Category Archives: news!

Defining Pimpin’ Aint Easy

Jomo Zambia wants his previous conviction for pandering expunged despite already serving his four year jail sentence, leaving the California Supreme Court to mull over Too $hort and 50 Cent lyrics. Specifically the Court has been trying to figure out exactly what the California definition of pandering means: a crime for anyone who “induces, persuades or encourages another person to become a prostitute.”

What Zambia’s lawyer contends is that only a pimp who recruits innocent victims and not working already prostitutes can be guilty of the offense of pandering. All other pimps are merely guilty of attempting to pander or solicitation of a prostitute. “You can’t become what you already are,” Zambia’s attorney, Vanessa Place, argued.

And her argument seems to have legs (fishnet-clad ones at that). While Justices Marvin Baxter, Ming Chin and Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian seemed ready to side with the state, Justice Joyce Kennard said Zambia made a compelling argument. “When one is already a prostitute, one can’t be encouraged to be a prostitute,” Kennard said. “That seems to be a common-sense interpretation.”

Read more about the origins of the word pimp in a 2008 Slate article and forward it along to the Court while you’re at it.

From the Chron.

Law Jobs Evaporating Right Before Your Very Eyes

Mike Lynch, the founder of Autonomy, is convinced that “legal is a sector that will likely employ fewer, not more, people in the U.S. in the future.” He estimated that the shift from manual document discovery to e-discovery would lead to a manpower reduction in which one lawyer would suffice for work that once required 500 and that the newest generation of software, which can detect duplicates and find clusters of important documents on a particular topic, could cut the head count by another 50 percent.

With the improvement of computer’s ability to understand, the once common practice of hiring armies of attorneys to sift through discovery documents will be rendered obsolete. Advancements in computer’s linguistic and sociological capabilities means smaller firms can handle more complex cases, which in turn means fewer attorneys are needed.

But is this a bad thing? There are fewer job openings and more attorneys than ever before, but is it really necessary to pay a legal professional $400/hour to process data. One would hope this would open up an attorney to do more complex, necessary work than mere document review. When one attorney can do the work of 500, the other 499 can work on more pressing issues like writing motions, researching precedent, and arguing their cases. Hey, maybe they can even spend some more time on the indigent and underrepresented.

Or maybe there will just be more unemployed, over-educated people with stagnating student loans. As Paul Krugman recently opined:

Most of the manual labor still being done in our economy seems to be of the kind that’s hard to automate. Notably, with production workers in manufacturing down to about 6 percent of U.S. employment, there aren’t many assembly-line jobs left to lose. Meanwhile, quite a lot of white-collar work currently carried out by well-educated, relatively well-paid workers may soon be computerized. Roombas are cute, but robot janitors are a long way off; computerized legal research and computer-aided medical diagnosis are already here.

Via the NY Times.

Obama’s Great Concession of 2011



Now can we please please try to get out of the two wars, unemployment crisis, and tummy ache we’ve been avoiding since the tea baggers stormed the House?

Affordable Care Act Winning 3-2

On Tuesday another Federal District judge upheld the Affordable Care Act of 2010 against charges that Congress acted outside its commerce clause powers. This brings the five-ruling total to three rulings in favor of the laws constitutionality and two rulings against.

In other news, the Justice Department has effectively extended federal benefits to same-sex couples, after President Obama declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

From the NY Times.

Read Judge Kessler’s 02/22/11 opinion upholding Obamacare (Congress acting within commerce clause powers).

Unemployment and Revolution

“Not every country with an employment rate above a certain figure will necessarily face a revolution as each society has its own dynamics, but there are shared and distinct factors driving the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia,” said Tristan Cooper, head analyst of Middle East Sovereigns for Moody’s Investors Services. “Contagion into the wider region is more likely in countries that have large numbers of frustrated, unemployed citizens who are eager for political change.

Unemployment in Tunisia is reported at 13.3-15.4% as of the end of Decemeber.

Unemployment in Egypt is reported at 9.4% as of the end of December.

Unemployment in the U.S. is reported at 9.0% as of the end of January.

via the NY Times.

Seattle’s Superheroes

And thank you Phoenix Jones, for keeping Gotham safe for another day.

Like New York’s Guardian Angels, the Rain City Superhero Movement has picked up where the police left off — the streets. This calls into question whether vigilantism is legal.

In Alan Moore’s graphic novel, Watchmen, superheroes fighting crime were forced into retirement after passage of the Keene Act, a fictional piece of legislation which outlawed non-government affiliated vigilantes. No such laws have ever been passed in the United States but there is sufficient policy against so called “self-help”.  See also self-defense of another.

For some historical background read up on the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance.

In other news: last week Scott Roeder was convicted of the murder of Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Roeder shot Dr. Tiller as he handed out bulletins in the foyer of his church last year.

Is the Health Care Law Unconstitutional?

“Under the Due Process Clause, no Supreme Court decision since 1935 has struck down any state or federal legislation for infringing economic liberties, and any such action would be radically inconsistent with current constitutional doctrine.” –Professor Mark Hall of Wake Forest Law School

Prof. Hall is referring to the last statute to be struck down under the 5th or the 14th amendments, A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935). Two years later, the Supreme Court upheld Congress’ authority under the commerce clause in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937). In that case, Congress sought to set a minimum wage for women which the Plaintiff claimed went beyond the regulatory power given to Congress by the commerce clause, which provides that Congress may pass any law so long as it is regulating economic activity interstate commerce.

The question of the day is whether it is within Congress’ authority to pass a law which, in part, requires U.S. citizens to purchase health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Odds are it will. Recent cases where the Supreme Court ruled Congress overstepped it’s authority include U.S. v. Lopez (a guns near schools case) and U.S. v. Morrison (striking down the Violence Against Women Act as not affecting interstate commerce). The difference in those two cases was drawing a connection between the legislation’s effect and economic activity was tenuous at best, something the Court was unwilling to stomach.

Here, though, requiring citizens to purchase health care is clearly within the scope of the commerce clause as it clearly affects interstate commerce. Similarly, requiring South Dakota residents to own guns also affects interstate commerce. The difference? Rep. Hal Wick is proving his point backwards.

Via the NY Times.

Read Judge Steeh’s 10/7/10 opinion upholding Obamacare (Congress acting within commerce clause powers).

Read Judge Moon’s 11/13/10 opinion upholding Obamacare (Congress acting within commerce clause powers).

Read Judge Hudson’s 12/13/10 opinion excising Obamacare in part (Congress exceeded regulatory powers under commerce clause).

Read Judge Vinson’s 1/31/11 opinion striking down Obamacare in whole (Congress exceeded regulatory powers under commerce clause).

Wikileaks Sued for $150MM by Florida Area Man

David Pitchford of Key West filed a prayer for relief in federal court in Miami last week against Wikileaks and Julian Assange for “NEGLIGENCE, INTENTIONAL and NEGLEGENT INFFLICTION of EMOTIONAL DISTRESS” (sic). Between the lack of spellcheck and the lack of professional counsel, Pitchford is going to be facing an uphill battle moving forward with his suit. Pitchford allegedly sued Osama bin Laden previously for similar acts.

As grounds for relief, Pitchford averred that he suffered the following injuries as a result of the Defendant’s acts (misspellings in the original):

A. A worsening of Plaintiffs hyper tention;
B. A worsening of Plaintiffs depression;
C. A worsenig of Plaintiff’s Stress;
D. Living in constant fear of being stricken by another heart attack and or stroke as a result of the foregoing;
E. In fear of being on the brink of Nucliar WAR

David Pitchford v. Julian Assange.

Browse the latest Wikileaks releases.

The Rankings Game

A number of law schools hire their own graduates, some in hourly temp jobs that, as it turns out, coincide with the magical date. Last year, for instance, Georgetown Law sent an e-mail to alums who were “still seeking employment.” It announced three newly created jobs in admissions, paying $20 an hour. The jobs just happened to start on Feb. 1 and lasted six weeks.

While this came as a surprise to some (even some academics) it’s happening everywhere. Why? The rankings game. In 1997 U.S. News& World Reports unrolled a rankings system which measures all accredited law schools in the nation based upon a point system taking into account things like average entry GPA and LSAT, cost, number of students to faculty, percentage of class that graduates, and percentage of graduates working nine months after graduation.

For a long while, the rankings game didn’t really matter and no one paid much attention. Sure someone from Stanford is going to have more job opportunities than say some from the University of Toledo, but it only went so far. Now, everyone’s playing the rankings game. What does this mean for prospective law students? Pedigree matters. And it matters more than ever before.

These days, law schools are doing everything they can to buttress their numbers and that includes handing out temporary, part-time research positions to recent graduates in order to boost employment numbers. Perhaps what is more appropriate is to figure out ways to create more jobs or better yet to not play into the rankings game. What do the rankings say about the quality of education? Nothing. But somehow that’s where we’ve ended up.

From the NYTimes.

Is Wikileaks Going to Get Someone (Besides its Founder) Killed?

Reasonable readers could agree that the headline, “U.S. Sends Warning to People Named in Cable Leaks,” would lead to the same conclusion expressed in this blog post heading. However, a closer reading reveals that the threat may be less severe that the U.S. government claims. A list of people that the NYTimes reports the U.S. government has cautioned about threats to safety as a result of Wikileaks’ cable releases:

  • “hundreds of human rights activists, foreign government officials and businesspeople identified in leaked diplomatic cables” (Maybe)
  • “Gene A. Cretz, the ambassador to Libya, who was recalled from his post last month after his name appeared on a cable describing peculiar personal habits of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.” (Not in danger)
  • “one midlevel diplomat has been moved from his post in an undisclosed country” (Not in danger)
  • “the ambassador to Russia, John R. Beyrle, whose name was on cables critical of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin” (Not in danger)
  • “An American diplomat in Central Asia said recently that one Iranian contact, who met him on periodic trips outside Iran, told him he would no longer speak to him.” (Not in danger)

Note: Administration officials said they were not aware of anyone who has been attacked or imprisoned as a direct result of information in the 2,700 cables.

Note (additionally): A Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Chris Perrine, said Thursday that the military was not aware of any confirmed case of harm to anyone as a result of being named in the Afghan war documents.

Separately, isn’t it only a matter of time before the Russians slip some polonium 210 into Assange’s soup?

From the NYTimes.