

All of this leads me to one question: If Post’s appeal is denied and his execution goes on as planned, what will he choose for his last meal?

One of the arguments being advanced against the NCAA penalties on Penn State for its action and inaction related to the Sandusky crimes is that athletes, coaches and administrators who had nothing to do with the transgressions will be unfairly punished.

This is a point heard time and again about any penalties meted out by the NCAA. It’s the nature of college sports that the bad actors are often long gone by the time the NCAA finishes investigating rules violations.

For example, football coach Pete Carroll and star running back Reggie Bush had moved on to the NFL before the NCAA penalized the University of Southern California for violations that occurred when both were at USC. (Carroll has denied any involvement in “extra benefits” for Bush, who has not admitted he broke NCAA rules.)

The problem with this argument is that, taken to its logical conclusion, the NCAA could almost never punish anyone. Sanctions nearly always hit another set of athletes who weren’t even around when the violations happened. There’s often a new coach, because the rule-breaking cost the old one his job. And if enough bad stuff has happened, there may be a new set of athletic department administrators, too.

Criticize the NCAA all you want — and there is plenty to pick at — but if it’s going to be charged with enforcing rules, it’s an unfortunate byproduct of the system that a new group will pay for the sins of its predecessors.

So it turns out that, contrary to all appearances, Jay-Z is not the world’s foremost legal scholar after all.

Caleb Mason, a law professor at Southwestern Law School recently published a 19 page legal analysis of Jay-Z’s 2004 hit “99 Problems” in the “Saint Louis University Law Journal.”

In it, Mason picks apart the second verse of the song line by line and describes its various legal implications. (In the song, Jay-Z admits he “ain’t passed the bar” but contends he still knows a little bit about the law.)

For those unfamiliar with Hov’s masterpiece, the second verse describes an encounter with a racist police officer who pulls him over for driving one mile an hour above the speed limit. (Jay-Z says the account is based on a real incident.)

Jay-Z mulls the option of stepping on the gas and giving the officer a chase, as he is carrying narcotics in his trunk, but decides against it because he has the financial means to fight the case in court if need be.

The officer asks to look around the car a little bit, to which Jay-Z responds, “Well my glove compartment is locked so is the trunk and the back, and I know my rights so you gon’ need a warrant for that.”

Read the rest of this entry »

An artist at the center of battles challenging peddling laws in Baltimore and Ocean City will be the center of attention at a Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts fundraiser Thursday night.

Spray-paint artist Mark Chase will be performing and donating his works to the fundraiser, “Fiesta de los Abogados y Artistes” in the courtyard at Baltimore’s Union Mill. (“Abogados” is Spanish for “lawyer.”)

Chase, the man behind Stellar Paintings, successfully challenged Ocean City’s regulations for street performers, which will be in effect if you’re walking on the Boardwalk this summer. (That’s his painting, “Jupiter Rising,” at left.)

In February, Chase was acquitted on charges of peddling without a permit in Baltimore when a federal judge ruled officers never saw him selling anything.

Chase also has plans to challenge Baltimore’s peddling restrictions much like he did Ocean City’s.