Calling Balls And Strikes

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Robot Umpire

Calling balls and strikes in major league baseball has to be mechanized. This is obvious and beyond argument, and the only question is what will finally make the bitter-enders abandon their rationalizations and capitulate to reality.

I last wrote about this in 2012 in a post titled “Umpire Accountability, As the Day Of The Robot Approaches,” following a 1-0 game in which a batter in a position to tie the game was called out on strikes by an umpire named Larry Vanover, who rang him up with three balls out of the strike zone for the final 9th inning out. This particular contest was between two teams that had finished the previous season with one of them edging out the other for the play-offs by a single game, on the last day of the schedule. The pitches called strikes in this particular at bat weren’t even close to being over the plate. You could see that all three were wide with the naked eye as they arrived in the catcher’s mitt; you could see it in the computer graphic on the screen, and after the game, the pitches’ locations were charted to show that they were, in fact, balls. I wrote…

Baseball fans invest too much time and emotion into following the games and their teams to just shrug off results warped by obvious incompetence. The kind of atrocious umpiring demonstrated by Vanover…poses a direct challenge to baseball’s integrity. What will baseball’s leaders do about it?

They have only three choices:

1.They can, for the first time, take public and punitive action against umpires whose poor performance exceeds a missed call or a human mistake, and demonstrates inexcusable incompetence or a lack of professionalism. First time: a stiff fine. Second time: a suspension without pay. Third time: dismissal.I know that the umpires union in Major League Baseball protects its incompetents as zealously as the teachers unions, but baseball has its product to protect.

2. Baseball’s leaders can make a commitment to automated strike and out calling, and cut back on crews to one field umpire to keep order and one booth umpire to read the printouts, watch the TV screen, and study the replays.

3. Baseball can reject integrity and credibility, and continue to let the Vanovers on the field wreck the games and alienate fans.

So far, disgracefully, the sport has chosen #3, but the clock is ticking. Continue reading →

Signature Significance: Katie Couric “Regrets” The Deceptive Editing Of Her Anti-Gun Documentary, But Isn’t Going To Fix It.

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
I'd think she'd want to have that fixed...

I’d think she’d want to have that fixed…

Today Katie Couric made all of her defenders look just as bad as I said they were.

“I can understand the objection of people who did have an issue about it,” Couric said at TheWrap’s Power Women Breakfast in New York this morning, when asked to address the intentionally deceptive editing in “Under the Gun,‘ the anti-gun documentary she produced. “Having said that, I think we have to focus on the big issue of gun violence. It was my hope that, when I approached this topic, that this would be a conversation starter.”

She then said that the documentary will not be re-edited to fix the lie it contains.

This is signature significance: all by itself, it proves beyond a shadow if a doubt that Katie Couric is a dishonest journalist. No more evidence is needed, for an honest journalist would never make this choice. Not once, not ever.

“The objection of people who did have an issue about it” clearly states that Couric herself had no “issue with it,” meaning that, as I wrote, she only regrets the controversy, not the lie. Continue reading →

A Slap On The Wrist For The Lawyer Who Demanded 65 Million Dollars For A Lost Pair Of Pants

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments
And they weren't even Elvis' pants...

And they weren’t even Elvis’ pants…

There has been a lot of beating up on judges and lawyers lately, on this blog and elsewhere, so what better time to revisit the weird case of foormer administrative law judge and current attorney Roy Pearson, Jr? He was the D.C.  judge who carried on such a vendetta against a dry cleaner because they lost a pair of his pants that it became national news…which is to say, it was discussed on The View and the women made fools of themselves. Not as big fools as the judge made of himself, though.

Pearson claimed that in 2005, the dry cleaners gave him the wrong pair of pants and refused to pay him the $1,150 he demanded as compensation. His suit—his $67 million suit!— against the dry cleaners alleged that the business violated Washington, D.C.’s consumer protection law by failing to comply with its sign promising “satisfaction guaranteed,” which Pearson claimed was unconditional. You know, even if a customer was deranged.

In his testimony in this wacko lawsuit, Pearson argued that “satisfaction guaranteed” meant the dry cleaner was legally obligated to pay a customer who demanded $1,000 for a supposedly lost sweater even if the owners knew they had delivered the correct sweater to the customer.

By that logic, the owner would also have to let the customer have sex with his teenage daughter, if that’s what it took to “satisfy” him. Continue reading →

UPDATE: Even More Reasons To Distrust Katie Couric, Which Means More Reasons To Distrust The Journalists Who Want To Excuse Her

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

film editing

The Washington Post criticized Katie Couric’s role in approving the deceptive “Under the Gun” documentary edit but also noted that it is “one instance of bad judgment in a long career.” This was an instance of the “Just One Mistake” rationalization…

20. The “Just one mistake!” Fantasy

Related to #16 but still distinct is the excuse that a particular unethical act should be ignored, forgiven or excused as an aberration because “it was just one mistake.” This argument intentionally glosses over the fact that one mistake can be so blatantly unethical and harmful that an ethical person literally never does such a thing, and thus the “one mistake” is a reliable indicator that the actor does not deserve to be trusted. Abuse of power is in this category. Defenders of the unethical also often use this excuse dishonestly and deceptively to designate as one mistake an ongoing episode of continuous unethical conduct. For example, Bill Clinton didn’t make “one mistake” regarding Monica Lewinsky, but hundreds of them, involving lies, deceits, cover-ups and betrayals.

The versatile excuse was applied by one member of the liberal-biased school of journalism to another, and says more about the Post writer ( Callum Borchers) than it does about Couric. He was actually right on the money when he wrote, only to say later it was “unfair,” this:

Couric thinks the media needs to be tougher on Trump. The reality is the current level of toughness hasn’t dented his campaign. What’s the next level of toughness? One could conclude, based on the misleading edit in Couric’s gun documentary, that it involves distorting interviews to produce manufactured flubs, in hopes that one of them will accomplish what no organic mistake has done so far.

Why yes, one could not only conclude that, but witness it in the media’s successful efforts to turn a dumb Trump quote about a judge’s reasons to be biased against him in a law suit into an imaginary smoking gun that proves he’s a racist. Journalists have been eager to allow the public to forget about Couric’s endorsement of misleading and dishonest editing techniques in the service of the anti-gun rights agenda, because her methods are their methods. The woman should be fired. Journalists must be regarded like accountants and auditors: one they have shown that they will lie, even once, they are worthless. Is that a fair standard? I believe it is. Why then are journalists eager to have Couric held to a lower standard? Easy: they don’t want to be held to the appropriate ethics standard either.

The apologists for Couric have been especially revealing; once again, any journalist who defends Couric can be safely placed along with her in the UNTRUSTWORTHY File. Here’s Mediaite’s Rachel Stockman embarrassing and indicting herself, for example, saying that people are being mean to Katie for impugning her integrity… Continue reading →

The Stupidest Lies Of All

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Evil Dead hoax

What are the stupidest lies of all? Gilding the lily lies. Lies that accomplish nothing that the truth wouldn’t accomplish just as well. Gratuitous, lazy, pointless lies, that only serve to make the world more incredulous, cynical and distrusting.

Here is a  wonderful example, and the liars are the folks in Conservative Nation. After that San Jose, California, Trump rally where protesters attacked the Trumpites, the pro-Trump Conservative Nation tweeted out the fake picture above of an alleged Trump-supporting woman after her beating  by demonstrators. “Here’s what happened to female Trump supporter when she met ‘peaceful’ and ‘tolerant’ liberals” the tweet said, as if the genuine footage of the violence wasn’t enough.

But actor Bruce Campbell (a guilty pleasure of mine, I admit it) pointed out the truth. He tweeted,

Check your facts, folks. This is an actress named Samara Weaving from . This is a make-up test. Sad.

If you haven’t seen “Ash vs. The Evil Dead,” and unless you are a hard core, cult comedy-gore fan, I wouldn’t advise doing so, this is the cable series starring Campbell as he reprises his iconic role from the “Evil Dead” Trilogy, most famous for this classic sequence from “Evil Dead II,” in which hardware salesman Ash (Campbell), trapped in a cabin under assault by demons,  finds his right arm possessed and trying to kill him:

Okay, I’ve been waiting forever for an excuse to post this on Ethics Alarms. l love it.

Anyway, Bruce is right. This is sad. And dishonest.

And stupid.

Res Ipsa Loquitur Ethics Quote Of The Day: Law Professor/Blogger/Irony Master Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

free-bingo-design

The NYT article tells us that Sotomayor’s remarks were published in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal and that she also said:

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”…

… Judge Sotomayor questioned whether achieving impartiality “is possible in all, or even, in most, cases.” She added, “And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.” She also approvingly quoted several law professors who said that “to judge is an exercise of power” and that “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see,” she said.

So has Donald Trump refrained from doing a disservice both to the law and society?

—-Ann Althouse, making a slam-dunk point about the hypocrisy of the uproar over Donald Trump’s “racist”suggestion that a Hispanic-American judge might be biased against him.

Althouse and I are right, and almost everyone else is wrong. It’s obvious, and beyond rebuttal on the facts. Althouse has joined me as one who also deplores everything about Donald Trump but who is determined to call out intellectual dishonesty and unfairness in the attacks against him. She also posted this… Continue reading →

Ethics Tip To The Michigan Bar: Disbar Incompetent And Unethical Lawyers, The Justice System Works Better

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

There are too many stories like this. The Detroit News reports that Davontae Sanford, who spent his teen years and early 20s behind bars for multiple murders he didn’t commit, will be released today after the judge who presided over his 2008 trial vacated his sentence. It seems that he was innocent of the crimes, as a confession by someone else shortly after he was locked up should have suggested. Read the whole tale. I spit out a mouthful of coffee, however, when I got to this part, near the end of the article.

Sharing criticism for this miscarriage of justice, along with police and prosecutors,  is Sanford’s original attorney, Robert Slameka.  Sanford’s current attorney told reporters,

“One of the really tremendous failures of the system was his defense attorney. There was not one pretrial motion that was brought. Davontae’s confession had all the hallmarks of a false confession; (it was) never challenged. The failures are manifest, but a lot of it falls to the one person who was supposed to protect Davontae in this process, and that was his attorney. And that wasn’t done, and when that’s not done, the system sort of collapses.”

This lawyer didn’t stutter (that is, I don’t think so) but  convinced Sanford to plead guilty to second-degree murder, telling him prosecutors had an iron-clad case, and that if he pleaded, he’d get out of prison earlier. While allegedly defending the teen,  Slameka waived making an opening statement (maybe he DID stutter!) , and never cross-examined the detective who questioned Sanford. Continue reading →

Now, Trump, On The Other Hand, Knows How To Create REAL Bias In The Justice System: Bribery!

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Bribe

Florida’s attorney general Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump while she considered joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates, AP reports

Trump’s $25,000 donation to Bondi came from a Trump family foundation in a likely violation of rules surrounding legitimate activities by 501 C (3) charities, which are not allowed to engage in political grant-making. And Justice for All, a political group backing Bondi’s re-election,  reported receiving the check on Sept. 17, 2013 — four days after Bondi’s office publicly announced she was considering joining a New York state probe of Trump University’s activities.

What a coincidence!

 After the check came in, Bondi decided to leave Trump alone, citing insufficient grounds to proceed.

ANOTHER coincidence!

This was a bribe, ladies and gentlemen, and an unusually obvious one.

Bondi’s a crook, and an unethical lawyer. Trump, meanwhile, is Trump.

Do you wonder that he said that “it is a rigged system”? No wonder he thinks that: he’s helped rig it.

__________________________

Pointer: Fred
Source: AP

Ethics Observations On The Donald Trump-“Mexican” Judge Affair

/ Jack Marshall / 102 Comments
Judge Curial. Funny, he looks white to me...

Judge Curial. Funny, he looks white to me…

“Everybody says it, but I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curial… We are in front of a very hostile judge. The judge was appointed by by Barack Obama – federal judge. [Boos]. Frankly he should recuse himself. He has given us ruling after ruling, negative, negative, negative. I have a top lawyer who said he has never seen anything like this before. So what happens is we get sued. We have a Magistrate named William Gallo who truly hates us..Watch how we win it as I have been treated unfairly. . . . So what happens is the judge, who happens to be, we believe Mexican, which is great. I think that is fine. You know what? I think the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump when I give all these jobs. I think they are going to love it. I think they are going to love me. . .I think Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself. I think it is a disgrace he is doing this… It is a disgrace. It is a rigged system…They ought to look into Judge Curiel because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace. “

This is what Donald Trump said about Mexican-American judge Gonzalo Curial, who is currently presiding over the civil law suit involving now-defunct Trump University. That is all of it, with the rest being general Trump-speak.

The initial reaction in the news media and from the anti-Trump legal commentators (that is, essentially all legal commentators except the ones who have to eat alone at their law school dining rooms) was that Trump’s entire rant that contained the sentiments above were a threat to the rule of law and judicial independence. As I explained here, that was both hyperbole and a double standard.

It also, as I expected, was far too technical a complaint for the average voter to understand or get upset about, even if it had been valid and fair, which it wasn’t. So the anti-Trump forces, which are mighty and legion, decide to shift gears, and rather than attack the statement as a threat to the Constitution, condemn it  as “racist.” It was so racist that Buzzfeed decided that it could get brownie points by pulling out of an ad deal it had made with the Republican Party by professing revulsion at the party’s presumptive nominee’s “racism.”

The news media has now decided that it is just a fact that Trump’s comments about the judge were “racist.” That’s how the topic is being discussed. Nobody looks at the statement that sparked this nonsense: Trump said something racist, and that’s all there is to it.

Except that he didn’t.

I can’t keep track of all of the subsequent statements Trump has made or will make to defend himself. Since he talks like a stream of consciousness novel written by a Red Bull-guzzling cab driver, he may have said or will say something that is more inflammatory than the statement being attacked; remember, the man literally doesn’t know what is going to come out of his mouth until he hears it. For now, I’m going to stick to the statement that started this.

1. He said that Judge Curiel “was a hater.”

2. He implied that he was biased against Trump, and that this was a “disgrace.”

3. He said, in what I am certain was one of those examples where Trump’s tongue got the jump on his brain, that “we believe” the judge was “Mexican.”

4. He said that the system “was rigged,”that Judge Curiel should recuse himself, and that Curiel should be ashamed.

That’s it!

None of that constitutes a “racist” statement. It does not even constitute  a bigoted statement, and it is in no way the magnitude of offense the Democrats, media and Trump opponents are claiming, indeed, stating it to be.

Before I list the ethics touch-points in this disturbing event (the event being a news media lynch mob devoid of proportion or fairness controlling the discussion and misrepresenting a Presidential candidate), let me make this clear, as if I hadn’t already in dozens of Ethics Alarms posts: Continue reading →

Ethical Quote Of The Day—D-Day, That Is : Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

dday_landing

“Our landings have failed and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

—–Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, as found on a piece of paper he wrote on just before the D-Day invasion began, and just after he ordered it to commence, on June 6, 1944.

Eisenhower wrote these words to be his own apology and acceptance of responsibility had the massive invasion at Normandy been a defeat rather than the history-altering victory it was.

It almost was a defeat, and as the note, which Ike’s naval aide, Captain Harry C. Butcher, found crumpled in his shirt pocket weeks later and saved for posterity, shows, Ike realized all too well that it might be. The secret dry run for the invasion had been a deadly fiasco, the weather was atrocious, and no military operation on this scale had ever been attempted before in the history of man. It took a combination of German mistakes, high command confusion, individual heroics and the usual twists and turns of chaotic fate that decide most battles to allow the Allies to prevail. Continue reading →