Year: 2008
How Not To Handle a Police Encounter
I complain a lot about abusive cops, so it’s only fair then that I link to this video of a bunch of cops handling some outrageously abusive people with calm professionalism. Caution: Very bad language. Read more
A Really Evil Law: Civil Forfeiture
Last August I started a series of posts about troublesome features of laws that were absurdly complicated or that prescribed disproportionately heavy punishment, usually as a result of legislators trying to show they were “tough on crime.” In a homage to Gideon’s post on the “most evil legal principle,” I called my series “Evil Lawmaking.”… Read more
Interviewing a Client Without the Lawyer’s Permission
Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer Mark Bennett wrote about reporter Jennifer Latson’s attempt to interview an accused criminal without approval from his lawyer. The suspect’s lawyer was not amused. The lawyer wrote to the reporter requesting that she not talk to his client without first asking him. Her response was “I’d refer you to the United… Read more
Don’t Ask About Imaginary Child Porn
Scott Greenfield has an interesting response to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Protect Act in U.S. v. Williams. …The problem is that criminalizing the speech of making offer/requests for kiddie porn, but then not requiring that there actually be kiddie porn or that the porn under discussion actually involves children, disconnects the speech from the… Read more
We’re #1! We’re #1!
Our unique combination of demand, location, and anti-pollution chemistry rockets Chicago to the top once again: A national survey says the average price for regular gasoline rose about 17 cents in the last two weeks, with the highest price in Chicago at $4.07 a gallon. I keep telling myself it wasn’t foolish of my wife… Read more