ATL Field Trip: Viva Las Vegas

Greetings from Las Vegas, where two Above the Law editors will debating legal education tomorrow. While in town, we also paid a visit to the site of a major ATL story.

Can you say Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (affiliate link)? I’ll be “fear,” given my generally anxious personality, and Elie can be “loathing,” since he’s so good at it.

Greetings from Sin City. Elie and I are in town for a debate we’re participating in tomorrow on the future of legal education. The debate will take place on Monday at noon in room 102 at UNLV Law School. The event is free and open to the public, and lunch will be provided, so please come if you can. Thanks to the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society for co-sponsoring. (You can check out the event flyer here.)

While in Las Vegas, in addition to stimulating the local economy by losing money at craps and poker, I paid a visit to the site of a major Above the Law story: the alleged bird beheading that resulted in criminal charges for two Berkeley law students. Here are my observations and photographs….

We’ve covered the alleged Las Vegas misadventures of Eric Cuellar and Justin Teixeira quite extensively. The two Boalt Hall students were criminally charged in connection with the killing of an exotic bird, a helmeted guinea fowl named “Turk,” at the wildlife habitat at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas.

Last month, Cuellar pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of instigating an act of cruelty to an animal. Teixeira’s fate remains up in the air.

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UPDATE (2/12/2013, 8 PM): On February 11, Teixeira entered a not guilty plea (through his lawyer; he did not personally appear). The next scheduled event is a preliminary hearing on April 24.

Since I was already in Las Vegas, staying just up the Strip from the Flamingo Hotel, I decided to check out the wildlife habitat where this all allegedly went down. It was not at all what I expected….

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