By Carlyn Kolker
An old dog and his tricks
5/25/12
The jury in the trial of John Edwards, the Democratic
presidential aspirant accused of campaign finance abuse, has
gone home for the weekend without a verdict. Dear Reader, If
their day is done, yours should be too. But here's something to
think about as you relax by the beach, go for a walk in the
woods or have a picnic over the long weekend: Just what is
really going on inside -- and outside -- of the jury room of the
Edwards trial? For one thing, as the Washington Post reports,
each of the four alternate jurors has worn identical colors for
two days in a row (yellow on Thursday, red on Friday). And the
actions of one of these jurors has "not gone unnoticed by
courtroom observers," the paper writes. "One of the alternates,
an attractive young woman, has been spotted smiling at Edwards
and flipping her hair in what seems to be a flirtatious manner.
On Friday, she wore a revealing red top with a single strap and
an exposed red shoulder."
U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles cleared the courtroom
on Friday for a "juror issue" and said she may take up the same
issue when the jury reconvenes on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
If it's juicy, Summary Judgments will keep you posted.
Defendant, interrupted
5/25/12
The 7th Circuit disagrees with a convict who complains that
a federal district judge didn't let him finish what he had to
say at sentencing.
You know the feeling: You're trying to get your point across
and someone in a position of authority - boss, parent, police
officer - interrupts you mid-argument. Or in the case of Billy
Covington, who pleaded guilty to robbing a bank while wielding a
weapon, a federal district judge who sentenced him to ten years
in prison.
Covington appealed on grounds that U.S. District Judge James
Zagel of Chicago continually interrupted him during the
sentencing phase, thereby denying Covington his right to an
allocution. But the 7th Circuit on Friday disagreed, ruling that
Zagel was within his rights and did not commit "plain error,"
as Covington had asserted.
What interested Summary Judgments was 7th Circuit Judge
Diane Wood's heartfelt dissent agreeing with Covington. "When it
comes to allocution - the defendant's own chance to tell his
story - it is hard to see how incessant interruptions from the
court could ever be helpful," Wood writes. She adds, "this court
as well as other circuits, have repeatedly emphasized the value
of the allocution, and so it should have been clear to the
sentencing judge that he had an obligation to allow Covington to
finish his statement." Wood, in her dissent seemed to emphasize
a much closer reading of the federal rule of criminal
procedure's right to an allocution, one that, as Wood writes is
"critical to the integrity of the sentencing process."
Summary Judgments called Covington's lawyer at the
sentencing phase, Rosalie Lindsay Guimaraes, but didn't
immediately hear back.
Attitude adjustment
5/25/12
Argentina, where this writer of Summary Judgments once spent
a most lovely year, has passed one of the world's most liberal
laws on changing gender, The New York Times reports. The law has
gotten the thumbs-up from the Argentine legislature and is
expected to be signed by President Cristina Fernandez de
Kirchner by the end of the month. After that people will be able
to change their gender on their national identity documents
without receiving a psychiatric diagnosis and approval by courts
-- a restriction required here in the U.S. -- according to the
Times. The law will also require medical providers to give free
hormone therapy and gender-reassignment surgery. But even with
U.S. ethics professors and Argentine transgender advocates
hailing the legislation's progressiveness, some Argentine
activists are doubtful it will change the attitudes at the core
of their culture. "There is still a great deal of
discrimination," a psychologist at an Argentine center for gays,
lesbians and transgender people told the Times. "Very few people
are out of the closet."
The price of scandal
5/25/12
The cost of the Catholic priest sex-abuse scandal is
mounting, and it's global. The Dublin-based Irish Catholic
archdiocese has so far paid 10.3 million euros (about $19
million) in settlements and 4.9 million euros (about $6.1
million) in legal costs to address sex-abuse allegations against
priests associated with the archdiocese, according to The Irish Times, citing a recent report from the church. There have been
nearly 200 civil actions involving the church and its priests,
with the most stemming from allegations dating to the 1980s,
according to the BBC. The 1960s, 1970s and 1980s "seem to have
been remarkable just in terms of no action being taken against
people being accused of abuse," the BBC quotes a reporter from
The Irish Catholic newspaper.
The $25 million question
5/25/12
Well, it seems like hardly a day goes by without some news
about the Mississippi Attorney General's relationship with
outside law firms. As we told you on Thursday, the Mississippi
Republican governor this week signed a bill that restricts the
way the attorney general can hire outside counsel and caps
outside counsel's potential fees. Furor over fees to outside law
firms for state-directed work dates to the 1990s, when
now-imprisoned lawyer Dickie Scruggs reportedly reaped more than
a billion dollars in a settlement he brokered for the state in
the tobacco industry litigation. On Thursday, the Mississippi
Supreme Court ruled in two cases involving $25 million paid out
to two unnamed plaintiffs' firms, the Associated Press reports.
In the decision, the court ruled that the $25 million was
public, meaning the fees should have been paid by a 'contingent
fund' controlled by the AG, rather than out of the settlement
directly. The court did not rule on the reasonableness of the
actual awards.
Depends on how you define access
5/25/12
Some of my Reuters colleagues have done an amazing job (in
Summary Judgments' admittedly biased opinion) chronicling the
effects of AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. That's the 2011 Supreme
Court decision that greatly narrowed grounds for class actions
and expanded companies' ability to resolve disputes through
arbitration. To get a sense of the long-term consequences of the
Concepcion decision, my colleague Erin Geiger Smith last month
spoke with Andrew Pincus of Mayer Brown, who argued the
Concepcion case. Smith's conclusion: It may mean many fewer
class actions down the road.
Now Pincus has penned an opinion piece in the Dealbook
section of The New York Times, saying that the decision is
"transforming the way disputes are resolved throughout this
country." Thanks to Concepcion, companies are becoming more
"confident" that their arbitration clauses will withstand
challenges from plaintiffs' lawyers, he writes. Fair enough. But
what really struck Summary Judgments is Pincus's dim view of the
court system in this country. The traditional litigation system
is based on an "imaginary court system that is efficient and
accessible," Pincus writes. But the reality is that "ordinary
people cannot access the courts, with their byzantine rules and
time-consuming delays, and most legal injuries are too
individualized and too small to attract a lawyer's assistance."
Maybe Pincus is right -- it's time to lose the naive faith
in the U.S. litigation system that animates so much of our legal
rhetoric. But we're not sure he's proven why arbitration has
created what he calls an "increase in access to justice."
Summary Judgments for May 24
Summary Judgments for May 23
Summary Judgments for May 22
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