rule of law

Oh Look! Now the LEFT Is Complaining About Lawyers Being Reluctant To Represent Unpopular Clients!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

In 2020, as discussed here, The NeverTrump Lincoln Project joined the anti-Trump Democrats in targeting law firms hired by the Trump campaign to challenge alleged irregularities in the election. Election law specialists Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur and its lawyers were threatened with professional ruin and financial disaster, as they were told that daring to support the President of the United States constitutes a “dangerous attack on our democracy.” The firm, showing a dearth of legal ethics and integrity, withdrew, whining that the assault on its reputation created a conflict of interest, was disrupting the firm, and had prompted at least one lawyer’s resignation. Other firms dropped the campaign as a client, and the reason was fear—of losing clients, of being shunned in the legal community, of losing money. Mostly the latter.

How times had changed. When Bush Department of Defense Deputy Secretary Cully Stimson, a lawyer, gave a radio interview in which he condemned attorneys from large law firms who were representing Guantanamo Bay detainees pro bono and suggested that corporations avoid employing those firms because they were aiding the nation’s enemies, the legal profession reacted with indignation and horror. Karen J. Mathis, then the president of the American Bar Association, said, “Lawyers represent people in criminal cases to fulfill a core American value: the treatment of all people equally before the law. To impugn those who are doing this critical work — and doing it on a volunteer basis — is deeply offensive to members of the legal profession, and we hope to all Americans.” Prof. Stephen Gillers, the media’s favorite legal ethicist thanks to his penchant for being hard on conservatives and lenient on liberals, wrote, “This is prejudicial to the administration of justice. It’s possible that lawyers willing to undertake what has been long viewed as an admirable chore will decline to do so for fear of antagonizing important clients.” Christopher Moore, a lawyer at the New York firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton continued the profession’s defense of core lawyer ethics, telling the New York Times, “We believe in the concept of justice and that every person is entitled to counsel.”

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That Arizona Abortion Decision…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This story is straightforward and ethically simple. Apparently neither Republicans, nor Democrats, nor abortion activists, nor the President, not the news media is capable or willing to say so. I guess that leaves it up to me.

When the constantly legislating Supreme Court of the Sixties and Seventies illegally made up a Constitutional right that didn’t exist—the right to have an abortion limited only by the Supreme Court’s arbitrary limit based on that decade’s belief regarding “viability”,””— in its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, it stole away the power to make laws regulating abortion in the states. This, in turn rendered unenforceable a law in Arizona dating from its days as a territory in 1864 (Arizona didn’t become a state until 1912) that almost completely banned abortion. The law was still valid in 1973; laws passed by the territorial government were all grandfathered into the state statute book, and nobody disputed that they had to be treated like any other law until such laws were amended or repealed.

When the Supreme Court correctly if ridiculously tardily declared Roe to be the bad law, bad theory and irresponsible power grab by SCOTUS that it was in the Dobbs decision overturning it, that Arizona law was, as Dr. Frankenstein would say, “Alive! It’s alive!” And so it was. The beginning of the majority opinion in Planned Parenthood et al v Kristin Mayes/Mayes Hazelrigg tells you pretty much all you need to know, though reading the whole opinion and its dissents in the 4-2 ruling is worth the time. The opinion begins,

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Incredibly, A Unanimous U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against The Democrats’ Theory That Illegal Immigrants Can Be Transformed Into Legal Immigrants After The Fact

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

See? The government isn’t completely crazy. Not for the first time, the Supreme Court has emphatically sided with the rule of law, confounding the Biden Administration and such Democratic Party stars as Senators Mazi Hirono (D-Hawaii), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), among others. Along with them, we also had the Democrat attorneys general of Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, California, and 17 other states arguing for one more step on the way to open borders.

Best of all, the slap-down opinion was authored by Obama appointee Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote in Sanchez v. Mayorkas, issued today,

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Amazing! Someone Actually Fact-Checked Barack Obama! Not So Amazingly, He Was Again Using His Position To Mislead And Divide

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Also not so amazingly, the fact-checker was Prof. Jonathan Turley, a rare academic and legal professional who has the integrity to go where the facts take him, not his colleagues’ partisan agendas. Unfortunately, his refusal to join the “resistance” has resulted in his being vilified, as well as exiled to Fox News if he wants to be heard.

Barack Obama was heard on a private call to say that the “rule of law is at risk” after the Justice Department moved to dismiss the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn. As with so many other narratives the Left has pushed in the past three years, this one is exactly the opposite of reality. Recently declassified documents show that the Obama FBI and Justice Department engaged in illegal  investigative and prosecutorial misconduct, targeting Flynn and framing him as part of their efforts to bring down President Trump. They also suggest that President Obama was aware of the operation. Such abuses for political gain pose the real threat to the rule of law.

Obama is reported to have said that “There is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.”

Here’s Turley, who, nice guy that he is, can still barely disguise his contempt: Continue reading →

Once Again, “The Good Illegal Immigrant.” Once Again, I Am Not Sympathetic

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Nor should I be.

Nor should you.

Once again, the New York Times has published another of its entries into what I call “The Good Illegal Immigrant” files. The “good illegal immigrant” is a contradiction in terms, as much as “the good embezzler” or “the good bigamist.” This ongoing propaganda by the Times as the journalistic vanguard of the open borders mission of the American Left is in its fourth year. These features are stuffed with emotionally manipulative tales and quotes about the travails of residents of the United States who broke the law by coming here, and who continue to stay here, reaping the benefits that are supposed to be reserved to citizens while being nauseatingly self-righteous about it. The Times surpasses itself this time, with “Telling the Truth Wasn’t An Option” by Julissa Arce, illegally in this country from the age of eleven, whose dilemma was finally resolved when she married an American citizen.

It’s convenient that the title itself embodies a rationalization, indeed a couple whoppers from the Ethics Alarms list: #25, The Coercion Myth: “I have no choice!” and #31. The Troublesome Luxury: “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now.” Telling the truth is always an option if one has the courage and integrity to be accountable. The headline applies to anyone who is engaged in an ongoing crime, or guilty of a past one, except that in this case, the individual feels uniquely entitled to not only avoid the just consequences of  her own actions, but to seek sympathy for her discomfort in doing so. Continue reading →

This Would Be The Most Unethical Tweet Of Any Normal Year, But The 2019 Competition Is Too Tough…

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Observations:

  • I can’t respect anyone who would support a candidate who could think this, much less publish it, to be President of the United States.
  • By the way, did you know that President Trump is a threat to democracy? Bernie has said so many times.
  • Sanders really needs to bone up on what “democracy,” “rule of law,” “due process,” “ex post facto,” and other core concepts mean.
  • Trump puts out tweets like this occasionally, suggesting that there “should” be some way to legally penalize various individuals who do things that are completely legal. This usually spawns angry, insulting and indignant op eds all over the media. I will patiently wait for the equivalent reaction to Bernie’s tweet. In vain.
  • Will anyone ask Sanders about this sentiment in the next debate?
  • For a U.S. Senator and political leader to state that it is appropriate to imprison U.S. citizens for the non-existent crime of not conforming to progressive cant is itself undermining democracy.
  • Yet Presidential candidates who do this should not be criminally prosecuted for the destruction they are knowingly causing. They should  be ridiculed, condemned, and ignored.

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Senator Kamala Harris

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

“Well, I mean, I would just say, hey, Joe, instead of saying, no, we can’t, let’s say yes, we can.”

Democratic Presidential nominee hopeful Senator Kamala Harris, responding to Joe Biden’s 100% correct observation that a President could not ban so-called “assault weapons” by executive order as Harris had pledged she would, due to the Constitution.

When I was preparing yesterday’s post on the ABC Democratic candidates debate, this statement, which made my head explode at the time it was delivered, was supposed to have a prominent place. Then I couldn’t find it in the transcript. Why? I’m an idiot, that’s why. Somehow I got it in my head that the speaker was Elizabeth Warren, not Harris, so I was searching the transcript for her, and not finding the exchange. Finally I gave up.

Luckily Ann Althouse was similarly nauseated by the same Harris quote, and posted about it on her blog later in the day. Among the truly scary statements, and there were many of them, during the debate (ask your Democratic friends if they can name a single similarly outrageous policy-related quote during any of the 2015 and 2016 debates  by candidates of either party) I rank Harris’s as #1, followed by Beto’s epic “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47…” and Biden’s ridiculous “Nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime” statement. (Incidentally, he launched a fun parlor game: see if you can top other players with the most sinister character who would have avoided prison time under Joe’s formula. My favorite: Al Capone). Continue reading →

From The Ethics Alarms Archives: “Yes, Ethics Dunce Madonna Indeed Engaged in Sexual Assault On Stage In Australia”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Here’s an Ethics Alarms post about a story from 2016 that takes on some new elements when considered in light of #MeToo and the Harvey Weinstein Ethics Train Wreck. I’m wondering if Madonna would do this today.

Let’s review the players, shall we?

This is Josephine Georgiou, Isn’t she pretty? She was 17 in 2016.

This is Madonna, performing on stage in Australia. during her2016 concert tour.

She was and is over-the -hill and  has to be progressively more outrageous  to try to justify her concert ticket prices. During the 2016 tour, she was repeatedly late, suspected of being drunk on stage, and generally erratic. Her enabling supporters attributed this to a messy divorce. Of course, for a professional, that is no excuse: if you can’t do the job, then don’t charge people for you to do it.

Here is Josephine with a friend before they attended Madonna’s concert in Brisbane. Note Josephine’s outfit.

Note the nipple rings.

Forget the friend, and no, I have no clue as to what Josephine was holding. Maybe they have very small flies in Australia….

Now here is Josephine with her Mom, Toni, who also was at the concert.

More about her later. OK, I think we’re ready now. Fasten your seat belts, it going to be a bumpy trip down memory lane. Here’s “Yes, Ethics Dunce Madonna Indeed Engaged in Sexual Assault On Stage In Australia” from March 19, 2016…
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“Ethics Dunce” Doesn’t Do Justice To Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot…Ethics Virus, Perhaps?

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

“Should All Thefts Be Prosecuted?” the headline asks rhetorically. Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear…never mind, you get the point. Of course all thefts should be prosecuted, just like all laws should be enforced. It is a stupid question, and should be immediately recognized as such, yet, that headline goes on tell us, “Dallas County’s District Attorney Says No.”

Really? Then he is unqualified for office, an ethics corrupter, and a carrier of ethics rot. That DA—his name is John Creuzot–should resign, or be impeached. A prosecutor who doesn’t believe in enforcing laws is an unethical prosecutor, an untrustworthy prosecutor, biased and dangerous to society.

Creuzot has announced several measures of varying levels of justification and controversy to reform the justice system, which is certainly not without need to reform. However, one of them is unethical in multiple ways…

Study after study shows that when we arrest, jail, and convict people for non-violent crimes committed out of necessity, we only prevent that person from gaining the stability necessary to lead a law-abiding life. Criminalizing poverty is counter-productive for our community’s health and safety. For that reason, this office will not prosecute theft of personal items less than $750 unless the evidence shows that the alleged theft was for economic gain.

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Look: An Illegal Immigration Ethics Fractal!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

This story is the migrant caravan and the “good illegal immigrant” media narrative in miniature, with exactly the same fallacious ethical reasoning!

Here is the misleading lazy, dishonest and fake news version of a recent incident as reported in two New York papers:

White House turns away foreign students on tour with class

A group of seventh-graders from Henry Hudson Regional School in Highlands braved a snowstorm on Nov. 15 for a long-awaited bus trip to Washington DC.

The bad weather and treacherous road conditions added hours to the drive and left no time for anything but their visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Even lunch on the White House lawn was canceled.

But the snafus didn’t stop there. Months in advance, the school had to send the White House visitors office a list of all students and adults expected to take the tour.

After making it through an initial checkpoint, Secret Service agents stopped three Henry Hudson students who didn’t have their passports or other identification required for non-US citizens.

Aww.

Because the students “braved” the bad weather and their teachers screwed up, the White House was being mean, and probably racist, to enforce the security requirements that have been in place for decades for White House visits. Think of the children!

I feel sorry for the students, but the United States should and cannot waive laws because it feels sorry for the would-be law-breakers. I feel sorry for everyone who lives in Mexico and Guatemala, too. Also China, Somalia, France, Russia, Greece, Togo, and Canada, among many other countries, in fact about all of them that are not the United States. I feel sorry for lots of criminals as well. Laws still have to apply the same way to everybody, or there is no law.

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Fractal (frac·tal): [Mathematics] noun: fractal; plural noun: fractals:

A curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Fractals are useful in modeling structures (such as eroded coastlines or snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation.

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Pointer: Victory Girls.