DUI

Morning Docket: 12.06.11

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Rima Fakih: should she go to jail?

* Close, but no cigar? The ABA has updated the way that it will collect graduate employment and salary data from law schools, but the new method could still use a few tweaks. [National Law Journal]

* Kilpatrick Townsend is expanding into Saudi Arabia. I don’t really have anything witty to say about this, but now the “Arabian Nights” song from Aladdin is stuck in my head. [Atlanta Business Chronicle]

* British barristers behaving badly: Kevin Steele, a former Mishcon de Reya partner, was convicted of fraud and forgery charges in connection with a $28M loan scam. They don’t serve tea and crumpets in jail. [Legal Week]

* Joshua Monson, the serial defense attorney stabber, was in court yesterday for sentencing. Still no word on whether he was wheeled in on a Hannibal Lecter-esque gurney to prevent more stabby behavior. [CNN]

* No, Ophelia, when you’re a transgender prisoner in Virginia, the state is not going to pay for your sex change operation, no matter how many courts you appeal to. [Houston Chronicle]

* Will Rima Fakih, 2010′s Miss USA, have to do jail time in Michigan for reportedly being a “super-drunk”? Check back after we get the results from the swimsuit competition. [MLive.com]

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Drinking, Driving, and Packing

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What does a peacock have in common with a gun owner?

Maybe we should look at this as a grand test of the “theory” of evolution via natural selection. Eventually, over the course of hundreds of thousands or millions of years, the gun nuts should really die out, while those who favor sensible gun regulation will live and procreate and prosper.

But then again, maybe this is a case of sexual selection. Maybe the gun-nut trait will be favored because — despite its negative correlation with survival (most gun nuts don’t even understand that gun owners are more likely to shoot themselves or a loved one than any kind of criminal) — toting a gun just drives the ladies wild. Maybe holding a gun really is like holding a (pea)cock.

Either way, I feel the need to explain Tennessee state representative Curry Todd’s alleged behavior with the understanding of the natural forces in play. Because on the surface, the fact that the politician in favor of guns in bars got pulled over for allegedly driving while drunk, with his gun in his car, just seems to speak to the natural evolution of our species….

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Law Graduates DENIED Opportunity To Sit For Bar Because They Lied To Law Schools About Their Criminal Records

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The other pics for bipolar disorder were more freaky.

Back when only recent college graduates went to law school, you didn’t have to worry much about law students sneaking into law schools with extensive criminal records. How much trouble can you really get into when you were busy performing well in college, earning a useless liberal arts degree?

But in our day and age, there are enough law schools hanging around that pretty much anybody can get in. Barriers to entry are pretty much at the level where as long as you can fill out a loan application, you can get into law school. Heck, as we reported recently, convicted murderers can get into law school.

But you have to tell the truth. You can get into law school with a criminal record, but you have to tell your law school the truth about your record.

Apparently, telling the truth is a problem that some people are having….

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Quote of the Day: Buzzed Driving Is Still Legal

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Lawrence Ponoroff

It’s not against the law to have a glass of wine or two with dinner and then drive home.

– Michael Piccarreta, attorney for Lawrence Ponoroff, dean of the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, discussing last week’s dismissal of a DUI charge against the dean. The legal blood-alcohol content limit in Arizona is .08; Ponoroff had a BAC of .047.

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Judges Behaving Badly? A Slew of Lurid Allegations

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Ex-Judge Thompson: not looking well.

Oh goodness. Today is shaping up to be “Misbehaving Judges Day” here at Above the Law.

One judge, new to these pages, is accused of a serious crime: rape. And supposedly there’s a video of the alleged act.

A second judge (or former judge), who should be familiar to many of you — Donald Thompson, aka the “penis pump” judge — has been hit with fresh criminal charges.

Let’s look at the allegations against the two men….

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Law License Plates: Don’t Drink and Drive (With This License Plate)

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Based on the overwhelming number of submissions we’ve received — please don’t be offended if yours doesn’t make the cut — it seems you’re enjoying our recent series on legally-themed license plates. You can send in your photos via email (subject line: “Vanity License Plate”).

Here’s one license plate we received that’s not explicitly law-related. But the reader who submitted it described it as “a DUI lawyer’s worst nightmare.”

You should not drink and drive — especially if this is your license plate….

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Drinking While Riding Your Burro Is Still Legal!

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Legal Blog Watch has a perfect Friday story up on its pages. Two men were arrested for riding animals while drunk. One guy was on a mule, the other was on a horse.

But when they got to the police station, the county attorney determined that the animals did not fall within the definition of “a device in, on or by which a person or property is, or may be, transported or drawn on a highway,” to trigger a DWI arrest. And so the men were released.

OF COURSE this happened in Texas…

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Another Reason You Should Never Blow

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Not that we’re in the business of giving free legal advice, but there are a few things every lawyer should know. Lawyers should know how to handle a traffic stop, for instance. They should know how to handle cops who shout slurs at you from across the street. And of course, lawyers should never snitch.

Some of these lessons come as a shock to laypeople, and even some lawyers who didn’t pay enough attention during Criminal Procedure. But high on the list of things that trained attorneys should never do is submit to a breathalyzer test. You don’t need to be a DUI defense attorney to know that you don’t blow.

The unwritten rule isn’t there to protect drunk drivers (okay, it kind of is there to protect drunks who operate high-speed killing machines); it’s also there to protect innocent people who don’t want to get caught up in the criminal justice system.

An article in today’s Washington Post underscores the point: the breathalyzer simply cannot be trusted, and juries can’t be trusted to know that…

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Northwestern SBA President Now In Trouble With the Real Police (UPDATE: Charge Dismissed)

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CORRECTION AND UPDATE (12/6/2010): We are advised as follows by a knowledgeable source: “There was never a charge of ‘fleeing’ the police or anything of the sort. Todd was, in fact, ‘pulled over’ while parked in the parking lot of his hotel and the only charge against him, driving under the influence, has been dismissed.”

We’ve had quite a bit of fun around these parts with the Northwestern Student Bar Association’s role as PC Police for the entire Northwestern Law community. You’ll remember that the Northwestern SBA admonished students for using “any racial or sexual epithet[s]” around exam time — e.g., “that exam raped me.”

But now tipsters report that outgoing SBA president Todd Belcore is in trouble with duly recognized officers of the law, and it’s got nothing to do with his language:

[O]n a school trip to MS, Todd Belcore was arrested for DUI and fleeing from the police. The people on the trip were warned not to discuss the arrest to avoid the news getting to you guys.

Getting hemmed up on a DUI in Mississippi? That is so gay.

Various Mississippi sheriffs’ departments declined to talk about the incident, but additional sources confirmed the reports….

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