Violence

Hopefully Reading Won’t Cut Too Much into His Fake Grenade Launcher Sales

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Most of the time, the orders coming from certain judicial divas seem slightly, if not overtly, ridiculous and unnecessary. Like, I’m pretty sure Eric Holder knows that he is supposed to respect the Constitution. And sometimes when people sneeze in court, it’s just allergies, not disrespect.

But occasionally, judicial homework assignments seem to make more than a little bit of sense. Take this recent ruling regarding a defendant from Richmond, California. For a 23-year-old accused of trying to sell a grenade launcher to undercover ATF agents in a deal that went wrong and led to a bunch of shooting, the condition of his bond release is quite simple.

In the words of LeVar Burton: take a look, it’s in a book…

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Non-Sequiturs: 05.11.12

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* Stab your lawyer with a pencil once, shame on you. Stab him a second time, shame on me. Stab him a third time, they will strap you to your chair with a “stun cuff” so it doesn’t happen a fourth time. [Legal Blog Watch]

* (Crack) cocaine is a hell of a drug. [Legal Juice]

* A first-person account of why you don’t ever, ever want to end up in central booking. [The Crown]

* Telling opposing counsel you hope she “sleep[s] with the fishes” is mean and inappropriate. But on top of that, what the heck do you even stand to gain from saying that sort of thing? [Minneapolis StarTribune]

* If you want to complain about racial profiling at airports, there’s an app for that! [Prawfsblawg]

* To catch (an alleged) law school predator. Icky. [Delaware Online]

* Seriously? This “Is it Kanye or the LSAT?” quiz is surprisingly tricky. [LSAT Blog]

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Former D.C. Biglaw Staffer Sues, Alleging Nasty Combination of Drinking and Choking at Work

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Here at Above The Law, we have no problem with drinking. Sometimes, drinking and work can even go together well. But not always.

Say, for example, you work on staff at a Biglaw firm that hosts a monthly office happy hour. The festivities allegedly culminate in people getting so drunk that they try to strangle you on your way to the bathroom.

That would be bad news. Because Mad Men may be a cool show, but these days, it’s not a world in which many people would want to live.

Would such events ever transpire at a leading law firm in Washington, D.C.? According to a new lawsuit, at least one angry former employee would say so…

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How Many Trials Does It Take to Get a Murder Conviction? The World May Never Three.

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Jason Cai is going away for a long, long time.

Yesterday, it appears some justice was finally served in a tragic Silicon Valley murder case. A jury convicted Jason Cai, a 53-year-old software engineer, in the grisly murder of a young attorney.

Prosecutors say the killing was an act of revenge. Let’s learn more about the attorney who picked the wrong case, as well as Cai, who at this point has ridden the murder trial rodeo more times than anyone should…

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Bail Set for Stephen McDaniel in the Lauren Giddings Murder Case

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Last week, we wrote about the bail hearing for Stephen M. McDaniel, the Mercer Law School graduate accused of killing his former neighbor and classmate, Lauren Giddings. At the hearing, the prosecution cited a gory internet posting that it claimed was written by McDaniel. But it now appears that the post might have been a fake. When contacted by Above the Law, one of McDaniel’s lawyers, Franklin Hogue, denied that his client wrote the posting in question.

At the bail hearing, the prosecution asked for bond to be set at $2.5 million, while defense counsel sought $100,000 bond. Chief Judge S. Phillip Brown took the matter under advisement.

Yesterday he issued his ruling….

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Pennsylvania Judge Allows Facebook Fishing in Sucker Punch Lawsuit

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At this point, there is a plethora of viable excuses in litigation to gain access to your opponents’ Facebook pages. Divorce, workplace discrimination, you name it, you can probably gain access somehow.

That said, most often it is defendants asking for social media access, not plaintiffs.

So we were intrigued to hear about a recent decision that allowed a plaintiff unsupervised access to the Facebook account of the man he sued for punching him in the face during a soccer game gone wrong. Why did he get access? Just for the heck of it….

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Was the Shocking McDaniel Internet Post Unveiled Last Week a Fake?

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Stephen McDaniel

Last week, we saw some big news in the Stephen M. McDaniel murder case. In a bond hearing, prosecutors told the court about another internet post allegedly made by McDaniel, the Mercer Law School graduate who stands accused of murdering classmate Lauren Giddings. The newest post was particularly unsettling and gory.

At first glance, the post seemed like it could be a smoking gun. But things are never as simple as they seem: rumors are going around that the post is a fake. Because, as Above the Law readers know, don’t believe everything you read in online comments…

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A Creepy New Claim About Stephen McDaniel in the Lauren Giddings Murder Case

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Stephen McDaniel

It has been a while since our last significant update on the criminal case against Stephen M. McDaniel, the Mercer Law School graduate accused of killing classmate Lauren Giddings. But as noted in Morning Docket, we now have an update.

A rather lurid and gory update. Reader discretion is advised….

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Quote of the Day: Hating on Hate Crime Laws

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[T]he fact that it is constitutional and commonplace does not quiet the nagging sense that hate crime legislation resembles something from an Orwell dystopia. Horrific crimes deserve stern justice, but don’t we want to be careful about criminalizing a defect of character? Because our founders believed that democracy requires great latitude for dissent, America, virtually alone in the developed world, protects the right to speak or publish the most odious points of view. And yet the government is authorized to punish you for thinking those vile things, if you think them in the course of committing a crime.

– Bill Keller, former executive editor of the New York Times, in an op-ed piece discussing the cases of Tyler Clementi and Trayvon Martin.

(A law professor makes a cameo in the column, after the jump.)

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Trayvon Trademark? An ATL Debate

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Danzig here. Over the last few days, I have tried to stay out of the Trayvon Martin story. Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old black teenager, was shot and killed by one George Zimmerman. Whether or not Martin’s death was a murder or a justifiable homicide has been a matter of some debate.

The shooting has picked up national attention, and it’s shedding yet another ugly spotlight on race relations in America. I’m on the same page as Elie regarding most of his frustration. But earlier this week we learned that the slain teen’s mother had filed a trademark application for “I am Trayvon” and “Justice for Trayvon.”

Elie thinks, in a nutshell, that this is a good and proper strategy to preserve Trayvon’s memory and prevent random people from profiting off of his death. But I have to disagree. I think his family members are wasting their time and energy.

Keep reading for details on the trademark applications. Grab a Coke and a bag of chips, and watch the two of us digitally duke it out in today’s ATL debate….

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