Aug 14 2012
Social media’s insertion into the courtroom continues as a NY Federal Judge ruled that a criminal defendant’s Facebook posts about his criminal activity could form the bass for a search warrant into his home. Federal prosecutors got a look at Melvin Colon’s Facebook profile through the account of one of Colon’s friends, who was a …
Aug 10 2012
Randy Newman can add the title of this blog post as a new line to Short People, his often misunderstood, misinterpreted hit song from 1977, as a NY court ruled that “shortness” is not a physical disability protected by the NY State Human Rights Law. NY State’s Human Rights Law can be found in the …
Jan 12 2012
In another blow to New Orleans DA Harry Connick (Father of the singer Harry Connick Jr) the US Supreme Court once again found that his office withheld exculpatory evidence from a defendant in a capital murder trial. There is a long history of problems in Connick’s office. In 1995, Esquire photographed him, for a piece …
Nov 16 2010
Recently, a former law student of mine called me to ask my opinion for an article he was writing about anonymous juries. I told him that I was against them in general and that I thought in the long run, anonymous juries did more harm than good. He boiled down our half hour conversation to …
Oct 05 2010
The new Supreme Court term started yesterday and while the docket is once again heavily laden with corporate issues, one of the earliest cases to be argued will be the one involving the Westboro Baptist Church’s practice of protesting at military funerals. It is a case that is certain to add to the line of …