Recently in Law Category

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39726149/ns/us_news-security/

This article was published on msnbc.com by Associated Press on October 18, 2010.  The FBI were involved in this investigation (mainly because it has to do with threats of bombing).


"The trial featured 13 days of testimony by undercover informant Shahed Hussain, who met Cromitie at a mosque north of New York City. Prosecutors also relied on hundreds of hours of video and audiotape of the men discussing the scheme at the informant's home, handling fake weapons -- even praying together."

"Jurors deliberated for more than a week. A judge denied a request for a mistrial last week after a juror came across a document in an evidence binder that shouldn't have been there. The juror was dismissed."


What are the processes that the jury went through?

Do you think it was fair that the judge denied a request for a mistrial after a juror came across a document in an evidence binder?

What would you have done if you were that Judge and presented with that dilemma?

 

Have you ever seen those signs on the road that say "Red Light Photo Enforced?" Unlike the speeding camera photo enforcement I've seen, this one delivers on its' promises. Some of you may have encountered these pesky devices. When you or someone nearby approaches a red light too fast a noticeably bright flash will be apparent at night. This was one or multiple cameras taking a digital photo of your license plate, and in some cases, a quick video of the violation. Someone just got a ticket for running a red light. Looking up nearby locations, I found 4 red light cameras in Waterloo and these pesky things are becoming more common. As these devices are working 24/7 on either busy or dangerous intersections, there very few methods of getting around them. These methods decrease as your destination has fewer possible routes you can take and the installation of more of these cameras.

Since there is no officer to actually give you a moving violation, which goes on your record and affects your insurance rate, a photo enforced citation comes simply with a fine (ranging anywhere from $75 to $300). Does this actually remove dangerous drivers from the road? No, but they will have a financial impact.

To share a personal story, my hometown back in Illinois had none of these red light cameras. With less than one week from returning from my Afghanistan deployment, I encountered one of these on a road I take often around 1:15 AM that night. I was about to make a right hand turn, slowing down to observe oncoming traffic, when I saw a bright flash of light all around me. I was still a little shaken from my deployment, so I did the first thing that training has taught me... Drive out of the kill zone. I thought I was being mortared. About a month later, i got a fine of $100 with the video and photos to "prove" I ran a red-light right turn. There was a means to schedule a court date to refute charges, but if I lost, I would have to pay an additional $100. In the video they took, you could see my brake lights on, slowing to the turn, the camera flashes, and my car literally burning rubber to get out of there. I decided just to pay the fine. I find out that not only my neighborhood had these installed at almost every light, but a few other neighborhoods did the same thing. Half my unit received these fines within the first few weeks of being back. Almost everyone that tried to fight it, lost, and had to pay the court fee as well as their fine.

As many others in my town feel psychologically, these police ran cameras show how our cops aren't there to "Serve and Protect." They're just another form of tax collector not even willing to fine us themselves.

 

There are many laws put into effect in the past that make no sense today. As federal laws are carefully constructed to have concrete language, we rarely see these obsurd laws. Since the 10th Amendment in our Bill of Rights gives power to the State in governing themselves, laws are created and suited for the community. In Florida, a parking meter must be paid if one was to tie an elephant to it. In Illinois, it is forbidden to fish from a giraffe's neck. In Iowa, ministers need to obtain a permit prior to transferring liquor over state lines. In many states, the punishment for horse theft is still hanging. For all the "dumb" laws you may find, just realize that for them to be created, someone had to have violated it.

Psychologically, if anything, these laws put a smile on faces. For cynics, it may stir their faith or confidence in the efficiency of their government.

My question is why haven't a lot of these laws simply be removed? Have people been arrested/fined for any of these "dumb laws" recently? Are these kinds of dumb laws still being created?

When Nintendo introduced its new Wii console it was offering users a new way to emit gaming behaviors.  It was literally changing the way people experienced playing a video game.  This brought with it numerous benefits including remarkable sales figures for the Nintendo company.  In no time at all there were wii consoles at bars and restaurants, wii bowling leagues, parents and grandparents were buying wii's, and not as presents, to use for themselves.

"April 15, 2010

Next week the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a question near and dear to digitally proficient texters: whether their personal messages are private when transmitted over an electronic device supplied by an employer."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125998549

     Most of us understand that when your employer gives you something to use, its still theirs, and a certain level of "acceptable behavior" comes with the privilege of using said allowance.  HOWEVER, we have all heard about people downloading explicit material at work, engaging in illicit chat room conversations on company laptops, and making long-distance phone calls to your family in Japan on the company's dime.  

     With this context in mind, the article linked above describes a situation involving cellular phones distributed to police officers in Ontario, California.  When the phones were distributed to police officers, the lieutenant responsible for the equipment informed the users that the message content was private, and officers would be required to pay out of pocket for messages exceeding the 25,000 character limit per month.  

     A problem arose however, when officers DID exceed the limit, and the lieutenant described feeling like a "bill collector".  He grew weary of this responsibility, and when he requested transcripts of the message content being transmitted by his officers, he was surprised to find explicit language being used between one particular officer, his estranged ex-wife, and another police officer.  

     I circle back now to my first point.  Most of us understand that this kind of behavior is not acceptable on company time, and especially with company money.  However, the officer and others who allegedly sent the "sexy" text messages sued the department for breaking their privacy rights.  

     If this situation only involved police issued equipment, then I'd probably side with the department on this one.  HOWEVER it doesn't, as the estranged ex-wife DOES NOT use a department issued phone.  What about her privacy rights?  

     George Washington University professor Orin Kerr provides the following insight: 

"Does the government violate your rights when they take those messages off the server, even though you're not the government employee?" asks George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr. "And what does that mean for the rest of us, who do have privacy rights, when the government wants to get copies of those communications?"

     If this were an isolated case without possible influence on the rest of the country, that would be fine.  However this same kind of situation will inevitably continue to arise with other agencies, organizations, private companies and the like.  What is reasonable privacy?  What sort of protections can citizens and employees expect regarding their personal lives?  What will prevent the government or others from getting into your "dirty little secrets"?  

     I submit the following guidelines:  WATCH YOUR BACK JACK.  Its sort of like the advice you get from an old sage like your grandparents, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all".  Obviously the issue only came to trial because of the DISCRETION used by police administrators to view transcripts of transmitted messages.  

Discretion, its all around us! 

After finishing the video on North Carolina v. Michael Peterson, I became interested in what his and his family's life was after his sentencing was given. I found a website that has the story. It describes how one of Peterson's defense attorneys is planning on appealing his verdict. I'm not sure if this has been done yet, but he plans on objecting to some of the evidence that was given at the trial, such as if it was legal to take Peterson's computer away from him and go through it, which is where they found his pornography.

Also on the website, are a few videos that you can click through and watch. One talks about what Kathleen Peterson was like, the other talks about the verdict of the trial, and the third is how Kathleen's sisters react to the whole situation.

In the article, they also bring up the possibility that the prosecution is also going to try Peterson for the death of his other wife, Elizabeth Ratliff, as well. It's a short article, but it does provide good information on what happened after Peterson's guilty verdict.

Upon reading the transcript from the Sandoval trial, I became interested in how defense attournys work. While Googling this, I came across this article that explains how to protect yourself when pulled over for drunk driving (which is pretty common among college kids, which is why I chose it!) I'm not saying I'm defending drunk driving, but I am trying to say that there are ways that we can protect ourselves from the system, and to make sure that people who get pulled over for it are being treated fairly.  You can do this by contacting a defense attourny.

Within the article, there are other links that you can click on that provide further information behind this issue.

For my book report due in class, I read the book Active Liberty which is all about our government. I decided to look for things relating to government and psychology for my blog. I found this article http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201002/our-broken-government talking about how many feel that our government is "broken". It seems that many politicians are only worried about how much power they have rather than worrying about everyone's rights as an American. The article talks about how a week or so ago, a Texan slammed his plan into a building where the IRS was at. He had left a suicide note saying that Islamic terrorists are not the only ones who hate our government. What does the government need to do in order to install more faith in the people in this country?

http://www.polipsych.com/category/moral-psychology/

This site is a culmination of many of thie things I have been looking at lately. It has considerable information on psychology of lawmakers, moral psychology, and aspects of the war. There is actually a conference poster made on peace psychology which I had never heard of. It also has pots which include some TED videos which I have posted on before, this is really a great platform to find out about all kinds of contemporary issues from a psychological perspective.

I have never seen something like this, and it is very interesting to me, many of the posts are backed with real empirical data. Moral psychology a topic also discussed in philosophy. Some of the main topics of the field are moral judgment, moral reasoning, moral responsibility, moral development, moral character (especially as related to virtue ethics), altruism, psychological egoism, moral luck, and moral disagreement. This site has an abundance of new information, and interesting intellectual debates.

I have came across this article in which a british tv program host has been arrested for murder after he had admitted that he assisted in the death of a former lover that was diagnoses with aids.  Euthanasia is a topic that has been debated in the past. Euthanasia or "mercy killing" is when someone helps a terminally ill person commit suicide to "stop the suffering" I wrote a research paper on this topic at the community college I attended. I think that it is a interesting topic to discuss. Many people will hopefully never experience a loved one being diagnosed with a terminal illness so it is hard to be put into that position just by imaginating it. I am not sure if this should be accepted or not. A person that is terminally ill and is experiencing extreme pain and suffering and there is nothing that the medical field is able to do for that person, and that person is wanting the pain to stop. Should the euthanasia process be able to be carried out legally if it can be done in a "humane" way? I dont know.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/02/17/bbc.presenter.arrest/index.html 

Sam is a mentally challenged man that seems to have an obsessive compulsive disorder who had barely became a father of a young baby girl and he is also a mentally challenged man.  The mom is normal but ditches the father along with the daughter.  So Sam is left alone to raise his daughter and with help from his neighbor he learns that babies need to be fed every two hours.  I am guessing that mentally challenged people have to have a set schedule and if it is changed it has to be changed gradually or else panic or a sense of anxiety will hit them.  His little girl is unbelievably smart; she and her father have a close relationship.  There comes a point where his daughter makes him realize that he is different from the other daddies and where she becomes the adult at a young age.  Sam's friends help them both a lot, "it takes a village to raise a child."  Lucy teaches him to read and finds it difficult at times to make her classmates understand the way he is.  Unfortunately he did not know that he was talking to a prostitute one night, so he got arrested and then they found out that he had a child.  A child can only learn or expand their mind so much depending on the environment that they are exposed to.  At times it will be easy for the child to rebel but discipline can still be added.  As all children they grow embarrassed of their parents so it gets harder for Lucy to deal with her father's special needs.  Because he is special, he could not control his emotions, since the social worker was there, a bit of it was exaggerated, that he poses as a danger to his daughter and other children.  The lawyer that he is trying to talk to is a bit of a snob but he tries, he can't afford her but he tries to impress his boss so he can get a promotion to pay for the lawyer.  His lawyer is a very selfish woman that will only do his case for free because of peer pressure; she is very miserable and treats the people around her like crap.  Lucy convinces her father to runaway with her so they can be together.  Finally Annie shows up even though she has something against the outside world to help testify in court for Sam's sake.  In the end Lucy's adopted family set up a schedule for Sam to spend time with Lucy, so at the same time Lucy may grow up normally.  So are there certain tests that by law a person who is considered to be mentally challege should take just to see if they are a fit parent or not, there are tons of unfit parents that abuse there children and still have them all because they are able to comprehend things the way society wants them to, or makes it seem like they do.  Another thing in real life if the father, even if he is mentally challenged, were to be tricked by his daughter to run away, I am pretty sure he would have been charged with kidnapping.

A high school in Pennsylvania recently issued laptops to its students.  This was to ensure that every student had an opportunity to access school resources after school is out.  However, one student was disciplined by an assistant principal at the school for "improper behavior" that took place while he was at home.  At the time, the assistant principal cited a picture that was taken of the student by the webcam on the laptop.

When the school issued the laptops, they were aware that they had the ability to view and capture images using the webcam by remotely accessing and activating the webcam.  They can do this whenever the students' laptop is on.  Parents and students, however, were not notified that the school has the capability to do such things when being issued the laptop.

The angry parents of the student who was disciplined for "improper behavior" are filing a class-action lawsuit against the district.

The article can be found here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/school-under-fire-for-spying-on-kid-via-webcam-at-home.ars 

If you have taken abnormal psychology, you may have heard of the Tarasoff case.  If you have not, I will summarize the case for you below.

Prosenjit Poddar met Tatiana Tarasoff at a folk dancing class in the fall of 1968 at the University of California, Berkeley.  That New Year's Eve, Tarasoff rang in the new year by giving Poddar a kiss.  Since kissing at midnight is the norm on New Year's Eve, many of us do not take them too seriously.  Poddar did, however.  The kiss to him symbolized the beginning of a serious relationship between Tarasoff and himself.  Poddar was crushed to learn that Tarasoff was not interested in him and was involved with other men which caused Poddar to enter into a state of depression.  After much convincing, Poddar sought help from a psychologist on campus, Dr. Lawrence Moore.  During one of Poddar's sessions, he told Dr. Moore that he planned to kill Tarasoff when she returned from her summer vacation.  Dr. Moore thought that Poddar was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, both acute and severe.  Dr. Moore suggested that the campus police civilly commit Poddar, which was done, but was shortly released because the police felt he had changed his mind about killing Tarasoff.  Dr. Moore's supervisor, Dr. Harvey Powelson felt that Poddar was rational and instructed no further need for treatment.

The next October, Poddar stabbed Tarasoff to death with a kitchen knife at her house.  Neither Tarasoff or her parents received a warning of Poddar's intentions.

This particular case had an impact on the law, especially when talking about patient-psychotherapist confidentiality.  After this incident, the California Supreme Court ruled that mental health professionals have the duty to not only the patient, but also to anyone who is being threatened.  Many states and even some places outside of the country have adopted this rule stating that mental health professionals have a duty to protect those who are threatened by one of their patients. Psychotherapists are now obligated to warn the potential victim in any way possible to prevent cases such as this.

After we talked about this in my abnormal class last semester, I asked my professor if this law also made it an obligation for therapists to warn potential victims about any physical harm that is threatened to them (i.e. any harm other than murder), and he told me that he is pretty sure that it only applies to threats of one's life.  I thought this was kind of interesting, but I suppose that if therapists had to report every harmful incident brought up by a patient, they would be filing reports left and right.  

(The above summary was based not only on information I learned in class, but also Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasoff_v._Regents_of_the_University_of_California)

If you are interested in this case, there is a TON of information out there online about it.  Feel free to post links to more information! 



   

This article is about a guy that was a convicted sex offender in Iowa that moved to Oklahoma to get away from the harassments he was encountering in Des Moines. When he received a new drivers license in Oklahoma it had "sex offender" in red writing under his picture. Even though he was no longer registered as a sex offender in Iowa, he was forced to live with this stigma in Oklahoma. He was not able to go to the mall, library, or his little brothers football games. His mother fought the legislature to change the law so that expunged sex offenders do not need to be labeled as sex offenders in the state of Oklahoma. He is no longer stigmatized by this label. Sex offender registries are in my opinion kind of a controversial issue. In some instances I agree that people should have to register and should not be permitted around children, but in this guys case he was 16 and he thought the girl was 15 but turns out she was 13. Even thought a lot of people say that is too young to be particiapating in these activities, that is not the point in this case. Im not sure this guys needs to be stigmatized for the rest of his life for his crime in this case.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/11/oklahoma.teen.sex.offender/index.html 

This is an interesting article I had to read for a Criminology class regarding the discussion of the Uniform Crime Report, and what police chiefs did in order to make their cities seem safer then they were. To do this they downgraded a lot of fleonies to misdemeanors and other crimes they simply just didnt report. Since then those official have obvioulsy been releaved of their duties and one new official told his community that when he enters office the crime rate will be a lot higher but at least it will be the correct one that they can work hard at to minimize. I guess the take home point of this type of article is to bring awarness in the dependece of statistics because they can be very misleading and in some cases just made up.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/03/us/as-crime-falls-pressure-rises-to-alter-data.html?scp=3&sq=senior police officials around the nation&st=cse

After watchin the movie Gridiron Gang the other night I found myself fearing things like the chance of a gun man in the mall. When a person starts thinking about these kinds of things they sometimes start to consume my thoughts. I started thinking about our campus and the safety of it. I'm very thankful to go to a college the gives me a great sense of safety. I started to think about small towns. I grew up in one and found myself not worrying if I walked across town and not witnessing or ever hearing about crime in my small town hardly ever growing up. It makes me wonder if because of the fear of crime people in bigger cities would be more psychologically unstable when it came to fearing crime and what kind of impact this would have on depression rates in small towns and big cities. I also thought this article was neat because of the correlation between fearing crime and people's mental health.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070927164455.htm

I also wanted to look deeper into researching the presence of depression in the law system. I found shocking information relating to depression and lawyers. According to a study at Johns Hopkins, that when 28 occupations were studied, the one most likely to experience depression was the occupation of lawyer. Why is this? For one, it appears that the legal profession attracts people who are perfectionists. There also seems to be a large amount of pessimistic personality traits in people who are lawyers. Of another study at Johns Hopkins it showed that optimism out performed pessimism. However, there was one exception and that was people working in law school.

I am taking the class Psych of Personality. I wouldn't say that Psych of Law and that class are very compatible. However, personality does have a large effect on what professions people choose. This is something that affects the types of people who do indeed become lawyers. Psychology reaches so many different aspects of life, and this is clearly an example of that.

http://www.legalunderground.com/2005/03/lawyer_depressi.html

 

Have you ever seen the Oscar winning film, Milk? This article is about the man (Dan White) who murdered the San Francisco mayor, George Moscone, and the board supervisor, Harvey Milk. This case gained notoriety not only because the first openly gay official was murdered but also because many media agencies reported that White beat the murder conviction by using an insanity plea (stating that he ate too much junk food which made him insane). The media nicknamed this defense tactic as  the Twinkie Defense. 
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/insanity/7.html