Bailiffs are indispensable to maintaining order in court. To that end, court systems often treat bailiffs much like law enforcement officers, even arming them with firearms or tasers. Now, the National Center for State Courts says that perhaps bailiffs should also be armed with something else -- an iPod or iPhone.
The idea is outlined in a recent post to the NCSC's Court Technology Bulletin by Jim McMillan, an NCSC court-technology consultant. Earlier this year, he writes, while working on an NCSC courthouse project, his team considered how technology could support this essential courtroom employee -- an employee whose work has so far been little impacted by technology advances.
If one were to design a technology tool to support the work of the bailiff, they asked themselves, what form would it take? McMillan's team came up with five characteristics:
- A device that is small and light and that could not be turned into a weapon.
- Battery power for a full work day.
- Wireless communications via WiFi or cellular connection.
- Capable of quiet operation so as to not disturb the courtroom.
- A simple user interface.
Those specifications, needless to say, describe to a tee the Apple iPod Touch or iPhone (if you overlook the full-day battery issue). McMillan outlines several ways in which a bailiff could use an iPod in the courtroom:
- For quiet communications. The iPod would allow the judge or clerk to exchange messages with the bailiff via e-mail or text messaging. With the iPod's touch screen, their typing would not be disruptive to the courtroom.
- To manage the queue of cases. The bailiff could use the iPod to notify the judge or clerk of defendants or parties who are ready to appear in the courtroom. In criminal cases, the bailiff could notify detention officers when the judge is ready for defendants.
- As a detained-defendant locator system. The bailiff would use the iPod to track the location of detained defendants within the courthouse. This could be especially useful in large courthouses with multiple holding areas.
- To view security video. For courts with digital security-video systems, bailiffs could use their iPods to view the video. Among other things, this would allow a bailiff to scan a room before entering it and to monitor the courtroom and the surrounding corridors.
- To remotely control secure doorways. By combining the security video output and electronic door controls, a bailiff could be notified via the iPod when someone wants to enter a secure chambers, verify the identity by video, and then unlock the door.
- To carry photos of wanted or dangerous persons. With an iPhone, the bailiff could also take pictures and transmit them to law enforcement authorities.
In an update this week to his initial post, McMillan notes that a company that supplies the control systems used in many courtrooms recently released an app that allows use of an iPod or iPhone as a remove control for home lighting and electronics systems. If they can do it for the home, they can do it for the courtroom.
McMillan's ideas certainly make sense and, if nothing else, provide another angle on how technology can be adapted to the courtroom. Who knows -- the day may not be far off when every bailiff is armed with an iPod.
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Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on November 20, 2009 at 03:22 PM | Permalink
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The FBI is warning U.S. law firms to beware of hackers. The FBI said this week that hackers are using phishing e-mails with malicious payloads to target law firms and public relations firms. "During the course of ongoing investigations, the FBI identified noticeable increases in computer exploitation attempts against these entities," the warning said.
"Phishing" refers to the use of e-mail or instant messaging to trick the recipient into providing personal or sensitive information, such as user names, passwords and credit card information. Generally, the message draws the recipient to a Web site designed to replicate a legitimate site, where the recipient is asked to provide this information. In this case, the scam involves an e-mail that installs a malicious program to search for sensitive data.
The FBI warning said that the scam targeting law firms arrives as an e-mail that includes an attachment or a link. The e-mail appears to arrive from a trusted source based on its subject line and attachment name. Opening the message itself is not harmful. But if the recipient opens the attachment or clicks on the link, it launches a self-executing file that then attempts to download another file. Once that malicious file is installed, it searches for sensitive files and sends them to a computer server outside the firm -- and usually outside the United States.
The malicious file does not necessarily appear as an "exe" file. In some cases, it appears as a "zip," "jpeg" or something else. Once executed, it will attempt to download and execute the file "srhost.exe" from the domain "http://d.ueopen.com." Any activity on a firm's network associated with "ueopen.com" should be considered evidence that the network is compromised, the FBI says.
"Law firms have a tremendous concentration of really critical, private information," Bradford Bleier, unit chief with the FBI's cyber division, told The Associated Press. Infiltrating those computer systems "is a really optimal way to obtain economic, personal and personal security related information."
In 2008, a major New York law firm was hacked into in an attack that originated in China, the AP report said. The hackers that target law firms are often going after ones that are negotiating a major international deal. "The best documents to steal are in the law firm that represents that company," Alan Paller, director of research at computer-security organization SANS Institute, told AP.
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Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on November 20, 2009 at 03:12 PM | Permalink
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The Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday made clear that it was not pleased with President Obama's nomination of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Butler Jr. to be a federal district judge in Wisconsin. But did the WSJ go too far in titling its editorial, The White House Butler?
In Wisconsin, a state senator, a former state Supreme Court justice and a lawyer all said the editorial was racist. They asked the WSJ to retract the editorial and issue an apology, according to a report published in the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
Madison lawyer Jon P. Axelrod sent a letter to the WSJ saying its comparison of the nominee to a butler was demeaning.
Not only do I strongly disagree with the contents of the editorial as deliberately misleading, but it is totally inappropriate to demean Judge Butler because of his race by comparing him to a butler, an occupation unfortunately stereotyped as predominantly African-American. You owe this distinguished Wisconsin jurist an immediate retraction tomorrow as well as an apology.
The editorial was also criticized by state Sen. Spencer Coggs, D-Milwaukee, who said the headline "harkens back to an antiquated stereotype," and by former state Supreme Court Justice William Bablitch, who said, "At the very least, it's highly insensitive. At the worst, it's racist."
A spokeswoman for the WSJ issued a statement defending the headline. "The headline was a play off of his last name, and to suggest anything otherwise is absurd," the statement said.
The editorial took issue with the president's nomination of Butler based on his twice having been rejected by Wisconsin voters for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
As consolation prizes go, Louis Butler can't complain. After being twice rejected by Wisconsin voters for a place on the state Supreme Court, the former judge has instead been nominated by President Obama to a lifetime seat on the federal district court. If he is confirmed, Wisconsin voters will have years to contend with the decisions of a judge they made clear they would rather live without.
Butler was the first African-American to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, according to Wikipedia. A longtime public defender, he was appointed to the Municipal Court in Milwaukee in 1992, where he served until his election as a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge in 2002. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle appointed Butler to the Supreme Court in 2004. His term expired in 2008.
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Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on November 20, 2009 at 03:08 PM | Permalink
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Yesterday on the Legal Writing Prof blog, Professor James "I am the scholarship dude" Levy flagged an interesting blog article from The New York Times on some of the words and phrases that are becoming despised in our society. The author of the article, law professor Stanley Fish, gets the ball rolling by offering up some examples from the "class of utterances that, when encountered, produces irritation, distress and, in some cases, the desire to kill." These include:
- “To Be Continued” at the end of a TV show in which you have become invested;
- “Closed for Private Party,” when you’ve been looking forward to a meal at your favorite restaurant all day;
- “Register Closed,” when you’ve been waiting not-so-patiently behind a fellow customer with 25 items;
- “This may hurt a little” when you know that pain on a massive scale is just around the corner; and
- “Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed.”
Fish's article seems to have struck a chord with his readers judging by the over 1,100 comments (and counting) offering additional suggestions for this "most hated" list. Readers' suggestions include:
- “This flight has been oversold;”
- “No problem” (instead of “you're welcome”);
- “You have committed a fatal error and your computer will shut down immediately;”
- “We no longer accept cash;”
- “I’m sorry you feel that way;”
- “In order to serve you better...;”
- “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” (job interview);
- “Would you like change?” (from waitstaff);
- "Adjust, please." (in India);
- “I can only apologize” (in the UK);
- “inshallah (god willing).” (in the Middle East, meaning that no matter what the merchant has promised -- e.g., that your dry cleaning will be ready on Tuesday --it won’t be done, as "god willed it" that way.
- "No offense, but…;” and
- "It’s for your own security."
There are at least 40 more pages of reader suggestions that I did not get through, but you get the idea. Please add to the list in the comments below!
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Posted by Bruce Carton on November 19, 2009 at 03:19 PM | Permalink
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Further proving what your mother told you when you were five years old ("If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all") is the case of Sindoni v. County of Tioga. In this bizarre case involving employees of the County of Tioga, N.Y., Sindoni, a senior typist, had her employment terminated after her personal animosity for co-worker "Teena" went well beyond the standard office squabble.
As discussed in the opinion issued last week by the New York Supreme Court, Sindoni and others went so far as to form a club known as the "I Hate Teena Club." Members of the "IHTC" allegedly wore ribbons to demonstrate their membership, "and made threatening and intimidating comments to other coworkers who informed the administration of the existence of such club."
In addition to a "loud verbal exchange" between Sindoni and Teena, Sindoni also admitted to keeping a calendar of Teena's late arrivals and early departures from work, being a member of the "IHTC," and to wearing the ribbon. Witnesses testified that Sindoni attempted to recruit others to join the "IHTC," as well.
Sindoni argued on appeal that the penalty of termination was excessive, and that none of the other five club members were terminated. The court, however, upheld the termination, noting that the hearing officer had found that Sindoni was "the only employee who made threats to the person or property of others," was the "main player in the hate club," and "had not expressed any remorse regarding her conduct."
Sindoni's attorney, Daren J. Rylewicz, said he could not understand how "essentially six women committed the same or similar conduct and five women were not fired." Rylewicz said that of the other five club members, one was suspended for one month, two were suspended for five days and two received letters of reprimand.
Lesson? No hate clubs at work.
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Posted by Bruce Carton on November 19, 2009 at 03:18 PM | Permalink
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"If my husband has a right to have guns in the house, I have a right to hang laundry."
So says Carin Froehlich of Perkasie, Penn., who likes to hang her laundry to dry on clotheslines strung between trees outside her home. Her small town, however, does not like it so much, and she has had requests from a town official and at least two anonymous neighbors that she keep her laundry to herself. "They said it made the place look like trailer trash. They said they didn't want to look at my 'unmentionables.'"
Reuters reports that this "right to hang" debate is popping up more and more often in the U.S. Already, six states (Florida, Utah, Maine, Vermont, Colorado, and Hawaii) have passed laws restricting the rights of residents to use clotheslines, and another five states are considering similar measures.
Citizens fighting for the right to hang actually have a lobbying group of sorts. "Project Laundry List" is a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of "making air-drying and cold-water washing laundry acceptable and desirable as simple and effective ways to save energy." Among it recent accomplishments, PLL says, it has helped obtain legislation reversing the clothesline ban in Colorado, and prompted clothesline legislation debate in states including Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Oregon, Virginia and Vermont.
Check out the CBS News video report below on the "right to hang" controversy.