Police

Morning Docket: 02.14.12

By Staci Zaretsky

Fashion: brought to you by lawyers.

* A bill to legalize gay marriage in New Jersey has passed in the state Senate. If this passes in the state Assembly, will Chris Christie put the kibosh on it? Someone better make him a faaabulous offer he can’t refuse. [Wall Street Journal]

* They might not be the most stylish bunch, but without lawyers (and the contracts they write), events like New York Fashion Week wouldn’t happen. Models, please keep that in mind while you do your little turn on the catwalk. [Reuters]

* Is a mandatory life sentence a cruel and unusual punishment for the Underwear Bomber? Because you’ve got to remember, it’s not like the guy actually killed 300 people. He only almost killed 300 people. [Detroit Free Press]

* Hey 0Ls, here’s some advice on how to “beat” the wait-list blues that’s reminiscent of bad dating advice: don’t call too soon; it’ll make it look like you’re “desperate and hasty.” [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Two Occupy Wall Street protesters are suing the police officer who pepper-sprayed them. Here’s a video of what happened. Those poor little hipsters, they didn’t even see it coming. [New York Daily News]

Up in Smoke: Texas Judge Busted for Alleged Pot Possession

By Staci Zaretsky

Being a judge is hard work. So hard, in fact, that sometimes these distinguished members of society go out in search of more plebeian ways to relax. We’ve taken the time to write about their hobbies in the past. For example, some judges get off by packing penis pumps underneath their robes. Some judges prefer prostitutes, and other judges like to blow through thousands of dollars at strip clubs. Hell, some judges just like blow.

But other judges are apparent aficionados of the classic gateway drug — marijuana. One judge in Texas was recently arrested for allegedly smoking two joints before he smoked two joints, and then smoking two more….

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Greg Kelly Won’t Be Charged with Rape, But Who Is His Accuser? Where Did It All Go Down?

By Staci Zaretsky

Greg Kelly

On January 26, we mentioned in Non-Sequiturs that Greg Kelly, the son of Ray Kelly, New York City’s police commissioner, had been accused of rape. Today, we have news that the popular television host has been cleared — he won’t even face charges.

When word of the rape accusation first hit the presses, all we knew was that it had allegedly taken place at a “lower Manhattan law firm.” Tipsters and commenters alike began to speculate about where the alleged rape could have happened. Which firm? Who was the accuser? Did they do it in a partner’s office?

Well, now we know the name of the accuser (and what she looks like), and the name of the “downtown law firm” where the alleged rape occurred.

Which downtown law firm could it be? Sullivan & Cromwell? Cleary Gottlieb? Milbank?

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He Trolled the Law, and the Law Won

By Christopher Danzig

It’s always tempting to call people like the guy in this story the stupidest (alleged) criminal ever. But, somehow, the bar for getting arrested via internet idiocy keeps getting set lower and lower.

In the modern era, it seems that thieves and would-be murderers can’t help but gloat about their illicit activities online.

But until today, I’ve never heard of a wanted man posting on his local sheriff’s Facebook wall, commenting on a story about the fact that police were looking for him.

Wait, did I say commenting? This dude started a whole thread. You can’t make this stuff up….

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Even a Bargained For Search of Breasts Can Be Pretty Damn Illegal If You’re a Cop

By Elie Mystal

This is the preferred currency to induce drunk college girls to flash you.

Hey ladies, next time you are tipsy, need a ride, and can’t find a cab, just hail a cop. If you are pretty, he might just pick you up and take you anywhere you want to go, provided you flash him your boobs, of course (duh).

There is a bizarre story coming out of Central Michigan University that seems to be right at the nexus of abusive police power and drunk co-eds.

I’m siding girls, but I’m not sure the cop should have to go to jail for five years for pulling a TOGTFO move….

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New Jersey Police Decide to Turn on the Freaky Red Light

By Christopher Danzig

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I have to arrest you.

It has already been a big week for legal technology. Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in United States v. Jones. The case dealt with emerging fourth amendment and privacy issues now that law enforcement have increasingly advanced technological abilities.

Well, law enforcement in the city of East Orange, New Jersey have also embraced technology in the fight against crime. Unlike law enforcement in Washington D.C., however, East Orange’s brilliant new plan involves shining a remotely controlled red light at would-be criminals.

Below the jump we have video footage of Hal this cool, new, swiveling stoplight….

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Google Me, B***h: The Real Deal on Courtney King’s Arrest

By Staci Zaretsky

The blogosphere has been buzzing since we first wrote about Ice Miller attorney Courtney King’s alleged criminal activity. In case you missed our coverage, King was arrested after allegedly uttering, to the police, the words first made famous by rapper Eight Set: “Google me” (sans the “bitch”).

King, whom we recognized with Lawyer of the Day honors, was charged with alcohol intoxication, assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and terroristic threatening. She allegedly stated the following to the police, immediately prior to her arrest:

“You are going to… die. I’m a lawyer. You can Google me. You are dead. I work at a law firm in Indianapolis.”

People have quibbled over King’s attractiveness, but more importantly, they’ve speculated as to whether there was, in fact, any actual violence on King’s part leading up to her arrest. Was King overcharged? Was race a factor in her arrest? Is she on “possible probation” with the firm, or was she fired? All of this, and more, after the jump….

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An Update on Johnathan Perkins: Did He Get His Law Degree?

By David Lat

Johnathan Perkins

When it comes to the protagonists of 2011′s biggest legal stories, our readers want to know: Where are they now? Last week, for example, we brought you an update on Casey Anthony, which generated keen interest (and traffic).

The recent alleged misadventures of certain UVA Law School students — students accused of breaking and entering, students accused of bothering bikers (to be fair, some bikers are obnoxious and deserve what they get) — have caused commentators to wonder: Whatever happened to Johnathan Perkins?

Johnathan Perkins was the then-3L at UVA Law who confessed to fabricating a tale of racial harassment by university police. As a result of his dishonesty, did he have to go before UVA’s famously strict Honor Committee? Did he end up getting his law degree? There was some ambiguity over whether he would graduate.

We have an update, based on a statement from the dean of the law school….

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Lawyer of the Day: Alleged Death Threats Put Attorney on Ice

By Staci Zaretsky

Here at Above the Law, we know a thing or two about how lawyers should deal with the police. Incidentally, we also know how lawyers should not deal with law enforcement officers. And if you truly value your job as an attorney, it’s best not to mouth off to the cops, or to threaten them in any way, shape, or form.

But Courtney King, a rather attractive attorney with Ice Miller, apparently didn’t get the memo. Last week, after allegedly downing a few too many shots of liquid courage, King got into a stand off with police that may have iced her nascent legal career….

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Morning Docket: 01.04.12

By Staci Zaretsky

Rick Perry: 'It's this big.'

* Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s Attorney General, wants Rick Perry’s election law suit to be dismissed, because really, what’s the point? Standing or not, Perry got completely hosed in Iowa. [Bloomberg]

* What’s next for Stephen Glass? When all else fails, hire a high-profile appellate team to do your dirty work for you. He could write a book about this and he wouldn’t even have to lie. [Am Law Daily]

* 1Ls who hope for good grades have better chances of getting them. Everyone else is screwed unless they buy that Secret book housewives raved about on Oprah. [National Law Journal]

* An Illinois police officer tracked a woman down after giving her a speeding ticket, wrote her a love note, and now she’s suing him. Harsh. Why not throw him a rejection hotline number? [Daily Mail]

* You thought Touro was the worst law school in New York by a landslide, but our second-place finisher is earning its medal. CUNY Law’s bar passage rates plummeted in 2011. [New York Post]

* Johnny Weir, the most fabulous figure skater in all the land, has married a Georgetown Law grad. His Twitter profile says he’s taking the New Jersey bar exam soon. Good luck! [Washington Post]

* Robert L. Carter, S.D.N.Y. Senior Judge and desegregation strategist, RIP. [New York Times]

King & Spalding Lawyer Received Key Email As Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty Against Stephen McDaniel

By Elie Mystal

As we mentioned in Morning Docket on Friday, prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty against Stephen McDaniel if he is convicted of the murder of Lauren Giddings, his former neighbor and classmate at Mercer Law School.

The Bibb County District Attorney calls the crime “outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved depravity of mind,” which is one standard the prosecution has to meet to seek the death penalty in Georgia.

The Macon Telegraph conducted a long interview with Lauren Giddings’s boyfriend, David Vandiver. The King & Spalding lawyer wonders if Giddings’s final email to him was entirely hers….

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Morning Docket: 11.23.11

By Staci Zaretsky

* The American Bar Association can’t handle law schools, yet Obama trusts them to vet potential judicial nominees. Well, seems like they’re doing a bang-up job with that, too. [New York Times]

* First the New Jersey bar exam results, and now more MF Global drama. Angry investors want to know if a lawsuit will help Jon Corzine remember where he put the missing $600M. [Bloomberg]

* Law school debt increased by $475M between 2008 and 2010. Grab a raincoat, because this bubble’s going to burst soon, and it’s not going to be pretty (except for Cooley Law; they’ll be rich). [Am Law Daily]

* And on that note, what on earth was Cornell Law thinking? Did they fail to realize that their Cooley rankings would plummet if they decimated their library square footage? [Cornell Daily Sun]

* UC Berkeley: “We never like to hurt our students.” Yeah, apparently that’s what the police are for. Occupy Berkeley protesters are suing the school over police brutality allegations. [Huffington Post]

All Bets Are Off When You Kill a Lawyer’s Dog

By Staci Zaretsky

Back in August, Elie wrote something controversial (what else is new?) about the difference between black people and dogs. He thought that nobody believed that police needed to respond with deadly force to protect themselves from random dogs, whereas the same standard did not apply to random black men.

Looks like Elie’s never been to Florida….

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Stephen McDaniel Indicted for Murder of Lauren Giddings

By David Lat

Stephen McDaniel

This should not come as a great shock, since he’s been in jail since July, but Stephen Mark McDaniel has been indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Lauren Giddings. McDaniel and Giddings graduated earlier this year from Mercer Law School, where they were classmates, and they were also neighbors in the Barristers Hall apartment complex in Macon, Georgia.

In addition to being charged with the Giddings murder, McDaniel has been indicted for other creepy crimes….

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Chicago Police Turn the Tasing Up to Eleven

By Staci Zaretsky

Andrew Meyer — the University of Florida student who coined the phrase “don’t tase me, bro” — was only tased one time, but his screams were heard around the world thanks to YouTube. And as far as we know, he didn’t sue over the incident.

But how many times do you think the average person would have to be tased before he marched his ass to the closest law firm? Two times? Five times?

How about 11 times? At that point, we’d be surprised if the poor guy could even remember his name, let alone the fact that he might have a cause of action….

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The Berkeley Beatings

By Elie Mystal

Dear police officers: next time you simply must beat unarmed protesters who are not threatening you, maybe you shouldn’t do it in front of a law school.

Many of you have heard about the beatings that took place at UC Berkeley’s Occupy Berkeley protests on Wednesday night. The police brutality wasn’t particularly brutal, so much as it was entirely uncalled for.

The Berkeley legal blog Nuts & Boalts sums up what should be the feeling of any person concerned about the laws of this country: “Regardless of how you feel about the Occupation, this behavior by police against unarmed, non-violent protestors is not only illegal, but is shameful.”

If you haven’t seen the video, it’s below. Just as disturbing as the actual footage is the facile message Berkeley Law students received before the event that was a warning that the police were going to be totally unreasonable about the situation….

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Judges Are Getting Concerned About ‘Undeniably Creative’ Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking

By Christopher Danzig

There has been justifiably a lot of talk over the last few days about U.S. v. Jones, and the privacy issues it raises. Our editor emeritus Kashmir Hill was fortunate enough to hear oral arguments at the Supreme Court in person, alongside top legal reporters such as Jeffrey Toobin and Adam Liptak.

But when it comes to electronically tracking people, Jones is just the tip of the iceberg. Law enforcement also often follow American citizens through their cell phones. The practice has become so widespread that some magistrate judges are reconsidering their willingness to authorize it….

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Madness and Tear Gas in Oakland; Lawyers Join the Fray

By Christopher Danzig

A wheelchair-bound Oaklander in the tear gas fog. That's hardcore.

It has been a strange couple of days. I woke up on Tuesday at 5:30 a.m. to finish some writing. It was still dark, but I heard several helicopters buzzing near my house. I checked Twitter and discovered several hundred police officers were clearing out the Occupy Oakland tent city a few miles away.

I know Lat has already visited the Occupy Wall Street protests, and Dealbreaker covered a dire drum circle problem in New York as well. So I didn’t worry about it too much.

Well, I wasn’t expecting the morning’s eviction to turn into a national media s**t storm. By Tuesday evening, somewhere around 500 people were marching through downtown Oakland. Police told them to go home, but they didn’t. People started throwing things at police. Police launched tear gas. By the time things wound down at around 1 a.m. on Wednesday, police had fired several rounds of tear gas and beanbags at protesters, and there were various semi-confirmed reports of rubber bullets, flash grenades, and even a sound cannon.

Why do you care? Well, it turns out these protesters are not just deadbeats and drug addicts. There were several lawyers in the crowd, too. We spoke with a few of them, starting with Shahid Buttar. He is a Stanford Law School grad and the Executive Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. He spent Tuesday afternoon lecturing on privacy in a UC Berkeley journalism class, then spent the night getting tear gassed in downtown Oakland….

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You Want to Click That Mouse? Bite Me, Get a Warrant!

By Christopher Danzig

Before we get to the meat of this story, let’s quickly state the obvious: if you plan to commit a violent crime, you probably should not post details about it on Facebook or Craigslist. If you simply must tell the Interwebs of your devious agenda, it’s probably best to close the incriminating window ASAP, so visitors to your home do not see it on your the PC in your living room.

Glad we got that out of the way. Today, we have another fun dumb criminal story for you. It even comes complete with a thought-provoking judicial ruling. Did you know that if a police officer simply moves a computer mouse or presses a key to wake a computer up from sleep mode, that it constitutes a Fourth Amendment search? Well, neither did a Wisconsin police officer who was investigating a man who allegedly threatened to shoot up a shopping mall (gavel bang: Legal Blog Watch).

More on the case, US v. Michael Musgrove, plus Musgrove’s, original thug life Craigslist posting after the jump….

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Non-Sequiturs: 09.08.11

By Staci Zaretsky

* Looks like you really screwed the Cooch. Virginia and its Obamacare challenge got slapped around today by the Fourth Circuit. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Just how rich are the members of SCOTUS? When you’re worth $45M, like RBG, you can afford to fall asleep during the State of the Union address. But you can’t afford such luxuries when you’re still Sonia from the block. [Forbes]

* An interesting read on the Kenneth Moreno case from the perspective of a juror. Buy it on your Kindle and check it on the way home today. [Gothamist]

* What is law school’s dirty little secret? If you have social skills, you don’t need to be in the top ten percent to get a job. Fair warning, because your mileage may vary with this bit of advice. [Law Riot]

* If Texas A&M is actually allowed to join the SEC, fans are going to have to learn how to start talking smack about the Big 12 and buy a pair of jorts stat. [ESPN]

* What a Masshole: sorry, lady, but if seeing your criminal history in print is too upsetting, maybe a career change is in order? No judge is just going to stop the presses for you. [Salem News]

* “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here! Thou art cash cows being led to the $laughter!” Well, if you’re going to riff on my school, at least get your facts straight. We cry in our cars. [LOLawyer]

* No, you cannot change your name to NJWeedman.com. We get it, you smoke two joints before you smoke two joints. But if you lose the domain, your stoner friends would be confused. [Gawker]