Disturbing news out of Cleveland, and it doesn’t involve the Browns. (Ba-dum!)

A judge ordered the arrest of Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Gabriel Baird on Tuesday after “he failed to appear at an abruptly scheduled hearing to determine how the newspaper obtained a psychiatric evaluation” of a suspected serial killer, according to the Plain Dealer.

Baird’s story based on the evaluation was published in November. The judge signed an arrest warrant for Baird’s arrest Tuesday afternoon, but “he was out on assignment,” according to the Plain Dealer. “Deputies then realized they could not serve the warrant because it did not contain Baird’s legal name.”

The judge dropped her request Wednesday when a fellow judge revealed himself as Baird’s source.

That raises a whole other host of questions, but it also gives a whole new spin on the open government advocacy goals of Sunshine Week.

Happy gorgeous Monday! Spring is in the air.

• House Judiciary chair Joe Vallario was disrespectful to Frederick Bealefeld at a hearing on automatic trials for people who don’t pay their tickets, The Sun’s Michael Dresser reports. The underlying bill, which would put the onus on people who want trials to request them, is very interesting as well.
• UM law student/blogger Moshe Glickman on the Shatzer 14-day Miranda ruling: “I under­stand that the police prac­ti­cally require a bright-line rule when they’re in the field. I respect the dif­fi­culty in for­mu­lat­ing such a rule. I seri­ously ques­tion whether this rule makes any sense whatsoever.”
• Above the Law weighs in on the Supreme Court’s cert grant in the Westboro Baptist Church case, which, of course, comes out of our own federal district. Elie Mystal writes, “So, if I’m a liberal that loves the First amendment and gays, what am I supposed to do?”
• The Charlotte Observer ran a heartwarming story over the weekend about a politician there who discovered that he was adopted and found his birth parents. His birth father, it turns out, is a politician too–a Maryland state delegate.
• Should the next SCOTUS justice be a Protestant? Does it matter? Is it OK to even discuss religion and the court?

Ohio State law professor Christopher M. Fairman offered his take Sunday about the controversy over the use of the word “retard.” Fairman said he would not be signing a petition championed by the Special Olympics to ban the use of “the r-word,” which is not surprising considering he is the author of this book.

There were two main points I took away from Fairman’s essay in The Washington Post:

1. “Words themselves are not the culprit; the meaning we attach to them is, and such meanings change dramatically over time and across communities”
2. “Invariably, negative connotations materialize around whatever new word is used. …This illustrates one of the recurring follies of speech restriction: While there may be another word to use, a negative connotation eventually is found. Offense – both given and taken – is inevitable.”

Fairman also notes courts have found government-backed “speech codes” unconstitutional.

Reaction to Fairman’s essay has been strong, including opposing views from Post columnist Michael Gerson and Timothy Shriver, president of the Special Olympics. And perhaps the most prominent opponent of the word “retard” lately has been Sarah Palin.

Washington Post readers had a chance to respond to Fairman as well during an online chat. What do you think of his position? Should “the r-word” be considered on par with “the n-word”?

I’ve come to view the social norms of the courtroom as very similar to a house of worship. You dress up nice, speak in hushed tones and try not to snore during a sermon or closing argument.

I also know you don’t whip out your cell phone in either sanctuary. If you have to call someone or need to have an in-depth conversation, you step out into the hallway as far away from everyone else as possible. It’s both considerate and common sense.

I was thinking about this as I read Andy Green’s criticism of the Baltimore City Circuit Court’s ban on Twitter in the courthouse, prompted by the Dixon trial and verdict. As The Daily Record’s Official Dixon Verdict Tweeter, I guess I’m part of the reason why the ban was enacted.

My tweets, for the record, came from the hallway outside the courtroom. Granted, most of my tweeting was done while we were awaiting a verdict, so I wasn’t leaving the courtroom during any proceeding. But when court was in session, I would try to leave quietly during a break in the action, even if that was simply someone else speaking.

Of course, the nature of the Dixon trial meant there were at least a half-dozen people “quietly” leaving the courtroom at the same time as me. Judge Dennis M. Sweeney solved the problem on at least two occasions by allowing a group of reporters to sit in the back of the courtroom and leave to Tweet and report on his cue. Once we left the courtroom, though, we were not allowed back inside until the proceeding ended.

So while you’re “working” from home today, answer me this: How would you handle Twitter if you were a judge?

If your kid’s teacher makes disparaging comments about religion, is it a First Amendment Establishment Clause violation?

The 9th Circuit will consider that question. The WSJ Law Blog writes:

The teacher, James Corbett of Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo (which graduated former Los Angeles Raider Todd Marinovich) referred to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a 2007 lecture. Corbett made a host of other controversial statements as well. One of his students, Chad Farnan, sued Corbett and the school district, alleging a violation of his First Amendment Rights.

In May, a federal judge in Santa Ana, Calif., James Selna, granted summary judgment, partly in favor of Farnan and partly in favor of the defendants. Click here for the opinion. Specifically, Judge James Selna ruled that the “superstitious nonsense” comment violated Farnan’s rights, but ruled that nearly two dozen statements did not. Both sides appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

What do you think? Was the teacher out of line? Constitutionally? Professionally?

On Saturday, I spent a rejuvenating morning serving as a judge for the semi-final round of a moot-court competition hosted by American University’s Washington College of Law.

My service to the Burton D. Wechsler First Amendment Moot Court Competition stirred me in three ways:

1. It made me feel 20 years younger, when I nervously stood as a law student waiting to be grilled by “judges” at the same school;

2. It enabled me to step out of the role of spectator (I have reported on oral arguments for two decades) and participate in the enterprise; and

3. As a husband — and father of a teen and a tween — it was refreshing to have people listen to me and answer my questions.

It also didn’t hurt that the fact pattern and issue were right up my alley.

The head of research and development at a major high-tech company was suing for libel a blogger who had accused him online of running a Mumbaian sweatshop where child laborers built computer components.

The issue before the moot court was whether the company executive qualified as a “public figure” or “private person” under the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence, a critical distinction that largely determines who wins the case.

Public figures, to prove libel, have the heavy burden of showing that the reporter wrote an erroneous story either knowing it was false or with a reckless disregard for the truth.  Private individuals need only show that the journalist was negligent in reporting a story that was  untrue.

The three-judge panel on which I served — as “chief” no less — ruled for the reporter. Imagine that.

Happy Monday! High of 85 today–now that’s the way I remember September in Baltimore. Here are a few law links to start your week:

• A dispute over the Pasadena-based National Breast & Ovarian Cancer Connection‘s name could lead to the organization going under.
• Work in a law firm first, consider going to school at night, be aware that your law school will lie to you, and other advice for prospective lawyers from John Bratt.
• For lawyers, free speech has its limits.
• Law firms are gay-friendly places to work, says the Human Rights Campaign. HT: ABA Journal.
• “Victim impact statements have received such widespread support because they promote justice without interfering with any legitimate interests of criminal defendants,” writes law prof Paul Cassell in “In Defense of Victim Impact Statements.” HT: The Crime Report.

Quick - what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see this proposed license plate?

For those of you with your minds in the gutter, it was actually Kelley Coffman-Lee’s attempt to announce her fondness for tofu. But the proposed vanity license plate could be interpreted as her fondness for… um… something else, which led the Colorado Deparment of Revenue to deny Coffman’s request last month.

Now comes word the state actually keeps a list of unacceptable letter combinations under a law allowing authorities to ban potential license plates that are “offensive to good taste or decency.” The list currently has close to 3,000 entries.

This does not sit well with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which obtained the list and believes authorities are unjustly censoring residents. The organization now has a section on its Web site devoted to vanity license plates and teases a “Vanity Plate Game” will soon be added.

Sounds gr8 to me.

I was a student at the University of Maryland a few years ago when “Deep Throat” was shown at the Hoff Theater on campus. While I was surprised 530 students attended (The Apex on South Broadway probably would kill for that kind of turnout), I didn’t think much else of it.

So when I read Hoff was going to screen another porn earlier last week, I wasn’t too shocked. But then a funny thing happened: the movie became a political cause in more ways than one. Legislators threatened to withhold funding from the university if the film went on as planned, and an on-campus political party hosted a screening of part of the film days before the Student Government Association election. Today, the state Senate thankfully rejected a silly budget amendment that would have withheld construction funds at state schools unless they developed a porn policy. Not since Mary Carey ran for governor of California have porn and politics been so closely tied together. 

As an alum, however, what bothers me most about this whole episdoe was the university’s decision to cancel the screening in the first place. The independent campus newspaper The Diamondback, in a spot-on editorial, summarized my feelings about university administrators:

They have encouraged short-sighted state legislators to make empty threats to meddle with the very information the university distributes. We simply don’t believe state legislators would shut down the most productive source of education, a gem of the state, because Hoff showed some bouncing breasts. But potentially worse, administrators have declared in unequivocal terms they don’t need student input before regulating the content supported by this university.

The apparent endgame to this is the University System of Maryland, which oversees the public institutions in the state, will now develop a porn policy for all state campuses. A USM official called the porn controversy a “tragedy.” I call it a self-inflicted wound.

Prince George’s County officials argued in vain to U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis that alcohol and exotic dancers shouldn’t mix. The combination leads to gun violence and other crimes, the county said.

Garbis on Wednesday struck down as unconstitutional a law calling for the revocation of liquor licenses to bars that feature exotic dancing. The judge, who sits in Baltimore, said the broadly worded law effectively banned the controversial dancing and infringed on the First Amendment freedom of expression.

County officials tried to defend the law as “narrowly tailored” to achieve the “substantial” governmental goal of preventing criminal activity that they said exotic dancing — mixed with alcohol — attracts. But Garbis rejected the argument, stating in his opinion that the county had failed to provide sufficient evidence of these alleged “harmful secondary effects” of what used to be called gentlemen’s clubs.

Meanwhile, the county this year has endured violence near bars, some which feature exotic dancing and some that do not.

Bernard Irvin was stabbed to death Jan. 31 at the Legend Night Club in Temple Mills, which has the dancing and successfully challenged the law, Gazette.Net reported.

On Tuesday night, a day before Garbis’ decision, a vigil was held near the Tradewinds nightclub. Family and friends of Darryl Robinson II gathered across the street from the Temple Mills establishment, near where the 28-year-old was shot and killed on Jan. 31, Gazette.Net added.

According to Gazette.Net:

Robinson’s death was among several in recent years near county entertainment hotspots. In March 2007, nine nightclubs were shut down after 11 people were killed in only 11 days. Former Police Chief Melvin High was granted the authority to shut down any venues he saw as an “imminent danger.”

The article also mentions the March death of a Bowie man at The Sideline Bar and Grill, the Largo sports bar owned by former Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington.

In light of these deaths, should Garbis have taken judicial notice of the county’s asserted link among alcohol, exotic dancing and violence and upheld the law as a justified restriction on the First Amendment?