Mike's Daily Lockup

"For truth. For justice. For five bucks a day."

"There are three shows that prepare you for jury duty: Columbo, The Verdict with Paul Newman and My Cousin Vinny (jury laughter). I'm serious! There are a lot of good things that happen in that movie! If you've seen those three, then you've seen everything you need to be a good juror . . . Keep an open mind." - Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Marion addressing potential jurors (Source Navel Gazing blog at the OC Weekly)

I've seen a lot of Columbo, watched The Verdict and My Cousin Vinny which may explain why I like jury duty. I'm glad Judge Marion left out the Pauly Shore "classic" Jury Duty. (The title of this post is the tag line from the movie)

The 2009 Chapman Law Review Symposium

For those of you who are interested, Chapman School of Law is hosting a symposium entitled "Lincoln's Constitutionalism in Time of War: Lessons for the Current War on Terror?"

The Symposium will have various tracks. Tracks include an analysis of the suspension of rights for public safety, WWLD (What Would Lincoln Do?) Constitutional Approaches to Wartime Finance and Economics, and Civil Liberties for Civil Rights: Justifying a decline in Civil Rights for an increase in Civil Liberties.

No mater what side of the political fence you may be on, this symposium will offer an interesting analysis of the time of Lincoln compared to our current struggles with terrorism. Attorneys, Government/Non-Government Organizations, Judges, and Students are invited to attend this highly informative and educational symposium. 

The Chapman Symposium will be held at Chapman School of Law on January 30, 2009 at 8am.

Registration information and forms may be found on Chapman School of Law's website.

 

Been a Little Busy Lately: learning the law because of this type of stuff...

I know it has been a while since I have written anything on the MDLU (or for that matter on the OC Metroblog), but this article just got my attention (and a few e-mails for that matter). Since I still have one more final, a full position statement on the absurdity of this person's lawsuit will have to wait until I'm fully hyped up on caffeine tomorrow morning.

BTW: When did "you can't have your cake and eat it to" become an insult?

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(Just having some fun with End User License Agreements after I saw this one on DIGG, enjoy! P.S. This isn't binding, just throwing that out there.)

UCI Law: Don't sue you, just sue us!

UCI is sure going to have some great defense attorneys some day. The faculty, the new (bland and tarnished) dean, and even the students will have to defend themselves from the very decision that would have put the new school on the map. Instead of spending their time looking for faculty and staff, forming admissions committees, and setting the ground work for top 20 status, the school is now delayed and the raised hope of a UC law school is making the OC the laughing stock of the law school community.

Law school is not a Left v Right, liberal v conservative venture. First years are too concerned with surviving, the second years with working on assignments, and the third years on the bar to care for political differences among the student body or the staff.

This screw up by UCI will make a name for the new law school, as a hypothetical on how not to enter into a contract.

My Apperance on "Bulls***"

Today my brother and I taped a piece for the Penn and Teller show called "Bulls***." Some of the questions surprised me, but maybe that was due to the fact that the show combined two issues which I have tried to keep separate but the courts have rolled them into one big ball o'wax: Atheists/Agnostics and Gays.

First, let me explain atheists/agnostics and scouting. Atheists/Agnostics in scouting could be treated just as another form of religious belief. Just as one could earn their religious award, one could explain their lack of belief and what it means to them. In fact some groups (such as Atheist United) do serve this function and can provide Atheists/Agnostics with the same source of information as a Church structure. In all my years of Scouting, not one person had a problem with my lack of beliefs, not one. My troop belonged to a Presbyterian Church, my friends were from all different religious faiths, and I attended Scout Sunday like everyone else out of respect of the Church that hosted our troop. My lack of beliefs did not prevent me from following the scout law of "Reverent," in fact I had more respect for the beliefs of other scouts then other scouts held towards me. That has always been a sticking point for me, how do all these people say "Do onto others as others would do onto you," yet they go around and scream in my face, tried to start fights, or spit on me. Needless to say, I didn't return the favor towards these Scouts who showed ill will towards me. My beliefs didn't matter when a leader needed to step up, they didn't matter when we were in the backcountry of New Mexico for 12 days, and they sure didn't matter when I was with my fellow scouts at the National Order of the Arrow Conference. Religion is a touchy subject, which unfortunately has been intertwined into patriotism. I may not profess a belief in a god or gods but I do feel our government needs to provide to its citizens, that we all need to be active in the political process. There is a difference between doing ones duty to "God and Country" to one doing their duty to their "Country." I'm more of a patriot for standing up for my freedom of religion, and I thank the Scouts for giving me the leadership training and the courage to stand up to the wrongs in their own organization.

As for the separate issue of Gays in scouting, I'll keep my discussion of this brief. I do not know a single person who will stop and ask a person for their sexual orientation before receiving help or aid. None, Period. James Dale, Tim Curran, and others are scouts who went through the program with no problems or issues with their leaders, their problems didn't develop until their sexual orientation came to light. Gays in scouting has been a subject that I really don't focus on too much as it was one of the differences that we had with the ACLU, they wanted to mix the cases, we decided to go it alone on the state Unruh act under Religion.

So to conclude this post, I can say the greatest amount of Bulls*** that one can spout is that Scouting will suffer if Atheists/Agnostics are allowed in. It didn't, it still exists, it's still here. I earned 26 merit badges, was selected to the Order of the Arrow by my fellow peers, attended both Philmont and the National Order of the Arrow Conference and Scouting is still here. My only regret is that I was not able to open up the organization to all, to give the same opportunities that my brother and I fought for to others.

The fight will continue, there are still cases in Berkley and my brother is going through law school, with me soon to follow.

I'm upholding the Scout oath and law everyday in my life, one does not need religion to do so.

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This is post number 400. Gee, I can't believe I have that much stuff on here. It will make great book material someday.

Doing the Lords Work there Jay?

Jay Sekulow, oh how I hate thee.

You see for me to explain why I hate the man so much would probably take a few hundred pages of court documents, a legal search on Westlaw or Lexis Nexis, and some good old Google searches to see why. Of course when you meet the man in person at a Supreme Court Historical Society event in Washington D.C. ("So an Atheist walks over to a evangelical..." Sorry, it sounded like a great start to a knock-knock joke) you realize how short he is in real life.

So thanks to Law.com, we can all air Jay's dirty laundry together.

For those of you scoring at home, you get bonus points if you have any of the following:

• In 2001 one of Sekulow's nonprofit organizations paid a total of $2,374,833 to purchase two homes used primarily by Sekulow and his wife. The same nonprofit also subsidized a third home he uses in North Carolina
• Sekulow outsourced his own legal services from the ACLJ, shifting from a position with a publicly disclosed salary to that of a private contractor that requires no public disclosure.
• When donors respond to solicitations and write out checks to the ACLJ, some of the money never makes it into ACLJ coffers but instead winds up with CASE, Sekulow's separate entity. Certain solicitations mention CASE in fine print as an entity "doing business as" the ACLJ.
• They say it was not unusual for Sekulow to drop $800 for lavish meals at Morton's, a high-end steakhouse, and that Sekulow rented luxury suites at the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel in the days before his Supreme Court arguments. Along with the private jet came chauffeured cars and added security, including bodyguards.
• Sekulow offered Scalia the chance to travel from Washington to the event on a jet then owned by CASE.

What Was She Smoking?

Continuing our adventures in Cronyville, Supreme Court nominee Miers must have been drinking the Kool-Aid or smoking some weed when she stated Bush was the "best governor ever."

I'll overlook the fact that Miers looks a lot like the Dark Sith lord from Star Wars. John C. Dvorak has a great post on the uncanny resemblance between the two. At least Miers will make history by being the first Supreme Court justice to have a hood with her robe. Maybe she'll fire lightning from her hands during oral arguments. Now that would be quite a show.

Returning to the Kool-Aid buffet, Miers is the dictionary definition of Crony (and when we look up failure you'll find Mike Brown of FEMA fame). CNN even reported on the banter between the two when they sent Birthday cards to each other. When Miers was the Lottery Commissioner of the State of Texas (Oh boy, the one person who oversaw the mega numbers is now going to over see the judiciary. Can I get a Quick Pick?) Bush sent her a birthday card that said "never hold back your sage advice." Miers later sent a note to Bush on the "twins" commenting on how they have the "coolest parent's ever." (Insert a bush snorty laugh here, you know the Hee heee hee laugh that he does when he ignores questions). And what was with this "Deserving of great respect" crap?

The nomination of Miers is just one more piece of the evolution of corruption and disrespect of the federal system by the Republican Party. As with Roberts, the selection of judicial candidates who have "clean slate" records which leave the judiciary committee with little sense of the judicial compass of judicial candidates. So far the two appointments from the bush Administration have been people with very close ties to the administration. This allows the administration to know the political views of their appointees, but it fails the American people who deserve to know how one will decide on the issues. And apparently it allows the religious right first crack at the nominees, which is a blatant disregard for the separation of Church and State. (But seeing how the line has been crossed so many times by this Administration, Church and State are practically buddy-buddy in the Executive Office of the President).

When Lottery Commissioners and Arabian horse judges are considered the best selections for the highest posts in the land, you’re not just gambling on their competency, but you’re also gambling on the lives of American citizens. These positions are not jobs of chance, they are jobs of consequence.

Fockers Get Ready for a Lawsuit

I'm not flying Southwest.

If a person gets booted off the plane for a shirt that says "Meet the Fockers" that has pictures of Bush, Cheney, and Rice on it, I would turn around and sue Southwest for violation of the persons civil liberties and their ignorance towards a persons constitutional freedom.

Any court of law in the land would allow the shirt to be worn as millions of movie posters were distributed with "Meet the Fockers" (and to think it was even an on-board movie somewhere). So bring on the lawsuit or at least the PR nightmare in the blogosphere for Southwest.

UPDATE: (6:45pm) It has come to my attention that the shirt had the word F**ckers, and not Fockers. Still this does not change my opinion, I would still defend her based on the precedent set in the "F**k the Draft case."

Cohen v. California

403 U.S. 15 (1971)

According to Oyez: "In an opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan, the Court reasoned that the expletive, while provocative, was not directed toward anyone; besides, there was no evidence that people in substantial numbers would be provoked into some kind of physical action by the words on his jacket."

Rock On Andy Rooney

60 Minutes is normally a show which I rarely watch, it's that "tick, tick, tick" sound at the beginning of each show that causes my television watching senses to go into full zombie mode (I'm memorized by it, and then I doze off due to it, thus the reason why I rarely watch). But this past Sunday, 60 Minute's stalwart Andy Rooney took the Shrub Administration to task for the War in Iraq (I prefer Mess'o'potamia, but I digress) and it's out of control spending with the Tax Payer's credit card.

It was the way that he started his segment that got my attention (and no it wasn't like the last time where he talked about all of the old laptops he had, or shoes for that matter): "5.6 Billion dollars spent a month in Iraq, We still have 136,000 soldiers over there right now, and we have lost over 2,000. For What?" And now the government has to pay for Katrina relief on top of the 5.6 billion dollars per month.

Where do you think the US is going to get all of this money? China! (Yikes, were becoming the Red Dragon's in debt college student, years of work ahead after four years of late night study sessions and parties with no way to payoff all of the loans).

He continued into a discussion of what Shrub is cutting at home (funding for NPR, Amtrak, loans for graduate students, etc...) all items which should help build our economy but instead it buys maybe one or two Abrahams tanks. (The gas mileage sucks, but on the plus-side the Abrams does have all-tread drive).

I'll spare you the rest of Rooney's best, but I do want to end it with the following quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. …"  (Whoopsy...)

Now to get to the "Rock" part of this post, the RIAA is getting a taste of its own medicine. Ok, get this, a forty year old disabled single mother was sued by the RIAA for downloading Gangsta Rap music at 4:24am off of Kazaa. The thing is, she doesn’t listen to Gangsta Rap, has never downloaded music, nor does she access the internet at 4:24am. In her countersuit, she sued the RIAA under the Federal RICO statue claming the RIAA engaged in trespass of an electronic network (i.e. her computer by a company called MediaSentry), attempted to coerce a settlement from her even though the evidence that the RIAA Settlement Resolution center had was faulty, and that the Settlement Resolution Center engages in outlawed and coercive tactics to "shake people down."

With music on my mind, can someone hook me up with a pair of these for the holidays? Now only of they could combine the Razor wires with 'em...