Kids

Comic Book Walks Juvenile Offenders Through the Justice System

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This is a truly innovative approach to helping at-risk children. This is a truly sad commentary on the state of our society. This is a great way to introduce children to the concept of having a lawyer. I can’t believe we need to explain to children why they need a lawyer. This is a tale of a comic book, and it is truly the best thing I’ve seen that is so terrible.

The ABA Journal has a fascinating feature about a four-page comic book called: I Got Arrested, Now What. It was created as a final project for the Youth Justice Board, a program run by the Center for Court Innovation in New York City. The board is comprised of public school high school students from the City.

One of the students on the board explained the need for this comic book:

“All of us came in with the mindset that we wanted to change something in New York City,” says Khaair, a senior at Francis Lewis High School in Queens who didn’t want his last name published. “I feel like the youth of New York City don’t have representation—and we really need a voice, especially for the stuff that involves us.”

And since this is New York City, the “stuff” that our youths need guidance on is what to do when they get arrested. You simply must check out this comic book…

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4-year-old Speed Racer Gets Sued

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I already mentioned this in Morning Docket, but the issue deserves a full post. A little girl of 4-years-old barreled her bike into an old lady on a Manhattan sidewalk.

The 87-year-old woman broke her hip, and subsequently died.

Despite being just four-years-old at the time of the accident, State Supreme Court judge Paul Wooten ruled that a negligence suit could go forward against the child. Apparently, children under four are presumed to be incapable of negligence, but if you are over four you are capable of being an idiot.

So we’ve got a 4-year-old, an 87-year-old, a bike with training wheels, and the sidewalks of New York. Where do your sympathies lie?

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Constance McMillen Will At Least Get Attorney Fees

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Constance McMillen

Constance McMillen, the gay teen who was barred from taking her girlfriend to prom and then invited to a sham prom, will get her attorney fees.

It’s not a huge amount of money, but maybe the message is more important? U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson ordered McMillen’s Mississippi school district to pay about $81,000. Even though the school district canceled the prom, McMillen was still entitled to attorney fees because she was the prevailing plaintiff in a civil rights case.

Let’s hope $81,000 gets the attention of school districts in Mississippi and elsewhere. At the very least, that’s got to be more than they usually spend on prom. Maybe they’ll figure out it’s cheaper to let their gay students party with whomever they want.

Judge awards legal fees in Miss. lesbian prom case [Associated Press via ABA Journal]

Earlier: You Can Dance If You Want To (Unless You’re a Lesbian)

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Closing the Loop on Aaron Biber, Prominent Partner Turned Pedophile

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From partner to pedophile. From Super Lawyer to Super Creep. It’s time for an update on the story of Aaron Biber, the high-profile Minneapolis lawyer who was going to be the next president of the Minnesota State Bar Association but is now going to be a prison inmate. For a very long time.

Aaron Biber first appeared on our radar screen in December 2009, when we named him a Lawyer of the Day. At the time, Biber — a partner at the prominent Minnesota firm of Gray Plant Mooty, and co-chair of its antitrust practice — was charged with molesting a 15-year-old boy.

The charges were true, and Biber pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct back in July. Last week, Biber was sentenced.

What kind of sentence did he get? And what additional disturbing details have emerged about his heinous crime?

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Cyberbullying of LGBT Students: A National Conference Call

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As we mentioned in our response to the recent Above the Law boycott — which is apparently over, happily — cyberbullying is a serious problem. But dealing with it, especially in legal terms, raises serious questions.

Is criminalizing cyberbullying the best solution? If so, how should the law define cyberbullying? What role should be played by exiting laws, e.g., hate crime statutes?

We’re liveblogging a national conference call on cyberbullying, sponsored by the National LGBT Bar Association, which started at 2:30 p.m.

Join us, after the jump….

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Are We Going Too Hard On Kiddie Porn Possessors?

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child learns adult games.jpgFew are going to stand up in support of kiddie porn, even when it’s art. Last year, the Tate Modern proposed displaying a nude portrait of Brooke Shields at age 10. It caved on those plans after objections from the “obscene publications unit” of the London Metropolitan Police, according to Caveat Viator.

Caveat Viator offers a link to the portrait, but we’d advise against checking it out. (Go watch The Blue Lagoon instead.) Cyberlaw professor Eric Goldman calls child porn “toxic,” noting that “there is no easy way to legally cure even a single download of child porn.”

Even if it’s part of your “academic research.” A New York professor considering writing a book on how to define child porn is now serving a prison sentence because of images he downloaded in the course of his research, and images left in his cached folder from Web-browsing kiddie porn sites.

Sentences range. That professor got a one-to-three year sentence, while an Alabama man with an underage porno video discovered on his computer by the Geek Squad got 10 years, as we mentioned last week. That’s for hitting download and play, not for firing up a camera and hitting record. Is that a fair sentence, or are the penalties for kiddie porn possession too exxxtreme?

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Bullying Shouldn’t Be A Crime, No Matter How Many Kids Kill Themselves Because of It

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This zone... does not exist.

They had to set the Karate Kid remake in China. If they had set it in modern-day America, Daniel-san would have been mercilessly bullied by the kids from Cobra Kai, he would have killed himself, and the rest of the movie would have been a courtroom drama where Daniel’s parents sought to bring the evil sensei to justice in the form of a multi-million dollar civil suit.

You see, American children apparently have become so fragile, and Americans parents so litigious, that schoolyard bullying is as likely to be settled in a court of law as it is behind a dumpster out back where boys used to handle their disagreements. I used to tell my mother that nobody ever died from embarrassment, but apparently I was wrong. The ABA Journal reports that there’s been a veritable outbreak of children committing suicide in Ohio because they were hounded by mean kids. And that story doesn’t even take into account the Tyler Clementi situation.

And when kids kill themselves, parents are increasingly turning to the courts to stand up to the bullies in a way that used to be accomplished via a flush crane-kick to the face.

It needs to stop. No, not the bullying — which is unavoidable when more than one male competes for whatever status/prestige/sex is on offer — but the tragic overreactions to the bullying, and the accompanying rush to the courthouse steps.

I say this not as an alpha-male with a caviler attitude towards the feelings of others. I say this as a former omega-male who got the crap beat out of me like I stole something from the age of 7 through the point I realized that no girl would ever mate with a guy who couldn’t basically stand up for himself….

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Lawsuit of the Day: You Mad? Circumcised Baby Edition

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Gone baby gone.

Protip: Don’t look up the Wikipedia entry for foreskin. Don’t do it even if you have to write a post about a baby who was given a circumcision against his parents’ wishes. Vera Delgado, the baby’s mother, had left the hospital to shower and get a change of clothes. Just long enough for Nurse Ratched and the gang to do the do. Delgado’s lawyer, Spencer Aronfeld, summed up the understandable reaction:

“It was horrific, quite frankly,” said Aronfeld. “The parents were very explicit they did not want him circumcised, and [the hospital] had asked the parents repeatedly.”

Since announcing Delgado would sue, Aronfeld said he has received countless supportive e-mail messages and seen social network postings from so-called “intactivists” who oppose circumcision.

“People who are passionate about not circumcising their children are sending me Facebook messages, like, “I love you. You are my hero!”

So the mother is suing the hospital. Of course (not of course), we all remember from law school (from Google) that Benjamin Cardozo wrote the seminal opinion in which an unwanted surgical procedure was legally classified as battery. And that’s exactly what the mother is suing the hospital for. All fine and well. Somebody messed up, and “Oops!” isn’t going to cut it.

But it’s not the dollar amount of $1 million that jumps out from the story….

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Former MoFo Partner Accused of Major Fraud

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You know how violent felons treat pedophiles particularly bad in the prison system? I wonder if fraudsters reserve special scorn for people who use their disabled children as part of the scam? A former partner at Morrison & Foerster may soon find out. He’s been arrested for defrauding the state of California out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by way of scam utilizing his autistic kid. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

A former partner at a well-known law firm and his marketing consultant wife were arrested Wednesday on felony charges of bilking the San Francisco school district and private insurers out of about $400,000 via fraudulent bills for treatment of their autistic son, officials say.

The San Francisco couple, Jonathan S. Dickstein and Barclay J. Lynn, both 43, surrendered Wednesday and are expected to appear in court this morning for arraignment on 30 counts of fraud, theft and conspiracy, authorities say.

We can and will blame the alleged perpetrators of this fraud. But where was the government oversight?

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Quote of the Day: His Specialty Is Cherry Pie

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He bakes the most wonderful pies I have ever tasted in my life.

– McLean resident Joan Bretz, discussing her neighbor Joshua Gessler, the Arnold & Porter associate and George Mason adjunct law professor accused of producing child pornography.

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