Arson
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Biglaw, Crime
Biglaw Arsonist Sentenced To 15 Years In Prison
Only one lawyer was present when the fire broke out. -
Trials, Weirdness
Arson Trial Ends With Lawyer's Pants On Fire -- Not A Metaphor, His Pants Caught Fire
The dumbest closing argument ever? - Sponsored
Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
In this CLE-eligible webinar, we’ll explore the most common accounting pitfalls and how to avoid them for your firm. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.15.16
* Ted Cruz may not like dildos, but he doesn’t seem to mind legal weed. Earlier this week, the Republican presidential candidate said that while he opposes federal legalization of cannabis, states should be free to experiment because the Constitution allows for it. Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana is safe and sound, for now. [Denver Post]
* “It was a very pleasant meeting, but it has changed nothing.” Senate Republicans may want nothing to do with confirming D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, but they’ve sure been taking their sweet time telling him “no” during their courtesy meetings with him. Some of these seemingly pointless meetings have gone on for more than an hour. [New York Times]
* Chief Judge Garland may be wasting his time with these lengthy meetings, though, because if the jurist isn’t confirmed before the upcoming presidential election, Senator Bernie Sanders said during last night’s Democratic debate that if he wins, he’d ask President Obama to withdraw his nomination, as he doesn’t think that Garland would pass his progressive litmus test on Citizens United. Are you still feeling the Bern? [TIME]
* Lawmakers in several states have passed bathroom bills that enable bigotry in the name of protecting religious rights, but what you may not have known is that there is one lawyer behind them all. Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel — who was recently in the news for representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis — says he’s doing it to push back against the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. [CBS News]
* Professor Richard Sander of UCLA School of Law, whose claim to academic fame is his “mismatch” theory of affirmative action, has been trying to get more than 30 years’ worth of data from the State Bar of California for quite some time in an effort to continue his research into the “large and persistent gap in bar passage rates among racial and ethnic groups,” and now he’s finally going to get his day in court. [WSJ Law Blog]
* David Gherity, a former Minnesota lawyer who was falsely accused of setting his girlfriend on fire using accelerants like alcohol, lotion, hair spray, and fingernail polish remover, has filed a civil rights suit against the police and prosecutors who kept him in jail for about two months. Gherity, who was suspended from practice in 2004, alleges a violation of the “protected interest in his good name.” [Twin Cities Pioneer Press]
Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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Crime, Law Schools, Murder
Law Student Arrested On Murder And Arson Charges
Another lawyer's career may be over before it even started. -
Crime, Immigration, Intellectual Property, Patents, SCOTUS, State Judges, Supreme Court
Today at the Supreme Court: Mistakes Were Made
What are the consequences for various kinds of screw-ups? That's the theme of today's opinions from the Supreme Court. -
Crime, Sentencing Law, Suicide, Wall Street
Yale Law Grad Takes Poison Pill, Effectively
Wall Street banker and Yale Law grad convicted of arson, and then takes matters into his own hands... -
Celebrities, Drugs, Federal Circuit, Federal Judges, Gay, Michael Jackson, Morning Docket, Murder, Senate Judiciary Committee, Violence
Morning Docket: 11.11.11
* A bill to repeal DOMA made it past the Senate Judiciary Committee, but members of the Senate don’t do dick (unless it’s in an airport bathroom), so it’s probably not going anywhere. [Blog of Legal Times] * Next on the gay rights news beat, after waiting around for 18 months, WilmerHale attorney Edward DuMont […]