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05/18/2016

Motorist Rebecca Musarra was stopped for speeding in October 2015 by state troopers in New Jersey, and dutifully handed over her license, insurance and registration, but declined to answer the troopers' "do you know why we stopped you" questions. Annoyed at her silence, troopers Matthew Stazzone and Demetric Gosa threatened several times, with increasing aggressiveness (according to dashboard video obtained by NJ Advance Media), to arrest Musarra for "obstruction." Musarra pointed out that -- as nearly every American knows -- she has the right to remain silent. The troopers nonetheless arrested her (then recited, of course, her "right to remain silent"). After nearly two hours back at the station, a supervisor offered a weak apology and released her. Musarra, an attorney, unsurprisingly has filed a federal lawsuit. [NJ.com, 5-5- 2016]

11/04/2015

For the next time you hear about the evils of lawyers harassing physicians with medical malpractice claims: Tammy Cleveland's recent lawsuit against doctors and DeGraff Memorial Hospital alleges her late husband Michael displayed multiple signs of life (breathing, eyes open, legs kicking, attempted hugs, struggles against the tube in his throat) for nearly two hours, but with two doctors all the while assuring her that he was gone. (The coroner came and went twice, concluding that calling him had been premature.) The lawsuit alleges that only upon the fourth examination did the doctor exclaim, "My God, he has a pulse!" Michael Cleveland died shortly after that -- of a punctured lung from CPR following his initial heart attack -- an injury for which he could have been treated. [Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, New York), 10-13-2015]

03/05/2015

This one sounds odd but actually they got the law right:

The Utah Court of Appeals ruled in February that Barbara Bagley has a legal right to sue herself for her own negligent driving that caused the death of her husband. Typically, in U.S. courts, a party cannot profit from its own negligence, but Bagley is the official "representative" administering her husband's estate and has a duty to claim debts owed to the husband. Those debts would include "wrongful death" damages from a careless driver (actually, the careless driver's insurance company), even if the careless driver was herself. Of course, if her lawsuit is successful, the monetary award would become part of the husband's estate, a portion of which will likely go to her.

08/14/2014

Alonzo Liverman, 29, was arrested in June in a Daytona Beach, Florida, police sting on prostitutes' johns. "I'm hungry," was the female officer's come-on. Responded Liverman, "I got a salad." Even though no salad was found on Liverman, police determined the banter constituted a sufficient offer for paid s*x.

03/18/2014

British litigant Jane Mulcahy was turned down twice recently in her attempts to sue her former divorce lawyers for negligence -- although they had won her case, defeating her husband's contentions. The lawyers were negligent, she said, because they never told her that if she "won" the lawsuit, the marriage would be over. Lord Justice Briggs, in the second appeal, said that Mulcahy's Roman Catholic faith should have tipped her off that "divorce" ended the marriage. [The Independent (London), 1-10-2014]

03/07/2014

Up***rt photos. Another great example of knee-jerk lawmakers being more interested in making a statement than making a workable law.

A court threw out a conviction against Michael Robertson for taking "up***rt" photos on a train. The law only applied to n**e or partially n**e victims. A person wearing a skirt is neither.

So the law needed to be changed. Good idea too. But in the rush to put a new law on the books only 24 hours later, lawmakers voted to prohibit secret pictures of "s*xual or intimate parts."

In the rush, they failed to realize this still does not impact up***rt photography if the subject is wearing underwear.

To view this vague terminology otherwise, secret photos at the beach are also prohibited. A bikini bottom is as revealing as most underwear (or more so). Or is a bikini bottom not showing something s*xual or intimate? What about dancewear?

The difference is that the person wearing a skirt in public has a reasonable expectation of interior privacy above her hem. But there is a difference between "intimate parts" vs. "intimate wear", and the new law failed to include the latter.

In their rush, the lawmakers failed to make the necessary change, and up***rters will still get their cases tossed out of court.

06/16/2013

"I just wanted to tell you guys Happy Fathers Day! Thank you so much for all that you did for me to help me get back equal parenting time with my daughter! I would not have been able to do it without you! I am so blessed to have you! My father would be so happy with all that you have done for us! Thank you!"

04/15/2013

Undocumented immigrant Jose Munoz, 25, believed himself an ideal candidate for the safe-harbor initiative for illegal-entry children, in that he had been brought to the U.S. by his undocumented parents before age 16, had no criminal record and had graduated from high school (with honors, even). Since then, however, he had remained at home assisting his family, doing odd jobs and, admittedly, just playing video games and "vegging." Living "in the shadows," he found it almost impossible to prove the final legal criterion: that he had lived continuously in the U.S. since graduation (using government records, payroll sheets, utility bills, etc.). After initial failures to convince immigration officials, Munoz's lawyer succeeded -- by submitting Munoz's Xbox Live records, documenting that his computer's Wisconsin location had been accessing video games, day after day, for years. [Journal Sentinel, 3-24-2013, as reported at newsoftheweird.com]

02/09/2013

Now THAT is family law: China's national legislature passed a law in December to establish that people have a duty to visit their aged parents periodically. China's rapid urbanization has not developed nursing homes and similar facilities to keep pace with the population, and sponsors of the law said it would give the parents a legal right to sue their children for ignoring them.

12/20/2012

Tortfeastor of the Assumption: David Jimenez prayed regularly to a large crucifix outside the Church of St. Patrick in Newburgh, N.Y., based on his belief the crucifix was responsible for curing his wife's cancer. He got permission from the church to spruce up the structure. While cleaning it, the 600-pound crucifix came loose and fell on Jimenez's leg, which had to be amputated. Jimenez's $3 million litigation against the archdiocese goes to trial in January.

12/03/2012

Kerri Heffernan, 31, was charged in October in Massachusetts with robbing banks in Brockton and Whitman. Heffernan perhaps acquired a feeling of doom when, in the midst of one robbery, a teller-friend appeared and asked, "Do you want to make a deposit, Kerri?"

11/16/2012

The former police chief of Bell, Calif., Randy Adams, had resigned in disgrace after prosecutors charged eight other city officials with looting the municipal budget. Adams had been recruited by the alleged miscreants (at a sweetheart salary twice what he made as police chief of much larger Glendale), and his resignation left him with a generous state pension of $240,000 a year. Rather than quietly accept the payout, Adams immediately appealed to a state pension panel, claiming that his one inexplicably rich year in Bell had actually upped his pension to $510,000 a year. In September, with a straight face, Adams pleaded his case to the panel, but 20 times during the questioning invoked his right not to incriminate himself.

10/09/2012

I just listened to the 911 tape of the Jake Evans murders in Texas. Lost (understandably) in the story is the INCREDIBLE job done by the 911 operator. If you hear the tape, listen to how perfectly she kept the boy engaged in conversation throughout.

09/01/2012

Read the slimy fine print on Microsoft's "Important Changes" email many of you just got: "Finally, we have added a binding arbitration clause and class action waiver that affects how disputes with Microsoft will be resolved in the United States." Put into plain English, Microsoft just changed their rules to say that if you want to sue them for anything you can expect $20,000 in legal fees, or much higher. And if they screw 50,000 people for the same thing, all 50,000 would have to fie separate lawsuits because with this wave of the wand Microsoft extinguishes our rights to sue them in one combined (class action) suit. Thanks Supreme Court of the United States!

08/10/2012

A Liberty County (Texas) home was raided by sheriff's deputies, the FBI, state officials and a trailing media crew (alerted by the sheriff), checking out a tip that "25 to 30" children's bodies were buried on the property. No evidence was found, and in a June 2012 lawsuit for defamation, Bankson and Charlton claim that the sheriff had organized the raid knowing full well that the tipster was a self-described "prophet" who had disclosed that her information came from "Jesus and the (32) angels" who were present with her. The sheriff said he did everything "by the book" and that a judge signed the search warrant confirming "probable cause" to believe that at least one crime (if not 25 to 30) had been committed.

05/20/2012

Warren Law Group has a BIG win for our client in the California Court of Appeal. Here is a media review of the court case. Our firm is not mentioned by name but we represented the mother in both the trial court and argued the case before the Court of Appeal. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.examiner.com%2Farticle%2Fcourt-of-appeal-rules-former-da-judge-susan-guilty-of-abuse-of-discretion&h=LAQHDzQC_AQG02paxIEjGa5bdvlGyiLu7zAGrZQemLB-uLQ

Late yesterday, the Court of Appeal delivered an unusual, but overdue smack-down to San Mateo Family Court Judge Susan Etezadi. The case was Amy Papazian vs. G

01/20/2012

San Francisco judge prevents a 2 year old child from seeing his father, the sheriff who runs the judge's jail. Read about it on our website: http://www.warrenlawgroup.com/blog/

January 20, 2012 – Judge Susan Breall, San Francisco, has ordered that a 2 year old child not see his father until his father’s trial is over. Such “no contact” orders are common and appropriate in some cases, but is this one of them? The defendant here is the sheriff of San Francisco County. He ...

11/11/2011

Corrupt PA. judges took kickbacks to sentence juveniles to for-profit detention centers, including a 3 month sentence to an honor student for mocking the assistant principal on her MySpace page. Judges took in $2.6 million and ruined so many children's lives. They got 7 years in jail. Is that enough?

07/25/2011

A gang-related murder frustrated police 4 years until an investigator, paging through gang photographs, spotted an elaborate tattoo on the chest of Anthony Garcia. Garcia commemorated the liquor store crime scene on his chest. This lead to his murder conviction. Photos from Garcia's earlier bookings show evolving details until the crime scene was complete enough that the investigator recognized it.

07/19/2011

"Science does not trump testimony, said Detroit prosecutor Marilyn Eisenbraun, explaining the decision to disregard DNA that the Innocence Clinic said exonerates Karl Vinson, 56, with 25 years in prison for r**e. Despite the science, Eisenbraun stuck with eyewitness ID by the victim. Although Vinson has been eligible for 15 years, the Parole Board keeps turning him down -- because he refuses to acknowledge guilt.

06/05/2011

Fine point of law: A 20-year-old Jersey City, N.J., gym member claimed "criminal s*xual contact" in March, acknowledging that while she had given a male club therapist permission to massage her breasts and buttocks, she had been under the impression that he is gay. When another gym member told her that the therapist has a girlfriend, she called the police. [Jersey Journal, 3-24-2011]

06/05/2011

Oh, that's how it works!

The Sergeants Benevolent Association, fighting back in April against corruption charges (that its NYPD officers often "fix" traffic tickets for celebrities, high officials and selected "friends") claimed in a recorded message reported in The New York Times that such fixes are merely "courtesy," not corruption. [New York Times, 4-19-2011]

03/08/2011

Video tape caught SF narcotics officers kicking in a door and then finding drugs. Before the video surfaced, the officers filed reports under penalty of perjury stating the occupant voluntarily admitted them and permitted the search. What is the appropriate remedy for the officers/

01/14/2011

May the karma suit ya: After a rough custody fight, a father hired a hit man to kill his ex-wife. The hit man was an undercover cop, the father got busted, and jailed for up to 35 years. Unbeknowst to dad when he was trying to arrange the hit, mom had already been diagnosed with cancer. She died a few months later.

01/06/2011

Trainer Bill Preston's dogs supposedly track crime-scene scents through water and other obstacles, sometimes months later & despite contamination. Judges permitted Preston's "expert" testimony until one demanded a live courtroom test. The dog utterly failed. In 2009 two convicts were released after DNA tests proved the dog's sniffs were erroneous. Up to 60 similar convictions still stand.

12/28/2010

What do you think? This commercial is shot, in the can, and ready to air. But should we run it?

12/16/2010

How can people sign stuff under penalty of perjury and file it with the court, without thinking the other side is going to produce the contradictory stuff the same people signed just a year earlier? Some nutty people out there!

11/27/2010

1 in 31 Americans is in jail, on probation, or on parole - The Pew Center on the States

11/16/2010

H. Beatty Chadwick, 73, was finally released after 14 years in jail because judges figured they could force him to admit he was hiding assets in his 1995 divorce case. Mr. Chadwick denied having or hiding such assets. Prior to release, he was the longest imprisoned American to have never been charged with a crime.

10/22/2010

"Parental Alienation, DSM-5 & ICD-11" is now out, with legal section co-authored by WLG’s Randy Warren and Lawrence Hellmann. The book deals with needs for parental alienation to be included in the upcoming psychology standard. Parental alienation occurs when a parent turns their children against the other parent to a degree that they refuse contact with the target parent & deny or repress all positive memories.