Legal News

Morning Roundup: Portrait of the New AG as a Young Man

By Ashby Jones

With little on the legal front dominating the headlines this morning, lets get you caught up on the news in bullet-point fashion.

Stuyvesant Ricky: The NYT has a revealing profile today of Eric Holder, the man poised to be come President-elect Barack Obama’s Attorney General. The article mostly focuses on Holder’s early years, as a child and student growing up in Queens, New York. A few things we didn’t know: The Stuyvesant High School grad (who later graduated from Columbia College and Columbia Law School) is 6 feet 3 inches tall; used to go by the name ‘Ricky;’ and as co-captain of the Stuyvesant Peglegs’ basketball team, led the team to a 2-12 record. All our high-school readers (are there any?) take note: Holder says “I didn’t have any idea what I would be when I grew up,” adding that Attorney General “was not on the radar.”

“Messing with Malpractice Reform” is the title of a missive this morning from the WSJ editorial board. The eds are fretting over the possibility that the Illinois Supreme Court could strike down the state’s Medical Malpractice Reform Act, which caps medical malpractice awards for pain and suffering at $500,000 against doctors and $1 million against hospitals. A trial court invalidated the caps last year, and arguments were just held in front of the state’s high court. The argument: that the damages cap violates separation of powers principles because it strips judges of the ability to police excessive verdicts.

More on Pardons: What sorts of convictions are worthy of presidential pardons? A page-one WSJ article from our own Amir Efrati shows that it’s not all tax-fraud and treason. President Bush recently pardoned a Missouri man convicted of killing bald eagles. Thing is, the man didn’t intend to kill the eagles. He intended to poison some nettlesome wild coyotes with pesticide-laced hamburger meat. But eagles dined on the coyote carrion and themselves were poisoned. The man didn’t get jail time, but did have to pay $10,000 and give up his guns. “I guess I was humbled is the best way to say it — I never thought it would happen,” Collier, 50, later said in a phone interview with the AP. “It was emotional. I almost came to tears, really.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 01, 2008 (boomark / email).