Marijuana

Morning Docket: 01.07.11

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* If you’re a famous pill-popper, you can now blame your shadiness on privacy needs. Judges will totally feel bad for you and let you off the hook. [Los Angeles Times]

* Match.com wants you to know that it’s okay to look. What they don’t want you to know is that you’re looking for love in all the wrong places. [Dallas Morning News]

* The Rock laid the smack down on a candy ass 7-year-old, who apparently failed to smell what the Rock was cooking. What’s cooking now, jabroni? A lawsuit. [Reuters]

* If the Colorado Supreme Court throws out new pot sale laws, stoners will smoke two joints before they smoke two joints, and then they’ll smoke two more. [Bloomberg]

* Looks like you got yourself a situation, dad. In Jersey, you can have baby mama drama even after you’re dead. [Washington Post]

* Judge David Trager (E.D.N.Y.), R.I.P. [New York Times]

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Non-Sequiturs: 12.23.10

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Judge Valerie Vega really likes her vacations.

* Pat Robertson might be Yale Law School’s most disgraceful graduate, but at least he now has somewhat reasonable views about marijuana. [Raw Story]

* Choire Sicha was not a fan of Elie’s take on a possible Clementi v. Rutgers lawsuit. [The Awl]

* For my fellow hotel groupies: “Hilton Settles with Starwood Over Dumb Denizen Idea.” [Hotel Chatter]

* Being a judge is pretty awesome. It means you can force jurors to start deliberating at 3 a.m. and work through the night — Twelve Sleepy Men? — so your vacation plans won’t be disturbed. [8NewsNOW.com]

* Speaking of judges, congratulations to that Wise Latina, Judge Mary Murguia, who was just confirmed to the Ninth Circuit. [How Appealing]

* And speaking of nominees, we continue to accept suggestions for 2010′s Lawyer of the Year. [Above the Law]

* And speaking of honors, we’d be honored by your vote in the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100 contest. Thanks for your consideration! [ABA Journal]

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Fame Brief: Is Salvia the New Four Loko?

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Another person who wasn’t watching the finale of The Apprentice last week? Miley Cyrus. Instead, the 18-year old Hannah Montana wacktress took a break from her usual routine of grinding on stripper poles and groping in 21-and-over clubs to take bong hits at her birthday party at her L.A. home. TMZ has the whole episode on tape, and I urge you to watch, as it will make you nostalgic for dorm parties and WinAmp.

When you heard this news (it broke a week ago; I work full-time, cut me some slack), you were probably as shocked and outraged as I was that such a wholesome young starlet could betray her fans by doing illegal drugs. But just about as you were about to un-follow her on Twitter, “a source connected with Miley” — i.e., her GENIUS publicist — saved the day, announcing that Miley’s activities were perfectly benign: “According to a source connected with Miley … the smoke filling the bong is a natural herb called salvia which has psychedelic qualities.”

PHEW. Because when you work in Hollywood, you tell all the coke dealers to scram and buy fake drugs instead.

But what is salvia?

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Did Judge Jack Camp Pay for Coke, Pot — and Sex?

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Judge Jack Camp: Don't be fooled by his grandfatherly exterior.

The allegations against Judge Jack Camp (N.D. Ga.), which we mentioned earlier today, are far more salacious than we expected. In fact, they’re hard to believe.

“Learned Paw” posted this tongue-in-cheek comment, inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, on our earlier post:

I am not surprised by the bust of Judge Camp, considering the last trip I took with him. We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers . . . Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into locked a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether….

There’s no indication that the 67-year-old Judge Camp tried ether. But if the allegations of law enforcement are to be believed, Learned Paw / Hunter S. Thompson is not far off the mark.

According to the criminal complaint in the case, Judge Camp used a wide range of controlled substances — in the company of an exotic dancer / prostitute, who turned out to be a confidential informant….

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The Shaggy/Paris Hilton Defense, Supercharged

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Last month, Marin broke down the Paris Hilton defense to a drug possession charge. Put simply, saying “it wasn’t me” when confronted with drugs found on your person strains credulity.

Especially if those drugs are found in your ass. Which is what happened to a Florida man over the weekend…

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The Governator Terminates Misdemeanor Criminal Charges for an Ounce of Pot Possession

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Gov. Schwarzenegger should have a pretty mellow retirement.

It’s Friday, many of you ain’t got no job, and California is going to let you get high!

Don’t let the somewhat tepid headline fool you. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger took a major step towards decriminalizing marijuana possession today.

If you don’t smoke up, the news can seem kind of minor. Schwarzenegger signed a bill that reduces possession of an ounce or less of weed from a misdemeanor to an infraction. That doesn’t make recreational use of marijuana legal or anything — and that’s too bad, because that means broke-ass California can’t slap a sin tax on pot and thereby get its financial house in order.

But the ramifications of the legislation are still significant for recreational pot users…

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Fame Brief: Paris Hilton and the Shaggy Defense

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As you’ve probably heard, last week Las Vegas cops arrested partying hag Paris Hilton for cocaine possession, after pulling her over in a Cadillac Escalade that was trailing marijuana smoke. And as you’ve probably also heard, the police would have never found the coke in the first place if Paris hadn’t been such a vain twit:

According to Sgt. John Sheahan, while police were questioning Waits, Hilton, who was in police custody inside the Wynn Las Vegas, allegedly reached inside her purse for “a tube of lip balm. At the same time, says Sheahan, a bindle of cocaine in a plastic bag came out of her purse” in plain view of police in the room.

Paris shrewdly floated several excuses – that the purse wasn’t hers and that she had no idea that the coke was in there, or that she had seen the coke in there, but mistook it for gum* – before settling on the airtight alibi that the purse was in fact hers but she had loaned it to a “friend” who left coke in there. Throw the kitchen sink at the police and see what sticks, that’s what I always say….

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Non-Sequiturs: 09.02.10

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* Wasn’t there a guy — black guy, big ears — who specifically tried to stop this kind of thing from happening? [AltTransport]

* Are you a Biglaw associate with a family? You should despair check out this advice. [Life's Work]

* Tiny crustaceans have been found in New York City tap water, possibly rendering it unfit for consumption under the dietary laws of kashrut (kosher). Elie’s take: “I refuse to believe in a God who cares about this s**t.” [OUkosher.org via Consumerist]

* The “Top 100 Women of Weed” features four fierce females: Jessica Corry, Allison Margolin, Jeralyn Merritt, and Marjorie Russell. [CelebStoner via TalkLeft]

* Barry Scheck — the DNA evidence expert who helped free O.J. Simpson, and who also founded the Innocence Project — talks about the 258 cases in which the Innocence Project has secured post-conviction DNA exonerations. [Big Think]

* Are you an aspiring law professor? Here’s a conference that might interest you. [Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law / Arizona State University]

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Non-Sequiturs: 07.19.10

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* Sure, stoners can totally get their act together to file for a patent a trademark trademark protection (or something — bite me). [WSJ Law Blog]

* Step 1: Make sure your Facebook wall is appropriate for employers. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit from new job! [Legal Blog Watch]

* With her Ponzi-scheming husband languishing in federal prison, what’s Ruth Madoff up to these days? [Dealbreaker]

* Washington Post explains why the Washington Post doesn’t care about the New Black Panther party. I didn’t say it was a convincing explanation. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Things that suck: the music industry, the journalism industry, the legal industry, etc. [Nintyfiveyears via Blawg Review]

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Judge of the Day: Peggy Gehl
Floridian jurist admires Jews; Jamaicans, not so much.

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Southern Florida has been hit by a storm of insensitivity that has achieved gale force — Peggy Gehl force. Complaints about Judge Peggy Gehl and inappropriate comments she allegedly made from the bench were recently lodged with Chief Judge Victor Tobin of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit.

(The story broke last week in the South Florida blogosphere. But it hasn’t received much attention beyond the Sunshine State, perhaps because it happened right before Memorial Day weekend.)

On May 26, Howard Finkelstein — public defender for Broward County, as well as a television personality with his own show — sent a letter to Chief Judge Tobin, describing “four incidents wherein Judge Gehl made racist comments.” Here’s the first fun allegation:

Maybe Judge Gehl should have asked Wright Muir for a Red Stripe too?

This was just one of four incidents. We describe the other allegations against Judge Gehl — and interview PD Howard Finkelstein, a colorful character in his own right — after the jump.

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Floridian jurist admires Jews; Jamaicans, not so much.“

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