Lowering the Bar

Federal Court Limits Defendants' Access to the Internet

The clerk for the District of South Carolina has reportedly issued the following message:

In the interest of safety and security in the federal courthouses throughout the District of South Carolina, the United States Marshal requests that attorneys and/or their staffs not allow prisoners, defendants, and/or their families to have unmonitored access to laptop computers, iPads, or similar devices. These items may be used as weapons against those present in court. Additionally, allowing unmonitored use of these devices provides in-custody prisoners unsupervised access to the internet and an opportunity to plan escapes and assaults.

This seems a little questionable to me.

This guy here

First, it would of course be entirely possible for a prisoner or defendant (or even a family member) to whack someone with an iPad. I don't think the edges are sharp enough to do any real damage, but I wouldn't want some Oddjob emulator to sail one across the room at me, either. The problem, though, is that there are all kinds of other things in a courtroom that you could also use to whack somebody. Chairs, for example. Or heavy law books, or microphones, or a lawyer's briefcase, or (depending on the circumstances) a lawyer. But none of those things are banned.

For that matter, it is entirely possible for a defendant to assault someone with a writing implement. Or multiple someones. See, e.g., "Man Who Stabbed His First Two Lawyers With a Pencil Stabs Another Lawyer With a Pencil," Lowering the Bar (Nov. 2, 2011). But nobody proposes banning those. So I'm not really sure the security rationale works here.

The second rationale is that if allowed unmonitored use of the internet, a prisoner might be able to plan an escape. (Or an "assault," but see above.) Really? I can't say I've done exhaustive research on this, but I haven't found any examples of an escape or attempted escape from a courthouse or prison that was planned with the help of the internet. If they mean email, I guess that could make communication easier. And it's not like the government can read their email! Ha ha! No. But would restricting access to the internet for prisoners, or defendants, "and/or their families" (!) actually make a difference in terms of planning an escape?

I don't know. I took a quick shot at it, using this diagram of a typical courtroom. See what you think. I did find the diagram using the internet, but I'm not sure how much additional help this would provide to someone who's planning to flee a courtroom. (Nor did this guy, for example, need any technology more advanced than a suit to do that.) And if they're worried about prison escapes, I'm thinking the thing to do is fix the prison, not worry about internet access.

This is not to make light of courtroom security concerns overall—those are very real and very justified—but I'm just not sure that restricting internet access or devices is really going to address those concerns.

I would support banning bowler hats, or hats of any kind, really, but for entirely different reasons.

The Emergency Sasquatch Talk

The Kansas City Public Library has posted a few photos from my book talk/signing event there on May 6th. This one shows me talking about the Delaware law banning "punt guns."

Photo: Steve Wieberg, KCPL

I didn't crop out the audience heads at the bottom so you could tell there actually was an audience. If you are upset about the back of your head being shown without permission, all I can say is you didn't read the fine print on the back of those cocktail napkins.

Good Reason to Kill # 49: Second Incorrect Burger

I wanted to put the word "second" right in the headline so I wouldn't give the impression that this woman just flew off the handle and opened fire because McDonald's got her first burger order wrong. That would have been misleading.

The first bad burger did result in a complaint to the proprietor of the relevant McDonald's in Grand Rapids, Michigan (this happened in February—thanks, Elizabeth, for the reminder), but that dispute was resolved peacefully after the woman and her companion were told that they would receive a free meal at the time of their next visit.

That next visit, perhaps unwisely, took place at 3 a.m. the following morning after a night at the clubs. The same two women returned to the same restaurant, ordered the same burger from the drive-through window, and received the very same erroneous result as before. (The nature of this defect was not reported, but I assume it was something more serious than unwanted pickles, which you always seem to get but can just take off the burger, for Christ's sake). [Update: it was missing bacon, which, to be honest, does seem a lot worse.]

Never forget the victims of bacon-related violence

The woman in the passenger seat leaned over and delivered into the drive-through window first a verbal reprimand, and then one (1) 9mm bullet. The bullet traveled through the window, across the restaurant and out through the opposite wall, but luckily did not pass through any people on the way. The two women then fled.

But the shooter's previous demand for a free meal was her undoing. Turns out she had given her name and cell phone number to the restaurant the day before, apparently to verify her identity for free-meal purposes. Presumably she had forgotten about that at the time she opened fire.

So while the second bad burger triggered the violence, the first one ended up solving the crime.

The shooter was charged with three felonies and faced up to seven years in prison. The driver was not charged; police said they believed she had no idea her friend would try to shoot the drive-through worker, which seems like a reasonable assumption. And that was indeed the driver's story, as another report confirmed: "The driver of the car told 24 Hour News 8 Monday that she had no idea [her friend] had a gun. She also said she was having a difficult time hearing because her ears were ringing." 

See also GRTK #23 (Canceled Taco Order) and #31 (Refused Second Pretzel Dip); also see also, e.g., "Man Demands Hot Sauce at Gunpoint" (Sept. 22, 2011), "'Burrito-Triggered Spree' Ends Peacefully After Three-Hour Standoff" (Mar. 24, 2011), and "Miami Shooting Reopens Debate Over Condiment Control" (May 29, 2007).

Assorted Stupidity #63

• Mindy Kaling gave the commencement speech at Harvard Law. It's really good.

• The BBC says three men convicted of stealing some bread trays from a bakery will serve at least three years each for the crime. That probably seems like a heavy sentence, so I should clarify that the baker is Warburtons, the largest in Britain, and "some bread trays" means at least 90,000 bread trays weighing well over 200 tons in total and valued at over £500,000. The men diverted 60-70 truckloads of trays for "recycling" over a six-month period. Maybe they thought Warburtons was too big to notice a mere 90,000 missing bread trays. Turns out it's not.

• Speaking of things that are missing, if you lost a fingertip at the fair last week you might try the lost-and-found department of the Wellington, Ontario, police department. Police there said they had no reason to suspect foul play at the moment, but haven't ruled it out. "The priority" right now, said a sergeant, "is to identify who lost a fingertip and who it belongs to." My guess is they will answer both those questions at the same time, if they get any answers at all.

• Hm. Car sitting there with its engine running, but I don't see anybody inside. The windows are tinted, though. Hard to tell. Could be a free car, or some good stuff inside for the taking. I'll just try the door and take a quick look.... Or there could be an undercover police officer inside who now has a gun pointed at me, and some difficult questions for which, frankly, I had not prepared. Wow, I certainly did not see that coming, although with hindsight, perhaps I should have. Well, lesson learned.

• Also stupid: the Northeast Independent School District in San Antonio, which has reportedly banned students from bringing sunscreen to school without a doctor's note. The district claims sunscreen is a "medication," which it isn't, and also that it is "typically a toxic substance," which it also isn't and which contradicts the first stupid argument. The district said that if parents are concerned that their children may be outdoors, "they should come to school fully covered in sunscreen," but they can't bring their own.
  

The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance Is Now E-Available

At long last, you can now download The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance—here's the link to the Amazon page. They claim you can have it on your device in less than a minute, so good news if you just sat down on the toilet with your iPad and realize you don't have anything new to read.

As far as I can tell, it's only available for Kindle at the moment. I was told there will be a version available for other e-readers, and hopefully that'll be out soon, but your guess is as good as mine. And how should I know? I just wrote the goddamn thing.

Thanks again!

Update: it's also available via iBooks, although for some reason it's slightly more expensive there. But if it's worth $2 to you to not buy from Amazon, you do have that alternative.

No Winners in Judge-Lawyer Throwdown

Oh dear.

All the action happens off-screen, but reportedly it was the judge throwing punches. His conduct on (and off) the bench is terrible, but it also seems like it was a bad idea for the public defender to apparently take him up on his challenge by storming back there in response to a judicial taunt.

According to this report, it's the judge the audience is applauding at the end of the clip, but neither one deserves anything but shocked silence.

Via Gideon at A Public Defender.

Update: Later reports said that both combatants would be taking some time off while the Florida Bar and (probably) the Judicial Qualifications Commission look into the matter. One report quoted another local attorney who knows both the fighters as saying the incident surprised him, and he wondered if it had resulted from "a misunderstood prank by the judge." You never know. Maybe they are both in a local Shakespeare company and suddenly realized they needed to rehearse a scene from Macbeth. Let's not rush to judgment.

Superheroes Must Be Able to Do Five Pull-Ups, Group's Leader Says

You may have heard that "the Rain City Superhero Movement is over," as its leader Phoenix Jones announced the other day in Seattle (KING5 News; thanks, Mark). But the news is not quite that dire. Turns out that RCSM will be re-forming, if it hasn't already, it's just that only five of the current members will be included in the "new" group.

Basically, Phoenix is too kind-hearted to fire anybody, so he just dissolved the organization and re-created it with a more limited membership. 

On patrol in happier times
Photo: Joe Dyer, seattlepi.com)

Why did some of the superheroes need to be fired re-incorporated away from? A variety of reasons. According to the report, the movement had grown dramatically (is there another way a superhero movement could grow?), but this led to a certain decline in quality. Some members did not always cooperate with police. Some carried illegal weapons, breaking a rule that Jones said is "non-negotiable."

Some apparently could not do five pull-ups.

Jones says isn't opposed to welcoming old members back into the fold, but they must meet his requirements for superhero activism, like 5 pull-ups and 25 sit-ups in two minutes.

He didn't call anyone out by name, so we don't know whether it was, for example, Catastrophe, Lil Rambo, or Purple Reign who couldn't hack it. It wasn't Omega, because according to the report he's on the new team. (By the way, "Penelope" and "Michael Taufner," those aren't superhero names, they're just names.) Even though these guys are mostly just observing and documenting, it does seem like 5 pull-ups and 25 sit-ups in two minutes is probably a reasonable minimum for someone purporting to be part of a superhero team. I suppose if you could fly or shoot laser beams out of your eyes, those would be acceptable substitutes, but if your only power is being able to move your limbs in dramatic ways, those limbs should be relatively strong.

Needless to say, RCSM's nemesis, Rex Velvet, has been gloating nonstop ever since Jones's announcement. But again, RCSM is not actually disbanding, just getting leaner (on average) and possibly meaner. Besides, how many pull-ups can you do, Velvet?

That's what I thought.

Pi Trademarked (Sort Of)

Looks like it's safe to go back to using the symbol for pi on t-shirts, at least for now. Someone whose initials are P.I. managed to get the symbol (followed by a period) registered as a trademark, and where there's a goofy registration, there's gonna be a goofy cease-and-desist letter.

This one was sent to t-shirt maker Zazzle, which was scared by it for a couple of days but according to Wired (thanks, Frank) has now reinstated all the π-bearing apparel it had embargoed.

"We represent Paul Ingrisano ('Ingrisano')," the letter begins, thus helpfully defining the term that counsel will use to refer to his client in any later instances in which such reference may be necessary. Are any other Ingrisanos mentioned in said letter with whom the aforesaid Ingrisano might be confused? No there are not, making that the first (or maybe the fifth) of many unnecessary words in the letter. More importantly, are any π-bearing t-shirts being sold on Zazzle with which the aforesaid trademark might be confused? The answer there also seems to be no.

In fact, Ingrisano's attorney admitted to Wired that he was unaware of any designs being sold through Zazzle that included the exact trademark his client had registered—π followed by a period. But, he insisted, "[s]ome clearly have a pi sign and look similar enough that folks out there might confuse it with products that my client also sells." This isn't my field, but that seems pretty close to an admission that the claim in the letter is frivolous.

The symbol for pi could theoretically be part of a trademark, according to Mark Lemley, a Stanford law professor quoted by Wired. "If you want to sell t-shirts and on the tag your brand name is the symbol pi, I think that's a reasonable trademark," Lemley said. "But if what you want to do is actually prevent people from using the symbol pi on a t-shirt, then I think you're missing the point of trademark law," which is to allow a trademark holder to prevent others from using confusingly similar marks. Here, Ingrisano presumably added the period in the first place so the Patent & Trademark Office would be less likely to reject it as too "generic" to register. (See, e.g., USPTO, "Basic Facts About Trademarks.") If so, then he shouldn't be able to turn around and claim that a pi symbol without the period might confuse consumers into thinking an item is one of his products. And since his attorney has admitted that as far as they know, there are no products actually bearing a "π." symbol being sold anywhere on Zazzle ... well, it almost seems like he shouldn't have sent the letter in the first place, doesn't it?

On the other hand, the letter does direct Zazzle "to CEASE AND DESIST ALL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT," and surely he wouldn't have used all caps unless he thought this was really a serious matter.

Please note that I'm not saying that the claim is irrational. Seriously, I'm not going to say that.

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UPDATE: The main reason using all caps is a bad idea is that although people use it for emphasis, usually it has the opposite effect because language in all caps is harder to read. This, I think, is why someone had to point out to me just now that although this is a trademark dispute, the letter demands cessation of COPYRIGHT infringement. Oops.

Court to Decide Whether Guru Is Dead or Just "In Deep Meditation"

According to the Telegraph (thanks, Nathan & Matt), the family of His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji has asked a court to investigate the guru's alleged death earlier this year, and, if he is in fact dead, to order that his body be released to them for cremation. Others are concerned about control of the significant assets held by the religious order Ashutosh founded. But according to reports, the guru's aides have insisted that Ashutosh is not dead, he has just been holding his breath since January.

Not even kidding, really:

While he is thought to have died from a heart attack, his devotees believe he has simply drifted into a deeper form of the meditation he promotes as a pathway to self-realisation.

A statement on the group's website reads: "His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji has been in deep meditative state (Samadhi) since 29th January 2014."

According to one of his aides, who asked not to be named, "Maharaj has been in deep meditation. He has spent many years meditating in sub-zero temperatures in the Himalayas, there is nothing unusual in it. He will return to life as soon as he feels [ready] and we will ensure his body is preserved until then," he said.

Oh, the other fact you need to know to explain that last paragraph is that they are currently keeping His Holiness in a freezer.

Oh, nicely done, pop-up ad server. Nicely done.

I admit I don't know a lot about Hinduism, and knew nothing at all (until now) about "samadhi." At times like these, of course, one turns to Wikipedia. It describes samadhi in various ways. For example, samadhi is said to be "a non-dualistic state of consciousness in which ... the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object ... a state of complete control over the functions and distractions of consciousness," or, in Western terms, a state of "equilibrium." According to Indian scripture, one who has reached samadhi "transcends the sphere of experiences of smell, taste, touch, speech and consciousness," reaching a "zero state" that is "absolute stillness." Indeed, this last quote goes on to say, one who has reached samadhi "becomes stiff like a log of wood."

Okay, fine, but in this case the guy is also now frozen solid.

NURMAHAL: Ashutosh Maharaj, ... who was declared clinically dead, has completed one month in Himalaya-like conditions, albeit in a freezer.

Times of India (Mar. 2, 2014)

And it does seem like there's a significant difference between achieving such perfect mental equilibrium that one may appear to be dead—a state that yogis can allegedly maintain for quite some time—and actually being dead. That is, if Ashutosh didn't actually die of a heart attack in January as the doctors say, but rather just entered a state of deep meditation, very suddenly, and right after complaining of chest pains, he'd be dead now because they froze him. In fact, the freezing seems like sort of an admission of his deadness.

I reach this conclusion despite a spin effort that you really have to admire: "Yes, His Holiness has been in the deep freezer since January.... Is that a "bad sign"? No, not at all. He has spent many years meditating in sub-zero temperatures in the Himalayas, so there is nothing unusual in it. In fact, His Holiness prefers the cold.... What's that? What brand of freezer? Oh, I see. 'Sub-Zero,' yes, very good. Well, if there are no further questions...."

Also supporting my conclusion is another aide's statement that the freezing was arranged only after "some changes were noted in his skin (as it had turned greenish)." So there is that too.

As noted above, some cynics have suggested that these people are only claiming that Ashutosh is still sort of alive because they are concerned about keeping control of some very significant assets (said to total "1,000 crore," which turns out to be 10 billion rupees, or something like $170 million US). I'm not necessarily saying that. I'm just saying that "he's not dead, he's just resting" is an argument that, historically, has not been all that persuasive.

Call for Transcripts

Last month the New York Times did a fantastic video reenactment of some truly ridiculous deposition testimony. See "What Is a Photocopier? (Deposition, Dramatized)," Lowering the Bar (Apr. 28, 2014) (direct link here). They are looking for more of that kind of thing, which I think is great news, and they asked me for help, which I also think is great. The posts linked below are the ones I recommended as mentioning possible candidates for reenactment, although I unfortunately don't actually have all of the transcripts.

1. Follow the Chicken

I only have two pages of this depo, and there is almost certainly other good stuff in it, but these two pages alone would justify a reenactment and possibly also an off-Broadway run. Even if it ends up only being a monologue, it's an amazing monologue. I'm pretty confident the NYT will be reenacting "Follow the Chicken," and you will likely be reenacting it in your own mind for some time to come.

2. DA Sticks With Witness Who Says He Sees Horned Aliens

From the post:

Lowrey is the company's former public safety officer, and is expected to testify that he warned about certain dangers but was ignored.  At Lowrey's deposition, Greka's attorneys did ask about that testimony, but according to the report, "focused much of their questioning on his claims that alienlike creatures emerge from his closet and put pinholes into his chest and those of his family members."

Needless to say, I would very much like to have this transcript.

3. Transcript of Witchcraft Resolution Hearings Posted

This was about a 2008 hearing in the Connecticut state legislature in which the committee was considering a resolution to "exonerate" two women convicted of witchcraft in the 1600s. Granted, that was a long time ago, but did involve women being wrongly tortured and executed, so I thought maybe the committee chair could have taken it a little more seriously. I kept thinking of Fred Willard's clueless announcer from "Best in Show."

 4. Guys, No Dealing Drugs at the Office - I'm Trying to Run a Ponzi Scheme Here

In 2011, the Wall Street Journal quoted testimony given by Scott Rothstein after he had pleaded guilty and was interested in cooperating with anybody who asked. (WSJ reports here and here.) In my favorite excerpt, he talked about how he tried to keep drugs out of his law office—though not because he had any issue with drugs: "It troubled me, probably because they were actually dealing the pot out of the office while I was in the middle of running a several-hundred-million-dollar Ponzi scheme." Yeah, I mean, how stupid can you be?

 5. Defendant Gone Wild

Joe Francis of "Girls Gone Wild" infamy (and frequent denunciations here) has been forced to give a number of depositions and has acted like a grownup in approximately none of them. In the one referenced in this post, he just pretended not to know what any English words meant. In a previous depo he reportedly made "repeated attempts to disrupt the deposition with flatulence," but I'm not sure if the NYT has any interest in reenacting that.

 6. When Does a DNA-Test Result With 99.9% Certainty Not Prove Paternity?

This post was about a Missouri case that must have generated at least three good depo transcripts, namely those of a young mother and the two identical twins with whom she had slept (on two different occasions) while they were all in town for the rodeo. (The involvement of identical twins is the answer to the title question.)

7. "The Secret": Your Path to Happiness, Love, Litigation

I'd guess that everyone involved in this case was a lunatic, with the possible exception of the lawyers. The deposition transcripts must be completely ridiculous.

8. Running

This one is too short to reenact, but too good not to mention here.

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Again, I would greatly appreciate getting copies of any of the relevant transcripts. Also, I'm sure that many of you have transcripts or excerpts that are at least as ridiculous as these. If so please send them to me. I'll pass on the best ones, and as always will provide credit or anonymity, whichever you want.