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“I’m not eccentric, I’m just more alive than most people. I’m an unpopular electric eel in a pond of goldfish.” — Edith Sitwell.
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Recent Posts
- Oral argument to be replaced by Chat Bot
- 2023: Lunar New Year of the Rabbit
- The charade of appellate review
- Appellate Judges to be Replaced by ChatGPT
- ACT UP: HIV+ is not a sex offense.
- Getting AIDS from Typewriter Keys
- NY DA Supports Discrimination Against HIV+ Persons
- The Public Defender Card Game
- Maud Maron v. The Legal Aid Society
- I’m objective, thee is biased
- People’s briefs and other horror fiction
- “My pronouns are sheehurr… so yours would be?”
- May it really, really displease the court
- Defending the Second Amendment
- May It Displease the Court
- Covid in the Courtrooms: an Unnecessary Risk
- Judge Jack Weinstein 1921-2021
- In-Person Oral Argument Should Go the Way of the Dodo
- Convicting Bill Cosby: “An Unconstitutional Coercive Bait-and-Switch”
- Judge Conviser rips into SORA
- Adios, 2020!
- THE BEST OF APPELLATE SQUAWK 2010-2020
- Call a rose by any other name and it’ll see you in court
- Try the new high-tech system for alienating your clients
- Outdoor Public Defending
- Why do cops lie? Because judges believe them.
- Courts to replace juries with potted plants
- Do Statues Matter?
- Sexual thoughts and the First Amendment
- COVID-19 masks for judges
- Judges in trouble
- Hell hath no fury like a client scorned
- “Don’t you dare invite me to your stupid Zoom party!”
- Janitors, Catholic schoolteachers and the Hosanna exception
- Supreme Court hears robocall case, flushes toilet
- “Planet of the Humans”
- The virus, like the rain, falleth on the just and the unjust
- The NYC arraignment scandal: part 2
- NYC courtrooms: the arraignment scandal
- Squawk under house arrest
- Must be true, says so right here in the Probation Report
- Discovery reform in Brooklyn: fuggetabout WitCom
- Happy Lunar New Year 2020: Year of the Rat
- The Sex Offender Bus
- Head for the hills, discovery reform arrives with the New Year!
- Annals of Social Injustice: Affluent People Drinking Rosé in Central Park
- Is it silly to demand transparency from appellate courts?
- “Your question has nothing to do with this case, Judge.”
- Not your law office? Click here.
- Let’s keep dogs off the witness stand.
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Author Archives: Appellate Squawk
Oral argument to be replaced by Chat Bot
In the latest move towards the efficient disposal of appeals, the Administrator of Court Administrative Administration announced that all oral arguments in criminal and SORA appeals will henceforth be handled by “Affirman, the Virtual Judge.” “This is a long overdue … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
2 Comments
2023: Lunar New Year of the Rabbit
Despite their apparent reserve, rabbits often feel strongly about issues in which they take an interest. Humans born in the Year of the Rabbit include Albert Einstein, Tina Turner, Orson Welles, August Pinochet, Frank Sinatra, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Queen … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
1 Comment
The charade of appellate review
“He’s a good man,” argued the Guv, defending her pick for Chief Judge – a veiled reference to the last one, who suddenly resigned amidst ethical inquiries. Besides, he’s “of color,” so what’s the problem? A bevy of law profs … Continue reading
Appellate Judges to be Replaced by ChatGPT
Official Photograph of the Judges of the New Appellate Court Ushering in the most revolutionary innovation in legal drafting since dispensing with cuneiforms on clay tablets, the Administrator of Court Administration announced today that appellate judges will be replaced by … Continue reading
ACT UP: HIV+ is not a sex offense.
It’s not often that a People’s brief sparks a public protest. But when ACT UP got wind of NY District Attorney Bragg’s enthusiastic support for a Louisiana law singling out HIV+ persons for felony prosecution, they picketed his office. The … Continue reading
Getting AIDS from Typewriter Keys
If you went to Sunday School (or saw “Ben Hur” with Charlton Heston), you remember how in Bible times persons living with leprosy had to carry a little bell and cry, “Unclean! Unclean!” so people could scatter from their path. … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
2 Comments
NY DA Supports Discrimination Against HIV+ Persons
The NY DA’s Office is firing on all cylinders to have a man classified as a sex offender under SORA based on his conviction under a 1987 Louisiana law called “Intentional Exposure to AIDS Virus.” The statute is one of … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
1 Comment
The Public Defender Card Game
A game of chance and skill, just like real life, invented by our friend Caroline, underpaid public defender extraordinaire of Minnesota. The goal is to pick a white card that answers the question on the purple card. Blank cards are … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
3 Comments
Maud Maron v. The Legal Aid Society
“I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat.” — Hamlet Two years ago, Maud Maron, school parent, community activist, former president of Manhattan’s largest school district, and defense attorney at The Legal Aid Society, wrote an Op-Ed piece questioning the … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
3 Comments
I’m objective, thee is biased
“Even Homer nods,” goes the saying, meaning that even the best can go off the rails now and then. So the great cognitive scientist Itiel Dror came up with a hypothetical study to show that forensic pathologists are more likely … Continue reading
Posted in Forensic "science", Law & Parody
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People’s briefs and other horror fiction
In the psychological horror thriller Neighbor George, the appalling creature who possesses Dovey the narrator tells her she’s doomed to a living death. Her body will remain in the physical world, but “the real you will belong to Mom and … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
7 Comments
“My pronouns are sheehurr… so yours would be?”
A few years back, we got in BIG trouble for parodying the boss’s decree that our very first question to clients should be about their gender identity. Our point, complicated as it may seem, was that such personal questions are … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
3 Comments
May it really, really displease the court
One of our favorite Appellate Division decisions is when the First Department went ballistic against a fellow Squawk for citing the scientific research that incest offenders have a low rate of recidivism. “REPUGNANT TO COMMON DECENCY!” hollered the the court. … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
10 Comments
May It Displease the Court
Our late mother had a sign pinned to the broom closet reading, “When others eliminate work, they’re efficient. When I eliminate work, I’m lazy.” So we viewed with a jaundiced eye the First Department’s recent trumpeting of its work-elimination efficiency. … Continue reading
Covid in the Courtrooms: an Unnecessary Risk
What’s the riskiest place in NYC for Covid infection? Bars? Frat parties? Mass gatherings to celebrate “Reopening New York”? Nope. It’s the criminal courts. Working for a public defender outfit, we’ve been hearing daily reports from our so-called Covid Task … Continue reading
Judge Jack Weinstein 1921-2021
Judge Weinstein died on June 15, 2021 at the age of 99. This is a re-run of our post from December, 2016 when he was only 95. Our excuse for the repetition is that we’d like to add to the … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
3 Comments
In-Person Oral Argument Should Go the Way of the Dodo
It’s one thing for the Guv to announce that we can now eat at restaurants, and a good thing too, since we’re pretty sick of our own cooking. But going to court in person? Who needs it? State criminal courts … Continue reading
Posted in Appellate advocacy, Law & Parody
Tagged Confrontation Clause, COVID-19, Judge Daniel Conviser
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Convicting Bill Cosby: “An Unconstitutional Coercive Bait-and-Switch”
“They tell you to follow your dreams. Does anyone say you have to wake up first?” — Bill Cosby. The Constitution woke up. “While the prosecutor’s discretion in charging decisions is undoubtedly vast,” said the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, “it is … Continue reading
Posted in Law
Tagged Andrea Constand, Bill Cosby, Justice David Wecht, Phylicia Rashad
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Judge Conviser rips into SORA
Or at least into the way it’s applied. SORA, or the Sex Offender Registration Act, is a brutal set of laws whereby persons convicted of a designated “sex offense” (not necessarily involving sexual misconduct), can be required to register with … Continue reading
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