The Ethics of Trial by Facebook.
No. 831 The CEB Blog (California Education of the Bar) reports that George Zimmerman’s defense team has established a Website, Facebook page and Twitter Account to address what they see as public misconceptions and present their case in the Court of Public Opinion. The website is soliciting contributions for the Defense Fund. The CEB Blog post [...]
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No. 819 The jury in the Orie trial surprised some be reaching a verdict. Third Chair:Pittsburgh was not alone in expecting a hung jury after they announced a deadlock. Apparently, the jurors knew how to compromise. CLT
And Now the Defense . . .
No. 819 From the media accounts it sounds pretty grim for Senator Jane Orie. A gang of witnesses, including her ex-chief of staff have testified that campaign work was being done in the office on state time. On top of the evidence at the first trial, there is the forgery evidence — although nobody knows [...]
Paterno’s Grand Jury Testimony Is Inadmissible at Trial.
No. 800 This is the 800th Post on Pittsburgh Legal Backtalk. Thanks for reading. Joe Paterno’s testimony before the grand jury corroborated Mike McQueary’s testimony that he reported activity of a sexual nature and not just horseplay. Paterno would have been an important prosecution witness in the trials of former PSU Athletic Director Tim Curley [...]
Penn State Owes a Public Apology to Paterno, Now not Later.
No. 791 The following post was written before the death of Joe Paterno had been publicly announced. The way the Penn State Board fired Joe Paterno was cowardly and wrong. They bowed to overwhelming pressure of a media-driven lynch mob. Ultimately, in cooler times, Mr. Paterno will be vindicated before the law and in the [...]
Do they still hang horse thieves in Texas?
No. 775 Everyone knows that Texas is just about the world champion in administering capital punishment. But do they hang horse thieves? There is a real case of serial horse theft and equicide pending in the Lone Star State. Improve your education on the subject by reading the Equine Law Blog.
Overcoming Overwhelming Odds: A Case in Point.
No. 770 When it happens in New York it makes national news. When much the same thing happened in Pittsburgh some years ago, it made local news. Yet something even more remarkable happened after the Pittsburgh event that didn’t make the news at all, a story worth telling. One afternoon, I was asked to help [...]
Don’t Post Anything on Facebook that You Wouldn’t Want To See as Exhibit A In Court.
Bloggers say this all of the time. Plenty of people don’t listen. Here’s A Pennsylvania Common Pleas case that illustrates what can happen. The judge ordered discovery of the entries on the Facebook page of a plaintiff in an auto accident. It included entries about a supposedly seriously injured person going to the gym, etc. The Court stated that no court has ever held that there is an expectation of privacy on Facebook. On the contrary, the court noted, Facebook is for sharing.
NOT YOUR PROBLEM.
No. 759 Now the hosts and guests on talk radio are obsessed over the idea that conflicts in the testimony of key witnesses in the Penn State case might enable some of the defendants to slip the noose. Don’t worry about the prosecution. They have a small army of lawyers working on this case. If [...]
Presumption of Innocence and Burden of Proof
No. 758 It bears remembering, at a time like this, that under our system of justice every person accused of a crime is presumed to be innocent until convicted in court by credible evidence. The finder of fact must conclude that guilt of a specific charge has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a [...]
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