In a politically divided country, this is all quite tricky and potentially sticky, looking to criminalize the actions of CIA agents when under the management of a bunch of malicious doofuses will only be further divisive.
I still think going the truth and reconciliation commission route would be the best for all concerned. Facing the truth with no political gain on the line -- even if only perceived -- would truly be Change to believe in.
Interesting, but looking up the word "homicide" on the Internets gives every indication that it is a word indigenous to the practice of law, not medicine, let alone forensics. I thought medical examiners determined what killed someone, and that it was up to the legal system to determine who, for instance, put deady chemicals into the body of a the deceased.
I have friends who are prosecutors and judges who I love dearly, but this is a teeny-tiny shift in, if not the legal burden of proof, then the war for public opinion.
. . . and your sanity could be questioned after you've passed . . .
. . . and you'd like to prevent hassles from the above players arising after your death, then it's wise to meet with an attorney who works in the field of estate planning.
Which I happen to do.
You could e-mail me here, and we could set up a time to chat.
There is no such thing as "judicial activism," or "legislating from the bench." When judges act, they adjudicate objectively through the prisim of their personal legal philosophy, which creates a subjective result: by definition, courts must pick a winner.
On the other hand, when legislators act, they legislate. Similarly, judges' acts do, in fact, have repercussions, because they have to wade through the grey areas, or unclear language, or pandering unconstitutional provisions crafted by legislators who want to get re-elected by constituents who don't know any better than to buy into sound-bite buzzword catch phrases. And, yes, as Sonia Sotomayor said at a symposium (below), if appeals court judges do set "policy," it's because their written opinions have been followed to interpret the work of the above-described legislators since the beginning of the Republic.
So while Krugman continues to press for America to enforce the rule of law -- as I have previously -- in order to "reclaim its soul," dithering continues amongst those who should know better.
Below: "See, I disagree with ya, Matt, 'cause I'm relyin' on legal memos from lawyers which are absolute bullshit. But I say they're legal. So, there ya go. Heh-heh-heh."
Despite writing for so long, I've never really enjoyed being written about. When I wrote, I had the deadlines of a feature writer, combined with the goal of accuracy that my lawyering instilled in me. So there would typically be things in articles that I was in which could be aggravating.
The profile about me in today's Detroit Legal News, however, is great, and much appreciated. Geez, in the dead tree version, there's pics and pull-quotes and sidebars all over my own page -- the entire back page! Extremely cool. So thanks to ace newby reporter and fellow Michigan Daily alum (though she did infinitely more there than me) Taryn Hartman for the nice work.
My mother will be so proud.
(Above:) "Hey, look, it's Sir Graves' suit double."
What was a $30 million verdict, with $12 million in interest, continues to tick-tick-tick up with new interest, the final tab running ever higher. TB should bring back the 99 cent double decker taco, sell a few dozen million and settle this thing.
While blogers debate whether Obama should or should not give Dubya a shout-out in his inauguration speech, I take solace knowing that even when I flake out and not post for a week, Paul Krugman will take up the slack.
As someone who actually cared about getting the JOA approved in 1989 between the Free Press and News, and who is obsessive enough to notice that they've been breaking the law when joint publishing on holidays (instead of only on weekends), and had friends on both sides of the strike, and who was offended by Gannett basically thumbing its nose at the industry, the market and the law by buying out Knight Ridder, today's announcement that the Freep and the News are going to be home delivered only three days a week would've been a stake in my heart. . . if they hadn't already broken it into a million pieces.
For all the obvious, (probably justified) piling upon B-Rod, I had a sense of unease listening to Fitzgerald's press conference and his repetitive hyperbolic outrage, from a legal ethics perspective.
However, instead of not impeaching him, like Democrats could won't do in the U.S., the opposition parties in Canada have basically contracted amongst themselves to dump the bastard.
How very civilised and Canadian, eh? You can follow the updates here and here.
As if the auto industry's operations aren't bad enough, now it can't even get a closed acquisition right, as Cerberus now claims that Daimler misled them during the Chrysler deal.
While a GM-Chrysler deal may be a good thing, the sad part if it goes through is that they wouldn't be big enough anymore to trigger anti-trust scrutiny.
"I was just following orders."
