WSJ Supreme Court correspondent sent along this post on Saturday — crosslinked with the WSJ’s arts and entertainment blog, Speakeasy and WashWire, the Journal’s politics blog, on former U.S. Solicitor General and the television show “Mad Men,” which happens to be one of our absolute faves of all time. (The name “Walter Dellinger,” has a Mad Man-ish ring to it, doesn’t it?) Writes Bravin:

Set the DVR for Walter!

Of the many illustrious members of the Supreme Court bar, none will be more frustrated Sunday night than Walter Dellinger. That’s because the former acting solicitor general, clerk to Justice Hugo Black and Duke law professor will be en route to China on business, guaranteed to miss the season finale of his favorite television program, “Mad Men.”

“How do you find ‘Mad Men’ in Shanghai?” he asks before embarking on his trans-Pacific journey.

Dellinger is so taken with the basic cable program, set in a New York advertising agency in the early 1960s, that he began posting fan comments at an online blog devoted to the show.

“‘Why would Peggy?’” is the less interesting question. ‘Why would Duck?’” Dellinger wrote in a comment after a surprising assignation between senior ad exec Duck Phillips, the picture of mid-century white male entitlement, and Peggy Olson, the plain-jane copywriter trying to claw her way up the man’s world of Madison Avenue. Duck “could and would have his way with more conventionally appealing women if the encounter were really about sex,” Dellinger continued. “He is more likely using Peggy as a means to some further end,” probably “to undermine Don [Draper],” the show’s charismatic protagonist.

But many of Dellinger’s comments have been directed to the show’s treatment of the social forces about to upend American society as the 1960s unfold.

“The white men of ‘Mad Men’ don’t know what’s coming,” Dellinger says. He lived through the period, a young man from North Carolina then studying at Yale Law School, while his wife, Anne, worked as a technical writer in New York City. He says he’s particularly impressed by the deft treatment of race relations — for instance, that Don, uninterested, tries to turn off Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech when it airs on the radio.

“I think the show accurately captured Northern indifference to what was happening in the South,” Dellinger says. “Madison Avenue was paying scant attention to what was going on other than wondering if there was a market you could reach through Ebony magazine.”

At the same time, as a poor boy from the South, Dellinger says he understands a bit how Don, self-made in countless ways, views the swells into whose society he has climbed. “I had never been to New York before I was a summer associate in 1965 and I was astounded by the amount of drinking people would do, even at lunchtime,” Dellinger recalls. “I have a sense of what Don Draper feels around the Roger Sterlings of the world,” he says, referring to the scion of the ad firm’s founder, the insouciant with with a much younger wife. (Still, Dellinger confesses that Roger is his favorite character; “the show always lights up whenever Roger Sterling is in a scene.”)

Last week’s episode depicted Nov. 22, 1963, the day of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas.

The show treated it “exactly the way it intruded upon an ordinary day for everyone,” Dellinger says. He was working as a waiter in the Yale dining halls, he says. “Because people were going away for the football weekend, I agreed to finish up and reset the table for dinner by myself. Someone rushed by and said, ‘Did you hear? The president has been shot.’ I couldn’t leave because I had to work for another half-hour. I thought, Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t,” and continued cleaning up.

Dellinger the professor says “Mad Men,” beyond the clever dialogue, the verisimilitude of its costumes and sets, and the intricate character relationships, has something broader to teach people of all generations.

“It shows very much how time-bound our cultural assumptions are about roles,” particularly those of sex and race, Dellinger says. “There are things we are not understanding about our own culture at the time we go through it.”

To be sure, Dellinger isn’t the only legendary litigator who follows “Mad Men.” “My wife and I are big fans, but I think Walter is in another league,” says former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who now runs the appellate practice at King & Spalding.

Indeed. Dellinger heads the appellate practice at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, meaning that an hour of his time could be worth $1,000 or more. He’s contributed to leading newspapers and law journals, and often quoted on legal affairs in daily news coverage. So why does he bang out blog comments for free and post them online, where they easily could be lost amid the cacophony of online rants and raves any member of the riff-raff could offer?

“Lack of anything better to do at 11 o’clock at night,” he says.

On a Website called Intel's Insides, graphics chip maker Nvidia offers a series of editorial-style cartoons that take shots at Intel over a number of issues, including the legal problems that are besetting the company. Intel is being sued on several fronts regarding its business practices, and also is dealing with lawsuits involving Nvidia and licensing issues.

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Nvidia Mocks Intel Legal Woes

The legal war over Skype has ended.

Skype's cofounders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, have agreed to transfer ownership of the remaining Skype technology that eBay didn't own, paving the way for eBay to complete its sale of a majority stake in Skype to an investor consortium.

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In the hopes of sustaining the real estate market's recent momentum, Uncle Sam has made more than two-thirds of current homeowners and nearly all first-time buyers eligible for thousands of dollars in tax perks when they purchase a house. President Obama signed the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 into law Friday, a day after the House of Representatives approved it by a 403-to-12 vote. The legislation includes language that significantly expands the popular first-time home buyer tax credit that was enacted in February. The development represents a big victory for the real estate and home building industries, which had to overcome concerns about the measure's costs while rallying support for its enactment.

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Expanded First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Becomes Law - The Home Front (usnews.com)

Welcome to the touchy-feely defense bar.

The past couple of days have shown us a decidedly softer side to the perhaps stereotypical tough-talking New York defense attorney. One of these displays happened Friday in Brooklyn where two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin (pictured), are on trial on various fraud counts, accused of lying to their investors about the health of two funds as they were collapsing in 2007. Susan Brune, a white-collar defense attorney, is representing Tannin.

During her summation on Friday, Brune argued that the prosecution deliberately mischaracterized her client’s state of mind. For example, prosecutors have alleged that in an April 2007 conference call with investors, Tannin lied in saying he was “comfortable” with the funds’ performance, when days earlier, he had emailed Mr. Cioffi over concerns about a market research report. He wrote that if the report is “ANYWHERE CLOSE to accurate, I think we should close the funds now.”

Brune said the email, when read in its entirety, actually showed that at the same time that Tannin had concerns, he saw a potential buying opportunity. She said Tannin and the other managers became “excited” because they believed they could use the research as a tool to help turn the funds’ performance around, according to reporting by WSJ’s Amir Efrati, who attended.

All pretty normal, as summations go. It wasn’t so much the words as the demeanor, that was atypical. Efrati reports that Brune’s voice got soft and she looked as if she might tear up several times. At the conclusion of her remarks, her voice quivered and she began crying as she implored the jury to acquit her client. “Send Matt home to his family,” she said.

Meanwhile, in White Plains, N.Y., yesterday (in a Southern District of New York courthouse), Bernard Kerik, a former New York Police Commissioner who rose to be nominated to be head of the Department of Homeland Security before his career tumbled in scandal, pleaded guilty to eight charges including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.

The NYT, in its coverage here, reports that one of Kerik’s lawyers, Michael F. Bachner, rubbed Mr. Kerik’s back during the 90-minute proceeding.

Maybe he should change his name to BACKner.

Can we call this a trend: law professors tucking their grievances not into law review articles, but federal court complaints? (Gosh do we hope so. Law school deans, to any of you who may be reading, we think you should encourage it. Get each of your professors to file one federal lawsuit a semester. Staff the cases with go-getting 3Ls, create marketing material about about your clinical opportunities, and watch your applications soar! Hello, U.S. News!)

Yes, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. But we couldn’t help but notice that shortly after a University of Miami professor sued Above the Law editor David Lat (only to withdraw his suit days later), another academic has taken his gripe to the courthouse door. UT law professor Phillip Bobbitt earlier this week sued the law firm formerly known as Milberg Weiss, now known just as Milberg. Click here for the complaint.

So what’s Bobbitt’s gripe?

Bobbitt claims that in late 2000, he made an investment into a Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company annuity contract as part of a retirement plan. Bobbitt became a class member when Milberg filed a putative class-action lawsuit against VALIC in 2003, alleging that the company sold investors products that already qualified for favorable income tax treatment. This resulted in investors paying additional fees without receiving any additional tax benefit.

In regard to Milberg, Bobbitt claims that after winning class certification, Milberg missed a host of deadlines, which led to a parade of horribles, which ultimately led to the court granting summary judgment on behalf of VALIC.

Reads the complaint:

Defendants’ failure to comply with the Court’s Scheduling Order has cost the individual members of the Class the valuable negotiating leverage provided by a certified class. Just as importantly, the Court’s order put the Defendants on notice that their clients, the absent members of the Underlying Class, were in jeopardy of losing all of their rights against VALIC in connection with the underlying claims due to statute of limitations issues.

The complaint, filed in federal court in Phoenix by lawyers at Lewis and Roca, requests punitive damages against Milberg and a host of Milberg attorneys.

A spokesman for Milberg said the suit “has no merit whatsoever.”

A call to Bobbitt, who’s teaching this term at Columbia, was not immediately returned.

Forgive us, LBers, but we’ve developed an unusual interest in the matter that’s been playing out down in Texas for some time now involving Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. (Come to think of it, maybe our interest isn’t so unusual: The story, after all, involves the U.S. Supreme Court, an execution, and an outsize personality — Keller’s — that seems to inflame passions on all sides.) Click here, here and here for earlier LB coverage of the Keller situation.

In any event, the news out today isn’t the news we’ve been waiting for — whether the judge will be sanctioned for refusing to stay the execution of Michael Richard back in 2007 — but relates to the matter nonetheless. According to this AP story, a state civil rights group asked a federal judge Thursday to reopen a lawsuit against Keller.

Lawyers for the daughter of executed inmate Michael Richard contend that Judge Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, misled the federal court that dismissed the original lawsuit last year.

Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said Keller got the federal lawsuit dismissed in 2008 by claiming judicial immunity. But Harrington said Keller, during the state disciplinary proceedings this summer, testified under oath that she was acting in an administrative capacity when she refused to keep the state’s highest criminal court open so Richard could file a late appeal in the hours before his Sept. 25, 2007, execution.

Harrington said that Keller’s admission undercuts the judicial immunity argument state lawyers made on her behalf in the federal lawsuit.

“You can’t have it both ways,” Harrington said. “You can’t argue out of one side of your mouth in federal court when you’re facing liability and then turn around and argue a different position, a totally different position, in front of an administrative agency under oath out of the other side or your mouth.”

Click here, incidentally, for a recent post we did on judicial immunity. The post might help clarify the rationale behind why a judge acting in a judicial capacity might be entitled to immunity, while one acting in an administrative capacity might not be.

A call by the AP seeking comment from the Texas attorney general’s office, which defended Keller in the federal lawsuit, was not immediately returned.

Thousands of registered sex offenders would be subject to less-stringent reporting requirements if defense lawyers succeed in challenging parts of a 2007 state law intended to crack down on sexual criminals.

The attorneys told the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday that the get-tough law was applied illegally to more than 26,000 sex offenders who were sentenced before it took effect.

In addition, the lawyers said, the measure penalizes people who commit sex offenses before they turn 18 by requiring them to continue to register as sex offenders well into adulthood.

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Lawyers fight law on sex offenders before Ohio Supreme Court | Columbus Dispatch Politics

A federal judge has turned down a request by the nation's No. 2 cigarette-maker and others to immediately halt enforcement of new federal regulations on tobacco products.

Their challenge to new U.S. Food and Drug Administration powers to regulate what tobacco firms say about their products has little likelihood of success, except on one point, Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Bowling Green, Ky., ruled yesterday.

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Request denied to halt enforcement on new tobacco rules | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Middlesex district attorney’s office argued before the state Supreme Judicial Court yesterday that a law that requires guns to be stored in locked containers or outfitted with trigger locks is valid.

But the attorney for a Billerica man charged with keeping a gun in an unlocked carrying case said the law is negated by a recent decision of the US Supreme Court.

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State gun storage law is argued before SJC - The Boston Globe

The government wasn’t messing around with this Galleon insider-trading investigation. They used wiretaps and FBI agents and confidential informants and spent years working this up before lowering the boom on 14 defendants. Today, we saw a press conference starring Manhattan U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, and a handful of charging documents.

So what do we make of the government’s efforts? For a little insight, we checked in with Michael Gurland, a criminal defense lawyer at Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg in Chicago. Gurland worked for four years in the Manhattan DA’s office and four years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago before moving into private practice.

Hi Michael. Thanks for taking the time. What do you make of the investigation?

It was very heavy-handed. I’ve done insider-trading investigations, and 99 times out of 100, the investigation is fairly bare-bones. There’s just not that much you need to show. Typically, someone at the SEC will see anomalies in trading around the time of a market-moving event, and the SEC will investigate. They’ll get the trading records of an individual, and compare them to that person’s trading history to see if they’re consistent. If not, they’ll try to figure out the connection between the trader and someone at the company. They’ll go through phone records. If they find a connection, there’s the case. That’s the way it plays out 99 percent of the time.

Really? Law enforcement rarely needs more?

If more is needed, the SEC has the ability to take testimony. They can issue subpoenas and talk to people. It’s usually at that point — when much of the legwork is done — that the U.S. attorney’s office gets involved, starts thinking about criminal charges. But when it’s just the SEC bringing civil charges, looking for disgorgement rather than [jail time], it’s done on a fairly low budget. This concerted effort is fairly unusual.

So what do you make of the fact that so many wiretaps were used?

It’s interesting. Wiretaps are difficult to obtain, expensive, and very expensive. They’re typically used only in major crimes; like a major drug cartel. Typically, there has to be a lot of money at stake to justify it; keeping a tap up on a single phone for a month costs about $60,000.

What? $60,000 per month?

Really. I always tried to keep that in mind when I was with the U.S. attorney’s office. It’s also an enormous drain on an AUSA’s time. The affidavits take a lot of work; you have to prove that the phone is being used in furtherance of criminal activity. You have to report to the judge every 10 days on the progress, and after 30 days, the tap lapses and you’ve got to do the application all over again. Keeping wiretaps going really can take all the time of a single prosecutor, not leaving him much time for anything else.

For these reasons, it’s very rare for insider trading, which is sometimes thought of as a victimless crime. Dealing with the FBI can also be quite time consuming.

So, to answer your question, it’s a bit surprising. You have to remember that a wiretap is an incredible invasion of privacy, and the barriers to keeping one up are high.

But I think that in regard to the SEC, there’s been a stepped up and more aggressive approach to insider trading in recent months; the positions being taken are tougher than previously taken, and clearly more resources are now going to fight financial crimes.

Do you think this sends a message to the hedge-fund industry?

I think it does, but I also think it sends a message to Congress and others. It’s the Department of Justice saying: ‘look at what we’ve uncovered in this otherwise largely unregulated industry.’ You have to think that’s going to feed on itself and bring about cries of further regulation. I’d expect to see more of this.

But do you think the government went overboard here? Do you think they’re using a cannon to kill a mouse?

I don’t think so. There’s a requirement at the DOJ that before you seek a wiretap, as part of the application, you need to prove the necessity of needing a wiretap, and you need to continue proving that for the duration of the tap. I don’t think they would have been able to get the wiretap had they not made a compelling case for it.

And it appears to have paid off.

Reading the charging document is like reading a charging document for a big drug case. It’s an amazing read.

Indeed. Well, thanks for taking the time.

Thanks.

Some sad news to report out of the Land of Enchantment: The former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Gene Franchini died Wednesday afternoon while addressing first-year law students at the University of New Mexico. Click here for the AP story.

According to the AP, a television station in New Mexico reported that Franchini was giving his annual speech on ethics and the role of a judge Wednesday evening when he collapsed.

Faculty members said Franchini apparently suffered a heart attack. Students tried to perform CPR until emergency crews arrived. Paramedics also tried to revive Franchini, but were unsuccessful. The audience included more than 100 law students, faculty, and his wife.

Franchini, who served on the New Mexico Supreme Court from 1990 to 2002, was remembered as a prominent figure in New Mexico’s law community, a big supporter of the law school, and a man who made a huge impact on students.

“We were all just floored, just shocked, to think that Gene is no longer with us, because he’s meant so much, not just to the law school, but really to the entire profession,” said retired UNM law professor Michael Browde.

Franchini graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1957 and earned his law degree from Georgetown University and began practicing law in New Mexico in 1960. Click here for an interview with Franchini from 2003 with the State Bar of New Mexico.

Silly us. We thought it was the job of federal regulators, like the DOJ and FTC, to police corporate America for antitrust violations.

But apparently New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo doesn’t see things that way. Cuomo Wednesday filed antitrust charges against Intel, alleging the chip-maker threatened computer makers and paid huge kickbacks to stop them from using competitors’ chips.

The suit, filed in federal court in Delaware, reiterates many of the allegations put forth by European regulators earlier this year. In May, the EU levied a record €1.06 billion ($1.56 billion) against Intel, alleging Intel abused its dominant position in the microprocessor market. Click here for the WSJ story on Wednesday’s news; here for the complaint; here and here for earlier LB posts on the Intel antitrust situation.

The suit alleges that for several years, Intel sought to maintain its dominance of the computer-chip market by paying billions of dollars in kickbacks to computer makers under the guise of “rebates.” The suit also alleges Intel threatened computer-makers—including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Dell–with retribution if they marketed products with chips made by competitors.

“We disagree with the New York attorney general,” said Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman. “Neither consumers who have consistently benefited from lower prices and increased innovation, nor Justice, are being served by the decision to file a case now.” Added Mulloy: “Intel will defend itself.”

To help make sense of the suit, we checked in for a quick chat with John Harkrider, a partner at Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider.

Hi John. Thanks for the chat. It struck us as strange that such a suit was filed by Andrew Cuomo and not left to the FTC or DOJ. How unusual is this — a state taking the lead in a suit?

It’s quite unusual. Generally, states either follow on to a lawsuit filed by the FTC or DOJ, or they take the lead when the matter is predominantly local. Those cases often involve asphalt companies or waste management companies, that type of thing. I should mention, however, that the state of Connecticut sued Oracle over the Oracle/PeopleSoft merger before the DOJ did.

But there’s nothing necessarily specific to New York about this?

Not really. New York bought Dell computers, but so have a lot of others, across the country.

We’re dealing with Section 2 of the Sherman Act, here, right? That’s the section that prohibits single-firm monopolistic behavior?

Right. It’s a Section 2 claim focused on Intel and its market power. The basic allegation is that Intel entered into relationships with IBM and Dell and H-P designed to stop AMD’s growth. The allegation really is that there’s a penalty for not doing business with Intel, and it’s that you, computer maker, won’t get a rebate, a rebate that’s vital in helping these companies meet their financial targets. It’s essentially a complaint about is a form of exclusive dealing where rebates are conditioned on using Intel products exclusively.

Okay. But what Intel is doing is effectively lowering their prices, right? Isn’t that a good thing for the purchasers? A good thing for competition?

I think there’s a basic question in this case that’s going to have to get sorted out. The antitrust laws are designed to keep prices low. But there’s probably an argument to be made here which says ‘hold on, wait a second, isn’t this a good thing? The computer-makers are getting a first order reduction in price.’

The thing is that it might not be a pro-competitive move if it keeps AMD from competing or coming into the market to begin with.

So you have to examine the longer-term effect on competitors?

Not really. It’s not really a question of the impact of AMD, but on the impact of the competitive process. The antitrust laws aren’t designed to protect competitors, necessarily, but the competitive process.

It’s probably not all that surprising, is it, that an official has filed suit in the U.S., right? I mean, these allegations appear to largely be the same ones that had some success in Europe?

Right. It’s not that surprising to see them here, even if it is a bit surprising to see them brought by Cuomo’s office. That said, under the Bush administration, there was an historical reduction in monopolization investigations. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if the state of New York has been knocking on the door of federal regulators, saying ‘why don’t you act, why don’t you act?”

Would it surprise you to see the FTC jump in with its own suit?

No. It really wouldn’t surprise me at all. Several commissioners have already said they’d favor a complaint. So it wouldn’t surprise me.

Thanks much, John, for taking the time.

Happy to.

It was one of the stranger crime stories in recent memory (arguably more terrifying than the Night Stalker saga that we suffered through as a teenager): the sniper attacks in and around Washington, D.C. area parking lots that befell the region in 2002.

The story’s back in the news on Wednesday, as attorneys for the mastermind of the attacks, John Allen Muhammad, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to halt their client’s execution, saying he was delusional during his trial. Click here for the Washington Post story.

Lawyers now on the defense team wrote that Muhammad, 48, who teamed up with Lee Boyd Malvo, now 24, suffers from mental illness and brain damage caused partly by childhood beatings.

Write the WaPo’s Maria Glod and Josh White:

As he prepared for his 2003 trial, Muhammad was “amnesic of the events surrounding the crimes” and thought he was being framed in an elaborate scheme, the attorneys wrote. He believed that he was a prophet and said Malvo discovered an herbal cure for AIDS. He also said the military had trained him in “urban warfare” at “secret schools.” The attorneys said that because of Muhammad’s brain damage, he has trouble following a logical line of thought and “lacks sufficient ability to distinguish truth from falsity.”

The argument to the Supreme Court amounts essentially to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim; contending that Muhammad’s lawyers at trial failed to object to Muhammad’s demand to represent himself at trial. Had the pair argued that Muhammad’s mental problems made him unfit to present his own defense, there is a “reasonable probability” that the judge would have found Muhammad incompetent to stand trial altogether, wrote Muhammad’s lawyers.

One of the lawyers, Peter Greenspun, declined to comment for himself and the other lawyer who handled the case at trial, Jonathan Shapiro. “Other counsel is handling it, and we can’t talk at this time,” Greenspun said.

Muhammad is scheduled to die by lethal injection in Virginia’s death chamber Nov. 10. Only the high court or Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine can spare him. Muhammad’s defense team made an appeal to Kaine on Oct. 22.

Is Above the Law editor David Lat facing a frivilous lawsuit? We’re not sure, but some blog-o-pundits are certainly seeing it that way.

For now, the quick background. Donald Marvin Jones, a University of Miami professor last week sued Lat, ATL publisher David Minkin, and parent company Dead Horse Media Inc. In his complaint, Jones alleges three causes of action arising from a series of posts ATL did after Jones was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of trying to solicit sex from a prostitute. Jones maintained his innocence and the charges were ultimately dropped. Click here to read the ATL posts at issue. Click here for the NLJ story.

In his complaint, filed in federal court in Miami, Jones puts forth three causes of action: 1) that he was portrayed in a false light; 2) that ATL invaded his privacy; and 3) that ATL infringed his copyrights in posting pictures of him. He asked for a total of $44 million.

So far, the blogosphere has not been kind to Jones. Over at the Copyrights & Campaigns blog, lawyer and former journalist Ben Sheffner has this to say:

Above the Law is one of the nation’s foremost chroniclers of the wackiness of the American legal system. And now, Above the Law is an involuntary participant in a lawsuit that demonstrates the wackiness of the American legal system — and the American legal academy.

. . .

On what grounds may Jones’ lawsuit be dismissed? Let us count the ways (and, please, feel free to suggest more in the comments):

In short, writes Sheffner, the first cause of action, false light, doesn’t exist in Florida; the Communications Decency Act protects ATL from non-IP-related claims concerning a photo-montage in which Jones was depicted; and that the privacy and copyright claims aren’t likely to carry weight, either.

At Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh writes: “I agree with Sheffner that the lawsuit (see the Complaint) is a loser. In part, it’s even downright frivolous . . . ”

Jones has declined repeated requests for comment. Lat, over at ATL, has stated that “[w]e feel the lawsuit has no merit, but we will not comment further on this ongoing litigation.”

LBers, take a gander at what others have written, and feel free to comment below. For now, we eagerly await ATL’s formal response, along with word of who’s repping the defendants.

House Republicans are explaining their views on the health care bill by linking people directly to the paragraphs in the bills they find important.

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A law enforcement official says an off-duty New York City officer's blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit when he ran down a woman on a Bronx street.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The official says detective Kevin Spellman's blood alcohol content was .21. The legal limit is .08.

Spellman refused a breath test at the scene and the blood test was done five hours after the accident. Calls to his lawyer weren't returned.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly convened a panel and is talking to city district attorneys to determine whether it's possible to speed up the process of testing drivers suspected of drinking before getting behind the wheel.

Today, in a lot of jurisdictions, people are off to the voting booth to cast their votes for, say, Bloomberg or Thompson; Corzine or Christie; Deeds or McDonnell. Those are the contests — the big-city mayoral and gubernatorial — that seem to get the most airtime.

But in many states, judges are also up for election or relection. And that brings us to a thoughtful essay penned by J. Daniel Hull, a partner at Hull McGuire in Pittsburgh, on his blog, called What About Clients?

Hull exhorts readers, first of all, to refuse to participate in judicial elections. His opening, frankly, made us chuckle:

Election Day Reminder: If you can vote at the polls for a state judiciary candidate today, please don’t. Raise your aspirations. Go to the track, play pinball, drink Ripple, watch Gong Show reruns, or visit that “Leather World” alternative lifestyle clothing-and-book store on Route 73 you’ve always wondered about.

He continues, in a more serious mien:

The popular election of state judges–permitted in some aspect in a clear majority of the states–gives the appearance of justice being “for sale.” Elected judges can be especially “bad” for good clients who do business all over the U.S. and the world. Even when elected judges are “good”–and, to be fair, there are some great ones–state systems of popularly-elected judiciary will never inspire much confidence. Elected jurists who hear and decide business disputes are steeped in a taint.

The point: Judges should not have “constituents,” i.e. law firms, and their clients, who make campaign contributions. Right now, in most American states, they do. And there is no way to dress that up.

Generally county-based, American litigation at a state level is already frustratingly local and provincial for “outsider defendants”–businesses from other U.S. states and other nations sued in local state courts–who cannot remove to federal courts, the forums where federal judges can and should protect them from local prejudice.

American states that still hang on to electoral systems look increasingly provincial, classless, and silly from a global perspective. Merit selection is not perfect–and also poses risks–but it is far better than what most American states currently have in place. It’s time for American states to grow up.

Hull makes his arguments forcefully — even if we’ve heard them before, in one form or another. But what we haven’t thought about, frankly, is Hull’s point at the end of the post — about the creation of diversity jurisdiction.

He writes:

One reason that federal diversity jurisdiction was created in the first place was because of the framers’ concern that prejudices of state judges toward out-of-state persons would unfairly affect outcomes in trial courts. . . . Over 200 years later, our current systems in the states make that local prejudice almost inevitable.

LBers, any thoughts?

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell heads to Capitol Hill today to ask Congress' help in keeping the collectively bargained steroid use policy from being challenged on the basis of state law.

The effort comes amid frustration with court decisions that have blocked the suspension of two football players who tested positive for banned substances, though they weren't steroids.

In prepared testimony, Goodell says the NFL is looking for "a specific and tailored amendment to the Labor Management Relations Act."

Source:

ABC 13 - National News

by Kathi Wolfe

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Kathi Wolfe is a poet and writer for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Readers may write to the author at: Progressive Media Project, 409 East Main Street, Madison, Wis. 53703; e-mail: pmproj@progressive.org; Web site: The Progressive | Peace and social justice since 1909.