Dec 4, 2008

US Supreme Court: Pulido Petulance

The habeas petitioner admits to the Court that his position is wrong. The Court then descends into an argument over whether the 9th Circuit found that giving a jury an incorrect instruction, which allowed the jury to convict on a theory which was absolutely wrong, was harmless error.

God Bless Texas

As I've said before, any time I get depressed with the situation of the legal system in Virginia all I have to do is google "Texas" and realize that Virginia will never get that weird.

Dec 3, 2008

Around and About

1: Law and Order: Equestrian Division (prosecutors on horses)

2: Violate the noise ordinance - listen to Manilow.

3: When you admit to committing adultery (in order to challenge a law you don't like) you can get prosecuted.

4: Prosecute them all - let God sort'em out. Or maybe just the people who vote you out of office.

5: No, you cannot just decide you are an attorney and undertake to defend someone charged with molestation.

6: Japan has revamped their criminal justice system so that each trial will have 3 professional and 6 lay judges to decide guilt or innocence and impose punishment. That's an interesting procedure. I wonder how it will work out in reality.

Dec 2, 2008

Virginia Court of Appeals

Brannon v. Commonwealth (no. 1419-07-2): Hit and Run from an Injury Accident:

A minor fender bender does not give rise to an inference that the hitter should have known the hittee was injured. This is especially true when the hittee gets out of her car displaying no visible injuries and talks to the hitter before he flees.

Whitehead v. Commonwealth (no. 0040-08-1): Magical Dog Non-Search and Subsequent Physical Search of Car Passengers:

Drugs found on right-rear passenger after dog alerted at driver's side door admissible as car was searched first leaving passengers as only other place for drugs to be found.

Note: While I think the primary line of reasoning in this case is legitimate, there are some strange things in the dicta. For no discernible reason, in footnote 1 the Court absolutely fawns over the magical infallibility of dogs in their performance of non-searches. It ain't so.

The Court also distinguishes a Maryland opinion at least partially by the order in which the passengers of a car were searched. It's not really relevant (if the search of the last passenger is constitutional the search of the 2d should be as well); it's just something that's a little weird.

Dec 1, 2008

Snow, Snow Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

This is a video of the snow falling on my front yard. Most of today was like this and I know because I had to take the day off work because the landlord was sending someone to fix my water. That's right, I've had no water since last Wednesday night. Thank goodness I bought a gym membership last month or I'd have had no place to get a shower. Still, I'm pretty much out of dishes and laundry.

And still, I have no water. I understand why it was hard for my landlord to get someone to do it over Thanksgiving weekend, as everyone was on holiday vacation. However, someone was supposed to come fix the well pump today at 9 a.m. At about 10 the landlord came by and realized that the person he'd spoken to wasn't there. He also told me that rather than fixing the pump to the well he was going to have them just hook the house to the town's water. Not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I'll not need to use Iron Out on my white laundry anymore. On the other hand, I'll have to actually pay for my water now.

Landlord promised that water would be hooked up "by this evening." They were going to run the pipe over the ground today and then come back tomorrow to dig the ditch and bury the pipe. Sometime after 1 p.m. Landlord came back and gave me the number to call in town to start paying for the water after hooked up and told me they had a different guy getting things put together. Then about 3:30 the guy who was supposed to be fixing the water up came to the door and told me that it wasn't going to happen today. They were called too late and he didn't think they should run the pipes with water in them above the ground because it was 2 degrees above freezing right now and the pipes would certainly freeze over night "and then we'll never get them unfroze and buried tomorrow."

So, here I sit, grungy and not very happy about having wasted a day off for no reason. I can't take tomorrow off because I have several cases. I hope they can get me hooked up without me being here to let them in the house because I ain't leaving the house unlocked.

AAAAAaaarrrgg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!