Law & Law Enforcement

Smoking Gun Evidence That Democrats and Progressives Seek One-Party Rule, Not Democracy: The Virginia Special Election

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is another integrity test for your woke friends who claim that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.

Tomorrow, Virginians (like me) will go to polling places to decide whether to vote for a “proposed constitutional amendment.” Note that the proposed amendment isn’t included on the ballot. This is because Democrats, who dominate the state government cheat. There is no other way to explain this.

Constitutional amendments, which must be approved by Virginia voters, have to be on the ballot with a full explanation of the amendment available to the public at least 90 days before the election. Virginia Code 30-19.9 provides,

“The explanation shall contain the ballot question, the full text of the proposed constitutional amendment, and a statement of not more than 500 words on the proposed amendment. The explanation shall be presented in plain English, shall be limited to a neutral explanation, which may include a brief statement on the effect of a “yes” and “no” vote on the question but shall not include arguments submitted by either proponents or opponents of the proposal.”

How has it been “made available”? I don’t know: I hadn’t seen it, and I’m fairly informed on such matters. Maybe it was in something I thought was junk mail. Maybe Democrats think posting something on a website nobody is likely to visit is sufficient advance notice. The alleged required explanation of the current proposed amendment is here. In addition to the deceitful and misleading language on the ballot above, we see:

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I’m Baaaack!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I swore that I would get a post up before this horrible weekend was up. So here it is.

My computer, entirely because of unethical procrastination on my part, finally died as it was predicted to months ago. The time was 10:22, April 18, the anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride. My new computer was purchased and set up by my IT expert, who lives with me, at approximately 11:16 on April 19.

It’s going to take me a while to catch up. I am so sorry for the interruption: there is a lot going on, isn’t there?

I want to thank Steve Witherspoon for passing along the news of my technological demise so the Alexandria police didn’t show up at my door for a safety check, like the last time. Steve had emailed me off site shortly before the Great Crash, so he seemed like a logical messenger.

Right now, the ethics story that gets my special notice is this, from The Federalist, which writes in part,

When the draft of the Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade leaked to the press, the conservative justices who signed on to the majority opinion [faced a] very real threat of assassination…And still their pro-abortion colleagues stalled the release of the official ruling for weeks, putting the justices’ lives at increased risk, as detailed in Mollie Hemingway’s new book on Justice Samuel Alito and reported Saturday by Fox News.

Alito is the justice who wrote Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ruling ending nationalized abortion. “Alito asked the dissenters to make the completion of their dissents their priority because delay of the decision was a security threat,” Hemingway, The Federalist’s editor-in-chief writes in Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution.“Abortion supporters had an incentive to kill one or more of the justices in the majority to change the outcome.” …Justice Neil Gorsuch asked the liberals when they expected to be wrapped up. They refused to provide a date. 

…On May 2, 2022, accomplice media outlet Politico published the 98-page draft of Dobbs. The unprecedented leak set off a wave of leftist protests and a literal firestorm of pro-abortion-led violence. …“In the ensuing weeks, hundreds of pregnancy centers, churches, and pro-life organizations would be vandalized, some even set ablaze,” Hemingway wrote. Protesters also lined the streets and sidewalks outside the conservative justices’ homes…

“Everyone knew that the leak posed a serious security risk for justices. Since decisions do not take effect until issued officially from the bench, the death of a justice before then could alter the result. The threat of assassination increased dramatically,” Hemingway writes.  It took 53 days to finally release the Dobbs decision. Despite the growing threat to their colleagues, the liberals on the court refused to listen to urgent pleas to complete their work, Hemingway reports….

 “Hemingway wrote that Kagan, an Obama appointee, angrily confronted Breyer, a Clinton appointee, in May 2022 behind closed doors after at least one justice, Samuel Alito, had asked his liberal colleagues to speed up writing their dissent because of security threats,” Fox reported. “Breyer was most likely to agree to Alito’s request, Hemingway wrote.” Hemingway wrote that “Kagan remonstrated with Breyer not to accommodate the majority, screaming so loudly, observers noted, that the ‘wall was shaking,’” according to Fox. 

While pro-abortion zealots were calling for heads to roll, the court’s liberal minority did nothing to, as the left likes to say with empty virtue, “turn down the temperature.”  The justices needed all the help they could get….

“Shortly after the leak, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to provide full-time security for all the justices, but he drew criticism because authorities did not arrest protesters despite a law that prohibits ‘picketing or parading’ near a federal judge’s home to influence a court decision,” Fox reported.

…Contrary to the belief by Roe’s supporters that the final outcome could be changed if they just demonstrated and threatened and destroyed enough, the conservatives on the court never wavered….The Fox report on Hemingway’s new book comes after former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer reported rumors earlier this week that the Supreme Court’s liberal minority is once again “slow-walking the dissent” in a landmark redistricting case Louisiana v. Callais, “so that [the decision] will not be issued in time for many Republican states to actually go in and redistrict based on the decision.”

Nice!

More Evidence of “Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”: The Wise Latina’s Fake Apology

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I wrote about Justice Sotomayor’s unprofessional (but what should one expect?) slap at fellow Supreme Court Justice Bret Kanavaugh here. Not only was “The Wise Latina’s” attack based on an ad hominem attack rather than the, you know, law (but what should one expect?), it was a betrayal of her colleagues on the Court and one more appeal to divisiveness based on emotions.

Now the Justice has “apologized,” with this bare bones statement:

“At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate. I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”

It’s a crummy apology at best. She does not explain why her personal attack, using the cheap “privilege” tactic (as in “People like you just never understand..”) was “inappropriate,” or expressing clear contrition, like saying, oh, for example, “I was wrong.”

On the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale, I rate this pro forma dodge as at best a #6 (1 is perfect, 11 is worst): “A forced or compelled [apology] when the individual…apologizing knows that an apology is appropriate but would have avoided making one if he or she could have gotten away with it.”

In other words, it’s the bare minimum apology that isn’t completely insincere. You know what happened; everyone does. Chief justice Roberts told her that her conduct was unacceptable and ordered her to apologize to Kavanaugh and possible the entire court.

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Now THAT’S An Unethical Surgeon…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

“He eventually removed Mr. Bryan’s liver, thinking it was his spleen. The Health Department noted in its report that, in addition to being on different sides of the abdomen, “spleens and livers are anatomically distinct, have different consistencies, and are different colors.”

This might ssem funny, except that the patient, 70-year-old William Bryan, died. You can’t live without a liver.

The surgeon, Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky, 44, has been indicted for second-degree murder. Good! This medical version of a scene in a Marx Brothers movie took place at Ascension Sacred Heart of the Emerald Coast Hospital in Miramar Beach, Florida in August 2024. I must say, I don’t understand the story at all.

Poor Mr. Bryan underwent diagnostic imaging at the hospital on August 18, 2024 that indicated his spleen might be enlarged. There was blood in the membrane lining Mr. Bryan’s abdomen, but no signs of hemorrhaging. Dr. Shaknovsky told the patient that he needed to have his spleen removed, a minimally invasive procedure with a recovery time of up to six weeks. The doctor neglected to tell his patient that he couldn’t tell a spleen from a liver.

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Virginia’s Democrats Push More Viewpoint Censorship From The Left (Psst: That’s Unethical. Also Illegal.)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia has signed into law a bill that ends tax exemptions for Confederacy-honoring organizations in the state.

Huh. Funny, I thought the Democratic Party was the one that was running on a platform of protecting civil right, like freedom of thought, association and speech from that eeeevil, fascist Republican king, Donald Trump. Did I get that mixed up somehow? I guess I did.

“The signing by Ms. Spanberger on Monday is the culmination of a years long Democrat-led push to shake off the state’s legacy as the capital of the 11 Southern, slaveholding states that seceded from the country in the 1860s,” sayeth the New York Times in a sympathetic news story [Gift Link]that again proves there is no Democratic Party initiative so indefensible that the Times won’t try to spin it into virtue.

Awww, is Virginia all sad because of its history, and trying to erase it so nobody remembers? Tough. History is history and facts are facts. It is totalitarians and the followers of Orwell’s Big Brother who try to alter the past to confuse the public. Virginia was at the very center of the Civil War. Its citizens and soldiers were courageously trying to defend their “country” as they understood it. Those alive today who see those patriots as worthy of praise, study and honor have a fully defensible position, and even if it weren’t defensible, it is as worthy of non-profit status as any other position.

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Clearly, The Great Stupid Is Well and Thriving:

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It’s come to this. An administrative law judge actually supported the bonkers Worker’s Compensation claim described below. Gee, I wonder what political party that judge belongs to…

Behold:

Eugene Volokh at Reason reports:

“From the N.Y. Workers’ Compensation Board in Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, decided last week (opinion by Board Members Steven A. Crain, Renee L. Delgado, and Mark D. Higgins):

The claimant filed a C-3 (Employee Claim) on January 8, 2025, setting forth that she suffered an exacerbation of severe mental illness due to exposure of a racially insensitive wooden item in another staffer’s office on January 25, 2023….

At a hearing on March 7, 2025, the claimant testified that she was employed as a property manager on January 25, 2023 and was out of work at the time because in July 2021 there was a shooting at one of the units where a 3-year-old child was killed and she felt responsible for the death.

She stated that on January 25, 2023 she came to work and was sitting in the office, and she was told that a Mammy doll which depicts slavery was in the garage of the building where they worked. She indicated that the Mammy doll was not removed from the garage and she asked to go see it in the garage so she could remove it.

She stated that when she saw the doll she was overcome with emotions because it was so humiliating. She stated that she could not control her emotions and could not think clearly. She stated that the garage was the entryway to the building and was usually open and is often used as an entranceway from where an employee parks and comes into the building.

On cross-examination, the claimant testified that her office was not located in the garage which was used for storage and lockers for the maintenance people. She stated that her job was to inspect apartment units and serve as a liaison between the tenants and her employer. On redirect, the claimant testified that the Mammy doll at work indicated that her employer allows discrimination and hatred….”

[WordPress’s page-break feature has suddenly disappeared, but it was supposed to do here….]

“At the hearing on March 7, 2025, Tamara Van Wey, director of management, testified that she was told that the claimant saw a Mammy doll on January 25, 2023 in the garage and that it was leaning on the window of the garage. She stated that she did not see the Mammy doll herself so she does not know if there was other nicknacks on the windows of the garage….

The administrative law judge had “found that the claimant sustained an exacerbation of adjustment disorder and depression due to a work-related incident,” but the Board disagreed:

The SIF [State Insurance Fund] contends that the claimant has not demonstrated a work-related injury involving stress. The SIF argues that the claimant was exposed to a wooden mammy plaque in her employer’s garage. However, this level of offense does not rise to a compensable claim since the claimant should be expected to deal with minor stresses and offenses that a similarly situated person is expected to handle. The SIF also agues that the medical evidence is inconsistent in the claimant’s reporting of the incident….

In a claim for a psychological injury based on a diagnosis other than post-traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, and/or major depressive disorder, there must be evidence to show that “‘the stress that caused the injury was greater than that which other similarly situated workers experienced in the normal work environment.'”

“It [i]s claimant’s burden to establish a causal relationship between his employment and his disability by competent medical evidence. To this end, a medical opinion on the issue of causation must signify ‘a probability as to the underlying cause’ of the claimant’s injury which is supported by a rational basis. ‘[M]ere surmise, or general expressions of possibility, are not enough to support a finding of causal relationship.'”

Here, we find that the claim is disallowed based on the insufficient evidence supporting causal relationship and the inconsistent reporting of the mechanism of injury by the claimant. While we agree that racist imagery does not belong in the workplace, and exposure to it can be the cause for anxiety, we do not find that the evidence supports causal relationship.

{The file contains a medical report from January 26, 2023, that noted that the claimant presented with increased anxiety, stress and depressed mood. It was also noted that the claimant reported that she recently saw a derogatory remark that was directed at her in a room at her place of employment. It was indicated that the claimant was very insulted and that she is depressed and anxious because of a very stressful work environment.

Dr. Campana, the claimant’s treating physician, evaluated the claimant on January 30, 2023, and the assessment was adjustment disorder with anxiety and depressed mood.

On March 24, 2023, Dr. Campana examined the claimant indicating that the claimant reported that she was targeted at work which exacerbated her anxiety.

In a notice of decision filed January 14, 2025, the WCLJ found prima facie medical evidence for an exacerbation of pre-existing mental health conditions of adjustment disorder with depression and anxiety per the January 26, 2023 of Dr. Campana.

Dr. Joseph, the carrier’s consultant, examined the claimant on February 28, 2025, and noted that the claimant reported that she was racially harassed at work to the point of being emotionally overwrought and had to leave her position. Upon evaluation, he diagnosed the claimant with adjustment disorder with anxiety and severe depression. He noted that the claimant’s psychiatric symptoms are causally related to her work environment which caused distress to the point where she was unable to work. He stated that the work environment certainly exacerbated her existing mental health.}

Most importantly, the claimant saw Dr. Campana the very next day after the alleged incident in question and there is no mention of any incident like the claimant is alleging. Further, the report of that examination notes anxiety going back an entire year before the alleged incident, which renders the claimant’s testimony not credible.

Further, the claimant offers no persuasive evidence of other racist treatment at work. It is apparent from the reports that Dr. Campana was not informed of any exposure of a Mammy doll, which the claimant now maintains is the basis of her stress.

Further, Dr. Joseph found causal relationship but what the claimant reported was also inconsistent as she reported that she was harassed and yelled at by her employer but made no reference to a Mammy Doll, which again contradicts her testimony. Therefore, like Dr. Campana, Dr. Joseph’s opinion on causal relationship is not persuasive as it is based on the claimant’s version of events, which lacks credibility. Based on the totality of the evidence, we find that the claim is disallowed due to the lack of persuasive evidence supporting causal relationship….”

Wow.

More Trump Deranged Fake News From The Times..

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I’ve decided that I’m going to keep posting these “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” essays until one of the bias-deniers who hangs out in these parts finally screams, “All right! All right! We’ve been lying! Of course the mainstream media is actively trying to undermine the President, especially the Times!“

This one is especially timely after a prominent member of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers pleaded for support in arguing that Trump should be removed from office because he was mean to the Pope. The member also had the—something—to insist that this was not a partisan issue. I wrote, before refusing to read the many replies supporting the “non-partisan” who wants the 25th Amendment used…you know, like the Axis was claiming during Trump’s first term—to forcibly remove him from office,

“Oh for heaven’s sake. This is not a non-partisan issue, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded, dishonest or being paid by the Democrats. 
And it is not a proper topic for conversation here, not that this has stopped the majority Left-leaning political bias on this listserv from leaking out with regularity. Did anyone here ever breathe a bit of concern that the previous President was showing ominous signs of being unfit for office? I don’t recall any, but I’d take seriously their arguments on why this is a legitimate APRL concern now.  Anyone else is prohibited by what I call “ethics estoppel.”

But I digress. Here is yesterday’s headline on a large Times feature (Gift link):

Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate

“As the president threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope, even some former allies and advisers are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced, describing him as “lunatic” and “clearly insane.”

The second I read that, I thought, “Hmmm, I wonder if I can guess who the ‘former allies and advisers’ are. Let’s see if you can guess: I’ll give you 30 seconds..

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On The Matter of a Murderer’s Insanity

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Conservative pundits seem to be having a problem with the fact that Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., the homeless man who slaughtered Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte subway as her fellow riders pretended they were under the sea or something, has been declared incapable of standing trial and prosecutors have delayed his competency hearing by six months.

A horrified conservative writes on PJ Media in part:

“….because soft-on-crime authorities in Charlotte ensured he was always released on cashless bail after his 14 prior arrests, he was free to thrust his knife into a stranger on the subway. Unfortunately, woke medical and legal professionals continue to treat Brown as if he were the victim, a pitiable, crazy man with no responsibility for his actions, rather than as a serial criminal and sadistic killer. The new assessment that Brown is incompetent to stand trial could prevent trying him for the death penalty….”

Ethics Alarms has barely touched on the question of whether not guilty by reason of insanity verdicts (NGBRI) are ethical or even sensible. That’s a big failing, because this is one of the major ethics questions in criminal law, and one that is still unsettled. It may be beyond settling.

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Ethics Quiz: Investigative Reporting Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

In this article, (Gift Link) a New York Times investigative reporter explains how he has cultivated a source that he knows is distributing illegal drugs that may be fatal.

He writes in part,

“It was a small-time operation, but one that illuminated a big point for our reporting: A single person, without cartel backing, can order and redistribute potent chemicals.

I wanted to verify his account with others. But I also had to make good on my commitment not to reveal his identity. So I compared the information he was giving me with reporting I’d done with dozens of experts and law enforcement officials who told me what they understood about this market. I also spoke to people in his circle of friends and associates.

All along, I was keenly aware that the drugs Chemical Analyst was selling can be fatal. I asked him about this — as I’d asked other dealers and suppliers — and he professed here to be a libertarian. As a human, I find it terrifying the drugs he sells could kill people. It was painful to watch him use drugs himself, and I often feared for his safety. But as a reporter, I have a responsibility to explain to the public what’s really happening on the drug frontier.”

This is different from most Ethics Quizzes here, because my position is set and unshakable. The reporter’s duty “to make good on [his] commitment not to reveal [the drug pusher’s] identity” must be subordinate to his duty to society as a citizen and responsible human being. Even lawyers are authorized to violate a clients’ confidentiality to prevent death or serious bodily injury to a third party. How many people should die so that the reporter can explain what’s happening on “the drug frontier?” My verdict: none.

The reporter says he’s talked to lawyers and other journalists as well as “experts” and law enforcement officials. I doubt that he has talked with any ethicists.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day(that I have already told you my answer to..) is…

Would it be ethical for the reporter sic the police on this criminal? Could it be ethical not to?

The ABA Wants Lawyers To Report Biased Judges

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Hmmmm. It can’t be that the notoriously woke ABA is concerned about partisan judges legislating from the bench, can it? Naaah, impossible. What was I thinking?

The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility today released a formal ethics opinion regarding the ethical obligations of lawyers who possess information that could lead to a judge’s disqualification. The opinion declares that a lawyer’s role as an officer of the court requires the disclosure of such information to protect the integrity of the judicial process, provided the disclosure does not violate client confidentiality.

Citing ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(d), otherwise known as the “catch-all rule” that some bar associations (like Virginia) regard as too vague to be meaningful, the ABA concludes that because lawyers are prohibited from engaging in conduct that is “prejudicial to the administration of justice,” when a lawyer knows of information reasonably likely to trigger a judge’s disqualification obligation under the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, the lawyer has a duty to speak up. Lawyers typically would rather not do so in such situations, being afraid of making an enemy in black robes.

Examples of such information not meant to be all-inclusive include prior employment connections (a client of mine couldn’t get a judge to recuse despite his having been a partner in the opposing counsel’s law firm), campaign contributions (the judge knowing that your client, or you, contributed to the judicial candidate who ran against her); a spouse’s law firm’s involvement in the case, and a counsel’s business relationship with a judge’s family member.

Here is the link for ABA Opinion 522.