The website lawofficer.com this week offered this defense of the rule giving police officers who shoot someone 48 hours before they can be questioned by their employer about the incident.The call for the Portland Police Department to remove the “48 hour rule” that is currently required before an officer can be interviewed following a deadly shooting is another attack on law enforcement that may seem harmless to some but it is dangerous to the profession.The demand made by a police oversight panel is just another uneducated, baseless request that makes no sense unless you want to harm law enforcement.Of course the rule exists, hopefully in every agency, because of the sound research and past history of interviewing officers immediately after a critical incident. One component of a high stress situation is a loss of memory. Research calls it a “memory gap” and immediately after a shooting or other high stress event, those involved will…
The (weak) case for waiting 48 hours before questioning cops about shootings
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Revocable Divorces vs. US Immigration
Marriage and divorce is understood differently across various cultures. That leads to different laws regarding marriage and divorce. We last touched on this subject back in 2010 in our Blawg post "A Marriage Is A Marriage, But Is A Divorce A Divorce?" Since then, the interplay of foreign marital law and US immigration law has continued to complicate matters for people who simplistically thought they could just file a petition and bring their new spouse over.One issue that came up recently is the US law treatment at of "revocable divorces" under shari'ah, or Islamic law. Shari'ah provides a type of divorce called a "revocable divorce" (talaq raj'ee) where a husband may divorce his wife, but if they resume marital relations within a three-month period (known as the iddah) thereafter, the pronouncement of divorce is revoked and the husband and wife remain married. This can only be done twice in the life of a marriage; if it…
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Tips For Avoiding A DUI on Cinco De Mayo
Happy Cinco de Mayo! Many people believe that Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican version of the Fourth of July here in America, but that’s not actually the case. Cinco de Mayo is not a celebration of Mexico gaining its independence, it’s actually a celebration of the anniversary of the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over Napoleon and the French forces at the Battle of Pueblo on May 5, 1862. Regardless of your knowledge of the holiday, many people use Cinco de Mayo as another a reason to indulge in some chimichangas and margaritas. So while you may be looking forward to drinking and dancing the night away, you need to remember that police will be out in full looking for drunk drivers and other law breakers. Cinco de Mayo DUI There are a lot of Cinco de Mayo events taking place in the Twin Cities metro and surrounding areas today and this weekend, but you still need to remember to keep it in check. If you’re going to be staying out and enjoying some adult…
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Covey on Sentencing
Russell D. Covey (Georgia State University College of Law) has posted Rules, Standards, Sentencing, and the Nature of Law (California Law Review, Vol. 104, 2016) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Sentencing law and practice in the United States can...
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Rolling Stones Tell Trump to Stop Using Their Songs
The Rolling Stones have sent a cease and desist letter to Donald Trump, telling him to stop using their music. They released a statement to the media saying they never gave him permission. I suggested such a letter two weeks ago when I heard the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Sentenced to Eight Years in Jail for a Miscarriage
By Debbie Sharnak, Argentina-Paraguay country specialist and Magdalena Medley, Women’s Human Rights thematic specialist A 27-year-old woman, known as Belén to protect her identity, has spent the past two years in pre-trial detention accused of self-inducting a miscarriage. After the accusations, Belén was arrested by authorities because abortion is illegal in Argentina except under certain circumstances. Belén, however, denies these allegations and tells a different story. After suffering from abdominal pain, Belén went to her local hospital in the northern province of Tucumán, Argentina to be examined. The doctors referred her to a gynecologist after observing heavy bleeding. She was informed she was having a miscarriage after 22 weeks of pregnancy. Until this point, Belén was unaware of her pregnancy. Events developed quickly after the initial exam. Belén had to undergo surgery and when she woke up, she was…
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Cinco de Mayo DUI: What To Do If You Were Arrested in Florida
Cinco de Mayo is viewed as an American drinking holiday, just like St. Patrick’s Day, New Year’s Eve and Halloween. On the fifth of May, there is usually a rise in DUI arrests due to local law enforcement officers cracking down on drunk drivers using DUI checkpoints. If you have found yourself facing DUI charges, it is best to speak with a Florida DUI Defense Lawyer at Whittel & Melton as soon as possible so that you can better understand your legal rights. We understand how to help you build the strongest possible case for DUI charges. We will start by collecting and analyzing the facts surrounding your case, including why the police stopped you in the first place and how they tested your blood alcohol content level. Did you know that Breathalyzers can malfunction? Police can even make errors when it comes to the proper methods for administering these tests. A further investigation into the testing procedures could show that the equipment used may not have…
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Michigan v. Paul Seewald
In 2012, Paul Seewald, who at the time was a congressional aide and district director for ex-U.S. Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, was charged with nine counts of falsely signing nominating petitions after he and other members of the congressman’s campaign were accused of trying to get McCotter’s name on the ballot in his reelection efforts by submitting bogus petition information. The nine counts were misdemeanors, however Seewald was also charged with a single count of conspiring to commit a legal act in an illegal manner, which is a felony. Seewald was the subject of a criminal investigation after it was alleged that he signed a petition as a circulator, although court documents reveal the petition was not circulated. Seewald and Don Yowchuang, an alleged co-conspirator who also worked in the district office of the former congressman during the 2012 reelection campaign, were partially responsible for collecting a minimum of 1,000 valid voter signatures to be…
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Senators Take Steps to Ban Arbitration Clauses in Telecommunications Contracts
On Thursday April 28, 2016, Senators Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) proposed legislation that would ban arbitration clauses in telecommunication service contracts. The proposed bill, the Justice for Telecommunications Consumers Act of 2016, would invalidate “any agreement to arbitrate a dispute that has not yet arisen at the time of the making of [an] agreement” for mobile phone service, internet services, multichannel programming services, and other telecommunications services offered by a common carrier. According to Sen. Franken, a longtime opponent of mandatory arbitration provisions, “[f]orced arbitration clauses are often buried in the fine print of agreements we sign each and every day–like cable, Internet, and cell phone contracts–and they strip away rights from the American consumer.” Sen. Franken claimed in a press release that the proposed bill would “reopen the courtroom doors to Americans who…
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Lawsuit Filed in Snapchat Crash
Attorney Page Pate talks with Atlanta news WXIA 11Alive about a recent lawsuit brought by a Georgia family against the selfie-sharing mobile social media app, Snapchat. The victim’s family alleges… read more → The post Lawsuit Filed in Snapchat Crash appeared first on .
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Change of Venue in Hot Car Death Case
Attorney Page Pate appears on Fox 5 Good Day Atlanta to talk about Judge Staley’s decision, “in an abundance of caution,” to move the trial for Ross Harris in the… read more → The post Change of Venue in Hot Car Death Case appeared first on .
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Obama Commutes 58 More Drug Sentences
President Obama commuted 58 sentences today. 57 of the 58 inmates are drug offenders. His statement is here. He called for Congress to reform unjust mandatory minimum sentences. While I will continue to review clemency applications, only... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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News Roundup
Earlier this year, the News Roundup noted that the United States Supreme Court held in Hurst v. Florida that Florida’s capital sentencing scheme was unconstitutional under the Sixth Amendment because it permitted a judge to increase a defendant’s maximum authorized punishment based on the judge’s own factfinding rather than that of a jury. The Defender Manual has an overview of the development of the Court’s Sixth Amendment jurisprudence on this issue here. Now the Florida Supreme Court has to decide what to do about the nearly 400 inmates awaiting execution who were sentenced under the unconstitutional scheme. The Palm Beach Post reports that former Florida Supreme Court justices were “among a handful of leading lawyers,” including two former American Bar Association presidents, calling for the court to impose life sentences on all of the inmates in a blanket commutation. Closer to home, the North Carolina Court of…
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Is it Time to Overrule the Trademark Classification Scheme?
Jake Linford, Are Trademarks Ever Fanciful?, 105 Geo. L.J. (forthcoming), available at SSRN. Lisa Larrimore Ouellette Trademark law protects distinctive marks: ones that identify the source of goods or services and distinguish them from others in the marketplace. But how should courts determine whether consumers view a mark as distinctive? In an attempt to provide some analytical rigor to this essential question, courts have developed a complicated two-prong test: they look to both “inherent distinctiveness” (i.e., linguistic uniqueness) and “acquired distinctiveness” (i.e., whether consumers have come to see the mark as distinctive of source). Inherent distinctiveness for word marks is based on the so-called Abercrombie spectrum (named after the 1976 2d Cir. case that most famously articulated it), which classifies marks from most to least distinctive as fanciful (KODAK cameras), arbitrary (APPLE computers), suggestive (COPPERTONE suntan lotion),…
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Kelly Farrell Rocks.
Kelly, what was it that led to an ingenious moment like that?I mean yesterday's headline was so friggin' perfect. So spot on.Was it a new pair of Cons? A new pair of those Ivy League glasses that you wear?Or, was it just a moment of pure genius? Or damn it, are you going to start letting your freak flag fly high?Yes, this was Kelly's lead headline in yesterday's Hobbs News Sun:Yelling 'Boo' Lands Man In Jail For AssaultPerfecto.Wraps up how silly local law enforcement can be in eight words.But, Kelly took the easy road. You see the accused man yelled "Boo" at a City Attorney, but Kelly didn't name the City Attorney, Why? C'mon Kelly, Cortez wouldn't be that embarrassed would he? Efren wouldn't be afraid of a little ol' "Boo" would he? What I learned from yesterday's paper: (1) Kelly Farrell is so superbad, and (2) quite possibly, Efren Cortez is…
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North Carolina Meets The Rule of Bureaucrats
United States Marshals escorted 6-year-old Ruby Nell Bridges to William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. It came after the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education. Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis was held in contempt for refusing to issue a marriage license to David Ermold and David Moore. It came after the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory received a letter informing him that a law enacted by the state covering, inter alia, the use of bathrooms by transgender people must be abandoned or the state would lose billions of dollars in federal monies, primarily in education funding. It came after Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Vanita Gupta, decided that the law violated her interpretation of what constituted discrimination. The Justice Department warned the State of North Carolina on…
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The ABA And Its Favorite Flavor Of Ethics
Before anyone gets too worked up, there are two critical points worth noting: First, this is not yet a done deal, as even within the lean-in group formerly known as the American Bar Association, there are lawyers, even academics, who refuse to allow their feelings to trump their intellectual honesty. They know this is a mad dash down the road to perdition. Second, the ABA’s model rules are suggestions. States can then choose whether to incorporate them into the actual code of ethics or laugh at them. The ABA has already lost what little credibility remained when it decided to hop aboard the diversity and inclusion train. Yet, there remains this inkling of fear that either codgers who remember the ABA when it was relevant, or youngsters and academics, who tend to become involved with committees to either establish their brand or further their political agenda, will take this seriously. And for that reason, it’s worth noting that the latest effort to…
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Hobbs: Carl's Jr. Opens Today
At 3 P.M.
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Tyler Palmer of Miami-Dade, Florida Arrested for Possession of Cocaine and Marijuana
Tyler Palmer, son of Police Major Arnold Palmer of Miami-Dade, Florida was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly dealing marijuana, cocaine, and other drugs. Palmer, 20, is charged with cocaine trafficking, possession of hallucinogens and amphetamines, and possession of marijuana with intent to sell. He is being held in lieu of $65,000 bond. The press did not specify an attorney for Palmer. According to the arrest report, detectives from the internal affairs division of the Miami-Dade Police Department served Palmer a search warrant at his father’s home. The detectives purportedly found a large amount of drugs in Palmer’s bedroom. This purportedly included three clear bags suspected to contain cocainee in a dresser, several other bags of cocaine in a box under his bed, eight clear bags of marijuana, two medicine bottles suspected to contain 15 amphetamine pills, and a small bag of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Palmer’s father, Arnold Palmer was not arrested.…
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A Lie Too Far?
At Techdirt, Tim Cushing writes about a doggie search on an Amtrak train from Chi-town to the left coast. During a stop in Nevada, Detective Madhu Kurup decided to take advantage of Shaun Estes’ desire for a quick smoke. Shaun Estes, who was traveling by train from Chicago to California, was confronted by Amtrak detectives (yes, there is such a thing) while smoking a cigarette during a brief stop in Reno, Nevada. Detective Madhu Kurup approached Estes based on nothing more than the fact that Estes’ one-way ticket had been purchased with a credit card belonging to someone else. Seeing this on the passenger manifest, Kurup requested the assistance of local officers and their drug dog. That’s when things went from bad to worse to farcical. Estes was asked if he was carrying any drugs, weapons or [cash register noise] “large amounts of money.” Estes claimed he wasn’t. Kurup asked for permission to search Estes’ cabin and…
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