Legal Commentary

Mother Sentenced to Prison for Party Where Youth Drank Herself to Death

Posted on April 19, 2008
A Pennsylvania mother, Diane Rose Adorante, 40, will spend as much as 23 month in jail for hosting a birthday party where Samantha Scheuring, 16, drank herself to death. On Jan. 15, 2007, Scheuring was found dead at the apartment with a blood-alcohol content more than five times the legal limit...

Yale?s ?Abortion Artist? Denies the Denial of Yale University Over the Authenticity of Art

Posted on April 19, 2008
The controversy at Yale continues over the claims of senior art major Aliza Shvarts that she artificially inseminated herself and then induced miscarriages as part of an art project. Yale issued a statement that the claims were false and merely part of her “creative fiction...

Woman Arrested on False Reporting Charges in Colorado Springs ? Tied to Polygamy Case in Texas

Posted on April 19, 2008
Rozita Swinton has been arrested in Colorado Springs in a reported connection to the call that alleged abuse at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. The arrest further supports the concern that the original raid might have been based on a false call...

CNN Personality Arrested in New York in Allegedly Bizarre Circumstances

Posted on April 19, 2008
It is not clear whether this will be more significant as a criminal or a defamation claim. CNN personality Richard Quest was arrested on April 18th. Various news organizations reported that he was found with a small bag of methamphetamine. Bad, but not particularly interesting...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Meet the Face of Terror: 74-Year-0ld Criminally Charged After Refusing to Empty Pockets at Airport

Posted on April 19, 2008
Elena Reichman does not appear to be a threat to the traveling pocket, but according to police she warrants a felony battery charge over a confrontation over a secondary search at the Palm Beach International Airport. The 74-year-old grandmother and Holocaust survivor spent the night in jail over an incident that appears to have [...

Yale Denies Performance Artist Story of Use of Miscarried

Posted on April 18, 2008
Yale Art major Aliza Shvarts has become a national sensation with her claim to use blood and pictures from self-induced miscarriages for art works. The only problem is that it appears to be untrue. Shvarts claimed that her senior art project was a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself while inducing [...

Good Doggie, Perhaps too Good: Video of Police Dog in Full Playful Pursuit

Posted on April 18, 2008
Despite the recent litigation over the abusive use of police dogs, there appear a few dogs that may be too playful. In this video a police dog is having a great time with multiple people running — too much fun to stop the fleeing suspect.

Video: Israeli Tank Allegedly Fires on or Near Press Vehicle

Posted on April 18, 2008
Media groups are protesting the attack killing a journalist captured in a remarkable video below — showing an Israeli tank firing and hitting a clearly marked press vehicle. A medical examination showed on Thursday indicated that metal darts from the shell was the cause...

Titanic Personal Injury Case: Titanic Found to Be Largest Product Defect Case in History

Posted on April 18, 2008
The sinking of the Titanic has long been the subject of romance novels and history books, but now may find its way into legal works. It has long been suspected that the ship sank due to shoddy material and construction that made it more vulnerable to sinking...

Dr. Al-Arian Remains in Limbo After Completion of Sentence

Posted on April 18, 2008
As in the past, I have tried to keep people informed about the status of Dr. Sami Al-Arian. There is not much to report beyond the fact that he remains in legal limbo. He is technically awaiting deportation under his plea agreement with the government since he has completed the sentence from the [...

Pay or Play: Vancouver Police Taser Transit Riders Who Fail to Pay Fare

Posted on April 18, 2008
Vancouver transit riders are being tasered. Documents show police have sued tasers on passengers 10 times in the past 18 months, including five occasions when passengers skipped fares. It appears that the police view a taser as a standard response to a failure to obey police orders...

?Black Widows? Convicted Murder of Homeless Men

Posted on April 17, 2008
The so-called “black widows” Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, were found guilty of five counts. Golay was found guilty of the first degree murder of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in 2005 and Paul Vados, 73, in 1999 as well as conspiracy to murder for financial gain counts in both killings...

Jesus Has Left the Building: Courthouse Loses Fight Over Portrait of Jesus

Posted on April 17, 2008
A federal judge In New Orleans has ruled that the city of Slidell must take down a portrait of Jesus on the wall at Slidell City Court. While the damages are nominal, the city will now pay legal fees and costs for an obviously unconstitutional act and attack on the principle of separation of [...

Federal Court Upholds Sexual Harassment Award for Female Guard Harassed by Inmates

Posted on April 17, 2008
The Ninth Circuit has held down an interesting ruling that upheld an award of $600,000 for Deanna Freitag, a former guard who alleged that she was sexual harassed by male inmates. The allegations stem from the conduct of inmates in the maximum-security prison at Pelican Bay...

Tunagate: Cindy McCain Accused of Stealing Recipes

Posted on April 17, 2008
The presidential campaign may come down to Ahi Tuna and what Cindy McCain knew and when she knew it about her warm spinach salad. John McCain’s wife has been accused of including another woman’s recipes in her collection of “McCain Family Recipes...

Doctors Accused of Filming Surgery Face Dismissal and Lawsuit

Posted on April 17, 2008
Doctors and nurses in Manila face dismissal and litigation after a bizarre filming of the removal of a can from a patient’s rectum. The three-minute film was then put on Youtube. It presents a similar allegation to a recent case in the United States...

Nothing Says You?re Non-Violent like a Good Caning: Video Shows Man in Court Attacking Police and Prosecutors After Conviction for Criminal Threat

Posted on April 16, 2008
Gregory Floyd has a curious way to establishing that he would never have threatened to shoot and kill his neighbor: he starting swinging his cane and swearing at everyone in a New Hampshire courthouse. Floyd recently was cleared of wrongdoing in killing a man who shoot a police officer...

Supreme Court Upholds Lethal Injection

Posted on April 16, 2008
The Supreme Court has handed down the much anticipated ruling over Kentucky’s use of lethal injection. In a fractured decision, the Court upheld the ruling for the state. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the decision, though his actual decision only garnered three votes...

So Much For a Spoon Full of Sugar: Nanny Accuses Rob Lowe of Sexual Misconduct

Posted on April 16, 2008
The case involving actor Rob Lowe now has a countersuit by one of the three former employees sued by Lowe and his wife. Former nanny Jessica Gibson charges Lowe with exposing himself and touching her inappropriately several times between September 2005 and January 2008...

Jaime Neutron: 13-Year-Old Kid Corrects NASA?s Calculation on Earth Destroying Asteroid Hit

Posted on April 16, 2008
Nico Marquardt is 13 years old but he was still apparently smarter than NASA in calculating the chances of a killer asteroid colliding with Earth. Germany’s own Jimmy Neutron not only corrected NASA’s math on the collision of the Apophis asteroid, but it turns out a lot more likely than we thought...

Lobbyist Warns of Immiment Outbreak of Democracy

Posted on April 16, 2008
Washington is considering a proposal to add greater transparency to government to allow the public to see material online that is largely the domain of lobbyists today. The idea is to give the public equal access to government as lobbyists, an idea that Paul Miller, past president of the American League of Lobbyists warns [...

Service by YouTube: Woman Uses Video to Detail Divorce Case Against Husband

Posted on April 16, 2008
Usually, divorce parties wait for service of papers to learn the details of the case for termination of their marriage and details of a settlement. In yet another example of the transformation YouTube has wrought, Tricia Walsh-Smith used the YouTube video below to detail her case against her husband, Philip Smith, president of [...

North Carolina Couple Charged With Bigamy

Posted on April 15, 2008
Bigamy cases remain relatively rare in the country with only a handful brought each year across the country. Yet, Kevin Michael Taylor, 31, and Sammantha Michelle Bailey, 21, have joined that ignoble roster of with a double bigamy charge. It appears that everything in Double T Trial, North Carolina is ...

Separation of Temple and State: Special Session of the Knesset Called Over Passover Food Controversy

Posted on April 15, 2008
Israel is in the midst of an interesting struggle over separation of temple and state. An Israeli court ruled that stores could sell bread and religiously forbidden foods during Passover. This has led to an uproar in the Knesset over its authority to dictate such religious-based practices...

Yemeni Court Grants Divorce of 28-Year-old Husband and 8-Year-Old Wife

Posted on April 15, 2008
This week a Yemeni court granted a divorce to an eight-year-old girl who was given an arranged marriage with 28-year-old Faez Ali Thameur. Nojud Mohammed Ali just wants to go to school, but the husband admits that he consummated the marriage. In an civilized court of law, he would have walked out with a [...

After Clinton Aide Blumenthal Pleads Guilty to DUI, Police Release Video of Booking

Posted on April 15, 2008
Sidney Blumenthal, a top aide to Hillary Clinton and a past aide to Bill Clinton, has pleaded guilty in New Hampshire to drunk driving. The video below shows a polite and sober Blumenthal at booking. Such tapes are now routinely made available despite private information that is sometimes revealed, as here...

The Eyes (and Lips) of Texas Are Upon You: Texas Lawmaker Indicted for Pulling Gun (and Forced Kissing) at Two Events

Posted on April 15, 2008
In Houston, prosecutors announced the indictment of Rep. Borris Miles, who is accused of bizarre conduct. Miles allegedly threatened people with a gun on two separate occasions and forced a woman to kiss him at a holiday party. Miles owns an insurance company and hopefully carries a generous lawsuit insurance policy...

Muslim Cleric Predicts the Conquest of Rome; Pope Leaves Rome

Posted on April 15, 2008
In the ongoing race to see who can be the most hateful and unhinged in the Middle East, Yunis al-Astal has put in his bid. Al-Astal is a Muslim cleric and Palestinian parliament member from Hamas and predicts the take over of Rome under an Islamic conquest...

Illinois Hospital Sued over Switching Babies

Posted on April 15, 2008
The Heartland Regional Medical Center in Marion, Illinois is facing a lawsuit over the switching of two babies and sending them home with the wrong parents. Notably, 17-year-old Kassie Hopkins said that she spotted the problem immediately, but Mary Jo Bathon (who had the same suspicions) went home with Hopkins baby...

Lawyers Reveal 26-Year-Old Secret: Innocent Man Convicted of Murder of Security Guard

Posted on April 14, 2008
In yet another controversy over attorney-client privilege and confidentiality, two attorneys in Chicago have revealed that their former client killed a security guard in 1982 and that an innocent man, Alton Logan, has been imprisoned for almost three decades for a crime that he did not commit...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.