Law & Law Enforcement

Can Of Waning Work Week Ethics Worms: Race-Based Justice And Other Revolting Creatures [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

1. I hate to take pleasure in anyone’s career setbacks, but...the word that CNN’s unethical media watchdog, Brian Stelter, is about to get dumped is good news for everyone but him. It also means that CNN will have rid itself of its two most flagrantly partisan and dishonest talking heads, the other being Chris Cuomo. Stelter took over “Reliable Sources” from the flawed but qualified Howard Kurtz, who had covered media conduct for the Washington Post, and at least tried to be objective (and still does at Fox.) Stelter immediately transformed the Sunday show into a CNN-fawning, Fox News-bashing epitome of what a news ethics show must not be. The last hack standing among CNN’s worst is now Don Lemon, who because he is black, gay and cute apparently is immune from his just desserts. As Meat Loaf memorably observed, however, two out of three ain’t bad.

2. Wait, what? Tim Allen isn’t the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the new Pixar film? The Buzz origin film, which has Chris Evans as the new voice of the popular character from “Toy Story” 1-4 is already creating controversy because it features a lesbian kiss. You know: that’s Disney’s way now. The movie’s director Angus MacLane “explained” that the recasting was necessary because the new animated film called for a more serious Buzz. Does anyone believe that? Allen was replaced because he’s an outspoken conservative, and Disney/Pixar wanted a star who would vigorously defend lesbian smooches in a kids movie, because that is apparently it’s priority these days. If the director wanted Buzz to sound more serious, he could direct the voice actor to voice him that way.

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Res Ipsa Loquitur: The Ugly And Unethical Pro Abortion Mob

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Well that doesn’t leave much question about where CNN stands, does it? These health centers being targeted for violent attacks by the domestic terrorist group Jane’s Revenge (“If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you”) are pregnancy clinics which help expectant mothers seek other solutions to their plight that don’t kill anything. “Anti-abortion” is an accurate and direct description of political efforts to limit abortions, but clinics are medical, not political, and are correctly called crisis pregnancy centers. CNN’s use of “anti-abortion” is a deliberate effort to rationalize the bombings. I don’t know why I’m surprised…. Continue reading →

Here’s Today’s “Gee, It Would Be Nice If We Had Some Kind Of Profession That Would Objectively Inform Us About Important Events Without Lying, Spinning, And Manipulating” Note: The SCOTUS Security Bill

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

You’re on again, Dana…

Gee, Dana, I don’t know what’s happening, because “journalists” and the untrustworthy, irresponsible, incompetent news organizations they work for refuse to tell us without their own special sauce drowning its essence. The special sauce is arrogance and bias.

Today’s nauseating example: Are Nancy Pelosi and her House Democrats deliberately stalling the special SCOTUS protection measure that passed the Senate last month as part of an effort to intimidate the conservative justices and play politics with their lives?

The National Review reported,

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Lapsed Sunday Sundown Ethics, 6/12-13/2022: Something!

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

[I hate when this happens: I had yesterday’s ethics short (well, shorter) notes almost ready to post,  things got complicated, and now it’s the next day. Well, I like that sundown photo, so to hell with it.]

***

There are not too many speeches that have had a tangible impact on world events, but June 12 is the anniversary of one of them:  President Reagan challenging Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” in 1987.  Two years later, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. Liberals and left-leaning historians disliked Reagan so much that to this day they deny him his well-earned credit for undermining Soviet communism. On the anniversary of his death last week, Twitter was full of ugly, vicious attacks on his achievements and character. Nothing inspires hate more than someone who proves that your fondest beliefs are garbage. Here is what Reagan said to the crowd of West Berliners:

“There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.” He then called upon his Soviet counterpart: “Secretary General Gorbachev, if you seek peace—if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe—if you seek liberalization: come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

All delivered, as usual, with the skills of a professional and experienced actor.

1. Ugh. Why is the principle of moral luck so elusive? A baseball controversy erupted in Chicago last week because ancient and “old school” White Sox manager Tony LaRussa intentionally walked Dodgers shortstop Trea Turner with a runner on second base  and a count of one ball and two strikesin order to have relief pitcher Bennett Sousa face Max Muncy instead. Muncy promptly hit a three-run home run to give the Dodgers a 10-5 lead in a game they would eventually win 11-9. A live microphone  caught one fan yelling “He’s got two strikes, Tony!” and “Tony, what are you doing?” before Muncy homered. The intentional walk is a baseball strategy that has largely gone into disuse because statistics don’t support it except in very specific situations. The White Sox have been a disappointing team so far this season, and that tactic by LaRussa seemed to catalyze a fan consensus that he is too old, behind the times, and the reason for the team’s performance. (He was booed in Chicago the last two games, and also faced “Fire Tony!” chants.)

So here comes ESPN’s esteemed David Schoenfield to write, “Now, to be fair here, the pounding on La Russa is also a little unfair. If Muncy strikes out, it looks like a good move.”

No, no, NO, you idiot! Whether or not the tactic is a wise one must be determined when it is executed, not after its results are known. La Russa had no control over whether Muncy homered or struck out once he had ordered the intentional base on balls. What a third party, or subsequent events, do cannot change whether a decision was competent or incompetent. That’s just luck. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Ethics Mega-Dunce Kim Sill

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“If your beliefs are not in line with ours, we will not adopt a pet to you.”

—Kim Sill, founder of the Shelter Hope Pet Shop in Thousand Oaks, California in her shop’s weekly newsletter.

Pro tip for Kim: if you are going to say something really stupid and offensive in public, at least do it grammatically.

Other than that, this obnoxious, virtue-signalling Constitutional scholar is informing all that she wants to tear down a crucial support-beam in the entire democratic structure of the United States. While discrimination on the basis of political affiliations and viewpoints is not forbidden under civil rights and public accommodation laws, it is a surefire way to guarantee civil unrest and a society that is divided and miserable in which to live. The pet store’s bigotry—and that’s what it is, bigotry—violates the spirit of the First Amendment and the well-established formula for a fair and open society.

But never mind, Kim knows best.

Here is the rest of her screed: Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Flaviane Carvalho

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I love this story, and not just because it supports several Ethics Alarms principles, like the duty to confront, the duty to rescue, and the duty to fix the problem.

In Orlando on January 1, 2021, Mrs. Potato restaurant employee Flaviane Carvalho noticed that a young boy was sitting secluded from his parents and a a young girl. Carvalho said the boy was wearing a mask and hoodie as he sat at the table along with two adults and a young girl. She also noticed that he had a scratch in between in his eyebrows and wasn’t eating, even though food had been brought to the table. She asked the table if their food and drinks were all right, and when the one of the adults replied that the boy would eat his dinner at home, Carvalho said she began to think something was seriously wrong.

She did not decide to “minding her own business,” but instead decided that as a proactive and ethical member of society, this was her business. Carvalho stood behind the boy’s parents and held up a note asking the boy if he was OK. When the 11-year-old shook his head, she wrote a second note asking, “Do you need help?”  This time, the boy nodded yes. Carvalho called her boss and then called 911.

Police arrived and questioned the child, who told detectives he had suffered abuse at the hands of his stepfather, identified as Timothy Lee Wilson II.  Wilson was arrested at the restaurant, and the boy’s mother, Kristen Swann, was taken into custody on later that week after the boy made additional disclosures of alleged abuse.

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Update: The Great Stupid Meets The Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

This really is like one of the old horror movies, but scarier, and real. I have no idea what to do about it. The sudden and, though no one wants to admit it, coincidental wave of shooting episodes last month (and bleeding into this one, literally) might as well have been part of a conspiracy to freak-out the American public and  cowardly lawmakers into surrendering the Constitutional right to bear arms in self-defense.

As always, our democracy’s Achilles heel is public ignorance, and the anti-gun news media and the usual demagogues have done a bang-up job this time around of both exploiting the ignorance and adding to it. It is especially ironic that the same side of the ideological spectrum taking aim at the First Amendment with its cynical attacks on “disinformation,””misinformation” and “hate speech” are engaging in all three daily, indeed almost hourly, in order to finally crush the Second Amendment rights of law abiding and responsible citizens—so the people who pay no attention to laws anyway will somehow be dissuaded from gun violence.

Good plan!

The escalated assualt is simultaneously dumb, intellectually dishonest and unethical…but effective. And it is coming from all directions all at once, like the fast zombies in “World War Z,” as long as we’re using horror film analogies. In my annoyed and fevered state, I can’t even organize all of it coherently, so I’m going to resort to bullet points for now:

  • As I predicted when the Uvalde shooting first was reported, the Barn Door Fallacy is in full swing. The shooter was 18, so banning gun sales to anyone under 21 is one of the most popular “Do something!” measures, because the law will go back in time and stop Ramos from murdering all those kids. That’s because he bought his guns; never mind that Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, was also under 21, and just took his mother’s guns to go on his rampage. Since the privileges and responsibilities of adulthood mostly attach when one turns 18, the sudden conclusion that 18-year-olds are dangerously irresponsible lacks integrity and consistency. Is there a line there, or not? Why there? Why are people allowed to vote for who makes laws when we think they can’t be trusted to obey them? What’s magic about 21? If two or three shooters are over 21 and under 25, will “Do something!” mean that the right to own a gun will be limited again?

The Stupid! It BURNSSSS!

  • The lies (disinformation/misinformation/lazy, careless or deliberate confusion of terms and deceit) make fair and informed debate impossible. Semi-automatic rifles are called automatic weapons, “AR-15-style” is used without clarification; “weapons of war” is scary and useful as a cognitive dissonance trigger but meaningless; “assault weapon” has no agreed-upon meaning, other than “bad.” Those who wield this fog of language literally don’t care about meanings and definitions…
  • …bringing us to “comprehensive background checks,” another “Do something” trope. What does “comprehensive” mean? Under U.S. law, federally licensed gun dealers, importers and manufacturers must run background checks for all sales to unlicensed buyers. The law bans firearm transfers to anyone convicted of a felony or committed to a mental institution. But a private seller without a federal license doesn’t need to meet the same requirement. “Comprehensive” apparently means making private sales involve background checks as well; it also could involve adding more—much more—details about a purchaser to “check.” Regarding the latter, you don’t have to be paranoid to wonder what those details could entail.
  • Regarding the former: how would (or could) a private gun transfer background check law be enforced? Such laws would place a serious burden on the seller. What if I had a cash emergency and wanted to sell my WWII German Luger to a collector friend who had always admired it? Getting the background check would take too much time for my urgent cash needs. I know and trust the collector. If he doesn’t pay, take my gun and shoot up a school, how would the government ever find out about the transaction? Unenforceable laws are deceptive, pretending to be something they are not—effective. That’s unethical.
  • In order to pursue the (batty) argument that its the guns and not the sociopathic, law-defying, violent and often crazy people who use them that are the problem, the anti-gun mob is denying that the mental health of shooters is a primary issue. (This goes along, strangely enough, with the “blood on their hands” attacks on Republicans, arguing that they have not supported significant spending on mental health treatment—which continues to be hit-and-miss no matter how much money we throw at it.) Here’s the LA Times:

Blaming mental illness for mass shootings inflicts a damaging stigma on the millions of people who suffer from clinical afflictions, the vast majority of whom are not violent. Extensive research shows the link between mental illness and violent behavior is small and not useful for predicting violent acts; people with diagnosable conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are in fact far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence.

This is Yoo’s Rationalization, “It isn’t what it is,” to the max. People who are not mentally ill do not shoot up schools. They do not go on shooting sprees that are certain to get them killed themselves. They do not shoot people “to get famous.” Mass shooters, like serial killers are, by definition, nuts. Laws are not likely to stop them.

  • And then we have “red flag” laws, which the public tends to like in polls because, as with so many of the “do something” measures, respondents have not thought about what they are or mean.  These are laws that the government could easily expand to remove rights from citizens who have done nothing illegal, or who have engaged in conduct in the past that has been dealt with and is over with. “Red flag laws” are pre-crime punishment, and should be ruled unconstitutional, though there is no guarantee they would be.
  • Polls that do nothing but sum up mass ignorance and manipulated uninformed opinion are being used as authorities. Mother Jones (I know, I know) got all excited about s new poll published by CBS News that “found” that “three quarters of Americans believe we can prevent mass shootings if we prioritize the goal of doing so.” In other words, “Do something!” How do we stop illegal gun violence? “Prioritize it!” Oh! More than climate change? “Well, maybe not more than climate change.” More than inflation? “Well, no, inflation is killing us.” More than fighting “systemic racism”? Oh, no, nothing’s more important than fighting that! More than abortion? “Are you kidding! That’s the most important of all!” So “doing something” about gun violence is, at best, fifth on our list of priorities, even from the perspective of the Left…which means it’s not going to be “prioritized.”
  • Meanwhile, the public is being fed lies by the President of the United States. “We should repeal the liability shield that often protects gun manufacturers from being sued for the death and destruction caused by their weapons,” Biden said in his hysterical “do something” speech last week. “They’re the only industry in this country that has that kind of immunity. Imagine. Imagine if the tobacco industry had been immune from being sued, where we’d be today. The gun industry’s special protections are outrageous. It must end.”

Ugh. Cigarettes are a consumer product that caused death and illness to uninformed users who had been deceived by manufacturers. If a driver uses a car to murder someone, can General Motors be sued? No. If someone beats in their wife’s brains with a baseball bat, can Hillerich and Bradsby be sued? No! Manufacturers are liable when their products are faulty and negligently produced. They are not liable, and should not be liable, when a purchaser uses the product illegally or negligently. All products have “that kind of immunity,” but when anti-gun zealots devised the idea of suing gun manufacturers anyway, a 2005 law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which shields gun companies from lawsuits based on the unlawful acts people commit using their products.

At the risk of repeating myself, “Ugh.” The Great Stupid and the Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck alliance is going to be much harder to fight off than Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man.

When Polling Is Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Gallup is both one of the oldest polling organizations and among the closest to objective, making it doubly irresponsible when it injects nonsense and ignorance into policy debates. This is what it did with two recent polls, headlined thusly: “Steady 58% of Americans Do Not Want Roe v. Wade Overturned” and “‘Pro-Choice’ Identification Rises to Near Record High in U.S.”

The immediate response here is “So what?” Abortion, at least since the misbegotten Roe v. Wade SCOTUS ruling in 1973, is matter of Constitutional law and individual rights, and neither of these are determined by popular opinion.. Nor should they be. Yet the reflex refrain of demagogues and the habitually dishonest when they are out of legitimate arguments is “the public overwhelmingly supports/opposes [fill in the blank],” a contention that inevitably depends on polling.

The threshold question Gallup asked its respondents on the abortion issue was “With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?” Useless. Did Gallup define what “pro-choice” or “pro-life” meant? Nope. Do “pro-choice” Americans believe a potential mother should be able to “choose” to kill a viable fetus right up to the moment of birth? Do they believe that abortion involves the taking of a life at any point? Ever? Do they care? Who knows? I don’t think most of those who responded that they were “pro-choice” know. It’s garbage in, garbage out: the poll results are meaningless, but they will still be cited as if they are profound.

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Ethics Alarms Encore: “Possessed Lawyer Ethics”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The best legal ethics story I have ever heard and probably ever will hear arose in Arizona in 2010. I have regaled CLE seminars with it many times since, and it is ever green. After I mentioned the case again today at a Federal Bar convention program, I found myself wondering if I had ever posted about the weird episode on Ethics Alarms. Indeed I had, but it was way back in September of 2010.Here’s how long ago that was: Instagram didn’t yet exist, the statement that Donald Trump would be the next President might get you committed, and the only commenter on the post was “JJ,” whom I have completely forgotten.

Clearly, it’s time for an encore, so here it is, slightly expanded.

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Is it unethical for a lawyer to claim she is possessed by a client’s dead wife?

This  question has been puzzling professional responsibility experts for decades. Okay, not really. In fact, surprisingly, it just doesn’t happen all that often. But in Arizona, a lawyer is now facing suspension for claiming that she was possessed by the spirit of a client’s dead wife, then lying about it under oath. The dead wife is being accused of illegal immigration.

OK, I made up that part, too.

Sorry.

The ABA Journal reports that the lawyer, Charna Johnson, began representing a client during his divorce proceedings. While the divorce was in process,  the client’s wife, who was fighting many demons even before she got in the possession business, committed suicide. Johnson then represented the husband in probate proceedings, but one day became convinced, according to her sworn testimony and that of two witnesses, that the client’s wife had possessed her, like that real demon, Pazuzu. Continue reading →

California Makes Its Values Depressingly Clear: Minority Privilege Over Children’s Lives

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Forget it, Jake, it’s California Town.

Two days after the Uvalde shooting, as all of California Democrats, progressives and anti-gun zealots were metaphorically screaming “Murderers!” at those who aren’t willing to gut the Second Amendment to pretend that various restrictions would stop evil lunatics like Ramos, the California State Senate voted to end a legal requirement that students who threaten violence against school officials be reported.

The old law mandated that whenever a school official was “attacked, assaulted, or physically threatened by any pupil,” staff must “promptly report the incident to specified law enforcement authorities.”

Gone. So, for example, the teacher in that screenshot above, taken from a video of an in-class assault, would not be obligated to report it. How odd that the state would eliminate such a restriction as the question rages over how so many people aware that the Uvalde shooter was an anti-social, gun-obsessed menace never alerted authorities. What could possibly be California’s thinking?

Oh, come on. It’s easy! I guessed—that proves it’s easy. The ACLU’s statement on why it supports the repeal tells all:

Decades of research show the long-term harm to young people of even minimal contact with the juvenile or criminal legal systems. Once students make contact with law enforcement, they are less likely to graduate high school and more likely to wind up in jail or prison. These harms fall disproportionately on students from marginalized groups: Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students, as well as students with disabilities, are disproportionately referred to law enforcement, cited, and arrested.

Taking the photo above as an example, that student is merely the victim of centuries of systemic racism, and justifiably enraged by a racist white supremacist culture. Reporting him just compounds the injustice.

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