fairness

Unethical Quote of the Week: White House Economic Adviser Austan Goolsbee

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

“The vice president was talking about the summer of recovery in reference to the Recovery Act, that you would see the creation of a series of infrastructure and other projects ramping up over the summer. And you did see that.”

—White House Economic Advisor Austan Goolsby, when asked on “Fox New Sunday” about Vice President Biden’s proclamation in June that this would be “the summer of recovery”—a predication that has fallen embarrassingly flat, and that sounded rash and even silly at the time.

Of course, nobody but nobody really believes that Biden wasn’t talking about jobs when called this the “summer of recovery.” Continue reading →

Impolitic Question Dept.: Is It Unethical For Americans To Dislike Islam?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

To read the bulk of the letters to the editor in the New York Times, Americans not only must extend full Constitutional rights to the worshippers of Islam (as they must), but they also better like it. Not being enthusiastic about the prominent physical manifestation of the religion in a neighborhood that witnessed the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent victims by that religion’s followers has been called evidence of bigotry, mindless hate, and “Islamophobia,” as if there are no rational and reasonable justifications for regarding Islam as a less than positive addition to the United States culture.

On the contrary, there are many tenets of Islam that are directly antithetical and in opposition to core American values. Continue reading →

“Let the Buyer Beware”? How about “Let the Seller Be Fair” and “Let the Pitchman Beware”?

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

A recent perusal of some developments in the ghastly realm of false advertising suggests several conclusions:

1. Too many merchants and vendors traffic in deceit, misrepresentation, and out right lies in order to separate trusting customers from their money.

2. The law is a pretty blunt instrument when it comes to controlling this. Too many tricks and tricksters, seldom enough evidence.

3. The ancient common law rule of “Let the buyer beware!” is less a warning to gullible purchasers than it is a green light for unethical business practices.

4. For every instance of dishonest advertising that is stopped, there are probably hundreds that slip by.

5. Anti-government types looking for legitimate uses of taxpayer funds for critical government regulation of private enterprise should start here.

For example: Continue reading →

“No Tolerance” For Adversary Free Speech at Obama’s HHS?

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

According to a press release sent out by the Department of Health and Human Services, “Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the national association of health insurers, calling on their members to stop using scare tactics and misinformation to falsely blame premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act.” In her letter, Sibelius wrote…

“It has come to my attention that several health insurer carriers are sending letters to their enrollees falsely blaming premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act.  I urge you to inform your members that there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.”

This is an ethics foul, and one that is both frightening and clumsy. Continue reading →

Googling Potential Jurors in Court: Not Unethical, Just New

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I sometimes facetiously tell legal ethics classes that the average judge is ten years behind the average lawyer in technological acumen, who is five years behind the average 13-year-old. The law and legal ethics consensus is always playing catch-up with technological developments, and every time technology is put to a new or unexpected use in a trial, some judge may react to it like a Cro-Magnon encountering his first flame.

This happened recently in the case of Carino v. Muenzen (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div.) During jury selection, plaintiff’s counsel began using his laptop computer to go to the Web and seek  information on prospective jurors. Defense counsel objected,  and the following exchange took place: Continue reading →

Ethics Rant: “Medal of Honor”, Rev. Jones, and Imam Rauf

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Almost everything has been reminding me of the “Ground Zero Mosque” lately. It is driving me crazy, perhaps because the rhetoric of the pro-Cordoba House “You’re a bigot if you don’t think this is the best idea since Disney World”  crowd is increasingly unfair and absurd, and getting worse by the minute. Or perhaps it is that the inconsistent reasoning and blindness to embarrassing analogies exhibited by just about everyone who comments on this issue has reached the detonation point. Continue reading →

Possessed Lawyer Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

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; couldn’t resist.]

The ABA Journal reports that the lawyer, Charna Johnson, began representing a client during his divorce proceedings. Continue reading →

Ethics Tip To Arizona Voters: Never Trust A Party That Cheats

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A Republican operative in Arizona has recruited three homeless men to run for office on the Green Party ballot, in the expectation that they will siphon off Democratic votes.  A New York Times report depicts the operative, Steve May, as openly admitting his tactic, and not regretting it in the least. Democrats, says the Times, are furious. But everyone else should be too. Here is just some of what is wrong with May’s conduct: Continue reading →

“Birthers”: Unethical, or Merely Deranged?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, a military expert who appears as an analyst on Fox News, has submitted an affidavit in support of Army Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin, who is refusing to deploy to Afghanistan because of his belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Lakin faces a court-martial for his refusal. Thus has General  McInerney officially admitted to being a “birther,” one of the legion of conspiracy theorists who deny Constitutional eligibility for the White House.

From McInerney’s affidavit: Continue reading →

Manny, Kanye, and the Farce of Self-Serving Apologies

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Two habitual bad actors in the world of entertainment apologized this week, for similar reasons and with equivalent credibility.

First, baseball slugger Manny Ramirez issued an apology to his former team once removed, The Boston Red Sox, for forcing the team to trade him in the middle of the 2008 pennant race because Manny was faking injuries, refusing to hustle during game, assaulting employees, and poisoning team morale and discipline. “I think everything was my fault,” Ramirez said. “You’ve got to be a real man to realize when you do wrong. Hey, it was my fault, right? I’m already past that stage. I’m happy. I’m in a new team,” Manny told reporters. He was with a new team, all right: the Dodgers, his previous team, let him go to the Chicago White Sox for nothing because, well, he was faking injuries, dogging it in the field…same act, different stage. So what was the apology about?

Manny, or more likely his agent, realizes this most recent break with a team as the result of his habitually juvenile and unprofessional attitude might cost him a lot of money at contract time—Ramirez is a free agent after all. So contrition was called for—two full years after he laughed off any suggestions that he was at fault for the Boston debacle, and proved that he had been loafing on the field by playing in L.A. like he was on fire. This isn’t an apology; it’s damage control, and thus is a deceitful and dishonest apology that has nothing whatsoever to do with genuine regret. The big tip-off is that Ramirez felt he had to explain why his apology was so admirable. Yes, Manny, you have to be a real man to admit you’re wrong; a real jerk to fake an apology to fool a future employer into believing that you’ve turned over a new leaf, and real fool to believe anyone will fall for it.

Then there is rapper Kanye West. Continue reading →