Archive for November 3, 2008
Liveblogging Raising the Bar: Season Finale
Nov 3rd
Well, it’s finally here: the season finale of Raising the Bar. We started liveblogging with Episode 3 [all the liveblogs can be found in the 'tv shows' category] and now it’s time to wrap it up. Join us for what is sure to be a humdinger. I have it on good authority that someone is dreaming and someone is related to someone else.
No, I kid. I know nothing. But join us anyway. There will be a drinking game and lots of polls.
Update: By demand of the show’s creator, here are the rules for the drinking game:
- Every time Zack Morris says “brother”, take 2 sips.
- Every time Judge Trudy yells at Zack, take 1 sip.
- When the characters go to their bar, you have to refill your drink.
- When a client has a feel-good reason for committing his/her crime, take 3 sips.
- When a prosecutor hides the ball, take 1 sip.
- When a prosecutor makes a sexual comment, take 1 sip.
- When Zack’s boss blushes, take 1 sip.
- When Richie Rich blushes, take 2 sips.
- When Zack Morris bites his tongue, take 2 sips.
- When Zack Morris goes on a rant, finish the bottle.
- When a client cries…well…shed a tear, will ya?
- When Zack is unprepared for a hearing, put your head in your hands.
- When a client is acquitted, shout for joy and do a shot of your favorite liquor.
- More as the show progresses.
Monday Morning Jumpstart – Halloween edition
Nov 3rd
It’s Jumpstart time! There have been a bunch of stories over the past week I’ve wanted to write about, but haven’t had the time, so here they are, plus the usual suspects:
- NPR did a three part series on Angola and the convictions of Woodfox and Wallace. Must read/listen.
- The Judicial Branch website has updated its page of “common legal words” with links to forms and instructions.
- Making law is interpreting law.
- From Deliberations, who is qualified for death?
- Will prostitution become legal in SanFran?
- Do cops always side with businesses over customers?
- CDW’s weekly edition is here.
And my feed reader has died, so this is all you’ll get. Remember to vote tomorrow and vote NO on question 1 in CT.
Will SCOTUS engage in profanity?
Nov 3rd
Tomorrow SCOTUS will hear argument in Fox v. FCC, “the F word case”. This has nothing to do with criminal law and everything to do with stupidity on part of the FCC. It stems from three uses of fuck and shit. One was by Bono, who said his award was “really, really, fucking brilliant”, another by Cher who told her critics to “go fuck themselves” and finally, by that veritable starlet Nicole Ritchie, who complained about having to get “shit out of a Prada purse”, which, apparently is “not so fucking simple”.
[As you can tell, we at 'a public defender' are not shy about using the most versatile word in the English language.]
The FCC, in its Victorian wisdom, has decided that no matter the context, the word always evokes a sexual connotation. Fucking stupid. Which means, apparently, that someone is copulating with someone named “stupid”. What the sex.
For more coverage, see Scott and if you’re really inclined, Adam Liptak’s NYT piece.
We’ll see if the Justices agree and at 11am tomorrow we will read whether the Justice engaged in profanity.
Unless, of course, you agree with one friend of this blog who pointed out to me on Friday that they already have [for those of you who are too fornicating lazy to click on that link, the friend was referring to McCleskey v. Kemp].
SCOTUS will decide limits, if any, of prosecutorial immunity
Nov 3rd
The Supreme Court will hear oral argument Wednesday in Van de Kamp v. Goldstein, a case I blogged about previously. [Given that tomorrow is election day, I foresee that most of my time will be spent in front of the TV, watching election returns.]
In Van de Kamp, SCOTUS will decide whether the chief prosecutor for L.A. can be held civilly liable for a wrongful conviction, after members of his office failed to turn over ecxulpatory evidence to the defense.
From my previous post:
The lawsuit alleges that the prosecutor’s office failed to set up an intra-office system to disseminate information on the reliability of informants and because of that Goldstein was convicted based on false testimony from an unreliable informant.
Despite this suit’s civil context, the implications for those of us in the criminal world will be immense. If prosecutors will be held liable for failing to turn over exculpatory information that its office possesses (just as information in the possession of cops is imputed to the state), then perhaps they will start to err on the side of caution in what materials they turn over.
One of the biggest problems with Brady material these days is not that prosecutors willingly hold on to it, but that they sincerely don’t believe that some exculpatory material is exculpatory. Whatever the result of this case, hopefully it prompts them to take a closer look at their determinations.
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