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Recent Posts
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- 2023: Lunar New Year of the Rabbit
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- NY DA Supports Discrimination Against HIV+ Persons
- The Public Defender Card Game
- Maud Maron v. The Legal Aid Society
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- “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
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- “Planet of the Humans”
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- The NYC arraignment scandal: part 2
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- 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
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- “Your question has nothing to do with this case, Judge.”
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Tag Archives: Law & Parody
The naughty/nice hearings
Scene: The Santa Clause Courtroom, Santa, J. presiding. For the defense: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen. For the prosecution: Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blixen. Clerk: Number 2, 457, 278,970 on the calendar, Stinky K. Santa: This is a determination as to whether Stinky K. … Continue reading
Oral argument: a missing of minds
If you’re looking for truly cutting-edge experimental film, we suggest watching oral argument on closed-circuit t.v. at the Appellate Division, an alternative venue yet undiscovered by your nose-ring-wearing friends. The Second Department (they try harder) features a wide video screen, … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody
Tagged Appellate Division, Law & Parody, oral argument
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Planned service changes in the courts
“Planned service changes,” as all New Yorkers know, is the MTA’s way of saying “no trains all weekend.” Now planned service changes are being announced by the NY state courts (“Painful but Unavoidable: Courts Trim Jobs,” NYLJ 5/19/11). Long lines … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody
Tagged Before the Law, Benito Cereno, Kafka, Law & Parody, NY state court system
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Your copy machine never forgets
We recently learned to our horror that all digital copy machines contain hard drives that remember everything they copy. A 5-minute CBS documentary on Google, entitled “Copy Machines, a Security Risk,” shows news investigators buying second-hand copiers from a warehouse … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody
Tagged copy machines, identity theft, Law & Parody
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Faith-based prosecutions with DNA
The first recorded murder prosecution was brought by God who, without so much as a Miranda warning, asked Cain where his brother was, knowing full well that Abel had been found dead under suspicious circumstances. Like many of our clients, … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody
Tagged criminal law, DNA, Law & Parody, Medical Examiner
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The Appellate Division keeps it in the family
What’s so terrible about nepotism? Families have always worked together. Over at Vesuvio’s Dry Cleaners, which we occasionally entrust with our best and only suit, Mrs. Vesuvio regularly mans the counter whenever Mr. V. keels over from the fumes. At … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody
Tagged Appellate Division, criminal appeals, Law & Parody, nepotism
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Solons propose animal abusers registry (for real)
Cruelty to animals is a terrible thing, but we’re mystified by the bill before the Legislature proposing a SORA-equivalent registry for “animal abusers,” i.e., persons convicted of an offense under “Buster’s Law,” popularly known as Agricultural and Markets Law 353-a. … Continue reading
Advertise your service or product on the sex offender registry
At a press conference today, Assemblyman Outerboro and Assemblywoman Sixpack announced a new bill that would permit the NY State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) to accept advertising on its Internet Sex Offender Registry. “With over a million hits … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody, SORA
Tagged DCJS, Law & Parody, NY Assembly, NY Legislature, sex offender registry, SORA
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The way to a court’s heart
A recent study reported in an article entitled, “Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions,” has scientifically confirmed every practitioner’s worst fears: your client’s fate depends on what the judge had for breakfast. The study, conducted by three professors of business management … Continue reading
The scales of arbitrary discretion
Traditional courthouses like Old Bailey are often topped with a statue of Miz Justice, a pair of scales in one hand and a sword in the other. We’ve always been baffled by the blindfold. How can she see what the scales … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Law & Parody
Tagged federal courthouse, judicial discretion, Law & Parody, scales of justice
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Judge to jurors: no more free lunch
In a radical belt-tightening response to the slashing of $170 million from the Judiciary’s funding, the Chief Administrative Judge announced that deliberating jurors will no longer get free lunch but will have to go out to the deli like everybody … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
Tagged court officers, judiciary budget cutbacks, juries, Law & Parody
1 Comment
Justice Scalia dissents from a traffic ticket
Justice Scalia was charged with being at fault for a fender-bender while driving himself to work. It was not known whether he will pay or contest the fine. Today the DMV Traffic Adjudication Services, a court nowhere authorized by Article … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Law & Parody
Tagged Confrontation Clause, fender bender, Justice Scalia, Law & Parody, Michigan v. Bryant
3 Comments
Annals of jurisprudence: the schoolgroup effect
Oral argument can be a hideous combination of trial by ordeal and a rigged quiz show. Starting with the presiding judge’s speech that you don’t really need five whole minutes to argue your insignificant murder case. Welcome to the Appellate … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody
Tagged Appellate courts, Law & Parody, oral argument
2 Comments
So you want to file a federal habeas?
Every now and then we take a break from our parking ticket litigation practice and attempt a federal habe, “the great and efficacious Writ in all manner of illegal confinement.” We duly identified a conscience-shocking constitutional violation, read every Supreme … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody
Tagged criminal appeals, federal habeas, Law & Parody
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The new commercial courts
In a bold and creative effort to respond to New York’s grave fiscal crisis, Chief Judge Flipman announced that, following the lead of sports teams, public radio and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, courts will start accepting corporate sponsorship and … Continue reading
The police interrogation film festival
It’s only taken a decade or two for NY’s Finest to catch up to the civilized world, but according to the Daily News, a couple of NYPD precincts have started videotaping interrogations. (NYPD Now Videotaping Suspects as Detectives Question Them, … Continue reading
Posted in Criminal law, Law, Law & Parody
Tagged criminal law, Law, Law & Parody, police confessions, wrongful convictions
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The new austerity
For someone who’s been vehemently campaigning for more money for judges ever since he took office, Chief Judge Flipman is pretty good at keeping a straight face when talking about “austerity measures” in the courts. In today’s press release, he … Continue reading
The New Worker-Judges
We admit that now and then we indulge in a teeny bit of imaginative exaggeration to make a point. We never dreamed that we would be overtaken by of all things, our eyeglazing daily trade paper, the New York Law … Continue reading
On top of Old Bailey: Part 2
Of course nobody can claim to understand a British trial without first making a thorough study of Blackstone’s Commentaries and the Magna Carta, or at least seeing Marlene Dietrich in “Witness for the Prosecution.” But one thing was clear from … Continue reading
On top of Old Bailey: Part one
Last week we spent a couple of rainy afternoons perched in the public gallery of Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court. A pile of gloomy late Victorian masonry, it was built on the auspicious site of Newgate Prison, the scene … Continue reading
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