The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Morning Wrap

Please? Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress yesterday for an additional $42.3 Billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That raises the total 2008 war-funding request to nearly $190 billion, the highest since the start of the war, according to the WaPo. The request arrived on the same day the Senate passed a nonbinding resolution to carve Iraq into three semiautonomous regions and two weeks after President Bush announced a limited troop drawdown starting in December. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he refuses to rubber stamp the funding request.

Uprising Government security forces cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar Thursday, firing automatic weapons into crowds, hurling canisters of tear gas and raiding two Buddhist monasteries, reports the WSJ. In the second day of violence, the military junta appears to have redoubled its efforts to put down the country’s biggest uprising in nearly 20 years, amid mounting international protest.

Patriot Smacked A federal judge in Oregon ruled yesterday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, according to the AP. Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield brought the suit against the government after the FBI mistakenly linked him to the 2004 train bombings in Spain. The ruling comes two weeks after a federal judge in New York ordered the FBI to stop issuing "national security letters" that secretly demand customer information from Internet service providers and other businesses. The judge reasoned that the language in the Patriot act permitting the practice violated the First Amendment and the Constitution's separation of powers provision.

Trigger Happy Blackwater USA has been involved in more shootings than any other security contractor in Iraq, according to the NYT. Blackwater, under investigation in Washington and Baghdad for Sept. 16 shootings in which 11 Iraqis were killed, recorded an incident rate that was at least twice that of two other United States-based security firms that have been contracted by the State Department. Iraqi officials, in a rare display of solidarity, are pushing to jettison the firm from the country.

Senator Craig Awaits Judge's Decision

Efforts today by Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) to rescind his guilty plea in an airport sex sting hinge on whether Minnesota Judge Charles Porter believes the senator panicked and mistakenly plead guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct after his arrest in an airport men's room, according to the Reuters. Judge Porter continued the case until next week.

Jesse James Fought a Civil Suit, and the Civil Suit Won

We're a little late in getting this to you, but the news was dated anyway (hat tip to How Appealing).

Jesse James above the law? Apparently not.

On Monday, The Kansas City Star reported on newly-unearthed legal documents showing that, in 1870, Jessie James was successfully sued in civil court by a young Kansas City attorney named Henry McDougal. After James lost his horse during a combined bank robbery and murder, he stole another man's steed. To compensate for the loss, McDougal's horseless client sought to claim James' own mount, the equivalent of "a Ferrari," according to Jim Muehlberger, the attorney who stumbled upon the documents last month.

At stake was the significant sum of $223.50 worth of horse and riding gear. Surprisingly, James lawyered up, leaving McDougal to figure out how to serve papers on the West's most notorious killer and live to tell about it.

We won't disclose subsequent events, which turn potentially homicidal. As property squabbles go, this one's worth a read.

Don't Call it Rape

A federal suit challenging a Nebraska judge's ban on the use of the words "rape," "sexual assault," ""sexual assault nurse examiner" and "sexual assault kit" in his courtroom has been thrown out.

Filed by Tory Bowen, the alleged victim of a rape, the suit argued that judge's language ban during the first-degree sexual assault trial of Pamir Safi amounted to a violation of her free speech rights and prevented an accurate description of the alleged crime. For good measure, the judge also mandated that the jury not be told that the language restrictions had been put in place.

But Bowen failed to prove her suit wasn't frivolous, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf found, according to the Omaha World Herald. While he declared himself sympathetic to Bowen's position -- "for the life of me, I do not understand why a judge would tell an alleged rape victim that she cannot say she was 'raped' when she testifies in a trial about rape" -- he wrote in a footnote to the opinion, he lacked the authority to "stick his nose" in the state court's business.

According to the Associated Press account, Kopf had previously raised concerns that the suit was simply an effort to get the state judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, to recuse himself from the case. (The original charges against Safi resulted in a hung jury, and after the Cheuvront declared a mistrial during jury selection in round two, prosecutors announced they intended to seek a third trial).

Apparently Kopf thought the decision was the sort that could be best taken with a dose of humor. In the introduction to his decision, he quoted a Yogi Berra malapropism: "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."

Attorney Files Suit for God

A defense attorney in Corpus Christi, Texas, is representing God in a lawsuit filed against God in Omaha, Neb. The lawsuit was filed last week by Nebraska state Sen. Ernie Chambers, who sued God on nine counts, claiming God causes floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters. The suit also seeks an injunction ordering God to stop causing harm, according to Channel 6 News in Corpus Christi.

After hearing about the suit, defense attorney Eric Perkins decided to handle the case, with humor. Perkins' response to the suit as God's attorney states that harm suffered by mankind is a result of mankind ignoring God's warnings. Sen. Chambers says he filed the lawsuit to show that the Constitution requires the doors to the courthouse to be open to anyone who wants to file a lawsuit against someone else.

Morning Wrap

Long Conference: The Supreme Court yesterday announced it would hear a case over whether lethal injection constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment" and a case from Indiana that questions a state law requiring prospective voters to provide a government-issued photo identification at polling places, reports the Legal Times’ Tony Mauro. The disputes were two of 17 cases the Court agreed to hear after sifting through a mound of petitions that accumulated over the summer.

Strike Ends: The United Automobile Workers union struck a deal with General Motors early this morning, ending a two-day strike that highlighted the turmoil the U.S. auto-making industry (NYT, WSJ, WaPo). The agreement, while tentative, included a memorandum of understanding to create a union-managed trust fund for retiree healthcare. Work will resume this afternoon, but the UAW pledged to return to the picket lines if the agreement isn't ratified.

Thin Skin: A day after telling the world that there are no homosexuals in his country and women there are afforded unparalleled freedoms, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to continue his nation’s uranium-enrichment program, declaring that “the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed,” the WaPo reports. A bit tetchy after all those jokes, are we?

Italian Connection: The WSJ reports Bill Clinton’s relationship with a carousing Italian businessman could throw dirt on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. Douglas Band, Bill Clinton’s handler, helped young Raffaello Follieri secure millions in investments from Clinton’s associates to launch a business buying and redeveloping Roman Catholic Church properties. Now, the investors want their money back, claiming Follieri used the money to finance a Manhattan penthouse, five-star meals and private jets.

Polygamist Leader Guilty

A Utah jury has just found polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs guilty of being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl, who says she was forced to marry over her objections.

CNN reports that Jeffs, who faces a maximum of life in prison and still must face other charges in Arizona, did not react when the verdict was read.

No One Wins a Dogfight

Disgraced Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has been indicted in Virginia on state charges related to the dogfighting ring on his property there, The Associated Press reports.

Three co-defendants were also indicted on state charges.

Vick was indicted on one count of beating or killing or causing dogs to fight other dogs and one count of engaging in or promoting dogfighting. But the grand jury didn't indict on eight counts of killing or causing to be killed a companion animal, which would have carried harsher penalties.

Vick pleaded guilty to a dogfighting conspiracy charge in federal court last month, and is expected to be sentenced in December.

High Court Takes New Cases

Word today that the Court agreed in conference yesterday to take 17 new cases for the upcoming term, a big jump over the initial announcement from last year. Could the Court be feeling some heat for its shrinking docket in recent years? Legal Times' Tony Mauro previews two of the leading cases and gives some other thoughts on opening of the new term on Monday here.

Jury Still Deliberating in Trial of Polygamous Sect Leader

A Utah jury has been deliberating since Friday over whether to convict Warren Jeffs of acting as an accomplice to rape.

Today, one juror was excused and replaced with an alternate, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. A reason wasn't given. The substitution came after jurors last night said they believed they were nearing a verdict in the case against the fundamentalist leader.

The charges against Jeffs, who was apprehended last year, stem from his involvement in arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to an older teenager. Jeffs has been the leader of a polygamous sect located at the Utah/Arizona border known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The Salt Lake Tribune has covered the trial extensively, and has a reporter assigned to cover the polygamy beat. The paper's stories about the trial can be found here.