Law & Law Enforcement

Exposing America’s Dungeons: The New York City Bar Report on Supermax Prisons

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

“…The overriding rationale for supermax confinement is to impose order  and maintain safety in the prison environment.  The unmitigated suffering caused by supermax confinement, however, cannot be justified by the argument that it is an effective means to deal with difficult prisoners. The issue, we believe, is not whether supermax achieves its purposes or is effective at controlling and punishing unruly inmates.
Instead, the question is whether the vast archipelago of American supermax facilities, in which some prisoners are kept isolated indefinitely for years, should be tolerated as consistent with fundamental principles of justice. Even prisoners who have committed horrific crimes and atrocities possess basic rights to humane treatment under national and international law. Although the Constitution “does not mandate comfortable prisons,” it does require humane prisons that comport with the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against punishments that are “incompatible with ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” or which “involve the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.” More recently, the Supreme Court stated that “[p]risoners retain the essence of human dignity inherent in all persons. Respect for that dignity animates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Supermax confinement as extensively implemented in the United States falls short of this standard and must be substantially reformed.”

—-The New York City Bar in its just-released report on “supermax” prisons in the United States.  The report declares supermax imprisonment, which currently holds 80,000 prisoners, to be the equivilent of torture and a violation of international human rights standards.

The report is harrowing, horrifying, and a source of shame for all Americans. The lack of concern by the public and its elected representatives in maintaining humane conditions in our prisons is understandable but inexcusable nonetheless. The New York City Bar has performed  a great service by issuing the report; it is up to us to insist that it is acted upon without delay. The United States of America should not be operating dungeons.

You can, and must, read it here.

Ethics Quiz: Does The Golden Rule Ever Make You a Sucker?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

For Ken Anderson, an alternative tattoo instead of "Mother"

With great trepidation, I visit our friends to the North for the second time in a week…this time, for an Ethics Quiz.

Ken Anderson, 47, of British Columbia, has been fighting a lawsuit by his aged mother, Shirley Anderson, since 2000. Using a rarely used section of B.C.’s Family Relations Act, she is demanding that he pay her $750 per month in “parental support.” The law declares that adult children are responsible for legally supporting parents who are “dependent on a child because of age, illness, infirmity or economic circumstances.”

Anderson isn’t keen on the request, since both his parents abandoned him when he was a mere tyke of 15, leaving him behind as they moved away with two younger siblings. He lived with other families and then quit school to find work. Now he’s married with two kids, and makes his living driving a truck. Continue reading →

Law, Ethics, and the One-legged Baby Who Never Should Have Lived But Is Glad He Did

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

It's a wonderful, wrongful, life. Wait..what?

A Palm Beach County jury has awarded $4.5 million to couple Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana in an unusual “wrongful life” lawsuit.  Their child Bryan was born with only one limb, a leg, and their lawsuit on his behalf alleged that Dr. Marie Morel and OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches Hospital botched an ultra-sound procedure that should have detected the abnormality.If it had accurately told them what Bryan would be like, they argued, they would have had him aborted.

The jury-awarded damages will cover prostheses, wheelchairs, operations, attendants and other needs it is assumed that Bryan will have during his estimated 70-year life.  “It will give piece of mind to these people that no matter what happens to them, their son will be all right,” Mejia’s attorney told the jury.

The legal issues are interesting; the ethical issues  more so. Continue reading →

The Dominatrix Lawyer Principle?

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

"Your witness, Counsellor."

Alisha Smith, 36, by day a lawyer in the state Attorney General’s Office specializing in prosecuting securities fraud, prowls the night as “Alisha Spark,” a dominatrix who performs at S&M events for pay. So reports an expose in the New York Post. At a recent S&M event, Alisha posed for photos with fellow fetishists, wearing a skin-tight, see-through latex dress with heart-shaped pasties.“They pay her to go to the events. She dominates people, restrains them and whips them,” the Post’s source said.

Yesterday, the Attorney General removed Smith from her duties. “The employee has been suspended without pay, effective immediately, pending an internal investigation,” said a spokesman for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The lawyer-dominatrix’s punishment, which will may eventually involve dismissal, will undoubtedly be based on a standing executive order in the Attorney General’s Office that requires employees to “obtain prior approval from the [Employment Conduct Committee] before engaging in any outside pursuit … from which more than $1,000 will be received or is anticipated to be received.”

Whipping enthusiastic S&M lovers pays a lot better than that.

She should be dismissed anyway. Her activities breach no legal ethics rules, but as a representative of the state, the Attorney General and the justice system, “Alisha Spark” was obligated conduct herself in a manner that did not undermine the system’s dignity or call the competence of the Attorney General’s Office into question. Even if she had been whipping leather-clad, squealing men free of charge, she was still duty-bound to keep her kinky escapades secret and private, because once they became public, if they did, they would harm her ability to do her legal job. Would a jury be as likely to accept an argument from a prosecutor who had pictures circulating the internet showing her whipping up fun in her alternate profession while dressed like Cat Woman? Maybe, but no sane Attorney General would want to take that chance.

Kinky though she may be, Smith is apparently good at her day job. If the Attorney General  believes that his office won’t be tangibly impeded by her continued employment in a legal role that doesn’t require a high profile or courtroom duty, then it would make sense to keep her on. Otherwise, it is the Naked Teacher Principle again, under the rare sub-category labeled “Dominatrix Lawyers.”

“I Am One of Those Untouchables” : The Unethical Persecution of Former Sex Offenders

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

No ethical person can read this and conclude that such treatment by society is fair, responsible, compassionate or American. It is the ethical duty of every citizen who believes in our society’s commitment to the freedoms guaranteed by the Declaration and the Constitution to oppose efforts to persecute former sex offenders, because our elected officials will not oppose them. It is, in the end, a matter of choosing national integrity over bigotry and fear.

“I am one of those untouchables. And I’m not one of those ones that everyone agrees shouldn’t be on the registry. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “America’s Untouchables”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Among the many provocative, informative and heart-breaking comments to the Ethics Alarms post about the continued persecution of convicted sex offenders after they have completed their sentences is the following Comment of the Day by Peekachu (not to be confused with the Pokemon of the same name—different spelling). This is obviously an emotional topic for many, and I am somewhat surprised that there have not been any comments in defense of the increasingly restrictive limits placed on the Constitutional rights of sex offenders to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….perhaps because there is no defense.  I hope to explore this issue more thoroughly in the future, but in the meantime, I urge readers to visit the other comments to the original post, and also to read Ethics Bob Stone’s take on the topic.

Here is the Comment of the Day, by Peekachu, on “America’s Untouchables”: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: Ethics Hero Alan Ehrlich Responds

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

"citation..for..making...the...police...look...bad.."

Ethics Hero Alan Ehrlich, the South Pasadena citizen ticketed for directing traffic at a busy intersection when the lights failed and no police responded, has provided some valuable insight and additional details in his comments to my post about his conduct and subsequent treatment, “When Ethics Hero Meets Ethics Dunce: Alan Ehrlich and the Spirit of Citizenship vs. South Pasadena Police Chief Joe Payne and Official Arrogance.” It is collected and posted below. Thanks, Alan. Continue reading →

America’s Untouchables

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Americans allow prisoners in its penitentiaries to get raped, despite the fact that it is a blatant violation of the prisoners’ civil rights. They even tolerate TV shows making light of the situation, which is a human rights scandal: how many times have you heard the FBI agent or police in shows like “Law and Order” or “The Mentalist” taunt an arrested criminal with the prospect that he will soon be a prison sex-toy? Never mind: American don’t really care about the abuse of prisoners. Similarly, the nation is systematically making it impossible for convicted sex offenders who have served their time to live a normal life anywhere. They might as well be in prison. Well, except then they might get raped. Continue reading →

Wolf’s Question and the Ethical Answer

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

"Upon reflection, perhaps failing to buy health insurance was a mistake..."

Wolf Blitzer’s question to Rep. Ron Paul at the CNN/Tea Party Express Republican debate in Tampa, Fla. has received most of its publicity because of the idiotic response it elicited from the audience, or some of it. That is good fodder for the Tea Party-slimers, but it was the query itself that raised the most interesting ethical issue.

What should happen, Wolf asked, when a healthy 30-year-old man who can afford insurance chooses not to buy it, and then goes into a coma and needs intensive care for six months? Ron Paul, true to his libertarian soul, muttered unhelpfully that we should all take responsibility for ourselves, which is true, but non-responsive. Blitzer followed up: “But, Congressman, are you saying the society should just let him die?” (This is where the barbarians at the gates added their bloodthirsty shouts of “Yeah!”)

Slate’s Jonah Goldberg has written about what he calls the three possible options available to American society to handle the comatose slacker: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Unethical Business Practices: Online Reputation Services”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

For those offended by the fact that this is the second Comment of the Day, I can only note that I haven’t posted a COTD for a while, so they can consider this one as making up for say, September 9.

Tgt has some uncomfortable truths about the practicalities of taking principled stands, in the context of my discussing the dishonest and bullying tactics of so-called online reputation protection services without specifically naming any one company.

There are gradients of this dilemma, which I’m not sure the author sufficiently acknowledges. For example, in the recent Defense of Marriage Act controversy in which law firm King & Spalding arguably dumped an unpopular representation because of inappropriate but no less threatening warnings from its biggest client, there are core professional values involved: once a lawyer ( or firm) accepts a representation, he or she may not, consistent with professional norms, drop the new client because of fear that the representation will have unpleasant consequences. There is no ethical obligation, however, to engage in a protest or civil disobedience when one objects to an abuse of official power. There is an obligation to do something, and it is ethically legitimate to choose a course that addresses the wrong without causing unnecessary harm to oneself or others. One not  cowardly by not being foolhardy.

Unless I accept John Adams’ rather perverse conviction that the only way one knows one is doing the right thing is when he is certain that the consequences will be personally ruinous, I don’t agree that I have failed an ethical obligation by choosing to flag unethical conduct without specifically inciting a company whose business it is to intimidate websites.

Besides, as I noted in my response to this comment, I am not through with these guys. Not by a longshot. But here is tgt’s Comment of the Day to my opening volley: Continue reading →