Monkeys Eat Bananas: Black Virginia History Teacher Sues 10th Grader for Allegedly Racist Banana Insults
The history and continuation of racism in Newport News may be what has brought this teacher to the courts for relief when the school system cannot be relied upon to issue a sufficiently serious punishment against a teenager allegedly committing racist harassment of a teacher on a daily basis. It is a mockery of justice for the administration to issue a two-day suspension instead of expulsion when a white teenage student is caught on video regularly mocking his African American teacher with a banana in his doorway. This is an act which seems to imply the African-American teacher is some sort of monkey - a deeply outrageous and frightening insult and a threat especially in a state with a horrid history of KKK activity and lynchings.
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Congratulations Fellow UC Hastings Alumna Vice President Elect Kamala Harris
It is here that I hope that Ms. Harris uses her excellent legal education acquired at UC Hastings, the memorable influence of noble and ethical professors such as Ms. Carrillo, and her experience as a criminal prosecutor to bring the Trump Administration and its cronies to justice!
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Defund the Police: An Audit and Analysis of Police Brutality, Corruption, Inefficiency, and Waste
As Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.-D) stated at a Defund Police Movement protest on June 7, 2020: “Not only do we need to disinvest from police, but we need to completely dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. The Minneapolis Police Department is rotten to the root. And so when we dismantle it, we get rid of that cancer, and we allow for something beautiful to rise, and that reimagining allows us to figure out what public safety looks like for us.”
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The Fiduciary Rule, “Regulation Best Interests”, and Suitability Standards: Trump's Rollback of Obama Investor Protections
It should come as no surprise that since he entered office Pres. Trump has undone the investor protection regulations that President Obama instituted in 2015. Five years ago under orders from Pres. Obama, the Department of Labor proposed regulations that would have implemented the “Fiduciary Rule”. This rule would have expanded the fiduciary obligations that already apply to investment advisors by also making them apply to brokers and insurers who sell investment instruments (e.g., stocks, bonds, annuities, life insurance, etc.) or provide related advice. Such fiduciary requirements mandate that investment professionals provide their clients with duties of loyalty and care, among other protections, thereby putting the client investors’ interests and needs above their own financial and other interests.
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Write Your Representative to Speak Out for Police Reform and BLM Protestors
We all need to use our political powers to support police reform and stand up for the Black Lives Matter movement. In addition to voting in every election and giving your business to companies that reflect your values, you should also regularly voice your concerns directly to your political representatives. You can find the name of your federal, state, and local representatives via the Common Cause online database tool.
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DeVos Title IX Rules Strengthen Due Process Rights in Schools
Imagine a society where you can be accused of committing a wrong; where you are never permitted the right to counsel or the opportunity to confront your accuser; where you are never permitted the opportunity to fully investigate the evidence against you; where in a matter of days your entire case is processed in a kangaroo court of biased officials at the whim of popular politics rather than faithful to the facts; and when you are invariably found guilty, you are swiftly deprived of life, liberty, and/or property. It is exactly this fate that thousands of students have faced in our nation’s schools when accused of a sex offense, be it an unwelcome sexual comment to a classmate, discrimination, harassment, stalking, assault, or rape.
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Treason Pure and Simple: Trump and the Ukraine Call
By freezing US military aid to Ukraine and also using such aid as leverage in the July 25 phone call with Ukraine to benefit his own 2020 Presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has committed treason against the United States by giving military aid to our greatest enemy - Russia - by facilitating its colonial and military efforts against Ukraine and its fearsome efforts to revolve into a superpower-level villain. We’re talking about treason here! This is not just a federal election campaign violation issue, Ms. Pelosi. There is no more serious crime nor more serious reason for impeachment. It’s treason, like what Benedict Arnold did or what Judas Iscariot did.
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Police Brutality's Cure Lies in National Policing Standards
Yes: there are laws against police brutality and abuse of power. There are local commissions run by independent citizens, political appointees, and/or police supervisors responsible to investigate all such complaints. Local prosecutors are required to bring criminal charges against police whenever appropriate. Local personal injury lawyers do help a small percentage of victims to bring lawsuits against police and their departments for such violations. But we know that all this is still not nearly enough to solve the problem.
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A Huge Game Changer! NY Joins CA and Eliminates "Severe or Pervasive" Standard in Workplace Sexual Harassment Cases, Marking Next Level of #MeToo Movement
On June 19, 2019, New York State’s legislators passed a law that also gets rid of the draconian “severe or pervasive” standard and utilizes the more sensible “single incident” approach as described above; and NY lawmakers also made secret settlements illegal, just like California. This is truly wonderful news! No more inappropriate touching, sexist commentary, or pornographic videos at work! Certainly such a standard is long overdue, and employers and workplace creeps had better heed the call of a new day.
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Know Your Rights to Prevent Police Brutality and Civil Rights Violations
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time.”
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The Storm of Domestic Violence: Divorce, Child Custody, Support, and Community Property
While the #MeToo movement has brought substantial attention in the USA to issues on sexual assault and domestic violence, such abuse continues to be a huge problem for women and men alike — men form nearly half of all domestic violence victims. Domestic violence of course can be terrorizing, life-altering, and even deadly, often involving repeated episodes of financial manipulation, verbal abuse, sexual assault and/or chronic sexual deprivation, and general emotional manipulation and subjugation, along with physical abuse ranging from pushing and biting to choking, punching, kicking, stabbing, and worse.
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"Heartbeat" Laws Take the Abortion Fight to the Next Level
Governor Kemp’s decision to effectively ban all abortions in Georgia is a regressive threat to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of unknowing expectant mothers and a serious blow to the public welfare. Worse still, Georgia is not alone. Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Iowa, and North Dakota have all enacted similar “heartbeat” laws. The ACLU and others are fighting such laws in court, but who knows what we can expect from this and other abortion related litigation now that the federal courts and the Supreme Court have more Republican appointees than Democratic ones. This is all the more reason to take seriously the 2020 election and to consider the abortion stance of each of the candidates.
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20 Logical Fallacies, or How Not to Debate!
Imagine a situation, for example, where a woman comes up to you as you’re standing on the street talking on your smartphone. She steals your phone out of your hand and walks away with it. You yell, “thief!” She then turns around and scolds you for defaming her good name, yelling at all onlookers for help to defend herself from you! And there you find yourself arguing with her about her stealing your phone while she blatantly denies it and asserts that you must apologize for slandering her with the word “thief”. Next thing you know, even her lawyer shows up to defend her! This is a classic “what the hell” moment, right?
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The 2019 College Admissions Scandal, Affirmative Action, and the Politics of Education
The US education system is under attack from many sides. Public schools are underfunded, leaving students and teachers to quixotically try to make up the difference in school supplies and other pedagogic resources through bake sales and online charity funding sites. Charter schools, though they provide a substantially better education for their select students, essentially form an elite, quasi-privatized subsystem that diverts scant public funds from public schools. Tracking, which is the process of segregating students into cohorts with which they stay throughout their public school careers based on their intellectual, academic, and/or test-taking abilities (think “honors track”, “gifted and talented classes”, “special education classes”, “remedial education”, and other subsections of our public school system), further deprives the great majority of students of the high quality education that is gifted upon elite students.
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On the Rights of the Natural Person: The Unhealthy State of the Human Animal, the Environment, and Regulation.
Nature is more than an economic resource. It is a temple of spiritual nourishment. Ideally, if you are far enough from the city and deep in a natural landscape, you will find solace from city noises and lights, from cars, trucks, and hopefully even planes. You will be able to hear the wind, the quiet shuffle of the leaves, or a squirrel’s claws against the wooden branches of a tree. Better still, you will be able to hear nothing at all: “the sound of silence.” And at night, you’ll see the moon like you’ve never seen it before, and you’ll see the stars: so many stars! You’ll be able to breathe clean air, and it will feel sweet and healing to your lungs - like you are feeding yourself with each breath. The water will be so cool and clear, and with a bit of filtration, it will taste so alive and delicious, rather than the stuff we have pouring from our taps and even purchased in fancy bottles. In the woods, up in the mountains, by the beach, and on the rivers, there are gorgeous opportunities to experience so many profoundly simple and necessary activities.
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Manslaughter-by-Phone: The Tragedy of Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy
This week, Michelle Carter was imprisoned in Massachusetts for a jarring version of the crime of involuntary manslaughter. This case has an astounding twist: she was found guilty of manslaughter for sending text messages and having phone conversations to urge her 18 year-old long-distance boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to kill himself, something he’d allegedly been wanting and planning to do for a long time and finally did. Carter was 17 at the time of Mr. Roy’s suicide. Even when Mr. Roy was having second thoughts about killing himself, Ms. Carter urged him to carry forward and finish the job. He did. The Massachusetts high court decided that Ms. Carter, by her text messages and phone conversations, overwhelmed Mr. Roy’s fragile willpower and thus directly caused his death, nevermind the fact that she was nowhere near the location of his suicide at the time they were texting and talking with each other.
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Disarm and Destroy: School Policies Prohibiting Attorney Representation in Administrative Proceedings - and How to Fight Back!
An attorney can do much for a student or other individual facing a school in an administrative grievance, investigation, hearing, or appeal, be it reviewing the facts and properly advising the individual, drafting correspondence or other documents in the dispute, negotiating with the school, representing the individual at hearings, filing complaints with governmental bodies, or preparing the foundations for litigation against the school in the court system. Schools know this, and that’s why they scurrilously try to prohibit attorney representation for individuals - be they students, teachers, or staff - in such disputes. It’s far easier for schools to remain unopposed, to intimidate you, and to take your money and time and leave you holding your head on the curb after it’s all over.
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New York's "Blindfold Law" is the Devil's Bargain and Should be Repealed Now
In the meantime, it remains up to aggressive criminal defense attorneys such as myself to continue to push for the Constitutional rights of our clients against stonewalling efforts of prosecutors who diabolically seek to delay the revealing of exculpatory and other crucial evidence, and more so, to offer our clients who are facing the deprivation of their freedoms and very lives not some limp guiding hand through the devil’s bargain of plea deal negotiations but rather an earnest and intense defense focused on investigating the allegations and evidence and utilizing the facts and the law to ensure that justice, not mere rote work, is accomplished.
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Apples and Peppers: Allowing End Users as well as Developers to Sue Apple for App Prices Violates Valid Precedent
There's no evidence of any explicit or even any implied conspiracy between app developers and Apple to price fix. It stretches reason to think that every app developer has somehow entered into an implied conspiracy with Apple to raise the price of the app by Apple’s 30% commission! App prices are based on competitive principles. Consider the plethora of $1.99 apps. Without Apples’s 30% commission, those would be priced at $1.39, you think? Nope.
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The Corruption Report: US Political Corruption at the Local, State & Federal Levels
It is our civic duty to know what our government is doing. For many unfortunate people in our nation, such reading material is a too familiar synopsis of what hell they have personally experienced at the hands of biased, bullying, and corrupt government officials at all levels of government. Knowledge is power. With action at the voting booth, we can begin to make a difference. Speak out. Resist. We all deserve a true democracy – nothing less.
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