O.J. Simpson

Non-Sequiturs: 11.27.13

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Ed. note: Happy Thanksgiving! We will resume our normal publication schedule on Monday, December 2. We hope you have a wonderful holiday, and we thank you for your readership.

* O.J. Simpson is going to be staying in prison longer. The search for the real killers suffers another setback. [Fox News]

* Sriracha-gate continues. A federal judge has ordered a partial shutdown of the plant. [Slate]

* Lawyers are destroying American society. Because the Romans also had a glut of law school grads when the Republic fell. Or something. [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]

* A federal government lawyer who mastered the stock market and lived a frugal life has given some $56 million to the University of Washington School of Law. Go ahead and hold your breath for that Washington tuition decrease. [Seattle Times]

* UNC professors are questioning the motives of a public records request targeting the new director of the law school poverty center. Which isn’t naked intimidation at all. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* A couple weeks ago Professors Alan Dershowitz and Sanford Levinson debated Professor Eugene Volokh and David Kopel. The former argued that the Second Amendment has outlived its usefulness. Based on minds changed, they won. The debate video is embedded past the jump… [Intelligence2 Debates]

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Non-Sequiturs: 10.29.13

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* First things first: remember to send us your legally themed Halloween costumes! [Above the Law]

* George Clooney may be dating the “hottest female barrister in London.” [Legal Cheek]

* This painting suggests there’s a senior partner who gets away with wearing sandals to work. [Lowering the Bar]

* This is a really useful practice tip: how to cite URLs in briefs without having them look all messed up. [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* O.J. Simpson’s house sold at a foreclosure auction for a mere $655,000. This must be a disappointing deal for him — I’m sure he expected to make a killing. [Daily Business Review]

* Blackacre blocks access to a public beach. But the owner of Blackacre uses the Mexican-American War as an excuse to ignore the easement. Apparently he wins. People are also entirely awful. [Valleywag]

* I also hate when McDonald’s screws up my order, but it’s not worth getting the police involved. [Legal Juice]

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At Least O.J. Simpson Didn’t Kill Five Hookers

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Before we get to the intelligent sports conversation that is the stock-in-trade of this column, let’s discuss Titillating Tales. On Wednesday, I asked all of you to send me stories. I want to be clear in this space that I am accepting ALL stories. What’s the funniest thing that has happened at a bar review? What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done in bungling an assignment for a partner? Have you ever tried to date a colleague? Did it end as it should, in a pile of self-loathing and salty tears? If you have a story you’d like to tell, please email it to juggalolaw@gmail.com and don’t forget to cc tips@abovethelaw.com. This is significantly cheaper than therapy and I’ve toyed around with the idea of making a T-shirt for whomever tells the best/funniest story. The T-shirt may include puffy paint and may include a picture of Garrison Keillor and may include my crude rendering of a huge monkey. The monkey’s doing terrible stuff with his one hand and the monkey’s tail is hanging down and on the tail are the words “TITILLATING TAIL WORLD CHAMPION 2013.” Now that I’m committing this thought to writing, I realize I may need to outsource the artwork. No matter.

This week, we’ve got Craig James accusing Fox Broadcasting of bias against Christian folk and O.J. Simpson stealing cookies. No weeze, Juice. Classic Encino Man reference for all my over-30 homies.

Let’s talk anything but my receding hairline.

Let’s talk sports…

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Slow News Week of Satire and Ho-Hum Courtroom ‘Drama’

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This is what you could call a slow news week. It’s kind of the exact opposite of the week that inspired me to start writing these missives. Back then, the Supreme Court was handing down rulings and the Zimmerman trial was getting off to a disastrous start for the defense. It all seems so long ago.

The latter days of the summer are always slow in law as partners and judges go on vacation and students await the return to school. The bar exam provides some light entertainment and OCI generally provides a gem or two, but otherwise it’s a slow period.

And that’s when people can get tripped up by satire masquerading as news.

Here’s a short round-up of a few key stories from the week including how satire fooled a lot of the ATL-verse and some high profile cases that had milestone moments…

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Non-Sequiturs: 07.31.13

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* Daniel Chong, the student that the DEA locked in a cell and forgot about for a few days, has settled his lawsuit against the government for $4.1 million. No snark here, congratulations. [CNN]

* Meanwhile, O.J. Simpson is getting parole (but not quite getting released yet). Here comes Naked Gun 4! [ABC News]

* A Kenyan lawyer is challenging the trial of Jesus Christ at the International Court of Justice. [Legal Cheek]

* Professor Paul Campos notes that from 2004-2013, it’s gotten much easier to get into law school. This year 80 percent of students applying to law school will get in somewhere. At least the profession is upholding its high standards. [Lawyers, Guns & Money]

* DMX declared bankruptcy because bankruptcy actually makes it easier to get a passport. How is DMX broke? Are the residuals from Exit Wounds not paying the bills? [Grantland]

* King & Wood Mallesons and SJ Berwin LLP are merging to create one of the largest law firms in the world. Dewey think a merger is a good idea? [WSJ Law Blog]

* A follow-up on a previous item, checking in on the status of the petition to save the federal defenders one week in. [PrawfsBlawg]

* A profile of the “eighth governor” of the Federal Reserve and Georgetown Law grad, General Counsel Scott G. Alvarez. I would say this is a fascinating look at a prominent regulatory staff member, but the article makes it clear that “regulation” is not exactly the Alvarez agenda. [DealBook]

* Watch the dean of a law school defend a 0 percent bar passage rate. [ABC 33/40]

* Another new resource out there — LawTrades. Basically, it’s ZocDoc for lawyers where lawyers can register and prospective clients can search for an attorney who meets their needs. [LawTrades]

* What are the greatest legal novels of all time? The ABA Journal assembled a panel including our own David Lat and provided a list. You can disagree, but I see one of Archer’s favorites made the list (clip after the jump)…

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Non-Sequiturs: 07.25.13

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* This afternoon, O.J. Simpson pleaded with the parole board in Nevada. For now, the Juice is still on ice. [USA Today]

* Four South Korean firms allegedly fixed the price of ramen noodles for over a decade. You mean that s**t can be cheaper? [Courthouse News Service]

* Do you want to make sure the NSA can’t read your email? Join the NSA! [Lowering the Bar]

* Eric Holder is going forward with efforts to halt the new Texas voting requirements pursuant to the bail-in procedure. But how will he ever prove a substantial history of constitutional violations in Texas? [The Volokh Conspiracy]

* The Ninth Circuit has affirmed Judge Dolly Gee’s earlier denial of Fox’s request for a preliminary injunction against Dish Network over its special, ad-skipping DVR. It’s a testament to how much power the networks have thrown around that this is treated like an amazing new technology — I bought an ad-skipping DVR from ReplayTV in 2001. [The Verge]

* Chicagoland preacher facing federal fraud charges announces: “Because of Judge Sharon Coleman’s continual mocking of God’s ecclesiastical order and the sanctity of family/marriage, the wrath of God almighty shall soon visit her home.” Federal authorities were not amused. [Chicago Tribune]

* A NJ state judge declares that Atlantic City casinos can control the weight of its waitresses. Because overweight waitresses are the reason no one goes to Atlantic City anymore. [My Fox NY]

* Noam Scheiber of The New Republic interviewed about his article The Last Days of Big Law, as discussed here. Video after the jump… [Bloomberg Law via YouTube]

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Non-Sequiturs: 07.16.13

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* The Zimmerman verdict allows us to sit back and reflect on how bad Atticus Finch really was at his job. [Criminal Defense Blog]

* In case you’d forgotten about the shenanigans at Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law, here’s your update: a former employee has been charged for promising students more scholarships than the school had. Rick Pitino needs to show the law school how to work within scholarship limits. [Courier-Journal]

* State licensing boards are trying to put the kibosh on advice columnists. Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to shut down Dr. Demento. [Lexington Herald-Leader]

* Fun with patents: Monkey Dog Saddle! [Lowering the Bar]

* Transgendered workers are successfully challenging workplace discrimination using the Civil Rights Act. These sound like cases Justice Alito will get right on overturning. [Buzzfeed]

* McDonald’s is trying to show how it provides its employees a living wage. It just requires working a second job for a total of between 62-74 hours. No biggie. [Lawyers, Guns & Money]

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#NoJustice: Kim Kardashian Forgets Her Father Represented O.J. Simpson

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My heart goes out to Trayvon Martin’s family & loved ones. Thought & prayers being sent their way #NoJustice

– Reality star Kim Kardashian, expressing her sympathies on Twitter after the George Zimmerman verdict was announced. She was slapped with a swift backlash by the public because her late father, Robert Kardashian, played a role in O.J. Simpson’s acquittal by serving on the athlete’s defense team.

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Will George Zimmerman Join O.J. Simpson In The Hunt For Real Killers?

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I was a senior in high school when the O.J. Simpson verdict came down. I was in a classroom in Indiana, everybody was watching on television. After the verdict was announced, the first thing I heard was my white teacher saying “bulls**t.” The next thing I heard was a bunch of black people screaming (I went to a pretty diverse high school). Then, basically, all the black people started streaming out of class. Nobody went back to school that day. I found my cousin. We high-fived. At that moment, I really believed that a racist cop had planted blood evidence to frame O.J.

Of course, that’s not what I think happened now. I think O.J. murdered those two people in a jealous rage, got caught and thought about killing himself, didn’t, then hired the best lawyers in the country, and beat the rap.

Still, I’m happy he got off. I know that is a controversial thing to say. It’s not really normal to be “happy” when a guilty person evades justice, unless you’re watching a mob movie. But I think Mark Fuhrman was a racist cop, and I think the O.J. case went a long way towards showing state prosecutors that basing your cases on racist cops is a bad thing. The state knows that putting blatantly racist people on the stand isn’t the best way to get a conviction. I’m willing to suffer the injustice of a guilty man going free to make the larger point that racist cops are not credible witnesses.

And so as I sit here, watching the news and reading Twitter accounts of people who are just “happy” that George Zimmerman was acquitted of any wrongdoing in the death of Trayvon Martin, I’m forced to wonder what “larger point” is being serviced today by the release of a man who shot an unarmed teenager to death?

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Law and Order Foxborough: Cue Music, Lights Up On The Ropes & Gray Bike Messenger

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Ed. note: This post was written before this morning’s arrest warrant was issued for Aaron Hernandez on charges of obstruction of justice. If he ends up in an SUV being tailed by helicopters, again, we’ll have more Patriots jokes.

“The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

– Karl Marx

What was I doing on June 17, 1994? I don’t really know. I was fifteen years old and I can assure you that a great deal of my day revolved around sex and the fact that I wasn’t having it. At fifteen, the mere thought of a breast could send great paroxysms of excitement through me. You have to understand, dear reader, that a boy of fifteen is less a human being than a walking, talking priapic trainwreck. Add to this lovely vision the fact that the Internet did not arrive in my small Kansas town until years later and I can guarantee you that I was probably staring at a catalog of some sort. Future generations will know neither our pain nor our ingenuity, will they? Anyway, I had not meant to go all Alexander Portnoy on you in this opening paragraph, but honesty’s cost in this case is a foul peek into a hormone-addled mind. Oh, I’m sure I went outside for at least a little bit on that fateful day. Being summer and all, I might have gone to the pool. Maybe played some basketball. Perhaps hatched a scheme to score alcohol. It’s possibly I did any number of things. The only thing I can guarantee is that for most of that day, I thought about sex. And the fact that I wasn’t having it.

On June 20, 2013, a television news copter hovered high above Boston, chasing a white SUV that didn’t appear to be in much of a hurry. Inside that SUV was a man who is currently famous for playing professional football. It is unclear whether yesterday marked a sort of tipping point like it did back in 1994. When a man famous for playing professional football instead became famous for murder.

Either way, let’s talk Aaron Hernandez….

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