Law & Law Enforcement

“Baseball Super-Agent Scott Boras Has Another Super-Conflict And There Is No Excuse For It,” The Sequel

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Sharp-eyed Ethics Alarms readers who pay attention to my baseball posts might recognize this one. It is like the most inexcusable lazy Hollywood franchise film, a sequel that is nearly identical to the original. I’m going to see how much of the post’s predecessor I can duplicate without having to change anything

Twelve years ago, Ethics Alarms began a post about baseball agents in general and Scott Boras in particular engaging in a flaming conflict of interest that harmed their player clients this way…

Baseball’s super-agent Scott Boras has his annual off-season conflict of interest problem, and as usual, neither Major League Baseball, nor the Players’ Union, nor the legal profession, not his trusting but foolish clients seem to care. Nevertheless, he is operating under circumstances that make it impossible for him to be fair to his clients.

I could have written that paragraph today. Nothing has changed. Literally nothing: as baseball general managers  huddle with player agents in baseball’s off-season and sign players to mind-blowing contracts, the unethical tolerance of players agents indulging in and profiting from a classic conflict of interest continues without protest or reform.

I may be the only one who cares about the issue. I first wrote about it here, on a baseball website. I carried on my campaign to Ethics Alarms, discussing the issue in 2010, 2011 (that’s where the linked quote above comes from), 2014, 2019, and in 2019 again,  and last year, in 2022. There is no publication or website that has covered the issue as thoroughly as this one, and the unethical nature of the practice is irrefutable. But I might as well be shouting in outer space, where no one can hear you scream. The conflict of interest, which is throbbingly obvious and easy to address, sits stinking up the game. Continue reading →

Will Someone Please Explain To Me Why A School Board Would Settle This Case?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The settlement was for the defendant school board to pay the grand total of $101 toformer student Brielle Penkoski three years after she was sent home from the Livingston Academy public high school (in Tennessee) for wearing the shirt above. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media hasn’t carried this story, as damages that tiny are considered symbolic at best. However, the fact that the defendant paid at all is symbolic, and from my viewpoint, it symbolizes a misreading of the First Amendment.

Yeah, yeah, the settlement came with the typical boilerplate language stating that the result comes “without acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of any party or the agents or employees of any party, which wrongdoing is expressly denied.” But Christian Right publications and websites are cheering the result—the school board will also pay the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees and costs—as vindication.

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Confronting My Biases, Episode 6: Pot Users

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

The status of marijuana in the U.S. is a mess, with the drug still being illegal under federal law and the states slowly sliding down the slippery slope to legalization, because they see revenue in it. The confusion is going to get worse before it gets better. Ohio was the only state to legalize marijuana for “recreational use” last year. The Kentucky General Assembly legalized medical marijuana this year, but patients will have to wait until 2025 for the program to kick in. Voters in Oklahoma rejected the legalization of recreational marijuana in last March, and Hoosiers voted against legal marijuana in Indiana in early April.

The Department of Health and Human Services sent its latest findings on marijuana to the Drug Enforcement Administration, recommending that it be reclassified as a Schedule III drug. That classification would mean that the substance has a “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.” However, I wouldn’t trust the now thoroughly woke HHS to do an unbiased study on the topic, since the most stoned American are progressives and Democrats. Throughout the last few years, there have been various studies suggesting that the drug is not as harmless as its proponents have been claiming it is, and there is enough evidence of heavy use of pot causing long-term cognitive problems to tell me that we still don’t know what lurks in the genie’s bottle.

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I Thought Disney Lost Its Copyright on Mickey Mouse Today. Uh, NO…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

A little over a week ago, I wrote (in Item #3),

As the capper on a really bad year for Disney, Mickey Mouse finally loses its copyright protection on Jan. 1, 2024, and goes into the public domain. Disney unethically used its lobbying power to use its iconic founding rodent to persuade the U.S. Congress to extend copyright protection beyond all reason. Disney’s monopoly over Mickey will end95 years after his debut in the short film “Steamboat Willie,” long, long after the original copyright protection would have expired based on the correct theory that once an artist has gleaned a reasonable benefit and profit from a creation, it benefits the culture and society to be able to use the work to spark innovation and new uses for the original work.

As Carnac the Great would say, “Wrong, Ethics-Breath!”

Disney still has its hooks into Mickey, as the company continues to warp U.S. intellectual property law, setting the precedents for other properties to avoid the public domain far longer than is healthy for the culture. Yes, the original Mickey of 1928’s trailblazing Disney cartoon “Steamboat Willie” (above) has lost its copyright, but not this Mickey,

…or this Mickey,

or this Mickey,

or this one,

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Dentist Ethics Drill! [Multiple Updates and Corrections]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

This is a bridge from the previous post, since it also involves Minnesota, and gives some teeth to my argument that the Land o’ Lakes is facing a brush with ethics decay. At the root of our tale some yawning cavities in the ethical hygiene of a dental professional. (Note my generous restraint in leaving quite a few potential puns for you to add in the comments. Consider the challenge a moment of tooth, er, truth.)

But I digress. Dr. Kevin Molldrem and Molldrem Family Dentistry face a lawsuit from a disgruntled patient, Kathleen Wilson, who claims the Eden Prairie dentist harmed her in the process of performing over 30 dental procedures in a single five hour appointment. Molldrem, she alleges, put in eight crowns, did four root canals and filled the cavities in 20 teeth during a single visit in July 2020. In the process, according to the lawsuit, Molldrem used anesthesia “well in excess of (the) recommended dosage” and engaged in “falsifying medical records” regarding the amount administered.

Update 1: I finally have the complaint (thanks to JutGory). The news reports did not accurately convey the sense of the lawsuit, concentrating excessively on the sensational feature of all that dental work at a single session. The complaint’s complaints are:

—“Plaintiff has incurred and will continue to incur medical costs for the dental care required to address the harms caused by Dr. Molldrem’s negligence.”

—“Plaintiff has incurred and will continue to incur lost income and loss of earning capacity as a direct result of Dr. Molldrem’s negligence.”

—“Plaintiff has endured and will continue to endure pain and suffering, embarrassment, emotional distress, and disfigurement as a direct result of Dr. Molldrem’s negligence.”

Update 2: The complaint also accuses the dentist of failing “to create a care plan that would effectively address decay and tooth dissolution” and “failing to control gingival inflammation and bleeding” during the lengthy visit. That’s the harm alleged, as well as damage that required repair by other dentists. Based on what was revealed about the suit in the media and the fact that the expert report for the plaintiff mentions “trauma,” discomfort” and “anxiety,” I assumed that pain and suffering were also alleged in the suit, as they virtually always are when medical negligence is involved. And sure enough, they were. However, my statement in the original post that the suit claims the dentist’s marathon session “caused great pain and suffering” was speculation stated as fact, so I’ve removed it.

***

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A Supreme Court Section 3 Ruling Preview?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy on Reason’s website, where constitutional law experts hang out and opine and then mostly inarticulate readers pile on, Steve Cabrizzi has pretty much slam-dunked the position that the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against those who supported the Confederacy in the Civil War holding office in the re-united United States of America can’t be used against Donald Trump. Unlike the convoluted and boot-strapping decision of the Colorado Supreme Court and the transparently partisan decision by Maine’s Secretary of State (both part of the now eight year-old effort by Democrats to use extra-legal means to destroy an adversary they fear and loathe), Bacrizzi’s brief is clear and straightforward.

First he explains the technical reasons why “Donald Trump is obviously not disqualified from seeking re-election under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” writing in part,

The words “President or Vice President” were deliberately edited out of the final version of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This, together with the disqualification of presidential electors and vice-presidential elector who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” makes it clear that the Framers’ of Section 3 did not intend for it to apply to presidents or vice presidents who engaged in insurrection. This impression is augmented by the fact that Section 3 methodically applies in order from the highest office to the lowest office. Section 3 first disqualifies insurrectionist Senators and then Representatives. It then disqualifies all appointed civil or military officers; it then disqualifies insurrectionists from serving as a member of any State legislature, and it finally disqualifies in insurrectionists from serving as State executive or judicial officers. This careful hierarchy suggests that the phrase “or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States” does not apply to the President or Vice President, but applies only to appointed federal officers…

This fact is further confirmed by the Appointments Clause of Article II, Section 2, which says [The President shall nominate, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.”  The President does not appoint himself so obviously he is not an Officer of the United States under the Appointments Clause. Moreover, the Commission clause of Article II, Section 3 says that “[T he President] shall” i.e. must, “Commission all the Officers of the United States.”  No President has EVER commissioned himself or his Vice President either before or after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.  The President is obviously not an Officer of the United States for the purposes of the Commission clause.

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Now THIS is an Unethical Lawsuit (But Not Frivolous!)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The Hershey company (in Hershey, Pa.) has been sued by Cynthia Kelly in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on behalf of herself and everyone who purchased Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Halloween candies advertised as pumpkins and white ghosts. The class action lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages and a court order requiring the company to change its advertising next year so purchasers won’t feel that they have been victimized by a bait-and-switch. It alleges that Hershey falsely advertised the seasonal candy as having “explicit carved” out designs, and there were no such carvings in the actual products.

Kelly’s complaint says that she purchased a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter pumpkins for $4.49 at an Aldi’s last October 2023 because she was impressed by the artistic carvings depicted in the advertisements and the packaging, and would not have bought the candy if she knew that it was uncarved. And she wasn’t alone in this painful disappointment, as shown by comments on Hershey YouTube ads written by heart-broken candy-lovers:

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Observations On The NeverTrump Section 3 Big Lie Push

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Maine joined Colorado in barring from its GOP primary ballot yesterday, as Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) decided that she “had no choice.” She had no choice because she is a rapid partisan Leftist who, like many Democratic operatives in various positions of power within the legal establishment, she is determined that President Biden be rescued from his election peril by any means necessary. Trump’s actions before and during the January 6, 2021, riot in the U.S. Capitol do not justify charging him with inciting a riot, much less an “insurrection” that would trigger Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Maine’s completely partisan and anti-democratic move is sure to be appealed along with Colorado Supreme Court’s finding last week that Trump could not appear on the ballot in that state under the 14th Amendment provision designed to keep members of the Confederacy that prevents insurrectionists from holding office. The U.S. Supreme Court will review the case, one hopes quickly, and had better resolve the issue of whether Trump can run again or if the nation will be thrown into Constitutional chaos by allowing some states to block him.

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If You Are Troubled By The Ferguson Effect, Wait Until The Aurora Effect Kicks In

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The surge in homicides following the Michael Brown fiasco in Ferguson, Missouri sparked a debate about whether the demonizing of police by the news media, lawyers seeking quick liability pay-outs every time a perp was killed in a confrontation with police, and progressive politicians demonstrations, and the anti-police hostility they engendered triggered the murder spike. City Journal contributing editor Heather Mac Donald, among others, identified a “Ferguson Effect,” in which police were pushed into passive law enforcement for fear of criminal prosecutions primed by political factors and the kind of life- and career-wrecking publicity that savaged Officer Darren Wilson, who was found by a grand jury to be blameless in Brown’s shooting. Since that 2014 ethics train wreck, the Ferguson Effect has metastasized thanks to the George Floyd freakout, the Black Lives Matters riots, and the conviction and imprisonment of the group officers involved. It is indisputable that proactive law enforcement is dangerous now both in the streets and in the aftereffects when events turn ugly.If police are going to be sitting ducks for moral luck prosecutions, it requires a martyr or a fool to take the kinds of risks today’s social and legal climate engenders.

Next up on the metaphorical social justice shooting gallery: paramedics.

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Musings on Jesse Otero, the Human Broken Window

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Jesse Leonardo Otero, 44, has been arrested 90 times for shoplifting in the Bay area of California, most recently this month. He is a drug addict, homeless, and supports himself by shoplifting and selling stolen property, often stealing from the same stores over and over again. He doesn’t discriminate, though, targeting small businesses, big-box stores, or whatever seems convenient at the time. He isn’t just lifting candy bars: when Jesse steals, it’s usually hundreds of dollars of merchandise at a time. Local police and store managers know him by name. The manager of Five Little Monkeys toy store in Albany, California, for example, says she has reported Otero to police more than 20 times. Jesse ranged far and wide in his shopping trips, and is an expert on the BART transit system, which he uses to hit stores at every stop.

Nobody has kept count of the number of days Jesse has spend in jail for his exploits, but it isn’t very many. The usual routine is that police give Otero a citation and release him. Sometimes, as with this month’s arrest, he is arrested and jailed for a short time, then let out of jail free, just like in Monopoly. All of this ridiculous pattern is due to California voters, in their wisdom, passing a law in 2014 that weakened penalties for everything Jesse does, like illicit drug use, vagrancy, petty theft, and shoplifting. Prosecutors now can’t file a felony shoplifting charge unless the items taken top $950 in value.

Multiply Jesse by several hundred (or thousands?) and you can understand why so many stores in California are experiencing ruinous shoplifting. Social justice warriors, advocates of “restorative justice” and those who regard the fact that a disproportionate number of those in prison are black as proof of systemic racism dispute the validity of the “Broken Windows” theory, but California’s experience is one more bit of significant evidence that the theory is sound.

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