State Judges

Morning Docket: 09.05.12

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* When in doubt, seek divine guidance and bet it all on black. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is going to be visiting Las Vegas this week, where he will attend a Red Mass and then head for the Strip. [Reno Gazette-Journal]

* After being limited on page length, a licensing expert opted to file a five-page cartoon brief in the Apple e-book case. This dude can retire, because he’s achieved legal baller status. [Bloomberg]

* James Hayes’s lawsuit over ICE’s alleged federal “frat house” has been sent to mediation for a possible settlement — but in real Greek life, he likely would’ve been peer pressured to de-pledge. [Washington Post]

* Bull’s-eye! Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack has recused himself from a personal injury case where he was alleged to have called a Cozen O’Connor partner a “piece of sh*t.” [New York Law Journal]

* The case of the missing asterisk: an Ohio Court of Appeals candidate was fined for wearing judge’s robes in her campaign flyers because she failed to indicate her judicial status or lack thereof. [National Law Journal]

* How much does it cost to cover up and then begrudgingly deal with a child sex abuse scandal? The tab thus far for Penn State University is about $17M — $4M of which went to legal services and defense. [CBS News]

* Despite Villanova Law’s admissions scandal, the dean reports that the school has admitted its “highest-quality” class ever. You know it’s hard to believe anything you say about your data, right? [Philadelphia Inquirer]

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Morning Docket: 09.03.12

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Angelica Cecora

Ed. note: Due to the Labor Day holiday, we’ll be on a reduced publication schedule today. We’ll be back to normal tomorrow. A restful and happy Labor Day to all!

* The lone ex-Dewey partner who was sued by Citibank for defaulting on his capital loan is fighting back, claiming that he was “fraudulently induced” into signing up for the plan even though the bank knew that the S.S. D&L was sinking. [Reuters]

* If you’re trying to avoid additional questions being raised about your alleged bad behavior, a resignation amid scandal isn’t the way to do it. Suzanne Barr, the ICE official accused of running a federal “frat house,” has quit her job. [New York Daily News]

* A federal judge taught the members of the Louisiana Supreme court that the year 1994 did, in fact, occur before the year 1995. Justice Bernette Johnson will now ascend to the rank of chief justice. [Times-Picayune]

* Because we’re all a little hopeless these days: given the bleak realities of our economic situation, perhaps it’s finally time to change the standard for a discharge of student loan debt in bankruptcy. [New York Times]

* “The groups that attempt to rank schools are involved in a lot of hogwash.” Even if that’s the case, people are still going to care about the University of Illinois’s rankings nosedive after the Paul Pless to-do. [News-Gazette]

* Don’t be scared by the absurd tuition rates or the abysmal job prospects, because law school is still a great investment for African-Americans — and for law schools in search of diversity, too. [National Law Journal]

* “[T]hat a lawyer would take this kind of case is shocking.” Sadly, it’s not. Angelica Marie Cecora, the alleged escort who filed a $5M suit against Oscar de la Hoya, now has to pay all of his legal fees. [New York Post]

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Judge of the Day: This Is What You Call a ‘Lack of Good Judgment’

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Turns out judges sometimes value guns just as much as the rest of “real” America. We’ve covered judges who inappropriately brandish firearms from the bench, but as far as I know, I’ve never heard of a judge actually shooting his gun inside a courthouse.

Until today.

A state judge in Tioga County, NY, was censured after he fired his revolver inside his chambers. Was he shooting at a dangerous criminal? Nooope. It was an unfortunate technical malfeasance. It probably didn’t help that the reason he had a conceal-carry permit was because he approved his own….

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Judge’s Alleged Bias Spurred By Attorney’s Refusal to Purchase Girl Scout Cookies

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Each spring, our fine country is besieged by little girls on a mission to sell the most cookies or else risk being the embarrassment of their troop. Of course, I’m talking about the Girl Scouts of the USA, a program that indoctrinates young women to “be prepared” for adulthood by earning patches in first aid, sportsmanship, and other important life skills, like cooking and makeup application. (Yes, seriously.)

Anyway, Girl Scout cookies used to be pimped by door-to-door sales when mothers still allowed their children to walk around unattended (except for where I grew up in Hillsdale, NJ, the town where Joan’s Law originated). These days, parents tend to do all the work for their kids, and force their coworkers to buy box upon box of delicious cookies.

Now, it’s very rare that one wouldn’t succumb to the pressure to buy a box of Girl Scout cookies — seriously, have you ever eaten a Thin Mint? — but you can’t convince everyone to be a customer, and not everyone will care that they might be crushing a little girl’s hopes and dreams of earning a cookie patch. In extreme cases, not even a judge can allegedly foist these cookies upon an unwilling customer….

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Morning Docket: 08.27.12

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* Unhappy with eleventy billion dollars in damages due to Apple, Samsung will begin its appeals, perhaps even to the Supreme Court (because you know that SCOTUS wants a bite at the proverbial literal patent apple). [Wall Street Journal]

* And speaking of that jury award, jury foreman Velvin Hogan had this to say about it: “We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable.” Yeah, because a billion dollars in damages isn’t unreasonable at all. [Reuters]

* Do judges with lawyerly license plates avoid traffic infractions instead of getting tickets? The New York Commission on Judicial Conduct is investigating this issue of epic importance. [New York Law Journal]

* If bill collectors are threatening to sue you over your credit-card debts, you better pray that your case lands on Judge Noach Dear’s docket, because in his courtroom, “it’s dismiss, dismiss, dismiss.” [New York Post]

* Hippies can file lawsuits, too: Burning Man starts today, but the event’s organizers claim that its Nevada venue is pursuing a new theme in view of a “drastic increase in fees” — burning money. [All Things Digital]

* Protestors should be allowed to act however they want when carrying prohibited machetes in Republican National Convention event zones. This was the first, and definitely the coolest, RNC arrest made. [ABC News]

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Ex-Judge of the Day: Hey Baby, Wanna See What’s Under These Robes?

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Covering state judges NEVER gets old. They flip out at pastors, they brandish guns at alleged rape victims, and they make incredible campaign ads. If there’s some wonky human behavior, you can assume a state judge has done it or soon will.

This week, we’ve got a recent (and reluctant) ex-judge from Georgia who faces allegations of propositioning a woman to be his mistress. When she declined and talked to the press, the woman claims the judge planted drugs on her car.

And, according to state officials investigating the judge, this might be just the beginning of the trouble he’s in….

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Quote of the Day: In Other News, Detroit Still Sucks

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I evacuated the courtroom today due to a man with live bedbugs for everybody’s well-being.

– 36th District Judge Cylenthia LaToye Miller, explaining why the grossest thing ever a man sitting in the first row “with bedbugs crawling on him” led her to clear her Detroit courtroom yesterday.

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Cozen Partner Claims Judge Called Him a ‘Piece of Sh*t,’ Put ‘Wanted’ Posters of His Face With a Bull’s-Eye in Courtroom

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Bullseye!

The last time we wrote about a partner from Cozen O’Connor, he ended up with a “huge [bleep]hole” after sending a string of allegedly abusive emails to opposing counsel. Today, we’ve got another Cozen partner whose tale of woe with the New York court system may be liable for giving a New York judge a “huge [bleep]hole” of his own.

John McDonough, the Cozen partner in question, has accused Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack of some pretty untoward actions, and has filed papers to get the judge to recuse himself from a $100 million civil case against Duane Reade.

But what could have been so offensive that it would warrant calls for a judge’s recusal? Apparently McDonough isn’t a fan of being referred to as a “piece of sh*t”….

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Calling This State Judge A ‘Clown’ Is Insulting To Clowns

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The only people dumber than this Lubbock, Texas judge are the people who believe state court judges are impartial.

The story that has gone viral this morning is about Texas Judge Tom Head. In a local news interview, Judge Head said that a property tax increase was needed, in part, so the sheriff’s department could defend the people against U.N. troops that Obama would send to invade Texas to quash the civil war that would naturally break out if he was re-elected.

Stupid freaking Texas. Up here in New York, we’ve been preparing for that eventuality for years. What, you think it really costs $2,200 to rent a one-bedroom shoebox in Chelsea? Of course not! I believe it was our own New York State Supreme Court Judge D. Bagger Dumas who said: “The MTA needs funds to extend the 7-line all the way to Hoboken so that we may have an avenue to escape from the mechanized Kenyan Power-bots Obama has been developing in secret with the French and General Zod.”

Sorry, even my jokey attempt to sound as crazy as a Texas judge falls woefully short of the real life lunacy of Texas judges (plus an UPDATE on this guy’s title)….

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Non-Sequiturs: 08.20.12

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* So now the judge accused of watching porn from a courthouse computer admits to watching porn on a courthouse computer. Let me just get this out of the way: if I’ve used your computer, it was probably to watch porn. [Chicago Sun-Times]

* Too soon for Aurora jokes? I think it’s weird that more people believe in waiting periods for zingers than for handguns. [Tax Prof Blog]

* Lance Armstrong’s suit against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks. How come the only athlete that seemed to get his day in court was Roger Clemens? [Bloomberg]

* Another kid is packing in his sports dreams to go to law school. Though, in fairness, one of the few things worse than the law graduate economy is probably the NHL economy. [North Dakota Inforum]

* I think Republican political candidates should know by now that they only bands they are allowed to like are country music bands. If they want to like non-country music, they should get the artist’s approval, in writing. Meanwhile, liberals are allowed like all kinds of music, even music performed by people who don’t know what they are talking about. [What About Clients?]

* Attorney and rape victim Shauna Prewitt has some facts about rape that apparently Todd Akin didn’t know. [xoJane]

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