Or, as the motion describes them, the "World Champion Dallas Mavericks."
Assuming this describes the case correctly - and it doesappear to be a real filing, although whether it's a real motion for summary judgment or just gloating is hard to say - the Mavericks' management was sued by a shareholder claiming that the current owner has mismanaged the team. Noting that the team has just won the NBA championship, the motion suggests that the plaintiff's case lacks merit.
There are no exhibits attached to the motion, but it does contain one very large picture of the team celebrating its championship.
According to the docket, a jury trial is set for October 3, but it seems like this is a case that might more-or-less quietly go away.
First, the sagging-pants incident. In that case, DeShon Marman was arrested because he was wearing his pants (and for some reason, pajama pants) in that ridiculous style that puts underwear on display. As I have argued before, this is thoroughly stupid-looking and should be mocked, but shouldn't be illegal. But more to the point, that's not really why he was arrested. He was really charged not with having low pants - he was sitting in his seat prior to being arrested anyway - but for not following orders given by airline and/or security personnel, no matter how stupid and arbitrary any such order may be.
In fact, a spokesperson for the airline involved - US Airways - admitted this week that this is exactly what happened, saying he hadn't been removed because of his pants, but because he didn't do what the pilot told him to do. "The root of the matter," she said, is that "if you don't comply with the captain's requests, the captain has the right to handle the issue because it's one of safety." So, if the captain doesn't like your pants, it's not about the pants but about the fact that disobeying a pants-related order presents a safety issue because of disobedience. Do I have that right?
Marman's lawyer says, and I think the video confirms this, that his client wasn't being disruptive. He just said he didn't think there was a problem, he had paid his fare and wanted to travel. The crew, on the other hand, was being unreasonable and condescending. Whether that was because of racism or his youth or an overbearing security policy, or some combination, is hard to say.
On the other hand, the racism argument just got a great big boost as a result of today's development. Specifically, it appears that although US Airways got all upset about sagging pants in Marman's case, it was just fine with no pants at all in this guy's case (right).
The pantless man was a passenger on a US Airways flight from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix on June 9, and remained a passenger even though others complained. (The picture was taken by another passenger, Jill Tarlow.) A spokesperson said that in that case, the employees had been correct to ignore those complaints because "[w]e don't have a dress-code policy." You don't? "Obviously, if their private parts are exposed, that's not appropriate," she continued. But "if they're not exposing their private parts, they're allowed to fly."
This, by the way, was the same spokesperson quoted above. And again, it appears her position is that you can wear or not wear whatever you want, so long as your private parts are covered, unless an airline employee orders you to do something about your clothes, in which case you must obey (even though the order violates the airline's no-dress-code policy) or else you will be arrested because your disobedience itself presents a "safety issue."
Marman's attorney, who is probably in a very good mood today, was not slow to point out the "hypocrisy" involved and the somewhat disparate treatment of the two pants offenders. "A white man is allowed to fly in underwear without question," he said, "but my client was asked to pull up his pajama pants because they hung below his waist." Again, your client should be asked by everyone to pull up his pants because it looks stupid and nobody wants to see his underwear. But I insist that neither low pants nor mere disobedience should be or can be a crime.
I think Ben Franklin said something like that, but if he didn't, he should have.
The Calgary Sun reports that a judge has found a man not guilty of a brutal assault (actually, "not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder"), accepting the defense argument that the man suffered from "parasomnia." That is, the judge found him not responsible for beating someone up with a baseball bat and raping her because he had been sleepwalking at the time.
The defendant had hired an "escort" to spend four days with him in Calgary (at $1,000 a day, which seems like a lot although I've never been to Calgary). Their simulated relationship was fine for three days, but on the fourth, she testified, he hit her with a baseball bat and then choked her until she passed out. The report says that when she came to "he was having sex with her," although normally the more accurate term for that situation would be "rape." She was later able to escape though the defendant pursued her, apparently still snoozing.
He claimed he had no memory of the attack. The defense argued that he had been suffering from "parasomnia," a disorder in which a person "commits involuntary acts while sleeping." Sleepwalking is a subtype of this disorder, which also includes "restless leg syndrome," "night terrors," and, perhaps, sleepassaulting. The prosecution, of course, argued that he was just making this up, but the judge found it credible. "I do not accept the Crown's assertion that [defendant] was fabricating a story," he wrote. The finding is not an outright acquittal, and the defendant will have to undergo a psychiatric assessment and treatment. But the judge basically ruled he was not capable of forming the necessary intent to commit a crime.
So, is this total crap? It's actually hard to say. Parasomnia is a real disorder, but the extent to which it can cause violent behavior isn't clear. The sources linked above refer to another subtype called "sexsomnia," which is just what it sounds like, and can allegedly produce "complex sexual behaviors" during sleep. Whether they can be complex enough to involve baseball bats and chasing after victims is probably quite debatable, though.
Nor is this the first time the sleepwalking defense has been tried in court, or the first time it has succeeded. This article in U.S. News and World Report lists seven cases in which the defense has been tried, dating back to 1846. It worked in three. (In Fain v. Commonwealth, in the 1870s, the defendant shot someone and then "repeatedly yelled 'Hoo-wee!'" Conviction reversed on appeal.) More recently, another Canadian was acquitted of murder in 1987 for this reason (parasomnia, not yelling "Hoo-wee!"). In that case there was a strong family history of parasomnia, and police also noted that the man - who had driven 14 miles to get there and drove himself to the station afterward - seemed to be unaware he had severed tendons in both hands during the attack. That probably went a long way in terms of credibility.
In most cases, of course, this is likely to be just as bogus as its polar opposite, the too-much-caffeine defense. But here, it worked.
Please note the complete absence from this post of any joke along the lines of "the defense rests."
It's a good thing this guy was caught trying to cheat on the MCAT (the Medical College Admissions Test), because if the scheme he and an accomplice came up with is any indication, he isn't smart enough to be a doctor.
Prosecutors in British Columbia have charged the two men with fraud and various kinds of theft as a result of the scheme, which was high-tech but low-IQ. They allege that the test-taker used a small wireless camera to take pictures of the MCAT questions he was given and send them to the accomplice. The accomplice would come up with answers and send them back. So far, so good, but here's where it gets stupid.
Rather than pick an accomplice with a medical background who could help him directly, the test-taker found somebody who set up an elaborate plan to get the answers from a third party. Or three third parties, anyway, because his plan was to try to fool three medical students into answering the questions by telling them they were taking a test that might qualify them for a job as MCAT tutors.
These people quickly became suspicious, though, because they noticed the images of the test questions were very poor in quality, almost as if they were not official but had been taken with a small wireless camera. It also struck them as odd that their host encouraged them to discuss the answer to each question among themselves, which would seem to defeat the purpose of a test that was supposed to distinguish between them for job purposes. Further, he would leave periodically with their answers (so he could send them to the test-taker) and later come back for more, rather than waiting for the entire test to be finished.
Leaving the room is what sealed his fate, it turns out, because during one of his departures the students hopped online and found that, coincidentally, that happened to be the very day the MCAT was being administered. Also, since the scammer left his computer in the room with the students, they were able to browse through the computer's hard drive and Internet search history, noting that the owner had been looking into spy technology of the kind that could be used to cheat. After finding this information, the students called police and then stalled, pretending to play along but actually giving wrong answers. Both cheaters were arrested.
"What's unusual here," said a cheating expert cited in the report, is that they actually conned the people who [were] going to be supplying the answers." Well, they tried to con them.
Via Popehat: the very funny site WTForever 21, which sometimes praises but usually mocks the fashions sold by Forever 21, is now being threatened by that company, which apparently hasn't heard of either the First Amendment or the Streisand Effect. Example of the latter: I'd never heard of Forever 21 before this, but now I know it sells this thing (right). And you do too.
One person's take on why Anthony Weiner's conduct must be harshly condemned: "God help us if we as leaders ourselves truly cannot see why our standards should be high. Just consider what happened to Rome." Yes, it was when Commodus started sexting that the decline began.
Canada's federal whistleblower panel, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal, is about to hear its first case. This is news because it has existed for four years, evidently with nothing to do. Maybe there is no wrongdoing in Canada, although the report suggests the former "Public Sector Integrity Commissioner" just didn't bother to refer any cases.
"It's shocking that people are just so stupid," said Lt. John Walker. He was talking about the Philadelphia woman who posted an ad for a hit man on Facebook, and probably also the man who responded and had also posted a picture of himself holding a gun. Both were arrested. You know, over time, it gets less shocking, but they can still surprise you.
Sources report that a "confetti assault" took place at Iowa City's annual Gay Pride Parade. Officers witnessed a "heated argument" that ended with the accused flinging confetti in the other man's face. Though uninjured, the target seems to have pressed charges on the grounds he was "offended" by the contact. According to the report, the assailant has a record: he was "arrested last July when he allegedly punched a man in the face for refusing to hug him."
As you may recall, Lauren Rosenberg sued Google last year, alleging that its dastardly Google Maps service had given her walking directions that caused her to walk across and then along a highway, where she was allegedly hit by a car that Google had not warned her was coming. On Point News reported recently that a judge in Salt Lake County has dismissed the case.
Google argued that courts have refused to impose liability in similar circumstances because of the chilling effect it would have on the flow of information. There are apparently a few cases where a maker of aeronautical charts was held liable for defects, but those involve very technical materials intended for a limited class of persons, not general walking directions.
In a good example of the irrelevant but highly interesting background fact, Google also noted in its brief that "[a]lthough the complaint does not state the purpose of [plaintiff's] journey, police reports indicate that it took place before dawn" and that the plaintiff conceded she had been drinking until about 5 a.m. Why didn't Google tell the bartender to cut her off? We may never know.
The judge sided with Google, finding that the plaintiff alleged no facts showing a special relationship between herself and Google of a kind that could create some special duty. And because Google qualified as a "publisher," free-speech considerations weighed against finding a duty under the standard analysis. Plaintiff argued that Google was not a "publisher" in this case because it was providing her with personal "one-on-one" directions, but the judge didn't buy that. Under the plaintiff's theory, the judge said, there would be basically no limits on the potential dangers Google would have to warn about - including "dangerous wildlife" - and so imposing this duty would effectively put an end to the useful mapping service. Since Google couldn't have breached a duty it didn't have, case dismissed.
Those of you who have been relying on Google Maps to report any cars, bears, aliens, or other such dangers along your intended route, please take notice.
My concern is that if they've decided this rule doesn't apply to them, where will it end?
Before you know it, they'll be failing to fully respect the Fourth Amendment.
I don't have a source for this picture (please let me know if you do), butThis picture looks real to me. That is, one of them's not paying attention at all, and the other one's only bothering because he's pissed that somebody's taking a picture of him doing something wrong. So that seems true to form.
Update: It looks like our heroes were captured on film by comedian Chris Burns (on Twitter: @chrisburns), who has graciously given me the OK to repost this picture. Okay, I had already posted it, but he has graciously given me the OK to leave it here.
Bringing an end to what will certainly be the next ripped-from-the-headlines "Law & Order" drama, a New York judge acquitted Marcella Caprario on Wednesday of charges that she slapped another shopper at Trader Joe's. The fight with Dr. Cathleen London reportedly began after the doctor's son refused to move so that Caprario and her husband could buy a container of frozen vegan pad Thai with tofu.
Caprario, an opera singer and English teacher, admitted to the slap but said London had escalated matters, basically arguing that she slapped London only in self-defense. Witnesses described the dramatic scene that had unfolded in the frozen-food section:
As Mr. Hobbs struggled to get around the boy — repeatedly saying, 'Excuse me,' he testified Tuesday — the two women converged in the frozen food aisle, coming 'nose to nose,' according to Mr. Hobbs. As Dr. London moved a step forward, assuming what Dr. London called a 'defensive stance,' Ms. Caprario struck her on the right side of her face, she admitted Tuesday.
Another report included some more colorful details of the tofu-triggered exchange. London apparently described Caprario as a profanity-spewing "screaming banshee," while Caprario claimed London told her to "[g]et that pole out of your ass." I'm not entirely clear on the meaning of that last phrase, but it does seem insulting, and that seems confirmed by the fact that the slap immediately followed.
Ultimately, the judge may have agreed with Caprario's self-defense argument, or she just may have been sick of the whole thing and decided an acquittal was the quickest way out of this farce. During closing argument, the judge "repeatedly closed her eyes, leaned back and massaged her forehead in desperation." Her verdict quickly followed.
Meanwhile, the real culprit, Dr. London's miscreant tofu-blocking son, seems to have escaped charges altogether.
On Tuesday I appeared, or at least could be heard, on KCUR-FM in Kansas City to discuss the blog and various incredibly important issues chronicled here. If you'd like to listen to that (and I haven't listened yet, but am told I didn't embarrass myself more than usual), you can find it here.
In a couple of hours I'll be doing a CLE seminar on legal ethics, of all things, in Kansas City at the Westin Crown Center. The theme is "Sex, Crime, and Stupidity," in a desperate effort to make legal ethics interesting, especially in a seminar scheduled at the very end of a long day of seminars.
If you can't make it, as with pretty much all other ethics seminars the short version is "don't do anything stupid." Unfortunately, you have to actually be here to get credit.
In connection with a podcast on the subject of why end-user license agreements for software are so full of legalese, CNET asked Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss to do a dramatic reading of the iTunes EULA, which he did. They've posted four excerpts, each of which Dreyfuss reads in a different voice. Very good, especially the one in the "crazy German professor" voice.
I'd encourage Apple to have him do the whole thing and use it as their official version, but it would get old pretty fast if you had to listen to it every time the EULA changes. But at least people would pay attention once.
