Law & Law Enforcement

Stop Picking On Mike Tyson

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
This time, it wasn't your fault, Mike.

This time, it wasn’t your fault, Mike.

“Law & Order: SVU” cast former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson as a prisoner and past victim of child abuse victim, who murdered one of his abusers. The episode bombed for the NBC show during the crucial “sweeps” ratings period, and Washington Post TV writer Lisa De Moraes attributes the failure to the show’s insensitivity in casting Tyson.  She wrote in today’s Post,

“Before the episode aired, about 7,000 people signed a petition asking NBC to recast the role. The petition was created by an ardent “SVU” fan who is a rape survivor and who said she felt betrayed by the stunt casting. Among those who signed the petition: “NCIS” star and abuse survivor Pauley Perrette. Tyson was arrested in 1991 and charged with raping then-18-year-old Miss Black America pageant competitor Desiree Washington; he was convicted and served three years of a six-year prison sentence.”

If the “Law and Order” producers erred in casting Tyson, it was in under-estimating the fecklessness, bias and hypocrisy of the viewing public.  Continue reading →

Dog Racism Update: A Definitive Defense of Pit Bulls

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Nanny dog1

Ethics Alarms has discussed the unfairness, bigotry and ignorance behind the vilification of pit bulls and related breeds on many occasions: here, here, here , here, and here. Now Joshua Holland has written an excellent primer in Salon for the pit bull-phobics to chew on, and he did a superb job of debunking the illusion that this is a monstrous breed rather than what it really is, an uncommonly delightful one.

Among the highlights…

  • “Pit bulls are the dog of choice for irresponsible breeders, dog-fighters, people who want a tough-looking dog to tie up in their yard and those who refuse to have their male dogs… 86% of fatal canine attacks involve an unneutered male, according to the American Humane Society.”
  • “A 2009 study in the Journal of Forensic Science, found that the owners of vicious dogs, regardless of the breed, had “significantly more criminal behaviors than other dog owners”…According to the ASPCA, “Pit Bulls often attract the worst kind of dog owners.”
  • “We have tragically betrayed our children’s beloved nanny-dogs, raising them irresponsibly, training them to be aggressive and then turning them into pariahs when they behave as any dog would in similar circumstances.” Continue reading →

Now THIS Is A Legal Ethics Violation!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Horrible text messageJeremy Daniel Oliver, a friendly Oklahoma lawyer specializing in criminal and family law, was recently arrested and charged with the felonies of soliciting sex with a minor and distributing obscene materials via technological means. You see, Oliver offered to knock $1000 off his fee for legal services for a female client…

…in exchange for sex with her, or, in the alternative,

…her 18-year-old-daughter, or, as another option,

… her 13-year-old daughter,

…in a text message sent to his client’s phone

...while deputies were with the mother.

Oh yes…he also sent her a picture of his penis.

This alleged conduct involves several ethics rules, I aver, including those prohibiting a lawyer from breaking significant laws, having sex with clients (though, oddly, there is nothing in the rules prohibiting sex with the daughters of clients), and perhaps most of all, charging unreasonable fees, though to be fair, having not seen the photo of Mr. Oliver’s penis, I can’t say how unreasonable.

As Consumerist’s Vivia Chen would say, “Not cool.”

____________________________

Pointer: ABA Journal

Facts: News OK

If Only The Profession Was This Strict AFTER Admitting A Lawyer To The Bar…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
No, surprisingly in light of last week's revelations from Cambridge, the applicant who cheated on her bar exam did NOT go to Harvard. I'm as stunned as you are!

No, surprisingly in light of last week’s revelations from Cambridge, the applicant who cheated on her bar exam did NOT go to Harvard. I’m as stunned as you are!

One of the legal profession’s ethics anomalies is that its character standards for entering legal practice are far more unforgiving than the standards for keeping one’s license to practice after being admitted. For while John Edwards continues to be a North Carolina lawyer in “good standing,” an Ohio bar applicant was held to lack the requisite good character to be a trustworthy lawyer (Ohio Supreme Court opinion here) because of the following set of facts.

When Jasmine Shawn Parker of Covington, Kentucky was taking the Ohio bar exam, a test monitor reported that she had continued to write for up to 30 seconds after “time” was called on a set of two exam questions, and then again for 45 to 60 seconds on two sets of two exam questions. The Board of Bar Examiners investigated, and asked Parker’s tablemates about their observations or her actions, if any, after time had been called. They reported that Parker had continued writing for maybe a second or two past the declared deadline on Day 1 of the exam, and on the second day, had continued to write past the stopping point “long enough to get at least two lines of writing on paper.” As a penalty after these findings, the Ohio Board of Bar Examiners gave Parker no credit on the exam question with the highest point value. Never mind: Parker’s score was high enough to pass the bar exam anyway. Her alleged cheating, however, led the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness to recommend her license be denied, with the opportunity to reapply.  Continue reading →

Cost of Rick Curl’s ‘Stay-Out-Of-Jail-And Keep-Molesting-Girls’ Card: $6,250 a Year

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
I hope it was worth the cash, Kelley.

I hope it was worth the cash, Kelley.

All in all, you would have to say that renowned Maryland swimming coach Rick Curl made a pretty sweet deal for himself. True, he’s headed to jail now, after pleading guilty to charges of child sexual abuse as a result of the testimony of Kelley Currin. Currin, now 41, was a former swimmer coached by Curl, and was molested and ultimately raped by him over six years beginning when she was only 13. But Curl paid Kelley’s parents, Gerald and Pamela Davies, $150,000 to keep his secret from police, the community, and the swim team (the Davies had read about his abuse in their daughter’s journal and confronted him) in 1989.  Kelley, who was 19 when her family got paid off, waited until last year to finally alert authorities, so Curl kept his freedom, reputation, and most important of all, his opportunity to be trusted with the yummy, young, nubile daughters of other, unsuspecting parents, for a bargain yearly rate of only $6,250.

Not bad! Not bad at all. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Dunce Meets Ethics Hero”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

John T., a reader whose final comment on Ethics Alarms is also the Comment of the Day, provided me with another example of the same phenomenon that manifested itself in some of the more extreme comments to the recent Applebee’s post. For many people who are incapable of coherent ethical analysis, the nature of conduct is assessed not according to the ethical or unethical nature of the conduct itself, but according to whether the author of the conduct is liked, admired, identified or sympathized with, especially in comparison to the individual, authority or entity holding that actor accountable for the unethical conduct involved. Thus supporters of the fired Applebee’s waitress who violated the terms of her employment, embarrassed her employer’s customer online, and used proprietary information to do it used all manner of irrelevant or  factually false arguments to make the case that she didn’t warrant punishment, and that it was Applebee’s that was acting wronfully—waitresses are underpaid; Applebee’s doesn’t treat employees well, the pastor was “stealing” by not leaving a tip, the pastor’s obnoxious message “abused” the server (even though the server wasn’t the one who publicized the pastor’s comments), and so on. Because commenters sympathized and identified with the waitress, they crashed through logical and ethical roadblocks to find her innocent of wrongdoing, and mistreated by a big, bad, heartless corporation. In other words, emotion and bias, not objectivity and ethical analysis, took over.

John T. engages in the same fallacious process to defend the 18-year old Xanax abuser who found herself insulting the wrong judge in Miami. His previous jaw-dropping comment described the woman’s horrible demeanor and attitude as “genuinely cooperative and friendly” (she was disrespectful, mocking and seemingly stoned), and opined that unauthorized possession of a controlled substance was a “bullshit charge.” I responded, half in jest,  that with that attitude, it was remarkable that he wasn’t in jail. I’ll be back at the end, but here is John T’s masterful rant, the Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Dunce Meets Ethics Hero: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce Meets Ethics Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The Dunce: Penelope Soto, arrested for illegal possession of a controlled substance (Xanax), and for riding a bicycle recklessly while stoned. Facing arraignment before Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat to determine bail, she laughed at his questions, gave him a mocking farewell, and finally threw an F-bomb his way.

The Hero: the Judge, who tolerated Soto’s disrespectful, dismissive and seemingly stoned behavior up to a point, but when she turned her back on him to leave with a flippant “Adios!”, he doubled her bail amount from $5,000 to $10,000.*  Her next reaction was a muttered “Fuck you” and a provocatively raised index finger. For that, he found her in criminal contempt.  His sentence: 30 days in jail.

Disrespect for the Court is disrespect for the law, and disrespect for the law is disrespect for the country. I don’t know how people like Ms. Soto reach adulthood without learning this lesson, but bravo to Judge Rodriguez-Chomat for not hesitating to teach it forcefully and well.

The full video of their fateful meeting is above, and worth watching. I recommend showing it to your children, if you have them.

UPDATE: She returned to court with her lawyer, sober and stright this time, and managed a sincere-sounding apology to the judge. He let her out of jail, as he should have. Point made.

*Note: the practical effect of this is to cost Ms. Soto and extra $500, essentially a fine for being rude to the judge. A prisoner typically has to give a bail bondsman 10% of the bail amount to get out of jail until trial. If she doesn’t want to pay that, she can put up the whole amount, which she will get back once she appears for trial.

Accountability For Tawana Brawley

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
Al Sharpton and Tawana, ruining lives. Nice hair, Al.

Al Sharpton and Tawana, ruining lives. Nice hair, Al.

Tawana Brawley was 15 when she was championed by the Rev. Al Sharpton after she falsely claimed that she had been kidnapped, raped, and smeared with fecal matter by a group of white men. Now Brawley, 40, going by the name of Tawana Gutierrez, and employed at a Richmond nursing home, has received a wage-garnishment order to collect the $431,492 judgment against her in a 1997 defamation case brought by one of those men, Steven Pagones, who at the time of her 1987 accusation was a state prosecutor in New York.

Good!

Sharpton, who also was hit with a large damages verdict in the case, has already paid up. His outrageous race-baiting at the time was worth it to him, since it set set the race huckster on the road to celebrity that culminated in his being anointed as a respectable MSNBC host and commentator. Respectable for MSNBC, that is. Brawley still has public support,  as the tender-hearted raise all sorts of arguments why she shouldn’t have to pay Pagones such a large amount. She is poor, they say. He should forgive her. She was only 15. She was disturbed. Now she is a single working mother, and we are really punishing her child. It was all Sharpton’s fault. And so on. Continue reading →

Donald Trump’s Loathsome Lawsuit

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Maher-Trump-Oran

Normally the result of a tiff between Donald Trump and Bill Maher would interest me about as much as I would be invested in the  winner of a battle between Godzilla and Megalon.  Trump’s lawsuit against Maher in retaliation for an obvious joke, however, is unethical and indefensible no matter how much I enjoy seeing Maher, who could only avoid being the most obnoxious human being in world containing the likes of Trump, suffer.

Maher joked to Jay Leno last month that he would pay $5 million to Trump’s charity of choice if Trump could prove that his birth wasn’t the result his mother having sex with orangutan. I missed it, Jay having joined David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel in my talk-show host Hall of Ethics Shame, but the line did make me laugh, I confess. Maher’s faux challenge was an obvious riff on the offensive offer Trump made to President Barack Obama during the presidential campaign, in which Trump raised the birther canard again and offered $5 million to the President’s charity of choice if  Obama released his college records and definitive proof that he was really born in the U.S.A.

Nonetheless, Trump decided to behave as if it were a real offer. He had his lawyers send the verification to Maher (Trump’s father, the brains of the family, was a legendary real estate innovator and mogul), and now Trump is suing for the $5 million on the pretense that the comic welched on a legitimate and enforceable unilateral contract. “I don’t know whether this case will be won or lost, but I felt a major obligation to bring it on behalf of the charities,” Trump said. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: An Angry Young Man at Yale Law School

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

flame faceA third year law student decided it was appropriate to send an obscene, ranting letter to the entire student body of Yale Law School announcing that he hated “like 90%” of them, and also, in his words (after announcing that he is going to be a writer):

“…fuck you guys, you judgmental, uninformed pricks, patting yourselves on the back on top of your goddamn moral high horses. I realize I am killing my future political career. GOOD. If you’ve read The Republic, you know exactly what my opinion of politicians are. I realize I am burning bridges. EXCELLENT. If I succeed in my passions, I want to make damn sure it is without the help of any of you phony-ass shitdicks. I’ve ALREADY gotten compliments about how inspirational I am, and I haven’t even fucking started yet. That’s the biggest compliment I’ve ever received in my life. It’ll probably take you guys 10-20 years to get that even once, so good luck and keep up the good work!”

His name was included on his post, just to make certain that it keeps him from finding gainful employment with any potential supervisor who doesn’t have a death wish.

A few observations: Continue reading →