And now, from Reuters, an instance of the American justice system violating principles of honesty, logic and common sense in order to be “fair.”
As a neo-Nazi gang member prepared to go on trial for murder, he got himself some new tattoos: a swastika, barbed wire, and an obscene word. On his face! Continue reading
The disturbing story of Carolyn and Sean Savage’s pregnancy was a hot topic in September, but it is barely remembered now. I am hoping that bioethicists and legal specialists are still cogitating over it, however, because the ethical and legal issues aren’t going away. They are probably just around the corner. Continue reading
For about 20 years, the consensus has been building in the legal profession that a lawyer sleeping with his clients is not only a bad idea, but also should be prohibited by the formal ethics rules. States like California, Oregon and New York quickly adopted such a rule while other bars resisted; when the ABA added the “no sex with clients” provision to is Model Rule 1.8 in 2003, more states followed suit. Now Virginia, one of the most respected bars in the country, is considering its first pronouncement on the subject, in the form of a formal ethics opinion. Continue reading
There are two main strains among the culturally corrosive arguments in support of Tiger Woods. One, discussed in Part I, is the “great athletes don’t need to be great human beings,” a contention that chooses to ignore the inescapable fact that they are paid to behave like great human beings, whether they are or not. While this argument is mostly obtuse, the second strain is the more ethically offensive. Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon embraced it with both arms in his defense of Woods entitled, “Some context on Tiger.” Its thesis: virtually all big-time athletes cheat on their wives, and if you had the opportunities and temptations they do, you’d cheat too. Translation: “It’s no big deal”: Continue reading
Those who oppose the death penalty on moral grounds, fervently believing that the taking of human life is always wrong, also believe, it seems, that lesser sins are legitimate tools if they can save even one condemned prisoner. The misconduct of choice seems to be intellectual dishonesty, and there have recently been some obvious displays of it. Whether you believe such tactics are justifiable or not, there is no question that they muddle the capital punishment debate. Continue reading
Lawyers being lawyers, it is not surprising that a New York Times article about the unhealthy physical stresses endured by contestants in the “Biggest Loser” reality show inspired a legal blog to wonder how long it would be before the show was hit with a large law suit. “I’m waiting for the first person to have a heart attack,” THR, ESQ quotes Dr. Charles Burant, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, as saying. The core problem is not liability, however. The problem is that the show is horribly, indefensibly unethical. It shouldn’t be waiting for a lawsuit, or a heart attack. The program is wrong to continue, advertisers are wrong to support it, and we are wrong to watch it. Continue reading
Former Arkansas Governor and current talk show host Mike Huckabee, an early leader among GOP presidential contenders in 2012, is the process of being vilified and ridiculed by conservative commentators and talk radio hosts for what appears to be a tragic instance of moral luck. Nine years ago, he issued clemency to a prisoner named Maurice Clemens, a man who had been convicted of larceny and burglary at the age of 16 and had served seven years of a 108 year sentence. Clemens was just killed after going on a two-day rampage in Seattle, Washington murdering four police officers. Now critics are blaming the deaths on Huckabee, calling him a “bleeding heart” who cares more about criminals than their victims, and demanding that this tragedy permanently end his presidential ambitions. Continue reading
The battle to define what is right and wrong regarding social networking sites continues. The Philadelphia Bar Association has decided that it is an ethics violation for a lawyer to recruit someone to make a Facebook “friend request” to a witness to pass on to the lawyer the contents of the witness’s Facebook page. The ethics committee wrote that this was dishonest conduct by the lawyer even though the witness willingly accepted the fake “friend” and would have accepted almost anyone who asked. The same tactic was pulled on University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student Adam Bauer, who has over 400 Facebook friends and who accepted a friend request by an attractive young woman he didn’t know because, well, she was an attractive young woman. She was working for the police, however, and found photos on the site of Adam and a friend, Tyrell Luebker, with adult beverages in hand. They both were ticketed for underage drinking, and ended up paying a fine. Continue reading
Three springs ago on the streets of Pittsburgh, David Hackbart was starting to parallel park when a car pulled up behind him. Don’t you hate that? Hackbart did too, and presented his flip-off finger to the anonymous driver in silent protest. “Don’t flip him off!” came a shouted edict from someone outside his car, and Hackbart, not in the mood for officious intermeddling, gave the anonymous civility referee The Finger as well. Continue reading
Robert Bowman, according to a panel of New York judges, does not have the requisite good character to be admitted to the practice of law in New York. The reason for the panel’s finding is superficially logical: he owes nearly a half-million dollars in student loans. This is, says the panel, per se proof of irresponsible and negligent financial management, making him an unacceptable risk for any client. The panel is almost certainly wrong. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 