Government & Politics

Trust, Redemption, and Bank-robbing Lawyers

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The story of Shon Hopwood is certainly an inspiring one…so far. While serving more than a decade in federal prison for a series of armed robberies, his time in the prison law library turned him into an expert in case law, and he pulled off a rare feat: a petition for certiori he prepared on behalf of a fellow prisoner successfully persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Now Hopwood is out of prison, and is turning his life around. He has been working as a paralegal, he now has a family, and at 34, he plans to apply to law school.

It is likely that a law school will admit him, but not at all certain that any state bar would give him a license. Can a former bank robber pass the profession’s character requirement? Should he, no matter how good he is at writing Supreme Court briefs? Continue reading →

Of Presidents Day, Atticus, a Congressman’s Dilemma and Serial Moms

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Short Alarms:

  • With increasing numbers of young Americans knowing embarrassingly little about our nation’s past, the wrong-headedness of President’s Day rankles worse than ever. Rather then designate the February birthdays of our two greatest presidents—Washington, the “indispensable man” who made the United States a reality, and Lincoln, the brilliant leader/philosopher who kept it from tearing apart—as yearly commemorations of their remarkable lives and our debt to them, Congress lumped them into a generic “Presidents Day,” thereby demonstrating that it deemed a three-day weekend and consumer merchandise sales more important than our heritage. Worst of all for ethics fans, George, who “wouldn’t tell a lie,” and Honest Abe are the only U.S. Presidents remembered for their truthfulness. Yet here they are, forced to share their “day” with the likes of Woodrow Wilson, Harding, J.F.K, L.B.J., Tricky Dick and Bill Clinton. The right thing to do would be to go back to celebrating February 12 and 22. Washington and Lincoln deserve it, and so do the values they stood for.
  • Speaking of ethics icons, one of my wife’s favorites,”To Kill A Mockingbird’s” Atticus Finch, has been under attack in some quarters for being passively acquiescent in the Jim Crow morality that convicts his black client despite overwhelming evidence that he is innocent. Continue reading →

Futile Ethics Lessons From the Luge

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Long before Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili of the Republic of Georgia crashed and died on a training run there, Vancouver’s Whistler Sliding Centre, now the site of the Olympics luge, bobsled and skeleton competitions, had been the target of complaints, warnings and controversy regarding its safety. After the first international training event at Whistler in November 2008, the president of the luge governing body openly expressed worries over the speed of the track. Since then, there have been sufficient accidents on the track, not only in the luge, but also bobsled and skeleton races, that the fatal accident there could not fairly be called “a surprise.”  Just a  day before the Georgian was killed, United States luger Mark Grimmette was quoted as being concerned about the course’s speed, saying, “I think we’re probably getting close, too close, to the edge.” Later the same day, a Romanian luge racer was knocked unconscious during his training run. The frequency of crashes during the training runs last week were far above the norm.

Nevertheless, Olympic and luge officials chose not to make changes to the course that would limit the speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour that luge, bobsled and skeleton competitors were reaching, speeds beyond what they were used to, or had trained to handle.

And yet… Continue reading →

Stats, Polar Bears, and “Truth by Repetition”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

When I did marketing for a company that created annuities for the recipients of large court damages, I was armed with alarming statistics I had gleaned from the annuity industry’s publications.  Half of the recipients of large lump sum settlements or damages from personal injury and medical negligence lawsuits had dissipated all of the funds (usually calculated to last a lifetime) within two years or less. More than 75% had blown through all the cash, often millions of dollars, within five years. These figures were accepted as fact everywhere,  and we used them profitably to persuade plaintiffs, lawyers and courts to approve annuity arrangements that would parcel out the funds over the years, keeping the money safe from needy relatives and spending sprees. Then, one day, I decided to track down the studies that were the sources of the statistics I was using.

There weren’t any. I discovered a circular trail, with various sources quoting each other. Continue reading →

The Seattle Beating Tape: “Just Following Orders”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I know the Nuremberg defense when I hear it, and this is the Nuremberg defense.

The release of a January security video from a Seattle transit station has triggered a public uproar, and no wonder: it shows a group of girls brutally beating a young woman, including kicks to her head, as three security guards stand by, watching, doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing: they did call for help.

Gee, thanks, guys. Would you tell them to bring some aspirin, an ice pack and a stretcher while you’re at it?

Seattle officials say that the guards appear to have done their job properly. The training manual the guards follow says “Never become involved in enforcement actions.” Continue reading →

Correction: S.C. Law Still Ridiculous, But Not Brilliant

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

It appears that South Carolina’s mandated registration of “subversive agents” is far from new, as erroneously reported here. The law dates from 1951—when Joe McCarthy was in full flower—so it is clearly not aimed at terrorists, but at “Commies,” being a relic of the Red Scare at the dawn of the Cold War. Apparently the legislature has attempted to repeal it in recent years and failed, but that doesn’t make the law any less archaic.

<Sigh!>

Blogs like this one rely on secondary sources, and when one of them jumps the gun or gets its facts wrong, the result is that we end up aiding and abetting negligent misinformation. True: Ethics Alarms is in the business of adding ethics perspective to news stories and current events as it understands them, so the analysis can sometimes still be useful even if the facts are wrong. That is insufficient justification for contributing to misinformation, however. The key, as usual, is trust. I will do the best I can to get the facts right, hope that my readers correct me when they are wrong, and be ready to correct the record.

As for South Carolina’s silly law, perhaps the revived publicity of its 1951 paranoia will embarrass it into finally getting this dinosaur off the books. That will constitute a good result from a botched story, I suppose.

Many thanks to Sherrif Ray Nash, who tracked down the truth for Ethics Alarms.


			

	


			
				


	

							
The Not-So-Baffling Mystery of the Missing Ethics Rule
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / Leave a comment
								

			


		

		
ABA  Model Rule 7.6: Political Contributions To Obtain Legal Engagements Or Appointments By Judges

A lawyer or law firm shall not accept a government legal engagement or an appointment by a judge if the lawyer or law firm makes a political contribution or solicits political contributions for the purpose of obtaining or being considered for that type of legal engagement or appointment.


That’s pretty clear, is it not? The American Bar Association, in its Model Rules of Professional Conduct, now followed (in various, eccentric forms, to be sure) by 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, emphatically declares that “pay-to-play” arrangements are unethical for lawyers even in states where the sleazy practice might be legal. “Pay-to play” is, after all, classic corruption, older than Mayor Curley, Richard Daley, Boss Tweed and Mister Potter. Lawyers contribute big bucks to the campaign funds of state and local powerbrokers, including Attorneys General and judges, and get big state contracts in return. It is indefensible ethically, although you can find plenty of people who will defend it, their tongues crossed tightly behind their backs all the while.  Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
South Carolina’s Brilliant/Ridiculous Law
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 10 Comments
								

			


		

		
I haven’t decided if it is unethical for a state legislature to pass laws that are so ridiculous that they undermine the legitimacy of democratic government, but if it is, then South Carolina meets the standard.


A new law is now on the books there, called the “Subversive Activities Registration Act.” It requires terrorists in South Carolina to register with the S.C. Secretary of State’s office before they start plotting to violently overthrow the government, or risk a $25,000 fine:


“Every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means, who resides, transacts any business or attempts to influence political action in this State, shall register with the Secretary of State on the forms and at the times prescribed by him.”



But never fear, you terrorists: all you have to do is fill out this form, and send in your $5.00 processing fee.


On reflection, I think the statute is unethical, because its description of subversive organizations is so broad and confusing that it would be prudent for any member of a political party or employee of a foreign corporation to pay the $5.00 just to avoid the hassle of having to prove that the law is unconstitutional. Thus South Carolina can pick up millions of dollars thanks to a badly (but perhaps intentionally badly?) written law of dubious legality.


[The theory behind the registration requirement might be a slightly inflated version of the classic Depression-era vaudeville sketch, “Pay the Two Dollars!”written by Billy K. Wells. A man is unjustly fined $2.00 for spitting on the subway, but his lawyer insists that he plead innocent. As the court battle keeps incurring increasing penalties and greater expense, the man keeps begging his lawyer,  “Pay the two dollars!” ]


(Ethics Alarms thanks  Popehat for finding this.)



			

	


			
				


	

							
Ethics Trainwreck in Kermit, Texas
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 4 Comments
								

			


		

		
In the tiny west Texas town of Kermit, just north of Mexico, an ethics train wreck is underway that may have long-term consequences far beyond the Lone Star State.


Anne Mitchell, a nurse with an impeccable record, became disturbed at the conduct of a physician at the Winkler County hospital where she worked. After unsuccessfully attempting to get hospital administrators to deal with what she believed was a matter of patient endangerment, she sent an anonymous complaint to the Texas Medical Board. This was a classic whistle-blower situation, protected by law and encouraged by the ethics code governing nurses. Unless she trumped up her accusations for a personal vendetta, she did exactly what the medical profession says she has an obligation to do, a responsible act of medical system self-policing that all too few nurses are willing to follow. Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
“Professor”= Racist?
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 3 Comments
								

			


		

		
The academic world has its robes in a bunch because critics of President Obama are increasingly calling him “Professor,” and not as a compliment. Various blogs and academic websites are attributing this to the anti-intellectualism of the Right, the populist dislike of academic elites, contempt for higher education, and other motives that confirm the author’s own biases.


Silly me: I naively assumed that they called Obama “Professor” because he was one, and also because his demeanor, speaking style and fondness for lecturing are professorial.  Continue reading →