Name Change...

A judge in Tennessee has told the parents of a 7 month old baby boy that they must change its first name to “Martin” instead of the name the parents wanted.

My first reaction upon reading that was to wonder how it could be possible for a judge in the U.S. to even have that power.  It doesn't seem to me that a judge should be able to do that – if a parent wants to assign some particular name to their child, why should a judge be able to overrule them?

Then I read the name the parents had chosen: “Messiah”.  Ah, ha!  They must have offended a Christian judge, I thought – and the article confirms that.  This seems like particularly egregious overreach on the part of the judge, imposing her Christian sensibilities on the parents, who may or may not be Christian themselves.  My guess is that if the parent's fight the judge's order, they will prevail.

But what to do with a judge that exhibits such blatantly inappropriate prejudice and partiality?  Get her out of there!  She doesn't belong in a position with such responsibility to be impartial with respect to faith...

Court of Public Opinion...

I recently blogged about the spat between Elon Musk (of Tesla Motors) and the New York Times.  Musk was convinced that the Times was lying about the results of a test drive they made in a Tesla car, smearing the company's good name and reputation in the process.  Instead of suing the Times through our court system, Musk appealed to the “court of public opinion” by publishing an open letter to the public.  His letter was publicized by hundreds of news sites, newspapers, and blogs.  In the resulting kerfuffle, the New York Times reconsidered its stance and reversed its previous support for their reporter, withdrawing the story.  Elon Musk won that “case” in a manner far more convincing to the public than anything I can imagine emerging from a case pursued in the traditional courts.

I thought that case was interesting, which is why I blogged about it.  Security expert and cryptographer Bruce Schneier saw it as one example of a pattern of behaviors enabled by the Internet.  It's part of the rise of an alternative system of jurisprudence.  An excerpt from his recent article on Wired:

The court of public opinion is an alternative system of justice. It’s very different from the traditional court system: This court is based on reputation, revenge, public shaming, and the whims of the crowd. Having a good story is more important than having the law on your side. Being a sympathetic underdog is more important than being fair. Facts matter, but there are no standards of accuracy. The speed of the internet exacerbates this; a good story spreads faster than a bunch of facts.

...

The court of public opinion has significant limitations. It works better for revenge and justice than for dispute resolution. It can punish a company for unfairly firing one of its employees or lying in an automobile test drive, but it’s less effective at unraveling a complicated patent litigation or navigating a bankruptcy proceeding.

Mr. Schneier is onto something here.  I found myself thinking along these lines recently, as I'm currently in a dispute with a large environmentalist organization.  Seeking justice in a court of law is an intimidating, expensive, and very uncertain proposition.  Seeking justice in the court of public opinion just might be a better alternative – though not one that occurred to me immediately.  Apparently I'm more of a hidebound traditionalist than I thought I was :)

Obama “Recess Appointments” Ruled Invalid...

Obama's been slapped down (for once!) for one of his many overreaching attempts to create an Imperial Presidency.  Much more here from Ricochet and Megan McArdle.  Three cheers for the appellate court having the guts to stand up to him...

The Dark Side of Plea Bargains...

I've never liked the whole idea of plea bargaining, for several reasons.  The aspect that bothers me most is that plea bargaining encourages innocent people to plead guilty, which means the wrong person is being punished and the right person isn't.  Today's Wall Street Journal ($) has a disturbing article about this very phenomenon...

Plea Bargains...

Most criminal cases in the U.S. never go to trial.  Instead, the accused pleads guilty as part of a “plea bargain”.  This saves an enormous amount of time and money, and reduces the number of judges, courtrooms, prosecutors, etc. needed in the justice system.

It also leads, in some cases, to miscarriages of justice – in both directions.  That is, sometimes innocent people are pressured into pleading guilty to avoid the risk of long jail terms.  Sometimes (more often, actually) guilty people are pleading to lesser charges than they're guilty of – putting us all at risk of their repeat offenses.

But, what if...every defendant decided to insist upon their right (granted by the Constitution) for a trial by a jury of their peers?  Short answer: they'd crash the justice system, which doesn't have the resources to handle such a load...

Another interesting and thought-provoking read...

Barone on the Dangers of Liberal Judges...

Well, that's not actually his theme, but it might as well be – at least in this passage:

This is the sort of thing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg described in the text as just the workings of politics. Writing in Slate, Yale Law faculty member Emily Bazelon goes further. She laments that the promotion test rewarded memorization and that it favored "'fire buffs' -- guys who read fire suppression manuals on their down time."

She is outraged that a fire department might want to promote firefighters who know more about suppressing fires, rescuing victims and protecting their colleagues rather than simply promote a predetermined number of members of specific racial groups whose self-appointed political spokesmen back the politicians in office.

Orlosky Acquitted...

I don't know any more than what this article says – but this much is plain: “Bob” Orlosky is now cleared of all charges. He claimed that he killed Charles Crow justifiably, in defense of himself and his property – and a jury of his peers agreed with him.

This case is very troubling for residents out here, from both the perspective of those who champion the right of self-defense, and from those who believe that Orlosky either deliberately murdered Crow or grossly over-reacted to an imagined threat. The former have very clearly won the day...