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
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 States Constitution, Amendment I. I … [Read more...] about Interviewing a Client Without the Lawyer’s Permission
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 underlying bad … [Read more...] about Don’t Ask About Imaginary Child Porn
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 and I to buy our first SUV this year because the high … [Read more...] about We’re #1! We’re #1!
Trying to Work Around The Captcha Problem
Some of you who've tried to leave comments have probably noticed that it doesn't work very well. The Captcha codes---those annoying strange characters you have to type---just aren't working right. This is a bizarre and frustrating bit of misbehavior out of the Movable Type blogging engine. So much of it normally works so well.I've disabled Captcha codes for now, and I'm trying … [Read more...] about Trying to Work Around The Captcha Problem