Evidence

A prosecutor's oath is to do justice, not just to win.

* Following the lawsuit against him alleging sexual harassment, former Berkeley Law Dean Sujit Choudry writes an open letter to students. [Daily Cal]

* Thanks to the internet we all have information overload — so how do you get through to a jury? [Katz Justice]

* Here are the changes to how the Multistate Bar Exam will be testing evidence. [Excellence in Law School]

* He may not be on the Court (yet), but Judge Garland is already impacting SCOTUS decisions. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Who are the real winners and losers? [Guile is Good]

* Is your hard drive keeping you in the past? [Law and More]

* Everything you need to know about social media marketing before you go solo. [Reboot Your Law Practice]

This quaint little country ditty has been getting airplay on radio stations across the country.

PowerPoint is an enabler of bad presentations everywhere.

Emoji law, yo.

The decision to plead guilty is often made in the dark, based on fear and a shortage of information. Why does this happen?

In sports and in politics, enabling fundamental fairness and symmetry in an adversarial proceeding seems like a positive goal. Perhaps there is room to borrow more from eDiscovery in other quasi-litigation arenas.

* Too many students who still apply and attend law school, convinced they are the special snowflake that will beat the odds, are just lying to themselves. [Law and More]

* A new motion in the case of Adnan Syed, featured in the inaugural and highly successful first season of the Serial podcast, casts doubt on key evidence used to convict him. [Gawker]

* Attention in-house counsel: Please, please, please stop sending money to a Nigerian prince. It is, in fact, a scam. [Corporate Counsel]

* The legal battle to define mayo has reached its conclusion. Cutting edge of the legal world people. [Slate]

* Colleges are back in session and have to deal with the ramifications of incredibly offensive and juvenile behavior. Again. [Popehat]

* Is it possible there will be a legal research competitor to Lexis and Westlaw? Or Nah? [William Ha]

* Talk about Texas justice: After an elderly couple called animal control on a family with four dogs and caused them to be assessed a $121 fine, the dog-owning family posted this eloquently worded sign on their lawn. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* Chicago Blawkhawks hockey player Patrick Kane has been accused of rape, so naturally, his lawyer took to Facebook to defend his client in a hat trick of idiocy by engaging with bloggers, commenters, and witnesses, as one does. [CBS Chicago]

* Just when you thought you’d memorized all of the hearsay exceptions, the judiciary says it’s thinking of tossing one out. It may be popular on the bar exam, but it’s time to say goodbye to the otherwise rarely used ancient documents rule. [National Law Journal]

* British firms are borrowing “record sums” to fund expansion, and many have increased associate pay to compete with the U.S. firms with higher pay scales across the pond. Perhaps Biglaw firms ought to consider spreading the wealth over here. [Financial Times]

* After having served 10 months in prison for killing his girlfriend, a law school graduate turned model, Oscar Pistorius is ready to move on to “mansion arrest” for the remainder of his sentence. Man, it must be nice to be a wealthy convict in South Africa. [Reuters]

The cops caught sampling pot during a raid have some laughable reasons why that video must be suppressed.

n Automated Solutions Corp. v. Paragon Data Systems, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 11918 (6th Cir. June 25, 2014), the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit provided a close examination of the standards required for the imposition of severe sanctions for failing to preserve evidence. The case involved a dispute between two software companies over the development of software code. Essentially, the plaintiff Automated Solutions (“Automated”) accused Paragon Data Systems (“Paragon”) of utilizing Automated’s code to develop a competing software program. Automated filed a motion for sanctions seeking a default judgment against Paragon for Paragon’s failure to preserve a server and two hard drives utilized in the development of the competing software as well as computer backup tapes. The district court concluded that Paragon was negligent in failing to preserve the materials, but that there was no evidence indicating that Paragon acted with any willful or malicious behavior. Instead of imposing sanctions, the court indicated that it would consider the issuance of an adverse inference instruction against Paragon at trial. After Paragon prevailed on summary judgment, Automated appealed to the Sixth Circuit.

If the deck wasn't stacked enough, federal rules also meaningfully chill defendants from testifying.

How did fingerprinting come to be a standard and accepted practice in criminal cases?

* Everything you wanted to know about the Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul. [Latin Post] * Well, we made fun of him in the past, but now Rob Greenstein has been sworn into office by none other than Hillary Clinton. Good for him. The ads were still stupid, though. [New York Personal Injury Blog] * Really, Seattle? Blow dart attacks? [Seattle Times] * Clay Aiken is thinking about running for Congress? Bad move, bro. Ruben Studdard has that district locked up. [Roll Call] * It’s a very civil world where evidence spoliation earns you a nice compliment from the judge. [IT-Lex] * Joe was on Legalese It! on HuffPo Live to discuss everything from gay marriage to threats made against the President. And you get to see Joe forget the name of Mail Goggles. Video embedded below... [HuffPo Live]

To what extent is artistic expression probative of an artist's actions.

* Former U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride will be joining Davis Polk as a partner in the firm’s white-collar defense practice. Nice work, DPW — he’s actually kind of cute. Earn back that rep! [DealBook / New York Times]

* Matthew Kluger, most recently of Wilson Sonsini, was disbarred in D.C. following his insider trading conviction. His criminal career apparently began while he was still in law school. Sheesh. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Kent Easter, he of the “I am but a spineless shell of a man” defense, was just on the receiving end of a mistrial. It seems the jury was totally deadlocked. Guess they felt bad for him. [Navelgazing / OC Weekly]

* The Iowa Law Student Bar Association supports the school’s decision to cut out-of-state tuition by about $8,000 because to stand against such a measure would be absolutely ridiculous. Congratulations on not being dumb. [Iowa City Press-Citizen]

* Apple won more than $290 million from Samsung in its patent infringement retrial. Siri, tell me what the fifth-largest jury award in the U.S. was in 2013. OMG, I didn’t say delete all my contacts. [Bloomberg]

* The trial for James Holmes, the shooter in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre, was delayed by a judge until further notice. A hearing has been scheduled to reassess the situation in December. [CNN]

* Myrna S. Raeder, renowned expert on evidence and criminal procedure, RIP. [ABA Journal]

A federal judge tells prosecutors to use Photoshop to remove an item from a picture. But is changing the totality of the image the same as excluding prejudicial evidence?

* The night of the Benghazi attacks, President Obama was high on cocaine and having gay sex. Sure, this seems totally reasonable. [Examiner] * Singapore does not f**k around with sentencing. A professor faces up to five years in jail for each of six charges of corruption arising from consensual sex with a student. [Law and More] * “Brooklyn D.A.” survives an injunction. But apparently it kind of sucks. [TV Newser] * An unfortunately accurate story of a chickens**t legal dispute. [Legal Juice] * An interview with a biochemist going to Yale Law School. [Science to Law] * Testimony elicited from superheroes may not be admissible. [Law and the Multiverse]

SCOTUS didn't issue a health care opinion, but for a certain kind of lawyer, a very important opinion was issued today, instead...

Professor Nesson at Harvard Law is all about the existential experience of thinking deeply (or casually) about law -- and he's doing it at a school that confers the very tangible benefit of high-paying, prestigious jobs to all who want them. So, strap yourselves in: two questions, 500-word limit per answer. Have fun, kids....