Reality TV Suits

This morning's Seattle Times has three stories about suits by reality TV participants against the shows:

• A made-for-TV fairy tale becomes nasty in reality, Seattle Times, May 14, 2007 (5 orphans, taken in by a family, moved out weeks after "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" built a 9-bedroom house for the family and orphans).
• Owners say home damaged in name of makeover, Seattle Times, May 14, 2007 ("Renovate My Family").
• From "Extreme Makeover" that never was, a tragedy, Seattle Times, May 14, 2007 (woman whose facial makeover was cancelled felt humiliated; her sister, who had said awful things to get her the makeover, committed suicide).

All three stories are reprinted from the Los Angeles Times.

Basics of DNA Forensics

DNA Forensics: Expanding Uses and Information Sharing is a brief report from SEARCH (The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics). It's a good intro for people not familiar with the area, and it includes a glossary at the beginning.

Thanks: beSpacific.

Seventh Circuit Wiki

beSpacific reports:

The Wiki of The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit provides Electronic Access to Seventh Circuit Case Information, Rules, Procedures and Opinions. This is the first public wiki launched by the federal judiciary. According to Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, who spearheaded the wiki project, and reported by the National Law Journal, "The wiki will welcome comments from lawyers across the nation because issues of federal practice, especially in the appellate courts, are common ones..."

beSpacific: Seventh Circuit Practitioner's Handbook Posted on Judicary Wiki, May 10, 2007.

How to Keep up with Blogs

One of the people who responded to the survey about this blog wrote:

I like the blog, but I don't have a system for checking blogs regularly. So, I am an intermittent reader and check the blog only if I need something at that moment related specifically to trial ad. Do folks have a system -- besides bookmarks -- for keeping up to date reading several blogs?

Good news -- there's help!

One easy technique is to subscribe via email. Most blogs offer this as an option. For this blog, look in the sidebar to the right -- all you have to do is enter your email address in the box. You'll receive an email message each day that I write new posts; the message will include that day's posts.

One of my friends subscribes to several blogs this way. She tends to stay on top of her email and builds her blog-reading into her daily routine.

I have found that it works better for my workstyle to subscribe using a feed reader (also known as an aggregator).

There are a bunch of readers out there. I use Bloglines, and I've been very happy with it. It allows you to list blogs that you want to follow (and organize them if you want). Then when you are ready to catch up with the news, you log in to Bloglines and see the stories from the different blogs. (You can see just the latest or, say, all the stories from the last month.) When you see a story you want to save, you just check a box. When you see a story you want to share with someone, emailing just just a click away.

Bloglines also lets you share your list of blogs (and other feeds). Take a look at mine. You'll see I've organized my feeds into categories -- e.g., Trial Practice, Public Interest Law, and Washington Government. That makes it easy for me to scan a lot of blogs in one place. (Feel free to bookmark my Bloglines page and browse anytime.)

(Bloglines lets you decide how much to share. If I didn't want you to see that I have a feed for the Daily Puppy, for instance, I could hide it.)

To subscribe to Trial Ad Notes via Bloglines, click on the Bloglines icon in the sidebar at right.

For more on Bloglines and feed readers, let my friend Diane Murley from SIU (Law Dawg Blawg) explain it to you:

• Using Bloglines to Manage Your Blogs and News Feeds.
• What RSS Feeds Can Do for You.

Thanks for responding to the survey! I hope this answer helps you -- and maybe some other readers too.

Computer School Case Settles

An insurance company for Business Computer Training Institute in Gig Harbor (now defunct) have reached a settlement with students who sued for fraud, saying the school took advantage of low-income students, charging high tuition (taking the students' federal and state financial aid money) and saying the students could get good jobs, but offering poor training that resulted only in minimum-wage jobs. Ex-BCTI students will collect, News Tribune, May 12, 2007.

The class includes over 600 students. Many of the students defaulted on their student loans and have had significant financial problems because of their BCTI experience The settlement amount is $9 million and must still be approved by Pierce County Superior Court Judge Thomas Larkin. The plaintiffs have not settled with a second insurance company.

Problems related to BCTI and similar schools led to new legislation. For-profit vocational schools will have tighter financial standards; there will also be minimum standards for instructors and administrators.

The new legislation is SB 5402. Governor Gregoire is scheduled to sign the bill into law on Monday.

Earlier coverage (most by Dave Wickert):

• BCTI no model, industry groups say, News Tribune, Dec. 11, 2006.
• School sailed past the system, News Tribune, Dec. 11, 2006 (long report).
• Young mother’s efforts to better herself end in disappointment, News Tribune, Dec. 8, 2006.
• Students’ struggles complicate claims, News Tribune, Dec. 8, 2006 ("Court records indicate BCTI will argue some students have no one to blame but themselves.")
• Q&A: BCTI explains its side of story, stands by its schools, methods, News Tribune, Dec. 8, 2006.
• Students stuck with big debt, broken dreams, News Tribune, Dec. 8, 2006.

Update (May 25): Catching up on some new books lists, I noticed that our library recently got a new edition of a book from the National Consumer Law Center: Student Loan Law: Collections, Intercepts, Deferments, Discharges, Repayment Plans, and Trade School Abuses (3d ed. 2006), KF4235 .L66 2006 at Reference Area. 562 pages plus a CD-ROM -- that's a lot of student loan law!

Patient trapped in middle of nasty dispute

The Seattle Times reports a messy dispute among: the family of a man paralyzed and unable to speak; his court-appointed guardian; and various health care providers. Patient trapped in middle of nasty dispute, Seattle Times, May 12, 2007. The case is before King County Superior Court Commissioner Carlos Velategui.

L&I on Crane Collapse

The Washington State Dept. of Labor and Industries issued a report yesterday on the crane collapse in Bellevue last November that damaged three buildings and killed a man in his apartment. L&I found that the cause of the collapse was a faulty base for the tower crane -- it was attached to steel I-beams welded together and attached to four concrete pillars, rather than to a cement foundation. L&I fined the engineering firm that created the base $5600 for failing to ensure the design met the recommendations of the crane manufacturer and fined the general contractor $5600 for failing to conduct regular inspections and $3600 for attaching oversize signs to the crane. Blame for crane collapse affirmed, Seattle Times, May 12, 2007.

The collapse of the crane prompted the Legislature this year to enact new laws establishing a construction-crane-certification program and a crane-operator-certification program, which will be administered by L&I.

* * *

[Steve] Cant [assistant director for L&I’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health] said L&I specifically asked that the new construction-crane legislation include a provision that, in any non-standard tower crane base, an independent professional engineer must review and approve the plans.

L&I investigation: Flawed engineering design caused tower-crane collapse, L&I press release, May 11, 2007.

The new legislation is 2007 Wash. Laws Ch. 27, effective Jan. 1, 2010. It will be codified in RCW 49.17.

The administrative fines will not be the end of the story. The Seattle Times story mentioned two attorneys who represent the family of Matthew Ammon, the man who was killed in his apartment. (They are Matthew Knopp and Michael Wampold, both of Peterson Young Putra. Mike Wampold is also a Trial Ad instructor.) Since the family has retained counsel, it is probably planning to sue. I would also expect suits from the owners of the three buildings that were damaged by the crane collapse -- and maybe the owners of the original project, which must have been held up for some time by the collapse and the investigation.

Photo: Tower crane in Hood Canal Bridge project, WSDOT. (This is not the crane that collapsed.)

Take My Survey ... Please!

So far, 58 people have responded to the survey about this blog, including 18 UW law students, 19 UW law school faculty and staff, and a number of readers from the legal community and the public. If you're in that group, THANKS!

Whether you're a regular reader or this is your first visit, whether you're in the University of Washington Trial Ad program or you've never even been in Seattle, I'd be very interested in your thoughts. Please take the survey!

There's only one week left to take the survey and offer your feedback on Trial Ad Notes!

The survey results will be used -- most importantly in deciding whether to maintain the blog or pull the plug.

If you haven't taken the survey yet, please do. If you have, remind your friends.

Thanks!

Larry Bobo on Race and Punishment

Next Tuesday, author and professor Larry Bobo will deliver the UW's Walker-Ames Lecture Of Punitiveness and Prejudice: Racial Attitudes and the Popular Demand for Harsh Crime Policies. Tues., May 15, Kane Hall, Rm. 120, 6:30-8:00.

Lawrence D. Bobo is Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor and Director, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and Program in African and African American Studies, Stanford University.

The program announcement says:

Tough anti-crime policies now enjoy deep wells of popular support. This taste for punishment coincides with a law and order policy regime that has resulted in the heavily disproportionate incarceration of minorities, especially of African Americans.

This research poses the question of whether anti-black racial prejudice is a significant component of the public demand for tough law and order policies. Using data from the 2001 Race, Crime and Public Opinion Study, the research assesses the connection of three different measures of racial prejudice­stereotypes (trait ratings), affect, and racial resentment­on support for the death penalty, three strikes laws, and trying juveniles as adults.

The prejudice hypothesis is pitted against several rival hypotheses about the sources of public opinion on crime including: (1) actual levels of violent crime, (2) fear of crime, (3) group threat (percent black), (3) social disorder (percent black in poverty), (4) political and religious conservatism, and (5) common sense or lay attributions for crime.

The results show a large and consistent impact of racial resentment on support for punitive crime policies. A small part of this effect reflects an overlap with individualistic lay attributions about the causes of criminal behavior. However, none of the other rival hypotheses weaken the impact of prejudice on punitive crime response attitudes. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the results.

What are the demographics of the prison population in Washington? What are the national averages?

• White -- WA 62.6% ... USA 48.3%
• Black -- WA 19.6% ... USA 48.3%
• Hispanic -- WA 10.2% ... USA 9.8%
• North American Indian -- WA 4.1% ... USA 3.3%
• Asian -- WA 3.1% ... USA 1.8%
• Unknown/Other -- WA 0.4% ... USA 0.7%
• Male -- WA 91.1% ... USA 92.9%
• Female -- WA 8.9% ... USA 7.1%

Source: Washington State Department of Corrections, April 2007.

Photo from FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Dec. 2004.

Lying Cops Issue Heats Up

Last month, a couple of police officers were caught in a lie -- they didn't report that they had handcuffed and questioned a suspect other than the one they booked, but a store's security tape showed that they had. The prosecutor's office thought it was serious enough that it sent a letter to defense attorneys for other defendants arrested by the pair of officers (Greg Neubert and Michael Tietjen). (See earlier posts.)

New developments:

• Expert takes issue with cops' reports, Seattle Times, May 10, 2007. Expert's review of videotape shows many inconsistencies between the officers' report and what happened.
• Judge may give access to cop video, Seattle Times, May 8, 2007.

  [D]uring a hearing Monday, King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer said that she probably will let defense attorneys in at least nine cases involving the two officers to have access to the video and other information from the internal investigation.
  
  * * *
  
  "I'm inclined to find that, based on the officer accounts and the videotape taken together, that there is a sufficient showing" that the information is relevant for the defense in the other cases, the judge said.
  
  Shaffer pointed out that this is an unusual — if not unique — instance because of the existence of a video that can be used to test the officers' statements.

  According to the article, Judge Shaffer will issue a formal ruling today. (Judge Shaffer is also a UW Trial Ad instructor.)

Update (May 12): Judge Shaffer did issue her ruling: 2 officers' reports on arrest questioned, Seattle Times, May 12, 2007.

On Friday, Shaffer said she closely reviewed the tape, read the officers' arrest reports and statements to the department's Office of Professional Conduct, "and they really don't square in any significant way."

The judge said she found a scathing report by a defense-hired forensic analyst who reviewed the videotape to be credible. The expert, Grant Fredericks, a former police officer and FBI lecturer, challenged the officers' version of the arrest from start to finish.

"I don't see trivial discrepancies," Shaffer said. "I think that there are a lot of discrepancies. I find it concerning."

Saliva Case Decided

The Washington Supreme Court upheld the use of evidence obtained by the police in a controversial ruse. Investigating a cold case, the police focused on a suspect in another state. To get a sample of his DNA, they sent him a letter purporting to be from a law firm representing plaintiffs in a class action. He replied, sealing the envelope with his saliva, and sealing his fate with his DNA. Yesterday the Court upheld his conviction under the state and federal constitutions. State v. Athan, No. 75312-1, Washington Courts website links: majority (C. Johnson, J.), concurrence (Alexander, C.J.), dissent (Chambers, J.)(joined by Sanders), dissent (Fairhurst, J.).

One difference between the majority and the dissents was how they characterized the privacy interest -- is it in one's identity? The majority said DNA reveals identity the way a thumbprint does; the dissent said it's different, deeper. Another difference was how the justices viewed the ruse used -- does it interfere with the attorney-client relationship? The majority said that licking an envelope is not an attorney-client communication. Justice Chambers was concerned that the police got the evidence by posing as attorneys. This was the issue on which WSBA filed an amicus brief -- see earlier posts. (Justice Chambers was the president of WSBA, by the way, so perhaps he has a special sensitivity to the role of lawyers.)

See Natalie Singer, Court upholds murder conviction based on DNA from envelope, Seattle Times, May 10, 2007.

Visit "Deliberations"

Catching up on some reading, I recently looked at a few weeks of posts from Deliberations. Subtitled "Law, news, and thoughts on juries and jury trials," this blog also reports some interesting empirical studies.

There are two many good posts to link to here, so I'll just recommend the whole blog. Recent posts discuss how to improve voir dire, how jurors perceive lawyers' speaking styles, the effect of fatigue on moral judgment, a Ninth Circuit case about a trial in which the defense agreed to have the court dismiss a juror who was a holdout and proceed with eleven jurors, a DC Circuit case saying it's OK to strike blind jurors, lessons on storytelling from Ira Glass, and more.

The author (Anne Reed, a trial lawyer and jury consultant) writes well and finds lots of interesting material. Take a look!

Annals of Law: The CSI Effect:

In last week's New Yorker Jeffrey Toobin takes a look at forensic evidence: Annals of Law: The CSI Effect, New Yorker, May 7, 2007. (The link is only to an abstract, not the full article.)

Basic Trial Advocacy

Professor James A. Tanford (Indiana University) offers "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Trial Procedure and Tactics" in his brief guide, Basic Trial Advocacy.

Thanks again to Elliott Wilcox at Winning Trial Advocacy Techniques.

Trial Ad at the Movies

Prof. James Tanford, who teaches Trial Advocacy at Indiana University, presents on his website a collection of transcripts of movie trial scenes "for entertainment and pedagogical purposes."

He also offers "the entirely subjective Tanford list of the top 100 trial movies of all time" here. You'll see the movies you'd expect ("A Few Good Men," "To Kill a Mockingbird") and some surprises (a Tarzan movie and a Three Stooges movie, for instance). Many happy hours of viewing -- and educational too!

UW students, remember that you can borrow many videos and DVDs through Summit -- free!

Thanks: Winning Trial Advocacy Techniques.

Prosecution rests case in Hells Angels trial

I was in the federal courthouse for a meeting today. A sign in the elevator the Hells Angels trial (restricting cell phones in the courtroom) reminded me to check on its status. The prosecution rested its case on Tuesday, and now the defense is presenting testimony, including some challenging forensic evidence the prosecution relies on. Prosecution rests case in Hells Angels trial, Seattle P-I, May 8, 2007.

McKay and 2 Other USAs Speak at Seattle U

Fired U.S. Attorney John McKay and two of his peers (fired U.S. Attorneys Paul Charlton (AZ) and David Iglesias (NM)) spoke on a panel at Seattle University Law School this afternoon. Five months later, 3 prosecutors still want truth about firings, Seattle P-I, May 9, 2007.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales returns to Capitol Hill (the original Capitol Hill, not Seattle's) tomorrow to continue his testimony about the firings tomorrow.

Baseball, Race, and Juries

This week, ABC News and ESPN announced the results of a poll showing dramatic differences in opinion on Barry Bonds depending on the race of the person polled. ABC News: Poll: Bonds' Quest Gets Scant Support, May 7, 2007.

• Who's rooting for Bonds to break Hank Aaron's home run record? Only 28% of whites, but 75% of blacks.
• Who thinks Bonds knowingly took steroids? About 75% of whites, just over a third of blacks.

It appears that blacks are much more likely than whites to take an outstanding black athlete's word, and that whites are much more likely than blacks to "convict" him of the offense. These striking differences in the court of public opinion make me think about juries. How much can you predict a person's response to evidence based on race -- or age or sex or any other characteristic?

In Courtroom 302 (see earlier post), the author reports that race is often the unspoken reason for peremptory challenges, despite Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, Findlaw (1986).

[Judge] Locallo perfunctorily does his duty under Batson, asking one side for race-neutral reasons when the other complains of a racial strike and immediately accepting whatever justification is offered. The judge says later he realized the reasons cited may be contrived. "But I don't think it's my prerogative to say, 'You've given a race-neutral reason; I think it's full of shit.'" . . . Locallo closes the final Batson discussion in nearly one breath, with the court reporter straining to keep up: "Pursuant to Batson versus Kentucky and its progeny the court is required to see if the reaons are race-related or race-neutral and I've considered each of the reasons given by both the state and also defense and I've found race-neutral reasons for the exclusion of those individuals."

Steve Bogira, Courtroom 302, at 262 (2005).

But Bogira also discusses the trial of a black man accused of killing someone with a shank in prison. The jury foreperson was a 44-year-old black man:

McGee . . . says he was stunned to learn, when deliberations began, that not everyone was convinced of [the defendant's] guilt. In fact, the first vote had been nine to three for acquittal, with McGee and two white men comprising the minority, and all six women voting not guilty. "I thought it was gonna be the blacks against the whites," McGee says, "But most of the whites were saying not guilty!"

Id. at 148. So it's much more complex than a simple "blacks support black defendants." In this case, McGee, a postal worker, said "I don't care nothin' for no gangbangers," and apparently did not want to cut this felon any slack.

Graphic: mw.

Nonverbal Communication

I've been on vacation (aha, that's why no posts for so long!), but I keep my eyes open for interesting trial-related material. Yesterday I read an article about nonverbal communication in US Airways Magazine: "Body of Evidence" by Maryann Karinch (May 2007).

It offers tips from I Can Read You Like a Book: How to Spot the Messages and Emotions People Are Really Sending with Their Body Language, by Gregory Hartley and Maryann Karinch (Career Press, 2007).

Greg Hartley is a former Army interrogator who now applies his skills in the private sector as a consultant and author. He and Karinch also wrote How to Spot a Liar (Career Press 2005).

The first tip in the article is that the common wisdom that people who break eye contact are lying isn't wisdom at all. Hartley says that people commonly look up with a person is using visual memory -- breaking eye contact is normal, not a sign of deceipt.

Another observation: "When people recognize each other, their eyebrows flash. It's an involuntary and universal piece of body language."

The book has two customer reviews on Amazon: one person loved it, the other hated it. Since I've only seen the airline magazine article, I can't vouch for the book -- but I mention it here as something that might be helpful to trial lawyers who are trying to read witnesses and jurors, and also trying to communicate well themselves.

Note to readers: If you aren't one of the 48 people who have responded to the survey about this blog, please take a minute to offer your feedback. It will be very helpful! Thanks!

Inside Look at Criminal Court

In Courtroom 302, journalist Steve Bogira chronicles, as the subtitle indicates, "A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse." The courthouse is not any courthouse, but the one that handles all the criminal cases in Cook County, Illinois.

The book opens on a morning in early January 1998 as police wagons unload prisoners picked up the night before to make their first appearances in court. The author describes the prisoners -- mostly people picked up for possession of drugs, but some arrested for assault and other offenses -- and the deputies who process them and guard them. Through the year, we see all the actors in the courthouse -- or rather, the ones connected with one particular courtroom, which stands in for the system. Public defenders, prosecutors, private defense attorneys, defendants, defendants' family members, victims' family members all have a voice, if only briefly. We even hear a sketch artist for a TV station grumble when asked to draw the gallery because it's a heck of a lot of work to draw the crowd and it will only be shown for 15 seconds.

In addition to his countless hours of observation and hundreds of interviews, Bogira also uses outside sources, illuminating his subject by citing articles and reports about the criminal justice system -- particularly Chicago's -- going back decades.

It's a very interesting book, and well worth reading for anyone planning to work in criminal law. I believe that Cook County is extreme in some regards (certainly other systems haven't had huge corruption cases like the ones stemming from the FBI's Operation Greylord), but I fear that many of the problems -- systems clogged by minor drug cases, defendants agreeing to plea despite their belief that they are innocent, police who cut corners -- are all too common.

To read more about the book, see the publisher's page, which includes reviews and an excerpt. To read the whole thing, check it out: it's at KFX1247 .B64 2005 in the Good Reads section (the shelves just east of the lounge).