Category Archives: legal news

legal news, national news

A lesson on Public Service 101, Mr. Councilor

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Kirby Delauter needs to be taught a lesson.

I will try to teach him one right here.

Delauter serves on the Frederick County, Md. County Council. He’s an elected public official, whose statements made in a public forum become grist for the media at any time. He makes statements on the record, for the record. They become part of the public domain.

And yet …

This individual is threatening to sue the Frederick News-Post if it uses his name in any fashion “without permission.”

Without permission? That means, if I’ve read the news story correctly about this tidbit, that the News-Post must get his permission to quote him by name even if he says something in the course of performing his duties as an elected public official. You know, such as saying something during a public meeting.

According to a News-Post account: “In a Facebook status posted Saturday, Delauter said he was upset with reporter Bethany Rodgers for ‘an unauthorized use of my name and my reference in her article’ published Jan. 3 about his and Councilman Billy Shreve’s concerns over County Council parking spaces.”

Therefore, the councilor says, he’s going to sue if a reporter uses his name without his authorization.

Um, Kirby, that’s how it works.

http://m.fredericknewspost.com/news/politics_and_government/delauter-to-the-news-post-don-t-use-my-name/article_e965025f-6c48-5a02-b162-600dfd2b5495.html?mode=jqm

I’m pretty sure no one in Frederick County elected this guy King of the World, or Commissar of Information, or Guru of Gab.

He’s elected to represent his constituents. The News-Post’s role is to report on what he says in public. The newspaper doesn’t need his permission to use his name.

I don’t know Maryland open meetings law, but it probably looks something similar to what Texas has on its books, or what other states allow to be kept from public scrutiny. The issues usually involving pending litigation, real estate transactions or personnel discussions. That’s it. The rest of it is fair game.

Here’s a bit of advice to the young man: Ask your county’s legal counsel if you have any standing to sue anyone who uses your name without “authorization.” My hunch is that your counsel will laugh in your face.

The paper’s managing editor, Terry Headlee, said it best: “Kirby Delauter can certainly decline to comment on any story. But to threaten to sue a reporter for publishing his name is so ridiculously stupid that I’m speechless. It’s just a pointless, misguided attempt to intimidate and bully the press and shows an astonishing lack of understanding of the role of a public servant.”

legal news, State news

Ex-judge committed egregious act

This story got past me when it happened, so I’m a bit late commenting on it, but it does give the Texas legal community something to ponder — such as how severe a sanction should a judge face if he or she commits an egregious act of judicial misconduct.

Elizabeth Coker used to preside over the 258th District Court in rural East Texas. She resigned her judgeship a little more than a year ago after it was revealed that she sent text messages from the bench to a prosecutor — prompting her with questions to ask that would secure the conviction of a defendant.

http://poorrichardsnews.com/post/65069957264/texas-judge-resigns-after-being-caught-texting

The text messages were sent during a child abuse trial in August 2012 to Assistant Polk County District Attorney Kaycee Jones, who was in the middle of a criminal case in Coker’s court.

I don’t know where to begin with this.

The State Commission Judicial Conduct worked out a deal with Coker for her to quit her judgeship. All she had to do was resign from the bench and there would be no additional sanction.

I’ve always understood that judges often have expelled people from their courtrooms for using text devices while court is in session. A former Texas Supreme Court chief justice, Tom Phillips, once told me that in Texas judges can rule their courtrooms like tyrants if they choose to do so.

I suppose that Phillips also implied that judges can run courtrooms with amazing leniency if they so choose.

One of the many astonishing aspects of this case is that Coker then ran for Polk County district attorney after quitting the bench. She didn’t get the job.

This blows my mind. A judge sends a text message with instructions to a prosecutor on how to ask questions that would result in a conviction and all she had to do was quit?

She got off way too easy on this deal.

The Tale of the Texting Judge

The Time magazine story goes through this case in significant detail.

What does the Commission on Judicial Conduct do about these cases? For that matter, why isn’t the Texas Bar Association pitching a serious fit to this day over Coker’s terrible judgment on the bench?

The Time article seeks to cast this case in some political context, noting that Republicans had taken over in a part of the state that once was reliably Democratic. Coker switched parties, from Democrat to Republican, and that apparently caused some ill feelings.

That has nothing to do with anything. Coker should have been punished with far more than just losing her bench seat.

 

 

legal news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

A presidential pardon may be in order

The beans are spilled. The cat’s out of the bag. The CIA just might have broken some laws when it detained suspected terrorists and subjected them to torture techniques immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

The spy agency says otherwise, that it broke no laws.

U.S. Senate Democrats on the Intelligence Committee insist that the torture techniques were real and allege that they broke U.S. law.

The New York Times editorial board refers to the findings in the just-released Senate summary of the “enhanced interrogation” as a sign of “depravity” that defies comprehension.

The thought has occurred to me. Perhaps it’s not an original thought, but I’ll toss it out there anyway.

Given that there’s really no serious need to prosecute anyone for alleged criminal activity, perhaps a presidential pardon would be in order.

Go ahead and snicker. This is a serious suggestion, even absent any formal criminal charges being filed against the principals involved — namely President Bush, then-CIA director George Tenet, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Hey, President Ford pardoned his immediate predecessor in the White House, Richard Nixon, for crimes he may have committed while covering up the Watergate burglary. That was the right call in 1974. A similar pardon just might be the right call now.

Let’s have the debate over whether the suspected terrorists were tortured illegally. Both sides will vent. Both will have their say.

There well might be an inclination in some circles to prosecute those in charge at the time. Others will be declare that there’s no need now to punish those who might have committed a crime.

That’s where President Obama can step in.

He’s got the power to issue summary pardons. This well could be the time to act.

 

legal news, State news

Now the judge opposes death penalty

So, we’re supposed to sing high praise because a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge has declared his opposition to the death penalty.

Is that what we’re supposed to do?

I would, except that Judge Tom Price is about to leave the state’s highest criminal appellate court in January, which makes his declaration a mere symbolic act.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/26/criminal-appeals-judge-price-i-oppose-death-penalt/

Price, who’s being replaced by Bert Richardson — the judge presiding over Gov. Rick Perry’s abuse of power court proceedings — wrote this, according to the Texas Tribune: “Given a substantial amount of consideration to the propriety of the death penalty as a form of punishment for those who commit capital murder, and I now believe that it should be abolished.”

Price’s statement came as he was one of three dissenting votes rejecting an appeal for clemency for death row inmate Scott Panetti, who’s scheduled to die by lethal injection in just a few days. Panetti’s been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia and death penalty foes have sought to have his death sentence commuted.

Price now is on board with them.

But he’s leaving the court.

So what good is his declaration … now?

Perhaps he can carry his opposition into the private sector and try to talk some reason into his former CCA colleagues who continue to reject other appeals on similar grounds.

“My conclusion is not reached hastily,” Price wrote in his dissent. “Rather, it is the result of my deliberative thought process from having presided over three death-penalty trials as a trial court judge and having decided countless issues related to capital murder and the death penalty as a judge on this court.”

Price didn’t seek re-election this year. He’s served on the all-Republican CCA since being elected in 1996. I applaud his coming out against capital punishment. I now hope he carries the campaign forward.

 

International news, legal news, national news, political news

Reagan and Bush did it; why not Obama?

Republicans in Congress are getting loaded for bear if that Democratic rascal in the White House follows through with a threat to execute an order that delays deportation of some 5 million illegal immigrants.

What they’ll do precisely in response to a now-expected executive order remains unclear.

Maybe they should follow the congressional led set when two earlier presidents did precisely the same thing, using exactly the same constitutional device.

That would be: nothing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/15/reagan-bush-immigration-deportation_n_6164068.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

At issue is whether President Obama will use his executive authority to delay those deportations and, by the way, strengthen security along our southern border. Congress wants him to wait. So do I, for that matter. Congressional Republicans are threatening to hamstring confirmation hearings on the president’s pick to be attorney general, Loretta Lynch. Heck, they might even sue the president.

The most troublesome — and ridiculous — notion being field tested in the court of public opinion is impeachment.

Let’s look briefly at history.

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did the same thing. One heard nary a peep out of Congress, let alone the Democrats who controlled the place at the time.

Congress enacted an immigration law in 1986, but in the following year, President Reagan gave immigration officials the power to cover the children of illegal immigrants who were granted amnesty under the law. As the Huffington Post reported: “Spouses and children of couples in which one parent qualified for amnesty but the other did not remained subject to deportation, leading to efforts to amend the 1986 law.”

Along came President Bush in 1989. The Huffington Post reports: “In a parallel to today, the Senate acted in 1989 to broaden legal status to families but the House never took up the bill. Through the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), Bush advanced a new ‘family fairness’ policy that put in place the Senate measure. Congress passed the policy into law by the end of the year as part of broader immigration legislation. ‘It’s a striking parallel,’ said Mark Noferi of the pro-immigration American Immigration Council. ‘Bush Sr. went big at the time. He protected about 40 percent of the unauthorized population. Back then that was up to 1.5 million. Today that would be about 5 million.'”

What gives with the current crop of yahoos calling the shots on Capitol Hill?

Oh, I forgot. The tea party/nimrod wing of the GOP vows to shake things up and no longer do things the way they’ve been done in the past.

That must include allowing the president of the United States to actually lead.

 

legal news, national news

$1 billion settlement just isn't fair

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There’s just no pleasing some people, I reckon.

Consider the case of Sue Ann Hamm, former wife of Harold Hamm.

Ms. Hamm got a billion-dollar settlement from an Oklahoma court in her divorce action against her ex-husband. A billion bucks!

Was it enough? Nope. She’s going to appeal the settlement.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/14/luxury/harold-hamm-divorce/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

“Sue Ann is disappointed in the outcome of this case,” said her lawyer Ron Barber. “She dedicated 25 years as Harold’s faithful partner in family and business.”

Harold Hamm reportedly is worth around 20 bil, so I reckon his ex-wife wants a bigger piece of that action.

OK, I’m not a party to this divorce action. I’m just sitting out here in the peanut gallery, albeit not too terribly far from the Oklahoma state line. Still, I get that there’s a lot I don’t understand about this case.

I’ll acknowledge one thing that escapes my understanding: Why isn’t $1 billion enough?

Sue Ann can take the dough, stash some of it away for the kids, invest most of it in some secure stocks and other things, keep a healthy sum of it — say, $50 million or so — for herself and still live very nicely.

According to CNN.com, Harold Hamm is a big hitter: “Harold Hamm is somewhat of a legend in the oil businesses. He built the company from the ground up, pioneered the use of fracking and led the development of North Dakota’s Bakken oil field.”

Well, absent a pre-nuptial agreement, the former couple is left to settle this matter as amicably as they can.

From my perch far, far away, a billion dollars looks pretty darn amicable.

 

legal news, national news, political news

AG should knife the boss in the back?

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah are making an impossible demand of the woman selected by President Obama to become the nation’s next attorney general.

They want Loretta Lynch to state up front whether a presidential executive order regarding U.S. immigration policy is constitutional and legal. More to the point, they are demanding that she declare such an action unconstitutional and illegal.

Let’s think about this for a moment.

What they’re demanding is that the woman who wants to be attorney general stick a dagger in the back of the individual who has nominated her to that high office.

Cruz and Lee do not appear interested in simply hearing her out. Both men already have declared that they believe such a move — which the president has all but telegraphed will occur — doesn’t pass constitutional muster.

They are among congressional Republicans who already are angry over Obama’s use of executive authority to tweak and tinker with the Affordable Care Act. These men both are dead set against reforming immigration policy at least during the current congressional session.

So now they’re threatening to hold the attorney general nomination hostage to their own agenda.

What’s more, they’re asking the AG-designate to betray the president who’s nominated her.

Good luck with that, senators.

legal news, local news, State news

Democrats backing embattled GOP Gov. Perry

A most interesting turn of events has occurred in the case involving whether Texas Gov. Rick Perry abused the powers of his office when he bullied a Travis County prosecutor who got arrested for drunken driving.

Several prominent Democratic lawyers and politicians have signed an amicus brief asking that the indictments against the Republican governor be tossed. They contend the indictments don’t hold up under the state’s separation of powers doctrine spelled out in the state constitution.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/10/bipartisan-group-lawyers-want-perry-case-dismissed/

The Texas Tribune reported the brief today and lays out the issue as presented by this high-powered team of legal eagles.

The Democrats include former Texas Supreme Court Justice Raul Gonzalez, former state Sen. (and former Texas Tech Chancellor) John Montford and the founder of the Innocence Project, one Jeff Blackburn of Amarillo.

The big hitters also include a couple of well-known former U.S. solicitors general, Ted Olson and Kenneth Starr, who served Republican presidents George W. and George H.W. Bush.

My own take is that the second indictment, the lesser felony, is the one that holds up.

At issue are the twin indictments by the Travis County grand jury. They allege that the governor abused his power by threatening to veto money appropriated for the Public Integrity Unit run by the Travis County district attorney’s office. The DA, Rosemary Lehmberg, pleaded guilty to DUI, served her jail time, but didn’t quit her office, as Perry had demanded. Thus, the veto threat. Lehmberg, a Democrat, is still in office.

Perry vetoed the money.

The second indictment accuses the governor of coercion, which by my reckoning is the stronger count. He bullied the DA, using his influence to seek her resignation. She was elected by the voters of Travis County and one has to wonder why the governor took such an interest in this particular DUI case.

Well, the answer is pure politics; Lehmberg is a Democrat, Perry is a Republican.

The governor can take heart in the bipartisan support he’s acquired in fighting this case.

I look forward to seeing how the court rules on this amicus brief.

Stay tuned. The fur is going to fly.

legal news, national news, political news

Chief justice going soft? Hardly

Conservatives reportedly are getting itchy over some recent decisions by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts.

Why, he’s siding with some of the Supreme Court’s liberals and that dreaded swing vote on the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy.

He’s just not the dependable conservative they thought they were getting when President Bush appointed him to the court.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/john-roberts-conservative-quake-112000.html?hp=f2

These nervous nellies on the right ought to relax.

I don’t consider the chief justice to be a toady to the right. He’s now holding a lifetime job and is free from the political strings to which he was attached when the president appointed him chief justice. It might be — and it’s way too early to tell — heading down a trail blazed by other formerly “conservative” justices who turned out to be anything but.

Chief Justice Earl Warren took his seat after President Eisenhower appointed him in 1953. The very next year, the Warren Court handed down the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling that effectively ended segregation in the nation’s public schools systems. Ike called the Warren appointment his biggest mistake as president.

President Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun to the court in 1971 and all Blackmun did was write the Roe v. Wade decision that ruled abortion to be a protected right under the Constitution.

President Ford named John Paul Stevens to the court in 1975, thinking he was getting a conservative jurist to serve on the court. Stevens turned out to be one of the leading court liberals.

And what about Roberts? All he’s done is side with the liberal minority on the court in a 2012 vote that upheld the Affordable Care Act. It was a narrow decision that didn’t bring about the end of the world.

The Supreme Court remains a conservative body. It has three hard-core righties — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Roberts might be tilting more toward the center, hardly to the left. Kennedy remains the pivotal swing vote. The four liberals remain dependably so: Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor have formed a Fearsome Foursome of liberal jurisprudence.

The hard right just needs to chill out. I doubt that the chief justice is going to turn on them. Hey, if he does, then he’s joining some pretty heady company among justices who rediscovered their consciences and their principles.

legal news, political news, State news

No surprise: High Court upholds Texas voter ID law

Early voting in Texas begins Monday and everyone who votes in this mid-term election will be required to produce identification that proves they are who they say they are.

This comes courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court, which today ruled that the Texas voter ID law is valid and that, by golly, it does not amount to an unconstitutional “poll tax.”

Interesting.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/221166-supreme-court-rules-texas-can-enforce-voter-id-law

A federal judge in Texas had struck down the law, saying it discriminated against low-income Americans — notably African-Americans and Hispanics — who might be unable to afford such identification. The judge, a Barack Obama appointee, is a Latina jurist.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals then reversed the judge’s ruling. The case then went to the highest court in the land, which today ruled 6-3 to reinstate the Texas voter ID law.

The three dissenters: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a Bill Clinton appointee), and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan (Barack Obama appointees).

Ginsburg said this in her dissent: “The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.”

Those who support these laws contend that they prevent “voter fraud” and keep illegal immigrants from voting. That, too, is interesting, given that there is so little evidence of such fraud existing in Texas or anywhere else.

The reinstatement of this law is now more than likely going to stand for the foreseeable future.

We’ll see how many American citizens will be turned away from polling places across Texas. Let’s also take a look at their ethnicity, shall we?