Grand Jury
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Courts
GA Grand Jurors: Lordy, There Were MORE Tapes
What happens in Atlanta doesn't always stay in Atlanta. -
Courts
DOJ Urges Court To Seal Filings Regarding Trump Grand Jury, If Such A Thing Exists, Which They Cannot Confirm Or Deny
Sure, you've been reading about that grand jury for months. But wouldn't it be fun to pretend in legal filings that we all live in a land of magical make believe? - Sponsored
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Government
Expected Soon: A Public Version Of The Mueller Report -- Sans Grand Jury Info
This is probably going to be headed to court.
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.08.19
* “There needs to be some kind of ongoing legislative inquiry—whether for impeachment or something else [to release grand jury material.” If you’re eager to get your hands on the full Mueller report, you may have to wait a bit longer thanks to this D.C. Circuit case. [Big Law Business]
* Meanwhile, during part of a weekend tweetstorm, President Donald Trump said that “even though [he] [has] every right to do so,” he’s not yet read the Mueller report. But even if he does read it in the future, it’s unlikely he’ll change his “complete and total exoneration” tune. [Slate]
* In the wake of recent accusations of inappropriate touching, the way former Vice President Joe Biden handled Anita Hill’s sexual harassment claims against Justice Clarence Thomas’s dramatic confirmation hearing is coming back to bite him. [CNN]
* Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday, effective immediately. According to a senior administration official, the UVA Law alumnus said the President was “making unreasonable and even impossible requests” about the border. [CBS News]
* Weekend at Ruthie’s?
Windmill cancer expertsConspiracy theorists think that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been dead for quite some time and Democrats are covering it up to prevent President Trump from taking her seat. [The Hill]* Congratulations to Justice Christopher McDonald, the first person of color to serve on the Iowa Supreme Court. McDonald, “an immigrant’s son,” says he’s “deep[ly] concern[ed]” with racial justice issues. [Des Moines Register]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 01.07.19
* Senator Ted Cruz has proposed a constitutional amendment that would set term limits for those in the Senate (two six-year terms) and House of Representatives (three two-year terms) because “[t]erm limits on members of Congress offer a solution to the brokenness we see in Washington, D.C.” [Business Insider]
* Speaking of terms, the grand jury’s 18-month term in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was set to expire this past weekend, but Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the D.C. District Court extended it for up to six months since the jurors’ work is “in the public interest.” [CNN]
* The federal judiciary has enough money to stay afloat until January 11, and then, per a spokesman for the U.S. courts, “[i]t’s really a judge-by-judge, court-by-court determination” when the courts start operating under the Antideficiency Act “to support the exercise of Article III judicial power.” [Fortune]
* Hot on the heels of its decision that a ban on racist trademark registrations violated the First Amendment, the Supreme Court will decide whether a similar ban on “scandalous” marks is unconstitutional as well. [Law360]
* Do we need a Rooney Rule for federal law clerks? According to Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California, it might be the solution to increasing the amount of diversity — of people of color and of law school representation — in the clerks’ candidate pool. We’ll have more on this later today. [National Law Journal]
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Crime
Is Donald Trump Being Tried As A Black Man?
Reports from the Mueller grand jury suggest it's not a MAGA stronghold. -
White-Collar Crime
Grand Jury Secrecy -- The Other Kind
Cracking the great big black box of the criminal justice system. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.04.17
* The White House announces ten new judicial nominations, including two for circuit courts (previously predicted in these pages). We’ll have more on this later. [Washington Times]
* King & Spalding joins Jones Day and Sullivan & Cromwell as a “feeder firm” for the Trump administration. [Law.com]
* Will the Trump Justice Department’s possible attack on affirmative action succeed? Law professors disagree. [How Appealing]
* Michelle Carter, the woman convicted for basically texting her boyfriend into committing suicide, gets sentenced to 15 months. [ABA Journal]
* White-collar criminal defense lawyers discuss what to expect from the grand jury convened by special counsel Robert Mueller. [National Law Journal]
* The trend continues: fewer law school graduates, better employment statistics. [ABA Journal]
* Elliot Katz, a leading lawyer in the self-driving-car space, motors from DLA Piper to McGuireWoods. [Law.com]
* If you’ll be online in the afternoon on Wednesday, August 16, join me and ABA Legal Career Central for a Twitter chat about career paths for lawyers, especially alternative careers. [American Bar Association]
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Justice, Politics
Robert Mueller Will Be Greeted As A Liberator... By Senate Republicans
By impaneling a grand jury, Mueller makes things even easier for Republicans. -
Crime, Practice Pointers
Never Show Your Hand, Or Why Not To Testify In The Grand Jury
But when a client testifies in the grand jury and it works, there's no quicker way to end a prosecution. -
Police, Television
The Ludicrous And Tragic Relationship Of Police, Prosecutors, And The Law
"Accountability" is hard to come by for police officers. -
Crime
Unsatisfied With Ham Sandwiches, Grand Juries Now Indicting Themselves
This is one of those major screw ups. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 06.17.16
* Happy Friday! Let’s start by giving props to the firms that announced pay raises yesterday: Morgan Lewis, Andrews Kurth, Ashurst, Crowell & Moring, Orrick, and Dechert. [Above the Law / 2016 Salary Increase]
* Speaking of the Great Pay Raise of 2016, law firm leaders want to reassure irate in-house counsel: don’t worry, you won’t see this (directly) reflected in your rates. [Big Law Business]
* Biglaw Game of Thrones: who are the leading contenders to succeed Jeffrey Stone and Peter Sacripanti as co-chairs of McDermott? [American Lawyer]
* The Second Circuit plays a sad song for record companies in a closely watched copyright case. [How Appealing]
* And in other copyright news, SCOTUS (sorta) clarifies the standards for awarding attorneys’ fees in copyright cases. [New York Times]
* Look for indictments to issue from the grand jury in the Dan Markel murder case. [News4Jax]
* Noam Scheiber of the Times takes a close look at struggling Valparaiso Law — and it’s not a pretty picture. (Expect more on this later.) [New York Times]
* Ex-prosecutor gone bad: a Cleveland criminal defense attorney just got convicted after agreeing to launder thousands of dollars for someone he thought was a cocaine dealer. [Cleveland Plain Dealer]
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Police
Is This The Beginning Of The End For Grand Juries
Better for ten ham sandwiches to rot in jail than one alleged criminal to be presumed innocent. -
White-Collar Crime
Motions To Dismiss For Everyone!
We can do a lot to reform the criminal justice system with one simple step. -
White-Collar Crime
Prosecutors Can Be Sued For Misleading A Grand Jury In The Second Circuit
Appellate court strikes a blow to prosecutors. -
Canada
The View From Up North: Grand Jury System Ain’t So Grand
What’s the number one thing we’ve recently learned about America’s grand jury system? It ain’t so grand. -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 11.26.14
Ed. note: Above the Law will be dark on Thanksgiving and on a reduced publishing schedule on Friday, November 28, while we recover from turkey-induced comas.
* Holy backfire Batman! Florida desperately wanted to display a nativity scene in the State Capitol because it’s more important than making real laws. Now they’re probably going to be forced to display a scene from the Satanic Temple. [Slate]
* Researchers assert that college prestige has no bearing on the quality of the teaching. Would this carry over to law schools? [TaxProf Blog]
* The National Bar Association, representing predominantly African-American attorneys and judges, has issued a response to the grand jury’s decision in the Michael Brown shooting. [The National Bar Association]
* Speaking of Ferguson, apparently the investigator listed Darren Wilson as the “victim.” If you needed any more evidence of the power of semantics. [Lowering the Bar]
* The CATO Institute talks about the First Amendment and One, Inc. v. Olesen. It’s an hour-and-a-half panel discussion. Pretty impressive for a 24-word (plus one citation) decision. [C-SPAN]
* Is it a lie? Well, that depends on what your definition of “lie” is? [Dorf on Law]
* Are over the knee boots appropriate office attire? [Corporette]
* 8 women who left the law to follow their passions. [One 400]
* Yesterday, we suggested you should write more thank you notes. Well, here are some reasons why you shouldn’t. [The Muse ]
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Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 11.25.14
* Grand juries rarely let someone go without an indictment unless it’s a cop. Apparently pigs do not make for ham sandwiches. Instead of wishing for another rubber stamp indictment, this may be a good time to demand that everyone benefit from such skeptical grand juries. [FiveThirtyEight]
* Well that’s an interesting name… [Legal Juice]
* Have you written a thank you note lately? Probably not. But you should. [What About Clients?]
* Professor Ilya Somin reviews Lat’s Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link) and talks about the importance of blogs. We agree with him. [The Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]
* Maybe you should ditch that temp legal job and go into PR? [Law and More]
* Kinney Recruiting expands its operations to Chicago. [Kinney Recruiting]
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Police, Quote of the Day, Violence
Eyewitness Testimony Sucks, Says Ferguson Prosecutor
Eyewitnesses in the Michael Brown case told too many different stories for a true bill.