Since the Media is Sure to Report This Major Ethics Story As Late As Possible If At All, I’m Going To Risk Commenting On It Too Soon…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This juicy legal ethics scandal is churning in the conservative media while the left side of our corrupt journalism is clearly going to slow walk it as along as possible or until the facts evaporate. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the story first: The Democrat district attorney prosecuting Donald Trump over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, Fani Willis, may have engaged in egregiously unethical conduct in prosecuting the case.

[A] motion, filed Monday by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, alleged that Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade “have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case.” It also contended that Wade had paid for lavish vacations that he and Willis took with the money his law office was paid for his work on the election interference case.

Though this is right up the Ethics Alarms alley as a legal ethics story, I hesitated to post on it until the facts were verified by a neutral and reliable source. They haven’t been. Frankly, it is difficult for me to believe that Willis or any prosecutor could do something so stupid in any matter, but especially in such a high profile case. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Army Policy Is Apparently That Its Prosecutors Must ‘Believe All Women’”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

As I thought it might, the post about the Army’s head sexual assault prosecutor being fired because a decade’s old email suggested that defense attorneys would have to fight hard for the rights of accused servicemen being targeted by politicians “with an agenda” quickly attracted intense commentary. (Oddly, or perhaps not, the story has been largely ignored by mainstream media. My mining of obscure legal ethics sources has its benefits.) No commentary was more illuminating or useful than this, the Comment of the Day by 77Zoomie, on the post, “Army Policy Is Apparently That Its Prosecutors Must ‘Believe All Women’”…

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Some thoughts from someone who has both prosecuted and defended sexual assault cases in military courts.

Although it is a difficult concept for most civilian attorneys to grasp, the military justice system that was put in place in the early 1950s (as the Uniform Code of Military Justice) Is designed to accomplish two, sometimes contradictory, tasks. The first is to provide constitutional due process to service members accused of any of a specific list of crimes delineated by the UCMJ. Military defense counsel are obviously crucial in this process because they are frequently the only individuals with the capability to adequately overcome the tremendous advantage possessed by the prosecution on a military installation. Prosecution authority rests ultimately in a series of commanders at various levels. These individuals have unlimited resources at their disposal, including the ability to select potential jurors and to influence proceedings in any one of a thousand different ways, some obvious but most not. Military defense attorneys are generally removed from the formal chain of command so that local commanders cannot affect the career of a zealous defense counsel working to protect the interests of her client.

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Racial Bias and Prejudice at the Golden Globes Awards

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The Golden Globes audience of the Hollywood woke laughed and applauded at the lame and insulting recitation of white stereotypes by a black and an Asian presenter over the weekend. In fact, I don’t object to racial and ethnic stereotypes used for humor, as long as there is a single standard for all. However, it is not news that at this point in our increasingly unethical culture, there isn’t any taboo on making racially denigrating jokes about whites while the same kinds of jokes about any other group will lead to shunning, unemployment, and career disruption. If you want to ensure that racial disharmony gets worse instead of better, that’s a brilliant strategy. Yes, it is hypocrisy exemplified, but those who benefit from this double standard rationalize its appropriateness in a number of ways, or just don’t care.

The Golden Globes were back on prime time after a couple of years’ exile for, among other problems, complaints about their dearth of “diversity,” so you know what the new regime’s priorities were. Signalling their sincerity, the choice of host for the evening was ‘historic”: we are told that Jo Kay was the first Filipino American comedian to serve as MC for the broadcast, and only the second Asian. He was also, if not the first embarrassingly incompetent host, a reminder that choosing a comedian because of his ethnicity rather than his comedy skills is a dubious strategy. Even the reliably woke audience in the seats couldn’t manage to make themselves laugh at him, historic Filipino or not, and Jo Kay bombed. Good.

Watch him be asked back…

In such a warped and rigged environment, how proud of her award could Lily Gladstone be when she became became the “historic” first indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress, for her turn in “Killers of the Flower Moon”? Naturally, she basked in a standing ovation, which at this Golden Globes ceremony, was probably recognition for not being white.

Army Policy Is Apparently That Its Prosecutors Must “Believe All Women”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This story, initially reported by the Associated Press, is at very least ominous, and at most a reminder that the Biden Administration’s position is that a man accused of sexual assault is considered guilty until proven innocent.

Unless the man is Joe Biden, of course.

At the beginning of last month, the Army’s head sexual assault prosecutor, Brig. Gen. Warren Wells, was fired from his job by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. The justification given was a 2013 email in which he had the audacity to remind Army defense lawyers that they were the last line of defense against false accusations. The message read,

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Ethics Dunce: “Face the Nation” Host Margaret Brennan

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Ooooh, I would fire Brennan for this if I were in charge of CBS news.

Brennan tried to cross-examine Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on last weekend’s “Face the Nation” about his stance on the 2020 election. “Back in 2021, you were the lawmaker who circulated the legal brief known as the “Texas Amicus Brief [actually Texas v. Pennsylvania] challenging the 2020 election outcome in a number of states,” Brennan stated, “which by CBS editorial standards makes you an election denier.”

“That’s nonsense,”Johnson replied, and when Brennan said: “Can I get you on the record on that?,” he continued, “I’ve always been consistent on the record. Did you read the brief? Did you get a chance to read what we filed with the Supreme Court?”

Her shocking answer, a veritable huminhuminhumina if ever there was one:”Well- I have read extensively some criticisms of that…”

Oh! She read some criticisms of the brief by her biased, propagandist colleagues, so that was sufficient preparation, she believed, to call someone who supported the brief’s arguments an “election denier.” That’s like using a book review to write a book report on a book you never read.

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What Is the Ethical Reaction to “Urn Boy”?

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Social media-user “Casual Thursdays” reported on this story as it unfolded:

Connor Padgett was the name eventually attached to the unforgettable image. It has yet to be explained how or why Padgett got himself wedged into the urn. In her long reign as TV’s top comedienne, Lucille Ball’s writers got her head stuck in a loving cup and her whole body trapped in a suitcase, but never an urn. It is clear, however, that Padgett was not inclined to stay in good humor during his ordeal. Moreover, thanks to the inevitable cell phone video, his humiliation has “gone viral” and will either haunt him until the end of his days, or become a treasured piece of family lore.

He was eventually broken out of his restraints with a hammer. The urn was reputedly worth thousands of dollars, which Connor presumably has to pay to the owner. Some of the social media reactions were clever: “He should have to live his life in there like a hermit crab” was my personal favorite.

But back to ethics: what is the ethical response to Connor? The Golden Rule tells us that we should treat him like we would want to be treated, except that if I did something this stupid, I would be abasing myself mercilessly, particularly after getting the bill.

My verdict is that this is a Nelson:

What do you think?

Three Ethics Failures Almost Kill a 12-Year-Old and Make a Seven-Year-Old A Killer

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

My son, a gun-lover from an early age, collected airsoft gun replicas. They are very realistic, though they shoot plastic pellets, not bullets, except for their orange tips. Once I was approaching our house at night after walking the dog and found police surrounding our back-up car. A neighbor had reported someone appearing to hide guns in the back seat. After I explained that the “guns” were toys, my son gave the police their introduction to airsoft, showing off his whole collection. They were impressed.

In Monroe County Georgia, a seven-year-old picked up a real revolver thinking it was an airsoft replica, and shot his 12-year-old sister. Fortunately she was wounded but not killed, and a greater tragedy was averted. The pro-Second Amendment website “Bearing Arms” astutely identifies the two breaches in gun safety that led to the episode:

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Boeing, the 737 Max, and the FAA: What a Team!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

One benefit the Department of Transportation has going for it is that with all the incompetence being displayed at the Defense Department, the Education Department, and Homeland Security, the fact that the Transportation Department’s DEI Secretary Buttigieg is habitually asleep at the switch doesn’t get as much attention as it might otherwise.

One would think that if there was any plane on earth that passengers should feel absolutely safe flying on, it would be Boeing’s 737 Max. Both the company and the FAA were found negligent, liable and villainous following investigations of a pair of fatal crashes of the aircraft shortly after the model’s introduction. A Lion Air MAX plane crashed in Indonesia in October 2018, killing all 189 people aboard, followed by the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines MAX killing all 157 people on that flight. Once the fleets of the Max were permitted to fly again, it was natural to assume that these planes would be scrutinized, double-checked, checked again and then checked again, because another incident would cause Boeing to lose investors’ trust and the FAA to look like irredeemable fools.

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Slow News Day At PolitiFact?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

PolitiFact is arguably the most biased and the least trustworthy of the fact-checking operations—it or Snopes. Its dossier on EA is thick and nauseating: PolitiFact’s releases are progressive and Democratic Party propaganda masquerading as illumination and non-partisan reality. I’d love to know who made the decision to “fact-check” an obviously tongue-in-cheek video claiming that Hillary Clinton is really a lizard.

Did they really think this needed to be debunked? If so, the organization is run by morons. Was the fact-check also a joke? Professional organizations that want the public to trust them can’t afford to make such jokes. Alleged professional organizations with records of deceit, bias and dishonesty like PolitiFact especially can’t afford to make such jokes, because so many of their serious “fact-checks” are only slightly less absurd.

The “Hillary isn’t a lizard” piece is written with no hints of irony or humor, which is, of course, the right way to present such a thing if it is a joke. I really don’t know what to make of the article. I thought Snopes repeatedly fact-checking Babylon Bee gags was bad, but this—well, come to think of it, there is one possible justification. Anyone who trusts PolitiFact despite its long and ugly record of incompetence and bias is conceivably dumb enough to believe that Hillary Clinton is a lizard. In that case, PolitiFact is simply serving the needs of its market.

Another possibility, I suppose, is that Hillary really is a lizard, and PolitiFact is working with the Left, as usual, to make sure the truth doesn’t get out.

So Apparently It Isn’t Just Slaveholding: Being A White Male Is Sufficient Offense To Justify Tearing Down Your Statue…[Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The insanely woke National Park Service wants to renovate Philadelphia’s Welcome Park by removing its statue of William Penn as well as Penn’s home, the Slate Roof House. The proposed redesign will highlight Native American history at the expense of the memorial to Penn, who founded the colony, now state, of Pennsylvania.

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