Mark W. Bennett

The DOJ isn't budging on mandatory minimums and one district judge explains why that's troubling.

No matter how long you've been practicing, sit down and read the rules on electronic discovery, comments included.

Courts around the country are rapidly losing patience with boilerplate objections to written discovery requests.

District Attorney Abel Reyna may not be able to get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, but he could probably get a grand jury to indict defendants for the murder of a ham sandwich.

* Police can shoot beanbags from drones. Oh good, that doesn’t sound like a recipe for abuse at all. [Ars Technica] * Lawyers for Steven Davis move to dismiss as the prosecution rests. Dewey think the judge will laugh this motion out of court? You know, I hate the “Dewey” jokes but they are kind […]

Litigators are like unruly kids, which is why this benchslap with a sanction straight out of elementary school is so appropriate.

* The NFL has reached a $765 million settlement with the over 4,500 retired concussion victims whose injuries paved the way for the league’s success. [Sports Illustrated] * Dennis Rodman confidante Kim Jong-un had his ex-girlfriend executed on pornography charges. Kind of puts the whole “revenge porn” thing in perspective. [The Telegraph] * A lawsuit against Curt Schilling, based on allegations that he deceived the state into giving his company $75 million, will go forward. Like most conservative Republicans, Schilling saw no problem with taking millions in handouts from the government so long as poor people don’t get $4.50 a day for food. [Comcast SportsNet] * Judge Mark Bennett (N.D. Iowa) ripped the Department of Justice for creating massive drug sentencing disparities because the DOJ went years without a policy for when prosecutors should double the prison time for repeat offenders. In Northern Iowa, that’s a LOT of meth heads in prison. [Des Moines Register] * Attorneys for the Governor of Pennsylvania equate gay marriage to letting 12-year-olds marry. Just because a demographic calls everything “gay” doesn’t make them gay. [ABA Journal] * Study shows academics use lots of adjectives and adverbs. This is really a very terrific and awesome study. [TaxProf Blog] * Polygraphs are inadmissible, but remember invisible jets are A-OK. [Texts from Superheroes] * REMINDER: OK NYU, Columbia, Fordham, Cardozo, and NYLS students! It’s time to send nominations to us for where you want us to go on the Great Above the Law/Kaplan Bar Review Bar Crawl. Send bar nominations to [email protected], subject: “Bar Crawl.” See you on September 18th! [Above the Law]

Who says the Midwest is more laid back than the coasts? Who says Midwesterners are more polite than people who live in big cities? Who says working in a place like Iowa affords a higher quality of life and a better work/life balance than working in a place like Chicago? Not United States District Court […]

U.S. District Judge Mark W. Bennett won’t get the publicity of Judge Martin Feldman. Obviously, blocking President Obama’s deep-water drilling moratorium — having already disclosed investments in Transocean and Halliburton — is big news. But Judge Bennett is making waves of his own in his Iowa courtroom. He’s decided that he wants lawyers to participate […]