Carl Muecke (pronounced Mick-ee) died this week in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was 89 years old and a retired federal district court judge. He had been born to German immigrants in New York and had worked in the Roosevelt WPA before he joined the marine corps. As a result of his experiences in the war and his background, he became a strong civil libertarian. After his discharge he moved to Phoenix to work as a newspaper reporter. When the paper folded…
The media reports Fifty Nine year old Carlo Ventre kidnapped his daughter in California from his divorced wife and took her back to his home in Italy. The mother went to Italy and sued to have her daughter returned. She complained that Ventre had threatened to kill her. After a hearing the Italian court ordered the daughter returned to the mother. When the mother went to Ventre’s apartment in Rome to get her daughter Ventre bludgeoned the 29 year old…
The National Law Journal reports that thirty two of the ninety two federal districts use an electronic case filing program that hides the existence of existing files. If the search involves a sealed file, instead of disclosing it’s existence the electronic response is "case does not exist" or "number is not valid." The NLJ reports that the Judicial Conference of the United States, which makes policy for federal courts, has "strongly urged" federal courts to eliminate these false and fraudulent…
Hypocrisy is one of the chief human faults Jesus condemned and which American’s universally hate. Which brings us to Robert Bork who was once nominated for the United States Supreme court as a darling of the conservatives. He stood for all that was conservative. He advocated tort reform and what he saw as the horror of frivolous lawsuits flooding the civil justice system. He had written that "juries dispense lottery like windfalls" and compared the civil justice system to "Barbary…
This is an e-mail from Seattle trial lawyer Jan Peterson which I would like to share with you because it is insightful and gives another perspective: Paul, I was at that meeting you refer too and was somewhat stunned to be included in the group of old founders by the younger bucks in our group as I have always thought of myself as a youngster mentored by the likes of my old employers Schroeter and Sullivan, and Art, and you,…
I’ve expressed my concerns about the George Orwell government the Bush administration has created. Its political actions are too often hidden from public view, it has been exempted, until now, by the Republican controlled Congress from revealing or explaining its political actions and it has created courts that conduct their business behind closed doors, but which authorize secret surveillance of citizens. (See post 11/6/06) Now we have a report about the actions of a secret court operating under the Patriot…
One of the lawyers in the office lost a medical malpractice trial recently. His pain for his client’s loss is palpable. Dealing with losing is always agony and something we never get used to if we are competitive trial lawyers striving for our client’s rights. I’ve often said: losing hurts worse then winning feels good. My personal rule is that I rejoice for my victories only twenty four hours and limit remorse for losing to forty eight hours. After that,…
I’ve often told lawyers at legal seminars how important it is they eliminate pretense and present the real person at all times. Appearances are not determinative of great lawyers. Genuine sincere and honest conduct results in credibility. I was reminded of this in William Barclay commentaries about scripture. He was discussing a passage suggesting the Corinthians had actually taunted Paul about his personal appearance causing Paul to respond. Barclay cites a very early book dating back to about A.D. 200…
Two recent decisions have limited the rights of whistle blowers. Various laws have been passed in Congress and states to encourage reporting fraud and illegal conduct as beneficial to the tax payers. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court has written opinions which limit the effectiveness of the federal laws. The United States Supreme Court, in a six to two vote, has restricted the ability of whistle blowers to share in recoveries under the U.S. False Claims Act. Under the False Claims…
Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469 and became a figure of the Italian Renaissance. His writings included political theory. He wrote a pamphlet The Prince, which he hoped would help him gain influence with the ruling Medici family of Florence. The well known writing has a chapter he entitles: "Cruelty and Compassion: And Whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse." Here is a sampling of his answer. He advises that…
