Legal

I love reading about crimes and criminal law. The issues are fascinating and the stories are sometimes pretty cool. (One of my favorites is about a pre-trial proceeding where the judge decides that the defendant has been assigned to the wrong court because of his age. The defense lawyer interrupts to ask if this means the court has no jurisdiction. When the judge agrees that's … [Read more...] about In My Bookbag: Your Witness

A few days ago, I lamented the poor state of Chicago-based criminal defense blogs. As I hoped, a few local lawyers spotted it and spoke up. The first one was Chicago divorce lawyer Maria Fahnert. Not what I'm looking for, but since she was nice enough to leave a comment---and wasn't obviously just marketing herself---I thought I'd mention her. The second response came out of a … [Read more...] about The Chicago Defense Bar Notices Me

Scott Greenfield has a terrific article about the troubles prosecutors have with victims and defense lawyers have with clients. Be sure to read the whole thing, as the final paragraph wraps it up nicely. Those of us in the software business sometimes have a similar, though much less emotional, relationship with our clients. Unless you're being hired to assist someone who does … [Read more...] about Prosecutors and Victims and Defense Lawyers and Clients

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." Unfortunately, that kind of hyperbole … [Read more...] about A Really Evil Law: Civil Forfeiture

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 underlying bad … [Read more...] about Don’t Ask About Imaginary Child Porn