I’m not making that up.

Today was the first day of the California Bar, and was being administered at three locations in Los Angeles. Generally regarded as one of the hardest bar exams in the country, the mind boggles about what they are going to do if the exam was significantly interupted?

Anyone Surprised?

The Justice Department’s Inspector General released a report yesterday stating that former employee Monica Goodling (go Regent!) and D. Kyle Sampson broke the law by asking politically based questions of potential Justice Department hires. According to may of those interviewed, Goodling’s interviews frequently in included perhaps my favorite phrase in the history of the Republic “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” I’ll also note that Ms. Goodling’s attorney’s went to Emory and Michigan, so I guess that settles the ranking questions we’ve been kicking around.

That Was Fast.

Dick “Quick Draw” Heller was back in Court yesterday, filing a lawsuit against the District Government for a revised handgun regulatory scheme that in his opinion, contravenes the Supreme Court’s ruling. Heller has also announced that he will continue to file lawsuits until he is permitted to own a M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank.

I Wonder if His Nickname in the Joint Will be “Klondike?”

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was indicted today on seven counts of making false  statements on his financial disclosure forms. Seems he neglected to mention $250,000 in gifts he received from an Alaskan oil company. Whoops! We at the Hypo wish the Senator all the best, and hope that this kind of corruption eventually makes its way over to the Judicial branch so we can get some of that cheddar.

The UN War Crimes Tribunal has said it’s ready for the extradition of Radovan Karadžic from Belgrade. Karadžic was, of course, a war crimes fugitive captured earlier this year by Yugoslavian authorities. A Belgrade court is currently considering extraditing him to the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

On the one hand, it makes sense to have an international court to adjudicate these issues. Crimes against humanity transcend borders and the entire international community has an interest in enforcing norms for the treatment of people.

On the other, Karadzic terrorized the people in Yugoslavia. The families of his victims are there. The wreckage from his - as well as Milosevic and crew’s - genocidal tendencies are there. Shouldn’t justice reside there? In the legal system that was created following their reign?

I tend to agree with the case for the latter. While these countries may struggle with maintaining control of these trials, these men (and, presumably, some women) should be held accountable by and for the families they terrorized. While The Hague may play an important role in the international community’s desire to enforce human rights standards, whenever possible justice is more properly meted out by the countries who suffer at the hands of these thugs.

So… how can you guarantee justice for the victims by trying these guys a continent away at The Hague?

And, more generally, are international legal tribunals a good thing?

Make your case.

Since I’ve been back the Freakonomics blog has posted several times on the blind tasting of wine and how most people can’t really tell the difference between a $10 bottle and a $150 one. The discussion is infused with some interesting studies on the topic and, Levitt’s ultimate conclusion that the more you know about wine the more you end up spending on it.

I was swishing this idea around in my head when I read this choice quote from the Case Western Law Dean criticizing the U.S. News law school rankings:

[I]t seems beyond debate that it is truly depressing that law deans, who have so many important educational issues to address, feel the pressure they undeniably feel to make important decisions about their schools in response to a popular magazine’s educationally unsophisticated decisions about ranking methodology.

Read the whole piece. It’s good, if not real original (at least for those of us critical of the rankings). The fact that his piece is, in part, a response to a U.S. News proposal to count the entry credentials of evening students in rankings is for another post. What seems to be lacking in these rankings is a more personal, less manipulable way to measure law school quality.

So why don’t we do what the prominent wine critics do - line up a bunch of glasses, do a blind tasting, and rate purely based on the taste of the wine? The critics supposedly do not know the producer of the wine or its vintage. Just it’s type (syrah, merlot, etc.).

As part of the U.S. News calculation I propose appointing a panel of experts - legal scholars, judges, attorneys, etc - and have them take several steps to measure the quality of education. This panel could listen to classes without knowing who is teaching or at what school, but it would know the area of law. Rate based on overall quality of instruction, discussion, etc. The panel might also read law review articles or student papers to gauge the quality of scholarship being done and promoted at the school.

Perhaps I still have some tannin residue in my brain, but it strikes me that adding a component like this (not to mention Dr. Bombay’s law school value calculation) could help to bring a more personal, less manipulable component to the rankings. Or maybe the U.S. News team just needs a nice Napa Cab when they’re tabulating the rankings.

Since this is a blog about law school and legal stuff, what I found most amazing about the whole thing is the misdirected empathy that Fleiss had for animals. You remember Tony Soprano and the ducks? Well I’ll be dammed if Fleiss isn’t obsessed with tropical birds. I don’t follow these things closely, but to best of my knowledge, Fleiss has never said she was sorry for what she did. Never apologized for facilitating the exploitation of the women who worked for her. Never said she was sorry if they got the Clap, or AIDS, or the holy hell beat out them by a disgruntled John.

But there she was, getting out the sack cloth and ashes for a red macaw named Dalton. Plastic Faced, Black Hearted Sociopath crying her eyes out over a bird. It was just such a bizarre spectacle.

It made me wonder what it would be like to spend your days working amongst the criminal element, either prosecuting or defending. Anyone out there got any thoughts?

I would argue however, that demonstrating success to the citizenry would require you to show some basic knowledge of how government worked. Like the Constitution maybe? Article I, Section 9 would be a good place to start, as it specifically enumerates the things that Congress is prohibited from doing. This would include

No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Fascinating. Perhaps the 4th Amendment, which states

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I have not taken Con. Law. But it seems to me that if you perform an act which is prohibited under the 4th Amendment, you’ve committed a crime. Like say, you were a telecom company who engaged in telephonic surveillance over citizens of the United States without a warrant because the Executive Branch told you to. And if you had been a naughty boy and violated a bunch of civil liberties, Article I, Section 9 would prohibit Congress from passing a law that retroactively indemnified you from prosecution. They would never include such a thing in the FISA reauthorization bill.

But what do I know? The good people in Congress must know better than I do. And before this devolves into a finger point contest about which party did what to whom, let me note that my disgust with all of them is utter and complete. I’ll leave the liberal outrage to other parts of the Blogosphere, and simply note that when the members of Congress are so dull that they go passing laws that directly contravene the Constitution, it blows my mind. Even in an election year. 
 

Then I took summer classes this summer. Here’s my advice - don’t ever take summer classes. At least, not at CUA.

During the year, the law school is in full swing. The cafeteria is open, you can get a hot meal, and the school does an acceptable job of keeping later hours so that evening students can get their needs met without having to take time off from work or leave early.

All of this flies out of the window in the summer. The cafeteria is closed. All you’ve got are vending machines, which are often unstocked, and don’t accept dollar bills. And, of course, there’s no change machine. None of the academic offices are open beyond 5 PM. And there have even been situations where our classrooms have been locked and classes have started late while a key was tracked down.

We used to get significant support and communication from the administration regarding things like grades, final exams, and the like (even if we didn’t like it). Summer has been hit or miss. For final exams, many of us use our laptops, but we’ve recently been informed to make sure we get our computers read for finals because there will be no computer support during the exam period. During the year, there are at least half a dozen IT guys running around.

The classes themselves are fine, but it’s hard getting used to the schedule.

And the price? The same as during the year.

Sherpa and I were talking the other day, and we both wondered where our money was going. For summer at least, I have no idea. No services, little communication, spotty support. I would have been better off spending the summer playing Grand Theft Auto IV.

Wrong.

Turns out, Catholic does not require any certification that you’re actually working. (Quick calls to Georgetown, George Washington, and American confirmed that they don’t follow this policy either.) The upshot of all this is that if you have a job, and have genuine obligations, you should know that you’ll be competing against a bunch of people who have neither.

Here’s the “Official Fight the Hypo Guide to Identifying Employment Status” among evening students:

No Job at All – these “part time/full time” students tend to be younger, and have the express intention of transferring either to the day program or somewhere else as soon as possible. They probably didn’t pull the LSAT scores they needed to get right into a day program, or decided that they wanted the time to intern during the day, or work part-time. You’ll be able to pick them out by their flip-flops and relaxed expressions.

People Who “Sort of” Have Jobs – these folks cover a wide variety of professions, ranging from federal employees to those who initially seem to have real jobs. You’ll soon discover that this is garbage however, when you discover that these jobs don’t have performance requirements, deadlines, and they start babbling on about how they were able to “close the door to the office and study” during the work day without fear of repercussions. Also look for self-satisfied grins and lots of patting themselves on the back for how “hard” they have it.

People Who Have Real Jobs – turns out that this is a surprising minority among evening students. These people have jobs, with deadlines and performance requirements. You can easily spot them based on their scowls, weight gain, and look of rank frustration.

On a serious note, how is this fair? I know the law schools do it for the cash, but why does the ABA allow this to continue? If they can prevent full-time students from having employment during their first year, can’t they mandate that evening students have a job?

 ’Ritche” by Bill Owens from his photo essay “Suburbia.” (1973)

While the Sherpa is knocking back cabernet in Napa, and I’m golfing my brains out, we thought we would let all of you get your creative juices flowing. Let us know what “Ritche” is thinking. We’ll reveal his monther’s thoughts and pass out prizes on Monday. Happy 4th!

Now my heart goes out to Corporal Findley and his family. I can’t imagine the pain they must be going through. I would love nothing more than to see Mr. White - assuming he was found guilty - get the book thrown at him. At the same time, I can’t imagine what his family must be going through, coming to grips with the fact that their son a) may have killed a cop, and b) was strangled to death while in police custody.

I brought this story up to my boss yesterday, and he noted that while he was on the job (he’s a former Maryland State Police Officer) they once went on a manhunt for a guy who was accused of shooting a West Virginia Trooper. When they found him (in a cave) they discovered that he had committed “suicide” by shooting himself. With a rifle. Four times. I looked up the Bureau of Justices Statistics on Death’s in Custody, and (not surprisingly) couldn’t find anything that suggested that such vigilantism on the part of the police is wide spread. Of course, absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.

Now anything could have happened in the Prince George’s County Detention Center. The place is over capacity, and has been plagued with all manner of absurd problems in the last couple of years. I would not surprised to find out that a guard with gang connections adverse to those held by Mr. White went in and killed him. I also would not be surprised if one of the guards did him in, or let a cop in to do the deed.

Revenge seems to be a natural human reaction. They get one of yours, you get one of one them. Which begs the question: do we ask too much of the police? In general, the theory behind police work is that you can have dispassionate individuals enforcing the law of the land. Problem is it never seems to work that way. Police make involved hundreds of split second decisions that often involve life and death. Should we really expect people to act at that level? To place there own fears and biases in a box when they strap on a badge?