Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere.
1) Question: I was arrested last week for trespassing and sent to jail. I am scheduled to be released today on my own recognizance but I cannot find my wallet! Can I simply refuse to leave jail until I find it?
Answer: Yes. But you will be arrested again for disorderly conduct. (The Associated Press, AZ inmate arrested for refusing to leave lockup)
2) Question: If I agree to perform a sex act on a man in exchange for a $2 bill, three $1 bills and an assortment of change, does that constitute prostitution?
Answer: Yes, even receiving that $6 will makes you a pro. (Shelby Star, Police: $6 sex act leads to prostitution charge)
3) Question: I found a million-dollar winning lottery ticket in the "discarded tickets" bin at a convenience store. I want to cash it, but the store manager now says she is entitled to all discarded tickets placed in the bin, and the person who says she accidentally discarded the ticket says it belongs to her! Who gets the million dollars?
Answer: The lottery commission will likely pay you the money. But expect litigation from the other two wannabe winners. (ABC News, Three Women Vying for Ownership of $1 Million Lottery Ticket)
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 27, 2012 at 02:02 PM | Permalink
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Welcome back to the latest in LBW's "Thou Shalt Not ..." series. As you may recall, this series seeks to properly memorialize the growing number of instances I see where a corporation rolls out its "death penalty" punishment on a customer: "You can never come here [buy here] [eat here] again!!"
The latest installment in this series:
Thou shalt not visit any of the nightclubs in your hometown until you stop dressing so sexy/trampy.
Meet Lisa Woodman, a 28-year-old mother of four who rocks a "size six figure and 36DD chest." Woodman is now reportedly furious because she has been banned from all three hotspots in her home town of Worcester, West Midlands, because of her preferred wardrobe of "low-cut tops, short skirts and knee-length boots."
According to the Daily Mail, the doormen at all of her city's nightclubs -- which are owned by the same company -- have informed Woodman that she is "banned for life" from the clubs unless she tones down her appearance. Woodman says she is just flaunting her figure after breaking up with the father of her kids last year and getting a boob job in April, but the clubs say she is too old to "wear that get-up." Woodman says she saw "teenagers and girls in their 20s wearing much more revealing outfits but they went straight in.
Nexum Leisure, which runs the clubs, told the Daily Mail that Woodman flunked its dress code of "smart casual." Judge for yourself in the photo below of a sad Woodward and more photos like it here.
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 26, 2012 at 01:00 PM | Permalink
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Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere.
1) Question: I'm unemployed. I was called for jury duty but, although jury selection was still going on, I never returned to the courthouse after lunch. The judge got really angry with me and ordered me to spend two days carrying a sign back and forth in front of the courthouse that reads "I failed to appear for jury duty." Can he do this?
Answer: Indeed he can. (ABA Journal, Judge Orders Jury Duty Slacker to Carry Sign in Front of Courthouse)
2) Question: The stupid dog in the apartment next door to mine in Fort Worth, Texas, has been barking non-stop for a full eight minutes! I cannot function in these conditions! What can I do?
Answer: In two more minutes the dog will have met Fort Worth's "10 minute barking" threshold, and you can then call the police and have them issue a citation to its owner. (The Consumerist, City May Issue Fines If Your Dog Barks For Longer Than 10 Minutes)
3) Question: The cruise ship that I was on was shipwrecked off the coast of Italy. The shipwreck was incredibly traumatic and, in fact, there were several fatalities. Will the surviving passengers receive any kind of compensation for this?
Answer: How does a refund and a 30 percent discount on a future cruise sound? (New York Post, Deadly shipwreck line offers victims 30% off their NEXT voyage)
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 26, 2012 at 11:00 AM | Permalink
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As I have begun to chronicle in my ongoing "Trust Me, I'm an Expert" series of posts, courts have not hesitated to deem people experts in fields such as "smell" and "lap dancing." On the other hand, courts have refused to accept proposed experts in the field of "shit" and "pimping." Now, I've learned that in a criminal trial where the defendant is alleged to have strangled his wife, but contends that it wasn't he who caused her death but a canine, the court may allow the prosecution to present expert testimony on the possibility of smothering-by-dog.
Specifically, a 50-year-old man is on trial in Germany for manslaughter after his wife was found strangled to death in their bathroom. According to The Local, the defendant says he and his wife drank heavily the night of her death, and that at one point she fell over in the bathroom and he could not lift her. The defendant claims that he provided his wife with a pillow and a blanket, went to bed, and later awoke to find her dead -- smothered by their 75-pound Labrador Retriever, he speculates.
The man's lawyer argued that, since it is known that dogs sometimes accidentally smother their own puppies by rolling on top of them, this could be the cause of the woman's death. That prompted the prosecution to provide testimony from Hans-Hermann Sangen, an expert from the "Labrador club in Velbert," who said this theory was not plausible. The court allowed Sangen to testify that, while newborn babies might be accidentally smothered by a Labrador Retriever if they snuggled up to them, adults could not be smothered by Labs.
This seems to me like the type of testimony that might be better coming from a medical doctor, not someone from the local Labrador club, but that is probably why I am only a fake judge and not a real judge.
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 25, 2012 at 12:30 PM | Permalink
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Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno passed away on Sunday, a victim of lung cancer. Paterno's legacy in the wake of the recent child sexual abuse allegations against one of his long-time assistant coaches, Jerry Sandusky, is still being written, but Paterno's death may have an immediate impact in one area, The New York Times reports: the ongoing prosecution against former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and former university senior vice president Gary Schultz.
Curley and Schultz have been charged with failing to report to the authorities what they knew about a specific incident of alleged molestation that occurred in the shower of Penn State’s athletic facility in 2002, and also with allegedly lying to the grand jury. To summarize, Mike McQueary, a graduate assistant in 2002, reported to Paterno that he had witnessed a sexual assault involving Sandusky and a boy in the showers. Subsequently, McQueary testified to the grand jury, he also told Curley and Schultz about the sexual nature of what he had witnessed.
In his grand jury testimony -- his only sworn testimony in the case -- Paterno corroborated McQueary, testifying under oath that McQueary told Paterno that he saw Sandusky engaged in fondling or "doing something of a sexual nature" to a boy. Curley and Schultz, however, deny that McQueary told them that the shower incident was sexual in nature, which makes Paterno's testimony potentially important. After all, one former prosecutor told The Times, “[w]hy would he have told it to Paterno and not told them? McQueary becomes more credible when you hear Paterno tell his version of it...."
With Paterno's death, however, his grand jury testimony is no longer admissible. As The Times explains, Paterno was not subject to cross-examination in the grand jury proceeding, and using that testimony would therefore violate the Sixth Amendment, which ensures a criminal defendant's right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him."
Thus, unless prosecutors can introduce some other corroborating evidence, it now looks as though the key question of what McQueary told Curley and Schultz about the shower incident will come down to McQueary's word against theirs.
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 24, 2012 at 05:48 PM | Permalink
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Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere.
1) Question: We are having a problem with vandalism at our local park. Do you have any ideas on how we can better deter these criminals?
Answer: Security bees. (BBC News, Bees 'could deter vandals' at Greenfield heritage park)
2) Question: I'm a mother and a lawyer, and I'd like to find a position in the law that will allow mw to easily work from home. Thoughts?
Answer: Have you considered senior trial attorney? (The Careerist, Why Leave the Kitchen?)
3) Question: We have been planning our next bank robbery for months, accounting for every possible situation. I defy you to come up with one thing that we have not already planned for!
Answer: Personalized vanity license plates with your last name on them on the getaway car? (U-T San Diego, Vanity plate leads to bank robbery suspect)
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 24, 2012 at 01:18 PM | Permalink
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Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere.
1) Question: I'm on the school board. We asked the future students of a new school that is under construction to choose a mascot, and they picked "Cougars." Can we ban this choice as being "disrespectful to women?"
Answer: It is your school district, so it is your call. But you know that cougars are also cats, right? (CBS Las Vegas, Utah School Board Says Cougar Mascot Too Offensive To Women)
2) Question: The guy in the cell next to me says he is doing prison time because he spray-painted the wings of hawks to trick bird-watchers into believing they had discovered a new species of bird. That cannot be true, right?
Answer: Actually, that happens sometimes. That is the crime of "ill-treating an animal." (Herald Sun, Farmer's spray paint prank raised bird watchers' hopes of a new species)
3) Question: I am a ship captain. I know ship captains are not suppose to abandon ship, but as my ship was sinking I accidentally tripped into a lifeboat. I mean, I'm already in the lifeboat!! What am I supposed to get out or something?
Answer: "Get back aboard, damn it!" (The New York Times, Italy Finds a Heroic Foil for Its Scorned Captain)
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 23, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Permalink
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Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner is one of the most respected judges in the United States, and is a well-known pioneer in the area of "law and economics." Reuters reports today that Posner has become a pioneer in another, much quirkier area: the use of photographs copied from the Internet to spice up his judicial opinions.
The use of photos to illustrate points probably does not seem all that novel to most people, but it is still rare enough in the legal world that it causes double-takes. When Mark Cuban's lawyer recently used a photograph of Cuban and the Mavericks celebrating their championship as part of a summary judgment motion (in a case questioning Cuban and the Maverick's management of the team), the tactic was hailed as innovative and "brilliant." As the Reuters article points out, Posner's use of photos goes back to at least 2007, but he has used them more frequently in the past few months.
In his opinion in Gonzalez-Servin v. Ford Motor Co. in November 2011, Posner included photos of both an ostrich and a man in a suit with their heads buried in the sand to reinforce his point that "[t]he ostrich is a noble animal, but not a proper model for an appellate advocate." In an opinion issued last week in Grayson v. Schuler, Posner again included photography -- this time a photo of reggae singer Bob Marley, intended to illustrate what "dreadlocks" are.
According to the Reuters article, Posner found the Bob Marley photo online, copied it, and then pasted it into the opinion. Asked whether such use violated any copyright laws, Posner said he believed that what he had done fell under the doctrine of "fair use." "It's not as if we're selling our opinions in competition with a photographer. Using the photo in a judicial opinion couldn't conceivably be hurting the copyright holder," he said.
Fair use or not, David Corio, the photographer who took the Marley picture, said he was surprised to see it used in the judicial opinion without any credit or attribution, and believed that "a judge of all people would be decent enough to ask permission before using an image."
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 20, 2012 at 03:53 PM | Permalink
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You might think that after Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, Volume 9 and Volume 10 of Things You Can't Do on a Plane, that we'd have exhausted the list of things you can't do on a plane. Nope! The list grows daily.
Here are three more things I've recently learned that you cannot do on a plane:
- Accidentally play a pre-recorded message over the plane's intercom system that the plane will need to make an emergency landing on water. Airline crew should not erroneously play a pre-recorded emergency announcement about an imminent emergency water landing. CONSEQUENCE: Crew will need to inform 330 panicked passengers of the mistake and apologize for causing them "undue concern."
- Refuse to sit down in your seat until flight staff bring you champagne and food. Couples traveling together may not jointly refuse to sit down while repeatedly demanding champagne and food. CONSEQUENCE: Couple will be forced to exit plane and airline will alert FBI.
- Attempt to board a rival company's plane and review documents. Airline personnel may not try to board a rival airline's plane to "have a look at it" out of "curiosity" and then pick up documents concerning the rival's flight crew. CONSEQUENCE: Curious employee will be fired.
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 19, 2012 at 04:24 PM | Permalink
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Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere.
1) Question: I happened to be walking by the courthouse in London, Ontario this morning when a police officer approached me and said I was required to enter the courthouse and serve as on a jury, as the court was short one juror. Hey, I'm busy today! Do I have to do this?
Answer: Yes, Superior Court judges in Ontario have the power under the Criminal Code to have police and sheriff’s officers go out into the streets to find jurors as necessary. (The Star, Jurors rounded up off streets of London)
2) Question: I want to show my kids Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech but I cannot find it online anywhere. Where do I go to find it?
Answer: Due to copyright issues, the only way to legally watch it now is to go to the King family's website and purchase it for $10. (The Atlantic Wire, The Great Martin Luther King Copyright Conundrum)
3) Question: I was at church near a fellow parishioner who was receiving the "spirit." The ushers at the church failed to prevent the person receiving the "spirit" from falling, and she did so, knocking several other worshippers into me. Now I am injured. Can I sue?
Answer: The ushers failed to prevent that? That is outrageous, egregious, preposterous! (OnPoint News, Bystander Claims "Swoon and Fall" Injuries at Church)
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Posted by Bruce Carton on January 19, 2012 at 11:00 AM | Permalink
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