Wednesday March 30
Johnnie, We Hardly Knew 'Ye
Johnnie Cochran, O.J. Simpson's lead trial lawyer in the infamous L.A./Brentwood murder trial, died quietly last night of an inoperable brain tumor. Yes, he was gaudy, liked fancy suits, bling and publicity, and talked a lot (actually, an awful lot), but his closing statement in 1995 for O.J. was one of the best performances -- and by far the best televised closing argument -- by a trial lawyer ever. "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." Wow! Listen for yourself.
Now O.J. is all alone in his quest to find the "real killers." It's so sad (NOT)! What's refreshing, however, is that -- despite his star-studded clientelle and amazingly high income -- Cochran always took on free legal cases for the disdvantaged, saying that his most rewarding efforts were in representing what he called the "No-J's." That's class and integrity, even if he did get a murderer off with flim-flam rhetoric and snake oil.
Posted by glenn at Tuesday March 29
Technology at the Supreme Court
Today was a very big day for technology at the U.S. Supreme Court, with two hugely significant cases being argued. The first, Grockster v. MGM Studios, arises from the movie and recording industries' efforts to impose contributory copyright infringement liability on post-Napster providers of P2P file sharing software. Supreme Court Takes Hard Look at P2P [CNET News.com]. The second, BrandX v. FCC, arises from the FCC's efforts to clear the way for cable modem broadband service without requiring cable companies to share their facilities with ISPs. Supreme Court Asks Why Cable Broadband Lacks Regulation [ITWorld.com].
It's always hard to predict where the Court will come down from its oral argument questions. But these remarks from Justices Breyer, Scalia and Souter in Grockster are quite revealing.
Justice Antonin Scalia wondered whether innovators would be punished immediately after creating a new product if the entertainment industry had a legal veto. "If I started a business now, how do I know how to proceed?" he asked. "If I'm a new inventor, I'm going to get sued right away."
"There's never the intent to break the law when the guy is in the garage inventing the iPod," added Justice David Souter.
There's a sense to which both the cable and entertainment industries are overreaching. I've got friends and colleagues on both sides of each of these issues, but biting off more than one can legitimately chew is a very bad strategy, since courts (especialy the Supreme Court) are pretty good at sorting out litgants who overstate or overplay their hands.
Sunday March 27
This is the Life
I'm back from vacation, where it snowed all but one day at Telluride. Check out my photos. Sure beats working any day, especially on powder days, like we had all week.
Wednesday March 23
Over the Edge
I am skiing in Telluride, Colorado this week, so little time for posting. It should be noted, however, that once I got out of Washington, D.C., Congress in fact passed a statute on the Terry Schiavo case. So, obviously my mere presence was what alone was blocking this revolting exercise of pure partisan political power!
Friday March 18
Mercy
Thank God, it's over. The judge presiding over the Terry Schiavo case ruled in her husband's favor early Friday afternoon and rejected a request from U.S. House of Representatives attorneys to delay the removal, which he had previously ordered to take place at 1 p.m. EST. Brain-Damaged Woman's Feeding Tube Removed [ABCNews.com]. Michael Schiavo was at his wife's side when the tube was disconnected, making good on his pledge to her years ago that neither would let the other live on as a vegetable.
Love conquers politics. Mercy triumphs. And Terry gets to pass on peacefully to whatever lies beyond life. A happy ending to a tragically sad story about the right to die and political hypocrisy.
Thursday March 17
Death With Dignity
The U.S. Congress this evening made a frantic, last-ditch effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive, passing measures that call for the federal courts to prevent the removal of feeding tubes from the brain-damaged woman in Florida. President George W. Bush applauded the move, saying the courts should rule "in favor of life.''
Well, let's look at the real facts. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a rabid anti-abortion advocate, introduced a bill (S.539) dubbed the "Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act of 2005." Supposedly under the 14th amendment to the Constitution, which provides that`No State . . . shall deprive any person of life . . . without due process of law," the bill would deem any person (husband, wife, doctor, etc.) who is "authorized or directed by court order to withdraw or withhold food, fluids, or medical treatment" to be holding an incapacitated person in "custody" for purposes of federal court habeas corpus proceedings. In layman's terms, this means that the constitutional protection against government custodial confinement -- which is used to challenge state criminal convictions as unconstitutional -- would now be extended to anyone who obtains a state court order allowing a loved one to die. Private citizens, not the state, are now being commanded to give up their personal autonomy by the fiction that their spouses (legal guardian in all other situations) become the government because a court ratifies one's right to die.
Santorum's bill reasons that:
Bullshit. In Terry Schiavo's case, where that poor woman has been in a persistent coma, without consciousness, for 15 years, the bill would take away from those who know her best the power to let her die and allow any third-party -- not limited to her parents, but anyone -- to use the courts to contest her right to die. This is not about due process, it's about manufacturing a federal "right" out of thin air, just like Santorum piously claims the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade on abortion. The hypocrisy is simply astonishing. As Schiavo's husband said on Nightline, will the government now force cancer patients to take chemo against their wishes? The policy and legal logic is the same, but the result is the Big Brother government that Republicans traditionally despise. Now they're all for it, wanting to overturn 19 Florida court decisions, all of which confirmed that Terry Schiavo is brain dead, can never have any senses again, and should be allowed to be removed from artificial life support.
Bill Clinton famously declared that "the era of big government is over" in 1995. Not true. Now that the Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House, after lambasting Clinton, they're moving government ever more deeply into state, local and intensely personal affairs. Santorum, Dubya and the congressional Repubicans are the George Orwells of 2005, only 21 years after "1984."
Update: When the House could not pass a bill acceptable to the Senate last night, it came up with a new strategy. To subpoena Terry Schiavo's husband to testify before Congress in Washington, D.C. so that he would have to leave Florida when the order allowing disconnection of life support goes into effect this afternoon. Shameful.
Tuesday March 15
You Can't Hide
As predicted here, this afternoon a federal jury in New York, on its eighth day of deliberations, convicted Bernie Ebbers on the criminal charges that he helped mastermind an $11 billion accounting fraud at WorldCom, now known as MCI. Ex-WorldCom CEO Ebbers Found Guilty on All Counts [CNNMoney.com]. The conviction completes a staggering fall for Ebbers, who took a small long-distance company in Mississippi and merged with or acquired ever-larger companies, earning him accolades and the nickname Telecom Cowboy. "He was WorldCom, and WorldCom was Ebbers," the prosecutor told jurors. "He built the company. He ran it. Of course he directed this fraud."
Six senior WorldCom executives were indicted for fraud and the company was forced to file for bankruptcy protection in 2002. But Bernie was the only one of those executives to plead not guilty. He gambled again, and this time lost big. Way big. Up to 85 years in prison. And it could not have happened to a more contemptible human being.
A charismatic businessman who went from Wall Street superstar to untouchable almost overnight, Ebbers turned a folksy demeanor and by-the-bootstraps biography into central exhibits in his unsuccessful defense against the charge that he inflated WorldCom's books when his personal fortune ($400 million in WorldCom stock used as collateral for extravagant loans) was tanking during the dot.com and telecom bust of 2002. It is refreshing to realize that juries usually see through smokscreen defenses and get things right. Have a nice stay in Leavenworth, Bernie!!
Thursday March 10
Pajamas In Court
I am away due to a death in the family, but even so had time to watch the riveting drama of this morning's fiaso in California when Michael Jackson failed to show up for court on the day his teenage accuser was due to testify to the sexual abuse perpetrated by the rock star. The presiding California state court judge revoked bail and issued a bench warrant for Jackson's arrest, but stayed it for 60 minutes (until 9:35 PST), during which MSNBC was live with an "arrest countdown clock." Jackson eventually arrived, 10 minutes after the deadline, wearing pajamas, slippers, a T-shirt and looking like he'd been drugged. As Dan Abrams latrer described:
The excuse was (once again) a medical one, this time that Jacko had back pain and went to the emergency room. As if someone who makes tens of millions of dollars a year doesn't have a personal physician to prescribe medication for back pain!! But unlike last time, when the judge told the jury Jackson was "really sick" with the flu, this time he just informed them that trial was delayed due to Jackson's medical condition and urged the jury not to infer Jackson's guilt from his behavior. A very clever -- and completely legally correct -- instruction, which the jury will and should promptly ignore. Because getting (or pretending to be) sick on the day a criminal defendant is to confront the main witness against him is too incriminating -- like fleeing a crime scene is evidence of consciousness of guilt -- to be ignored. Jacko is his own worst enemy. His own frail psyche is now the chief evidence that he is actually the pedophile Peter Pana wannabe the prosecution claims he has been for years.
Now the only really sad part is that, at the end of the day, the judge did not, as he had threatened and was fully empowered to do, put Jackson in the slammer for the duration of the trial. That may be a smart judicial move, in order to demonstrate no bias against the defendant, but it is not very satisfying. Put this wierdo in a cell for months and when he does take the stand, he'll crack like a nut in public!!
Monday March 7
Western Samurai
Last week's observations here that Sony has lost its way must have been heard in Tokyo, because the Japanese consumer electronics giant has picked an American as its new CEO. But I still think seppuku is probably the better answer.
Friday March 4
The Law Isn't the Answer
Everyone remembers being in high school and rebelling against authority, including the facists who run such institutions with their hall passes and dance chaperones. Apparently, today things are even more restrictive, including breathalyzer tests administered routinely during the school day. Sobriety Tests Are Becoming Part of the School Day [NYTimes.com].
What I find most interesting, however, is not that this stuff is occurring -- that's just an update of the battles waged between teenagers and teachers since James Dean in the 1950s -- but that communities are themselves rebelling against the exercise of such intrusive school authority. The courts routinely uphold almost all steps schools invoke against students, regardless of the privacy implications, on the ground that minors do not enjoy the same First Amendment rights as adults and that schools act in loco parentis (in the place of the parents). But as the Times reports, "such policies easily survive legal challenges, but often crumple under community opposition."
That's a good example of why the law is not always (indeed, rarely) the answer to social problems. It's also an illustration that even parents, of which I am now one, can sometimes live up to the ideal of "Do as I Do," not just "Do as I Say."
Star Morals
I'm sorry, this is even more evidence of Charlie Sheen's craziness and Hollywood's warped morality. Hollywood Star Sheen to Divorce [ITV.com]. First, you don't divorce a former-model wife who looks like Denise Richards. Second, you certainly don't walk away when your wife is six-months pregnant. If you make the babies, men, you have a responsibility to them and their mother, especially when the mother is a babe.
Real People Aren't Welcome
So the President is getting his act together on Social Security (in a manner of speaking) and taking it on the road in a 60-day, 60-stop barnstorming tour. His advisors say they want to get Dubya in front of real people, outside the Beltway, to talk up private savings accounts. Apparently, however, real people do not include folks who don't meet the White House profile. At Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, there were no general public tickets distributed for the Bush visit.
This, IMHO, is the ultimate hypocrisy. We all know that campaign events are exquisitely stage-managed to produce the sound bites and photo ops the political operatives want to be the message of the day. And it was somewhat disconcerting when the Bush-Cheney Campaign prevented non-supporters -- those who had not contributed or volunteered -- from attending campaign rallies. (The Republican National Committee even required event-attendees to sign endorsement forms that pledged their support for the re-election of President Bush.) But now, we are talking about the President of the United States, who is supposed to represent all Americans. It is just wrong to limit the audience to sychophants, but apparently only hard-core Republican Domers get to see Dubya at old Notre Dame.
Thursday March 3
No More Gonzo, No More News
Frank Rich has a wonderful article in the New York Times lamenting the death of Hunter S. Thompson. Gonzo Gone, Rather Going, Watergate Still Here. It captures perfectly why I liked Hunter Thompson (but not Dan Rather) so much as a journalist that I named this blog after him.
Thompson was out to break the mainstream media's rules. His unruly mix of fact, opinion and masturbatory self-regard may have made him a blogger before there was an Internet, but he was a blogger who had the zeal to leave home and report firsthand and who could write great sentences that made you want to savor what he found out rather than just scroll quickly through screen after screen of minutiae and rant.
Even better is Rich's lead, namely that "memories of that best work ... only accentuate the vacuum in that cultural category we stubbornly insist on calling News. What's missing from News [today] is the news." Hunter would be proud.
Just a Dumb 'Ol Country Boy
Bernie Ebbers' defense to criminal charges of accounting fraud that brought down WorldCom -- the multi-billion dollar telecom conglomerate he built with a string of hundreds of complex financial mergers -- is that he didn't know anything about acounting. Prosecutor: Pressure "Corrupted" Ebbers [USAToday.com]. "I know what I don't know," Bernie testified, claiming he relied entirely on his CFO and chief accuser, Scott Sullivan, to manage financial matters.
That's like the late Senator Sam Ervin, who chaired the Watergate hearings, famously saying in his folksy way that he was just a "simple ol' country lawyer." You don't get to become CEO of a Fortune 50 company in America without understanding -- and playing a key role -- in corporate finance. Chief Executive Officers live and die (literally) by "hitting the numbers" Wall Street expects. I suspect the jury will see through Ebbers' charade and send him to the slammer for a long time. At least, I hope they will. And it's heartening that 74% of respondents to a CNBC poll agree with me.
Wednesday March 2
People Power
In the mid-1980s in the Phillippines, Corazon Aquino's "people power" revolution swept dictator Ferdinand Marcos out of power and into exile, despite a long history of U.S. support for Marcos. Now the same thing is happening in Lebanon, as hundreds of thousands of protestors in "martyr's square" yesterday forced the resignation of the Syrian-controlled president. Managing A Mideast Revolution [washingtonpost.com]. It's already been dubbed the "Cedar Revolution," for Lebanon's famous forests.
This is a great time to be a democrat (small "d"). Here's hoping that the Bush Administration lives up to the rhetoric from Dubya's second inaugural address and doesn't leave these democractic middle eastern revolutionaries twisting slowly in the wind like Bush senior did to the Kurds in March 1991, after encouraging them to revolt against Saddam Hussein.
Tuesday March 1
Lost in Translation
Twenty years ago Sony was the king of consumer electronics. No more. Thus, it was rather surprising to find this headline in a UK online publication. Say Goodbye to Your iPod [ThisisLondon.com].
Seems that Sony will soon introduce a cellphone that can hold (wow!!) 12 whole CDs of music. Ah, folks, that's hardly 1GB, which the tiny iPod Shuffle does for $99. Maybe Japanese teenagers want their phones to hold a few songs, but any serious music fan knows that carrying one's whole music library in a small, white container is WAY better than some second-rate cellphone gadget. The company that invented the Walkman has lost its way. For the Londoners to say Sony has developed "the phone that could mean the end of the iPod" is just plain crazy.