A game that nobody wants to play.
Even though serving on a jury is considered an important civic duty, people in this country seem to loathe the mere idea of being forced to do it. After all, because of jury duty, people have to miss work — hell, some people even get fired because of it.
And even though jury duty is something that is required by law, instead of just doing it, people would rather make jokes about others being too dumb to get out of it.
One judge in Indiana is well aware of that fact, and he’s on a mission to get people to serve willingly, lest they be forced to face some embarrassing consequences….
Continue reading “A Sign That You Should Always Show Up for Jury Duty”
Natalee Holloway
* What’s funnier here? The fact that Stephen Colbert is running for “president of the United States of South Carolina,” or the fact that he’s already beating Jon Huntsman in the polls? [Washington Post]
* Notorious New Jersey defense attorney Paul Bergrin’s second racketeering trial has been postponed and may be delayed indefinitely, but he’s such a pimp that he doesn’t even care. [The Record]
* According to a new study, 80 percent of law students surveyed said they would attend law school again if they could start over. Hey, any way to escape a dead-end job market. [National Law Journal]
* Unfortunately, not everyone impaneled for jury duty gets to have the Pauly Shore experience. Some people just get fired — even law firm receptionists. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* The day after Joran van der Sloot pleaded guilty to another girl’s murder, a judge declared Natalee Holloway was legally dead. Sometimes coincidence has great timing. [New York Daily News]
* Can you put a “White Only” sign outside of your apartment complex’s public pool? Nope, still illegal. That’s an antique that you might want to consider leaving up in the attic. [ABC News]
* Got fired because you love prostitutes and strippers? Don’t sue over your “hurt feelings,” because apparently all of the bros in the oil and gas industry love them, too. [The Snitch / SF Weekly]
Gerald Ung (left) and Edward DiDonato Jr. (right)
This shouldn’t come as a shock; we predicted it last February, when the criminal case ended in acquittal. But Eddie DiDonato Jr., a former lacrosse star at Villanova and the son of a prominent partner at the Fox Rothschild law firm, has filed a civil lawsuit against Gerald Ung, the Temple Law School student who shot DiDonato in January 2010 in the Old City section of Philadelphia.
Gerald Ung isn’t the only defendant. DiDonato is suing a half dozen other parties, relying on various theories of liability. Let’s think of this as a Torts final exam: Who else might DiDonato be suing besides Ung? What causes of action can you see?
Let’s take a closer look at the lawsuit, filed on behalf of DiDonato by one of Pennsylvania’s leading personal injury lawyers….
Continue reading “DiDonato v. Ung: The Temple Law Shooter Gets Hit — With a Civil Suit”
Dr. Conrad Murray
With hundreds gathered outside of a courthouse in California (with a stunning lack of Michael Jackson impersonators), we can finally answer this lingering question.
Who’s bad? Dr. Conrad Murray.
Dr. Murray, the King of Pop’s doctor, has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
What kind of sentence is Dr. Murray looking at?
Continue reading “Breaking: Conrad Murray Found Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter in Michael Jackson Case”
* The TSA must be stopped. They’re now leaving creepy notes when they spy personal items in your luggage. [Not So Private Parts / Forbes]
* Law students, trust me, there’s nothing on your Facebook page that three more points on the LSAT won’t fix. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Berkeley Law 1Ls are playing an awesome game of assassin. Man, I miss college. I mean law school. [Nuts & Boalts]
* Would there even be medical malpractice if libertarians ruled the world? [Overlawyered]
* The Casey Anthony jurors are probably dying for a closeup. [Huffington Post]
* The future of Law and Economics. [Truth on the Market]
We have the makings of a trend: inappropriate contacts between participants in jury trials. These contacts can be problematic because a jury trial constitutes a delicate ecosystem, in which contacts and communications between actors are regulated strictly to ensure the fairness of the proceedings.
We recently mentioned a case where a juror got sentenced to community service after trying to friend the defendant on Facebook. Well, at least he didn’t try to “poke” her (although perhaps a desire to poke her is what prompted the problematic friend request).
Now we bring you news of, er, more intimate contact between a witness and a lawyer — which culminated in a mistrial….
UPDATE (11:00 AM): Photo of massage therapist Liudmyla Ksenych, a petite and pretty brunette, added after the jump.
Continue reading “Mistrial in Massage Parlor Prosecution After Masseuse Recognizes Defense Lawyer — as a Client….”
Can gay marriage be stopped? Professor Tribe thinks not.
* Professor Laurence Tribe on “the constitutional inevitability of same-sex marriage.” [SCOTUSblog]
* You can sleep when you’re dead — and you can prevail against the IRS in litigation, too (as the late Ken Lay just did). [TaxProf Blog]
* Speaking of the dead, just because someone is burglarizing your business doesn’t mean you can kill them. [Jonathan Turley via WSJ Law Blog]
* Professor Daniel Hamermesh asks: “Why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?” [New York Times via ABA Journal]
Michele Bachmann
* Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann wonders if the recent earthquake and hurricane constitute messages from God. [Dealbreaker]
* Professor Larry Ribstein: “Law is waiting for its Steve Jobs (or Bill Gates). When he or she arrives it could be a lot more important than the iPhone.” [Truth on the Market]
* This juror should at least have put the defendant on “Limited Profile.” [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
* Is the Stolen Valor Act unconstitutional? Let’s talk Turkey. [The Atlantic]
* Additional discussion of the recent New Jersey Supreme Court ruling on eyewitness testimony (which we mentioned last week). [Mother Jones]
Stephen McDaniel
Revelations continue to spill forth regarding Stephen Mark McDaniel, 25, the recent Mercer Law School graduate accused of killing his former classmate and neighbor, Lauren Giddings.
On Saturday, the Macon Telegraph reported on a theory that Stephen McDaniel was framed for the murder of Lauren Giddings. This theory was advanced by McDaniel’s mother, Glenda McDaniel, who steadfastly maintains her son’s innocence. As commentator Kenny Burgamy aptly noted in the Telegraph, “A mother’s love is instinctual, unconditional and forever.”
Yesterday the Telegraph followed up with a detailed profile of Stephen McDaniel, looking at his childhood, family background, and college years. It’s a great read; check it out in full over here.
To whet your appetite, let’s cover the highlights….
Continue reading “A Portrait of the Accused as a Young Man (Plus a reader poll: innocent?)”
Mmm... breakfast.
Yes, they have laws in tropical paradises in the Caribbean. And trials. And sometimes those trials requires a jury of peers to sit in judgment.
But it turns out that island jurors are no more happy to be locked inside in a boring courtroom than we are here on the mainland. Apparently, one jury in the Virgin Islands decided that they were going to treat jury duty as if it was a wonderful vacation. They demanded that they be fed like kings!
And three of them even wiggled out of the service due to their dietary concerns….
Continue reading “New Way To Get Out of Jury Duty: Order Lots and Lots of Food”
I love to talk about truck nuts, probably for the same reason that racists love to talk about crime rates in the ghetto. Regardless of why, I just can’t get enough of the phenomenon of people affixing plastic testicles to their motor vehicles.
Obviously, I think people should be free to do pretty much whatever they want when it comes to decorating their vehicles. So I find the truck nuts story circulating around the blogosphere very disturbing. Apparently, a South Carolina woman was given a $445 ticket for her truck’s nuts. Her story is making news, because she’s secured a jury trial to protest the ticket.
So, for those playing along at home, South Carolina will defend to the death your right to display the Confederate Flag, the symbol of a regime committed to slavery and racial oppression, but plastic testicles is a bridge too far.
Yes, like most obscenity cases, this one is turgid with hypocrisy….
Continue reading “Is A Ban on ‘Truck Nuts’ Unconstitutional?”
The verdict in the Casey Anthony case reflected the lack of forensic evidence and heavy reliance on circumstantial inferences. There was no evidence of a cause of death, the time of death, or the circumstances surrounding the actual death of this young girl. There was sufficient circumstantial evidence from which the jury could have inferred homicide. But a reasonable jury could also have rejected that conclusion, as this jury apparently did.
– Alan Dershowitz, in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece about the Casey Anthony verdict. (For thoughts along similar lines in defense of fair Casey, see Elie’s recent post.)
I really, really hope that somewhere out there, Thomas W. Gooch III feels like a giant tool. A few days ago, Gooch, of the law firm Gauthier & Gooch, wrote a motion objecting to a “large breasted woman” sitting at opposing counsel’s table. He questioned the woman’s qualifications and accused opposing counsel, Dmitry Feofanov, of planting her there to distract the jury.
We wrote about Feofanov’s response. He said the woman is his paralegal. But that response didn’t satisfy Gooch, who told the Chicago Sun-Times:
“Personally, I like large breasts,” Gooch said. “However, I object to somebody I don’t think is a qualified paralegal sitting at the counsel table — when there’s already two lawyers there — dressed in such a fashion as to call attention to herself.”
Well, it turns out that Gooch has been ogling, scrutinizing, and questioning the qualifications of Feofanov’s wife.
Dude… not cool.
Feofanov has furnished us with a statement, accompanied by a tasteful picture of his allegedly offensively-figured wife…
Continue reading “The Allegedly Distracting Breasts At Counsel Table: Guess Who They Belong To?”
Well, there’s really nothing else to talk about this morning. Jezebel reports that a defense attorney has written a motion objecting to the people seated at the plaintiff’s table. Well, one person in particular — a “large breasted woman” who is seated next to plaintiff’s counsel.
Is there a law against having large-breasted women hang out with you? Of course not; this is America!
But since this motion is one of the most sexist things you are likely to come across, let’s give it a closer look…
Continue reading “Motion of the Day: No Law Against Having Big-Breasted Colleagues”
We all wanted to give Raj the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to believe he was an honest man. How could someone so smart and rich already be involved in something so horrendous?
– Leila Gonzalez Gorman, a 44-year-old teacher from Westchester County, who served on the jury that found Raj Rajaratnam guilty of insider trading and conspiracy.
(According to the Wall Street Journal, Rajaratnam “is estimated to have paid as much as $40 million for his defense… about two-thirds of the amount prosecutors said [his Galleon Group hedge fund] made from the insider trading addressed in the charges.”)
Raj Rajaratnam
Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire leader of the Galleon Group, has been found guilty.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all 14 counts Rajaratnam was facing — nine counts of insider trading and five of conspiracy. Rajaratnam could get a sentence of up to 19 and a half years under the federal sentencing guidelines, according to prosecutors.
Rajaratnam’s defense lawyer, John Dowd of Akin Gump, is a renowned advocate — but he’s not a miracle worker. Raj was just too big a target.
Check out our sister site Dealbreaker for continuing coverage.
Raj Rajaratnam Found Guilty [Dealbreaker]
Galleon’s Rajaratnam Found Guilty [Dealbook]
After seven days of deliberations, one juror in the insider trading trial of Raj Rajaratnam has been dismissed, for unspecified medical reasons. An alternate has been seated, but this means the jury has to begin its deliberations anew. The original jurors must be thrilled.
Let’s hope that the dismissed juror was a holdout (either way). The suspense is killing us!
Readers: Any predictions on how this will turn out? Will celebrated criminal defense lawyer John Dowd — who successfully represented the fabulous Monica Goodling, among others — pull this off? Or will the prosecutors of the legendary S.D.N.Y. get their man?
Did Raj Rajaratnam Rub His Athlete’s Foot All Over A Just Dismissed Juror? [Dealbreaker]
Rajaratnam Trial, Take 2 [WSJ Law Blog]
Gerald Ung (left) and Edward DiDonato Jr. (right)
Well that didn’t take long, did it? The jury in the case of Commonwealth v. Ung began deliberations at 11:32 a.m., and it just returned a verdict of “not guilty,” around 4 p.m. Eastern time. Gerald Ung, the Temple Law student who was charged with attempted murder in connection with a January 2010 shooting in the Old City section of Philadelphia, has been acquitted.
This news might not come as a huge shock. In our reader poll, over 90 percent of you said you’d vote “not guilty” if you were jurors.
Congratulations to Ung — who testified on his own behalf yesterday, arguing that he acted in self-defense — and to Ung’s very fine defense lawyer, the renowned Jack McMahon.
Does this mean that Gerald Ung, 29, gets his life back? Can things go back to normal for him and for the Ung family?
Continue reading “Breaking: Temple Law Student Gerald Ung Found Not Guilty in Shooting”
A little over half an hour ago — shortly before noon, after receiving instructions from Judge Glynnis Hill — a jury of six men and six women began its deliberations in Commonwealth v. Ung, the criminal trial of Temple Law student Gerald Ung. Ung has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, and other offenses, arising out of a January 2010 shooting incident. Ung shot Eddie DiDonato, a former Villanova lacrosse captain and the son of a partner at Fox Rothschild, in what Ung claims was self-defense.
Above the Law readers seem sympathetic to Ung. At the current time, in our reader poll, over 90 percent of you would vote “not guilty” on the main charge of attempted murder. (The poll is still open; you can vote over here.)
How long will the jury deliberate? Will we end up with a hung jury, or an Ung jury, or some convictions?
Stay tuned. We’ll bring you the verdict as soon as we learn of it. (Of course, please feel free to email us or text us (646-820-8477) if you happen to get the news before we do.)
UPDATE: Read about the jury verdict over here.
Jury gets case of student charged in Old City shooting [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Earlier: Commonwealth v. Ung: The Defendant Takes the Stand
Prior ATL coverage of Gerald Ung
