Ohio

The Harsh Realities Of The Naked Teacher Principle

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
The Naked Teacher's Curse: What she wants the students to see (L); What they think they see (R)

The Naked Teacher’s Curse: What she wants the students to see (L); What they THINK they see (R)

So-called revenge websites are run by the scum of the earth. These cyber-offal of the internet, among their other cruel activities, post unauthorized photos of women and men in embarrassing, often naked or otherwise provocative poses, submitted by jilted lovers, assorted enemies, and vicious rivals. Then the site extorts money from the victims shown in the photos, or the photos remain up for all to see.

The existence of such sites ought to convince any rational person that allowing anyone to take digital photographs involving his or her naked body or sexual proclivities is a about as prudent as hiding active land mines in the back yard. If said rational person is a teacher, then allowing this crosses the line from unwise to certifiably insane, with gradients pointing toward a straitjacket and a padded cells according to the ages of the students. This is because, you see, the Naked Teacher Principle does not take into consideration why the teacher’s nude and luscious bod is suddenly a feast for prying young eyes and stimulus for newly minted libidos. It doesn’t matter, to the school, the students or their parents. What matters is that the photos exist, they got out, and he or she will never be looked at or thought about the same way again. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Kidneys of Orlac

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments
Kidneys, okay, maybe...BUT NOT THE HANDS! NEVER THE HANDS!!!

Kidneys, okay, maybe…BUT NOT THE HANDS! NEVER THE HANDS!!!

One individual who may be having complicated sentiments this Thanksgiving is Ronald Phillips, who is current residing on Ohio’s death row. He was supposed to be dead by now, but was spared at the last moment when Governor John Kasich issued a stay of execution to ponder Phillips’ unusual request, which had been rejected by prison officials. Phillips, you see, is not a nice guy, as his current address might suggest. He was convicted of raping and killing the three-year-old daughter of his girl friend. (They subsequently broke up. It was him, not her.) He had experienced a change of heart, however, or rather, wished to facilitate one. His sister needs a heart transplant, and he wants his to be passed over to her after his execution by lethal injection. He also wants his kidneys donated to his mother, who is on dialysis because hers are failing, and any other parts of him that might save a life given to others.

Presumably this will not include his hands, because there are a couple of horror movies, one old one in particular, about what happens after that operation, and they are pretty scary. There are no horror films that I know of, however, about the aftermath of getting an executed murderer’s kidney.

Yet.

Gov. Kasich, who is a nice guy, has explained that as heinous as Phillips’ crime was, the state should try to accommodate his desire to save innocent lives. The tentative plan is to hollow Phillips out, execute him in July, and then harvest anything that’s left.

Have you seen that movie, by the way?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz:

Should such a request by a condemned prisoner be granted?

I’ll play devil’s advocate here, except that the advocate for the child rapist deserves the title more than I do. I think Kasich is confused, and that Phillips or his lawyers have figured out one more way to foil the criminal justice system. Continue reading →

Ethics Mega-Dunce: The First National Bank in Wellston, Ohio

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
Katie Barnett, the victim.

Katie Barnett, the victim.

As I cull the news to find good topics for ethics discussions, the single thought that goes through my mind most frequently is this: “What is the matter with people?”  This is often followed by “How do people get this way?” and later, “What can we do with them?”

Most ethical decisions are not brain teasers. They are strikingly obvious, unless you are determined to do wrong, an evil super-villain, or were raised in a barn. How people of influence without a serious head injury can make the horrible decisions they do is one of the mysteries of the age, along with the fate of Judge Crater, the elusiveness of Bigfoot, and the continuing popularity of Jimmy Kimmel.

Imagine, for example, that you run a bank. The Three Stooges wannabes who you sent to repossess a home get the address wrong (the lawn hadn’t been mowed, so they “just assume”), and they trash the wrong house. They remove possessions, losing some, auctioning off others, damaging the rest. The innocent owner of the home comes to you and points out that your contractors screwed up outrageously, a fact that is beyond rebuttal. She presents you with a good faith estimate of the property that was lost—never mind the trauma of having her home emptied by strangers and the fact that she has had to live elsewhere for two weeks. What do you do?

If you are the president of the First National Bank in Wellston, here’s what you do, because you have a non-functioning ethics alarm and more than a few screws loose in other places besides: you reject her assessment, and try to low-ball her on the amount.

“What is the matter with people?”

“How do people get this way?” Continue reading →

More Juror Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

funny judgeFrom the Erie Times News:

An Erie woman, dismayed that she had been picked to serve as a juror in a weapons case, audibly harrumphed the worst curse word of them all, then huffed and puffed her way to her seat in the jury box. Erie County President Judge Ernest J. DiSantis was having none of it. When apprised of the outburst by the lawyers on the case, DiSantis came to the courtroom and called the woman, Kathleen Port, in front of the bench.

Port was off the jury, for start, DiSantis said. “But we are not done,” he said. DiSantis held Port in contempt of court and fined her $500 for the improper behavior. “You are totally out of line,” he said….Jury service is a duty of citizenship, he said.

“It is inconvenient at times,” he said.

Good.

That’s one less juror who will go on ABC to prove that her vote was meaningless and that she had no idea what she was doing.

____________________________

Pointer: ABA Journal

A Prosecutor Lies, But It’s For A Good Cause…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
Yes, Jack McCoy would probably be disbarred in the real world...

Yes, Jack McCoy would probably be disbarred in the real world…

Aaron Brockler, an assistant Cuyahoga County (Ohio, including Cleveland) prosecutor, was fired last month for  using a false identity on Facebook  to try to influence the testimony of  defense witnesses in a homicide case.

He initiated Facebook discussions with two women listed by the defense as alibi witnesses in a murder prosecution. Brockler pretended to be a former girlfriend of the defendant who had a child fathered by him, and urged the witnesses not to “lie for him.”  County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty fired Brockler, who by my count violated at least Ohio legal ethics rules 3.4, 3.7, 3.8, 4.1, 4.2 and 8.4, (tampering with evidence, suborning perjury, becoming a necessary witness, prosecutorial misconduct, misrepresentation of facts, contact with a person represented by counsel and dishonesty) and perhaps some others. Prosecutors are not allowed to tamper with defense witnesses, or try to influence any witness testimony. They are not permitted to contact represented parties in connection with a prosecution, unless the lawyers are involved. They are not permitted to lie or pose as someone they are not over the internet. They are not permitted to make themselves witnesses in their own cases. Brockler wasn’t just fired for cause, he was fired for multiple causes, any one of which would have justified kicking him out the door. Continue reading →

The Steubenville Ethics Train Wreck: So Far, So Bad

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

steubenville

There has been no mention here of the awful Steubenville, Ohio rape case before today, and there was a reason for that. This is a massive ethics train wreck that is not only still rolling and accumulating passengers and victims, but is also too full of debris and wreckage to fully understand. At the end of this month, a grand jury will begin examining the looming question of whether others besides the two high school football players already convicted of the rape should be indicted.  The town is also doing an investigation of its own. These will help. My hesitation in diving into this gothic American nightmare is that recounting the obvious instances of miserable, heartless, ethically incomprehensible conduct by participants, observers, public officials and commentators doesn’t begin to make sense of it.  We will be analyzing and discussing this episode for a long time—we will have an obligation to do so. It is every bit as important and alarming as the Penn State scandal, and more significant than the infamous New Bedford pool table rape case, which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film, “The Accused.”

The crucial cultural questions that will have to be answered are these: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Melowese Richardson, Ohio Poll Worker

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments
Melowese Richardson

Melowese Richardson

Melowese Richardson, Ohio poll worker, doesn’t understand why she’s being investigated for voter fraud. Oh, she voted at least twice, no doubt about that, and she doesn’t deny it: According to Hamilton County records, Richardson’s absentee ballot was filed on Nov. 1, 2012 along with her signature. Later, she told an official she also voted at a precinct polling place because she was afraid her absentee ballot would not be counted in time. Double voting is something of a family tradition, for Richardson’s granddaughter, India Richardson, also cast two ballots in November, her first time as a voter. Melowese sees nothing wrong with any of this, or this either: absentee ballots for Montez Richardson, Joseph Jones and Markus Barron all came from Richardson’s Whetsel Avenue address, were received by the board the same time as Richardson’s, and the handwriting on all four of them was similar. Continue reading →

If Only The Profession Was This Strict AFTER Admitting A Lawyer To The Bar…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
No, surprisingly in light of last week's revelations from Cambridge, the applicant who cheated on her bar exam did NOT go to Harvard. I'm as stunned as you are!

No, surprisingly in light of last week’s revelations from Cambridge, the applicant who cheated on her bar exam did NOT go to Harvard. I’m as stunned as you are!

One of the legal profession’s ethics anomalies is that its character standards for entering legal practice are far more unforgiving than the standards for keeping one’s license to practice after being admitted. For while John Edwards continues to be a North Carolina lawyer in “good standing,” an Ohio bar applicant was held to lack the requisite good character to be a trustworthy lawyer (Ohio Supreme Court opinion here) because of the following set of facts.

When Jasmine Shawn Parker of Covington, Kentucky was taking the Ohio bar exam, a test monitor reported that she had continued to write for up to 30 seconds after “time” was called on a set of two exam questions, and then again for 45 to 60 seconds on two sets of two exam questions. The Board of Bar Examiners investigated, and asked Parker’s tablemates about their observations or her actions, if any, after time had been called. They reported that Parker had continued writing for maybe a second or two past the declared deadline on Day 1 of the exam, and on the second day, had continued to write past the stopping point “long enough to get at least two lines of writing on paper.” As a penalty after these findings, the Ohio Board of Bar Examiners gave Parker no credit on the exam question with the highest point value. Never mind: Parker’s score was high enough to pass the bar exam anyway. Her alleged cheating, however, led the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness to recommend her license be denied, with the opportunity to reapply.  Continue reading →

Ken Blackwell’s Obamaphone Smear: Yes, Ohio, A Black Man CAN Make Racist Ad

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Proving that a black man can do anything a white man can, like making a racist anti-Obama ad!

There are three things wrong with Ken Blackwell’s anti-Obama attack ad, courtesy of the Tea Party Victory Fund, which the former Cincinnati mayor and former Ohio Secretary of State leads:

1. It focuses on the Obamaphone, which is not an Obama give-away program, but an old program that has always offered free cell phones to the poor under certain conditions. Thus it is misleading and dishonest.

2. It stars the “Obamaphone Lady,” one of the ignorant and embarrassing Obama supporters captured on video by James O’Keefe clones to stereotype Obama supporters as fools. Yes, she’s a particularly appalling idiot. Both parties have plenty of them, however, and using any idiot to mock the candidate he or she supports is the epitome of cheap-shot, unethical politics. In this regard, the ad, like the video, is unfair and irresponsible.

3. The particular idiot chosen for this exercise is black, used to criticize a black President, whose strongest support comes from the black community. As a result, the ad is racist and offensive. Continue reading →

World’s Smallest Ethics Trainwreck: The OIHO ‘Gotcha!’

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

“You say OIHO, and I say OHIO…Let’s call the whole thing off!”

This is, even now, but a mini-train wreck, not even an H-O size train wreck, but more like a wreck involving those wooden Thomas the Tank Engine models, maybe between Percy and Duncan. Still, it’s depressing, and shows how far our political system and the media have sunk.

President Obama was campaigning in Ohio, and got conned into being part of a cheerleading-style array spelling out OHIO, except that he was in the wrong position, and ended up as the H in “OIHO.” This may have been legitimate fodder for Jon Stewart on a slow day, but otherwise was completely meaningless, and not worth the time it took to write or talk about it. Never mind, though: the conservative blogs and talk show mockers were out in force, pointing out that while the liberal media ridiculed Dan Quayle for misspelling “potato” and Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin for any number of ridiculous statements, they readily excused Mr. Perfect because in their eyes he can do no wrong. Continue reading →