Lowering the Bar

Judge Who Lost Pants Wants Job Back

In what is certainly welcome news for amateur legal humorists everywhere, Roy Pearson has filed another lawsuit.  As you may recall (see, e.g., "Judge Drops Pants; Suit Still On," Lowering the Bar (June 6, 2007)), Pearson was formerly Judge Pearson, but ultimately lost his job after adverse publicity due to a lawsuit he filed demanding millions in compensation for a pair of lost pants.  A D.C. judge dismissed Pearson's claims after a trial in which, among other things, Pearson wept on the stand when describing how his dry cleaners had allegedly mistreated him.

In the new lawsuit, filed this time in federal court, Pearson alleges that he was actually fired for exposing corruption within the department where he worked.  He says he was a protected whistleblower and that the media circus in which the pants occupied the center ring was just the city's pretext for getting rid of him.

Pearson now wants his job back.  He is also seeking $1 million in damages, or approximately $64 million less than he sought for the loss of the treasured pants.

Link: Washington Post

Claim Alleges Trip Ruined by Dung

A New York woman who says a family trip to Connecticut was ruined when her child stepped in dog feces has filed a claim against the city they were visiting.  Kelly DeBrocky says that she and her family were planning to visit the Norwalk Aquarium on April 5, but that the trip was derailed when her 1-year-old took the fateful step.  Apparently believing the dog was employed and/or encouraged by the city to create the nuisance, DeBrocky is demanding $100 in compensation for the costs of parking, admission, and replacement baby shoes.

Norwalk's city attorney, Jeffry Spahr, said that the claim had been denied, and nicely summarized the city's legal defense.  "Poop happens," he said.

Link: Yahoo! News

Bear in Prison

Despite that title, this is not the bear from "Bear Convicted," a March item that had to do with a bear prosecuted in Macedonia for stealing from a beekeeper.  That bear is still at large, as you would know if you had been paying attention to my bear stories.  This bear is not at large, although that seems to be by choice, because according to prison officials it is living in the middle of the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

I had a vision of a bear sitting there in the middle of the prison yard, maybe having a smoke, but it turns out that the LSP, better known as Angola, is actually about the size of Manhattan.  While it is a maximum-security facility, that applies only to some of the living quarters and not the entire area, which sadly prevents me from asking how a bear broke into a maximum-security prison in the first place.  Most of Angola is run as a farm, but that about 3,500 acres of it is "mostly untouched piney woods" in which, presumably, bears can live.  This bear was seen last week by an inmate presumably going about his farm chores, and experts have said that it is probably a 450-pound female black bear.

Prison executives said they believe there may be as many as eight to 10 bears in the prison, and the warden said that he is just fine with the big one that was recently spotted.  "I love that bear being right where it is," said Warden Burl Cain, proud owner of a name perfectly suited for being the warden of a prison in Louisiana.  "I tell you what, none of our inmates are going to try to get out after dark and wander around when they might run into a big old bear.  It's like having another guard at no cost to the taxpayer."

Only if the inmates don't find out that black bears mostly eat berries, said Maria Davidson, manager of the state wildlife department's Large Carnivore Program.  Vegetable matter makes up as much as 90 percent of a black bear's diet, she said, and the other 10 percent is mostly bugs and inmates.  Okay, she didn't mention inmates, and in fact completely undermined the warden by saying that, to her knowledge, there had never been a predatory attack by a black bear in Louisiana even on pets or livestock.  "As for a bear coming out and rushing an inmate," she said, "I don't see that happening."

So that's disappointing, but on the bright side, there are also alligators, rattlesnakes and "vicious wild pigs" on the prison grounds.  "And there have been sightings of panthers," said another prison official, sounding hopeful.

Link: AP via NOLA.com
Link: Plan Your Next Family Vacation at the Louisiana State Penitentiary

Oregon Says Its Laws Are Copyrighted, Can't Be Published

A battle has been going on for about three weeks now between the state of Oregon, which has laws, and some legal websites that have been publishing those laws.  Oregon is insisting that they not do so.  Justia.com, for example, which had been providing the Oregon statutes online for free, got a cease-and-desist letter from the state in April telling Justia to stop.

Another thing that should be stopped is the phrase "cease and desist."  Since both of those words mean "stop," you only need one.  As it is, the phrase describes something that is literally impossible to comply with: once you've ceased (or desisted), you can't do it again.  But since we are still stuck with "aiding and abetting," which means "helping and helping," I guess this one will probably be around for a while too.

Anyway, a federal law states that the government claims no copyright in federal statutes, but that doesn't apply to the states.  Oregon appears to be the first to try to keep its laws from being published, though.  Why would a state want to do this?  Hard to say.  It might have something to do with the many references on its own website to the opportunity to buy your very own set of the Oregon Revised Statutes, which sure would come in handy if you wanted to know what the law was!

The owners of Justia and of another site, Public.Resource.Org, have objected to the state's Request to Stop, saying that good public policy would be to make the text as widely available as possible.  (You can see all the correspondence here.)  The state then argued that its duty was fulfilled by putting the text of the laws on its website.  One problem with that, according to the objectors, is that there are some errors in the HTML code used to render the statutes -- according to Public Resource, a little over 500,000 errors -- that may make much of the text unreadable in some browsers.  Problem two: the state does not even guarantee that the text it has posted is accurate:

Although efforts have been made [the State said on its website] to match the database text to the official legal text they represent, substantive errors or differences may remain. It is the user’s responsibility to verify the legal accuracy of all legal text.

And where might a user verify the legal accuracy of said legal text?  Why, in the "only Official and Certified edition available," namely the volumes you can order from the Office of Legislative Counsel for $390.  Visa and Mastercard are accepted.

William Patry, author of the treatise "Patry on Copyright," who now has a blog, has weighed in on the side of the websites, suggesting that "Oregon should rein in its wayward Legislative Counsel."  (Another post there discusses an ongoing dispute between the band Ok Go, whose video for "Here It Goes Again" won a Grammy, and the makers of Berocca vitamins, who are running an ad using a similar concept, thus presenting "what may become the world's first legal dispute over treadmill dancing.")

It looks like things may be headed for a showdown.  In a letter dated May 2, the sites' copyright counsel has notified the state that his clients do not agree that the laws are copyrighted, and that they intend to put the Oregon Revised Statutes back online by June 2, 2008.

Link: Boing Boing (April 30)
Link: Ars Technica (April 16)
Link: Oregon Revised Statutes 2007 (online edition)

Probation May Be Revoked for Sharing

A judge in Vinton County, Ohio, has been asked to revoke probation for Timothy Caudill and send him to prison for nine months.  The offense: sharing a Little Debbie snack cake without permission.

At the time of the infraction, Caudill was in a halfway house while on probation for breaking into a bar last year.  Prosecutors, apparently having dealt with every other crime in Vinton County, charge that Caudill bought the snack cake -- reportedly an oatmeal-creme pie -- from a vending machine and shared it with another inmate who was "on restriction," a punishment status that apparently precludes snacking.  That is a clear rule violation, they say, and therefore prison time is warranted.  According to some other reports, Caudill has a history of other rule violations -- although whether they were equally serious is not clear -- and so the unauthorized pie-sharing was merely the last straw, not something they would have prosecuted standing alone.

As Caudill's attorney suggested, keeping him in the halfway house would leave cell space open for those who have committed more serious crimes, such as possibly eating Oreo cookies in some nontraditional way.

Link:  AP via Yahoo! News

Droopy-Pants Law Fails in Louisiana; Similar Measure Gutted in Florida

On April 22, a bill that would have ended the scourge of droopy pants throughout Louisiana failed in the state senate.  This was lamented by the bill's sponsor, Sen. Derrick Shepherd (D-New Orleans), who said the state should take a stand against low pants and other clothing felonies.  "The shorts are getting shorter, the tops are getting smaller, the cleavage is getting larger," he warned his colleagues.  (And, presumably, the pants are getting lower.)  "When are we going to say, 'Enough is enough'?"' 

How about now, was the answer of the Senate's Judiciary Committee, which killed the measure.  Committee member Sen. Yvonne Dorsey said she did not like baggy droopy pants any more than Shepherd does, but felt that people should have the right to wear them.

This was Shepherd's second attempt, and second failure, to raise standards and waistlines throughout the state.  As I previously reported, at least three Louisiana towns have passed ordinances against pants that droop or sag excessively, and the AP stated that about a dozen either have such laws or are considering them.  But with the failure of Shepherd's bill, most of his state will continue to be overrun with underpants.

A similar measure appears to be on the ropes in Florida, where Sen. Gary Siplin, who we last saw leaping a fence to escape a difficult press conference, introduced a similar bill last year.  SB 302, titled "Public School Dress Requirements," passed the Florida Senate in March and is now before the House.  Siplin seems to be trying a different tactic, since his bill was directed at the underwear itself as opposed to the pants that may expose them:

Section 1. Exposure of undergarments.--
      (1) A student may not wear and expose below-waist underwear while on the grounds of a public school in a manner that exposes or exhibits one's covered or uncovered sexual organs in a vulgar and indecent manner.

This version might need some tweaking, since as drafted it doesn't require pants to be worn at all, as long as one's underwear does not indecently exhibit one's sexual organs -- although even that is apparently okay as long as one's underwear is at or above one's waist.  My guess is that we would see some extremely interesting protest undergarments in Florida if this bill passed.

Sadly, an amendment to the bill offered by two Republican senators did not have enough support to pass.  That amendment would have clarified that the low-pants ban would "not apply to students who are studying refrigerator repair or plumbing."

While the bill is still on schedule in the Florida House (under the more descriptive title "Indecent Wearing of Below-Waist Underwear"), it appears to have been gutted by the committee to which it was assigned there. Without much comment, the committee reported the bill "favorably," but only after adopting a "substitute strike everything amendment" that replaced all the text.  The new text does not appear on the website, but would apparently refer the matter to local school boards, directing them to establish "dress-related requirements."

Given that state or local legislative bodies in at least five states (Florida, Virginia, Missouri, Louisiana, and Georgia) have now taken up this important issue, hopefully Congress will start work on a federal measure to standardize waistlines across the country.

Link: Florida House (Committee Analysis of HB 335)
Link: Orlando Sentinel