We have been asked in recent months to look at an uncommonly large number of expert witnesses, both for clients thinking of hiring experts and by people checking out the other side’s experts. What an eye-opener. Nearly half of these people turned out to have something in their backgrounds that would give someone pause before hiring them. Consider just some of our findings: A graduate degree that could not be verified (and which seemed suspicious because of a class rank in a field that doesn’t usually rank people); A financial expert with multiple bankruptcies and tax liens in his recent history; An expert who was not allowed to testify in his area of expertise last year in federal court because a judge held that he was not competent; An expert who testified last year that his hourly rate was 20 percent lower than what he was proposing to charge our client. Is there anything special about checking out an expert versus due diligence on anyone else? For the basics, the…
Expert witnesses: Does Anyone Ever Check These People Out?
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What Happens if I Miss My Court Date?
Court can be an intimidating place. For some people, the prospect of facing judges, juries, and prosecutors is so intimidating that they decide to skip their court date altogether. The temptation to avoid making a scheduled appearance may feel strong right now, but hopefully you’ll change your mind before your calendar date comes up — because if you don’t, the judge will issue a bench warrant for your arrest. If you’ve already missed a court date, what should you do next? Our criminal defense attorneys explain. Failure to Appear in Court is a Crime Sometimes people think that if they don’t appear in court, the system will eventually forget about or give up on them. After all, judges are busy people with thousands of important matters to hear — perhaps if you don’t appear, your case will fall through the cracks over time, especially if it was a minor matter like a traffic…
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How the Proposed Fair Credit Reporting Improvement Act of 2014 would affect your credit score.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has introduced a bill in the House called the Fair Credit Reporting Improvement Act of 2014. The bill appears to be aimed at helping consumers achieve higher credit scores in a shorter time frames. Her bill includes these proposed changes: Bankruptcies currently are reported for up to 10 years. The bill will reduce this to seven years. Derogatory information such as delinquent accounts and tax liens are currently reported for up seven years from the date of the first delinquency. The bill would require the credit reporting agencies to remove these after 4 years. Entirely new – the credit reporting agencies would be required to delete any adverse item within 45 days of it being paid or settled. Hence, if you have a charged off debt on your credit report, you can settle it and have all negative reporting of that trade line removed in 45 days. Currently, we have to negotiate the removal of these trade lines…
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Two Separate Crashes Westbound I84 Causing Blockage And Congestion
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 3 Patrol 700 S. Stratford Dr., Meridian 83642 (208) 846-7550 Fax (208) 846-7520 For Immediate Release: 09/18/2014 7:26 am Please direct questions to the District Office Idaho State Police is on scene of a crash westbound on I84 at 40.5, west of the Blackcat Overpass, which is blocking the two right lanes. There is a secondary crash on the shoulder westbound I84 at 43, east of the Ten Mile interchange. Motorists should expect delays and use caution traveling in the area. DSP Initials ln / js -------------
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Motor vehicle accident injures 1 in California
Car accidents can be serious enough when regular vehicles are involved in the collision, but when a motorcycle is involved in the accident, it can be even more severe. Motorcyclists do not have the level of protection that drivers have, nor do they have the amount of mass that standard-sized vehicles have. This means that if a motorcycle is involved in an accident, a person can receive serious injuries from the collision. Unfortunately, a motor vehicle accident in California recently injured one motorcyclist. The accident took place in the morning just before 10 a.m. and involved a box truck and a motorcycle. Initial investigations reported that the box truck attempted to make a right turn in front of the motorcycle, which then struck the side of the box truck. The victim was a California Highway Patrol officer. Emergency personnel arrived at the scene of the accident and quickly took the victim to the hospital. The current condition of the injured victim was unknown…
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Members of Congress call for federal judge to resign after his domestic violence conviction
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"1 in 5 men report committing domestic violence"
From Salon: An important takeaway from the study is something that survivor advocacy organizations have been trying to reinforce for years: domestic abusers are not just people we see on the news; they are not just the Ray Rices who...
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Update/Correction: Congestion And Back-Up Eastbound on I84
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 3 Patrol 700 S. Stratford Dr., Meridian 83642 (208) 846-7550 Fax (208) 846-7520 For Immediate Release: 09/18/2014 7:26 am Please direct questions to the District Office ****Update*** Correction to earlier release: The crashes and blockage were eastbound not westbound. All lanes are open eastbound I84 between 40.5 and 43. However, there is still congestion in the area and traffic is backed up for several miles. Both crashes were non-injury. Another crash has been reported eastbound on I84 at 38 between the on and off ramps at Garrity. Idaho State Police is responding. There is no blockage. ************************** Idaho State Police is on scene of a crash eastbound on I84 at 40.5, west of the Blackcat Overpass, which is blocking the two right lanes. There is a secondary…
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Texas Executes Lisa Coleman
Texas carried out its ninth execution of 2014, lst night in Huntsville. It was the state's 517th post-Furman executions since 1982. There have been 30 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,389 post-Furman executions since...
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You Get What You Get and You Don’t Throw a Fit
My daughter is awfully fond of this expression (when applied to one of her brothers, of course). Turns out it also is apropos for this week’s court of appeals decision in State v. Shaw. Facts. The defendant in Shaw pled guilty to misdemeanor DWI in superior court. The trial court found one grossly aggravating factor, […]
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ISIS: Major Change of Hostage Media Strategy
British reporter John Cantlie was first captured by extremists in Syria in July, 2012. Here he is in a new video, calmly sitting at a table dressed in the tell-tale orange detainee garb, telling the public this is the first of a series of programs... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Federal Court Hearing Today in Oklahoma LI Challenge
Today's Tulsa World reports, "Federal judge hears testimony in death row inmates' suit," by Ziva Branstetter. A federal judge will hear a motion Thursday by the state to halt proceedings in a lawsuit by 21 death row inmates challenging Oklahoma's...
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Garden State DWI News: Could Government Seizure of Vehicles in Adjoining States Portend Jersey's Future?
Most every motorist understands intuitively that drinking while intoxicated (DWI) can be a costly undertaking, not only in terms of post-conviction fines and increased insurance premiums down the road, but also in the unfortunate event of a crash causing injury or death. Yet, regardless of the disincentives to drink and drive, hundreds of Garden State drivers are arrested every month for driving under the influence of either alcohol or drugs. Traffic safety experts and law enforcement agencies, along with lawmakers understand the continuing problem with DWI and DUI offenders, which sometimes results in heavy-handed or extreme measures to achieve certain ends. As New Jersey drunken driving defense lawyers, our job is to help those individuals who believe that they have been unjustly accused of a DWI, drug DUI or other related offense. We do see, from time to time, some rather worrisome changes in the way that certain locales treat DWI offenders, as well as those convicted of…
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Prosecutor's jeremiad against open-file law met with uncomfortable silence
Several days ago on the Texas District and County Attorneys Association user forum, prosecutor Terry Breen from Goliad suggested that, although "The TDCAA has a long standing policy of being neutral on pending legislation. This needs to change."Why? "During the last legislative session," Breen alleged, "the result of this passivity was the passage of the Michael Morton Act, which expanded the defendant's right to discovery from exculpatory and mitigating evidence--'Brady material'--to include effectively any relevant evidence, including incriminating evidence that the state might wish to not even use at trial." (This, btw, is revisionist history: TDCAA was intimately involved in negotiating the language of the Michael Morton Act; it was their decision to drop the demand for reciprocal discovery that got the deal done.)Mr. Breen believes that, "The Association should come out publicly for repeal of this ghastly and costly…
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Friday Open Thread
Scotland voted to stay in the U.K. "With 31 of 32 constituencies declared, unionists had won 55 percent of the vote while separatists were on 45 percent." The bill to arm and train "moderate" Syrian rebels has now passed in the Senate. This is... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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A Map Through the Punitive Damages Forest
Yehuda Adar, Touring the Punitive Damages Forest: A Proposed Roadmap, 1 Osservatorio Del Diritto Civile E Commerciale [The Civ. & Com. L. Observer] 275 (2012), available at SSRN. Sheila Scheuerman The questions raised by punitive damages are numerous and varied: Should punishment be a part of the civil system? Are punitive damages awards “out of control”? Should a punitive damages award be split between the State and the individual plaintiff? Should caps be placed on punitive damages? Indeed, the topic of punitive damages has been examined from competing empirical perspectives, from a comparative law analysis, from a historical angle, and the list goes on and on and on. Enter a new article by Yehuda Adar. In this thought-provoking piece, Adar offers a framework for organizing these various debates about punitive damages. In so doing, Adar provides a convenient and helpful synthesis of both the current objections to punitive damages, and the counter-arguments…
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News Roundup
Lots of interesting news this week, so let’s get right to it: Constitution Day. It was Constitution Day this week, the 227th anniversary of the constitutional convention’s proposal of what became our Constitution. Why not have Constitution Day on the anniversary of ratification? Because, as Kent Scheiddeger notes in this interesting post at Crime […]
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Above the Law: White Collar Crime
The biggest misconception about white collar crimes is that they are committed only among the wealthy. Anyone, from any socioeconomic background, within any demographic, can be susceptible to being involved in white collar crimes. These crimes are financially motivated, but may also involve taking clients from other businesses unlawfully, shifting accounts, reallocating resources, committing fraud, or unlawfully receiving government aid. White Collar Criminals Can Be Anyone Though the media focuses its attention on politicians, business moguls, celebrities, judges, and other individuals in “high powered” positions, it is not just the wealthy committing white collar crimes. For example, critics slammed the Social Security Administration for failing to adequately screen people before providing or continuing financial benefits. If someone is collecting government funds and their condition changes (i.e. they no longer are disabled, they return to work, or their medical…
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And A Cop’s Murder, Too
When Jason “J. Rock” Austin’s lawyer, Richard Kling, prepared for sentence, the charges for which the defendant stood convicted were for drug dealing. But this is America, and he stood in a federal court, which opened Austin up to sentence for “related conduct,” an innocuous way of saying that the murders of Chicago Detective Robert Soto and Kathryn Romberg were also on the table. When the State sought to prosecute Austin for the murders in 2008, the case fell apart. He was arrested, and then released after witnesses against him recanted and claimed they were coerced into pointing at J. Rock. But that case would have required a jury to be convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This was a federal court in America, so it was no longer necessary. Holding hands and crying softly in a packed federal courtroom, the victims’ relatives listened as U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow found Austin…
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When Stopped On Suspicion of DUI – Should I Blow?
When you are stopped on suspicion of DUI the question becomes – “Should I Blow?” Unfortunately, the answer is “maybe” and involves a very complicated investigation of the facts of your case and your personal history. You should NEVER refuse the test without understanding how a refusal would affect YOU. No attorney can know all of the circumstances of your arrest and your personal history, always ask to speak to an attorney when making this decision. Can you answer “TRUE” to ALL of the following questions? If so, you can politely DECLINE any police test(s) of your blood, breath, or urine with minimum impact. Be prepared and know your rights. Iaman Ohio license holder, 21 years or older; AND I wasnotinvolved in an accident involving possible death or to serious injury to ANYBODY, even members of my family, pedestrians or passengers; AND I do not have a commercial driver’s…
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