On the Record

Welcome back to work on this cold and dreary Monday. Here are some law links to brighten your day:

• President Obama’s former bodyguard is looking to unseat U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin.
• The Washington County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association has been keeping for itself 20 percent of the gaming money the state requires the county to pass on to the association instead of giving it to the local volunteer fire and rescue companies. That’s according to a yearlong Herald-Mail investigation.
• A roundup of Supreme Court case roundups in the roundup.
• Wading into social media in the workplace and labor laws.
• The Baltimore Police Department is investigating arson cases involving Molotov cocktails.
• The Sopranos, baby daddies, strip clubs, mob bosses — it’s all here in this complaint.
• California governor cuts male circumcision measure.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Registration is reportedly full for today’’s University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law School convocation featuring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

But never fear: Daily Record reporter Andy Marso (that would be me), will be live-tweeting the event. Follow me, @andymarso, or catch my re-tweets from@mddailyrecord.

Sotomayor became the first Hispanic justice in 2009 and the third woman to sit on the top court. She’s also the first Supreme Court justice to visit UM law since Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2002.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Congratulations on surviving the wind and rain over the weekend. I hope these items add a little extra sunshine to your Monday.

• Reality TV comes to Mexico, to the presumed dismay of criminal defense attorneys.

• This case will not make momma happy.

• Did a paperwork snafu add to Chicago widow’s pain?

• L.A. Law: Middle School.

• Due diligence includes the judge.

• The Supreme Court gets by with a little help from its friends.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Welcome to this rain-delayed law blog roundup. Hope you brought an umbrella!

• Michael Radcliffe, a Baltimore County attorney who suffered from ALS, has passed away. Family members paid tribute to him at a memorial service last week. We’ve written a number of stories on Michael and the efforts to raise money in support of ALS research. You can read more about him here.
• Hey, Scalia, Roberts, Ginsburg, et. al. — think you could clarify your ruling on our Second Amendment rights?
• Now in the Tenth Circuit, lawyers can strike jurors for their drug reform views in criminal cases.
• Keeping young associates in line, ethically speaking.
• Apparently, it can only be employee retaliation if the person actually works for you.
• Anything — and everything — goes when Howrey auctions off the contents of its old offices on Pennsylvania Avenue Friday. We’re talking leather Chesterfield sofas, built-in cabinets, marble-topped tables, a Blodgett commercial catering oven. You name it, they’ve got it.
• Did Rachel Maddow defame Christian rocker Bradlee Dean?

Powered by Bookmarkify™

When people ask Brian Lamb, CEO of C-SPAN, when we’re going to see cameras in the Supreme Court, instead of answering, he asks them a question instead.

“Where is the jury box in the Supreme Court?” he asks.

Lamb told a group of lawyers, journalists and court public information officers at a conference Wednesday on modern media and the courts (put on by the Reynolds National Center for Courts & Media) the surprising thing is how many people say, “Oh, yeah, it’s right next to the chief justice.”

D’oh.

Sounds like we could use cameras in the Supreme Court, and pronto.

Some outsiders, like Arlen Specter, have wanted to mandate cameras in the court and gotten nowhere. Other insiders, like Justice Anthony Kennedy, have asked Congress not to consider allowing cameras in the court.

Lamb said he has sent the justices letters detailing why he believes cameras in the court would be best for the public, but he realizes it’s not his letters that are going to change their minds.

The Supreme Court will open its doors to cameras when the justices decide it’s time for the public to know the location of the jury box.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Welcome to this post-July 4th special Tuesday law blog roundup. Hopefully you got your fill of barbeque and mosquito bites this weekend and you’re ready to settle in for some law links.

• New York papers reporting that the DA is likely to drop charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn before his July 18 trial is set to begin.
• How to use defense medical experts to your advantage.
• Mob associate’s wife sues wedding photographer for selling her wedding photos to the New York Daily News.
• Celebrating the single father?
• Should the Supreme Court be more pro-business?
• Varying state and local food information laws are giving food makers a headache – but now some of those laws are being reined in.
• Take a look at Mark Twain’s bra patent.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Welcome back to the roundup. Friday’s approval of same-sex marriage in New York has advocates hoping that New York’s passage of the law will revive interest here. Read on for more law links.

• Chief Justice John Roberts is uncomfortable with cameras in the Supreme Court.
• Changes to Maryland’s teen driving laws have significantly lowered teen fatalities.
• Public interest careers on the rise for law school grads.
• State Del. Dana Stein’s novel on climate change will likely rankle global warming non-believers.
• Reporter Stephen Janis has teamed up with a former homicide detective for a new book questioning why we kill, which looks at some of Baltimore’s most brutal homicide cases.
• A blast from the past — Baltimore County Bar Association members hammed it up in the ’80s.
• Mirriam Seddiq rants about government regulations.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Welcome back to the roundup. Ease into the week with some of the latest law links:

• This should be obvious, but one local lawyer says when when handling a social media crisis, don’t act like Anthony Weiner.
• An American lawyer and a professor celebrated the first public lesbian wedding in Nepal.
• What’s the best way to cross-examine defense medical experts? Why, use their own ethics code against them, of course.
• Isolating race bias in the workplace is difficult.
• Mirriam Seddiq rants on the latest inaction on immigration reform and the FBI’s new guidelines.
• NFL’s Mr. Irrelevant wins a $5.4 million default judgement.
• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (above) is drawing more attention to himself with what the New York Times calls an “ethically sensitive” friendship with a Dallas real estate magnate.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Tyler Hamilton

Happy Monday. Get your week going with a dose of legal links below:

• Local lawyer and blogger named in a lawsuit (along with more than 70 others) for blogging about a lawyer’s missteps in trial.
• Maryland judges’ pensions remain intact, despite cuts elsewhere.
• Benjamin Polakoff, a former lawyer with Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, sets off on his own.
• Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is asking the American Bar Association to push harder for law school transparency on job prospects for students.
• Baltimore attorney Paul Mark Sandler writes in the National Law Journal that lawyers should be vigilant about keeping jurors offline.
• Supreme Court may hear case on tuition breaks for illegal immigrants.
• Why did cyclist Tyler Hamilton (above)  come clean?

Powered by Bookmarkify™

It’s a Web journalism truism that blog readers love lists, so this seems a good forum to present the five worst Supreme Court decisions ever.

Sister blog DC Dicta has the lowdown via a story by the Los Angeles Times chronicling a discussion among legal scholars at Pepperdine University.

It doesn’t appear these are in any sort of order of egregiousness, so give us your pick for the worst Supreme Court decision ever in the comments. Here’s the list, with details at DC Dicta:

1. Korematsu v. United States
2. Dred Scott v. Sandford
3. Plessy v. Ferguson
4. Buck v. Bell
5. Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins

Powered by Bookmarkify™