Judicial Reports: LexPress: Shadowy Rememberances

By Jesse Sunenblick
jsunenblick@judicialstudies.com
Posted: 04-15-08 

Vito Lopez prepares to reenact some legendary Brooklyn patronage games. In other news, The New York Times reveals the troubling pattern of ineffective attorneys filing substandard immigration cases before the Second Circuit.

OLD BOSS, NEW BOSS
The New York Sun ponders some of the eerily familiar difficulties facing Brooklyn Democratic leader and Assemblyman Vito Lopez, as he prepares to wield his influence in determining who will vie for the eight vacancies on the Brooklyn Supreme Court this fall. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s refusal to alter New York’s politically-driven method of electing its trial judges in Lopez Torres V. NYS Board of Elections, Lopez maintains many of the same controversial powers as his predecessor, Clarence Norman, who is currently serving a one to three year prison sentence on corruption charges. Moreover, Lopez faces questions over his daughter Gina Lopez Suma’s recent reappointment to the Court of Claims by Governor David Patterson. Then there's yesterday’s report in The Daily News about another judge linked to Lopez — Justice Jack Battaglia, the brother of Mr. Lopez’s girlfriend, who is suing the city for $1 million after slipping on a recently mopped surface in the Brooklyn courthouse where he works. “The thing with the Brooklyn judiciary is that it is, if not the last, the most lucrative bastion of the old-time political machine," said Douglas Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College. “It’s also a place where who you know and who you’re related to really counts. It's the old-time ‘take care of your own and take care of me’ school of governance.” Added Christopher Owens, president of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats: “If she [Lopez’s daughter] got access to the position specifically because she was related to a politician and if she was able to be reappointed because she is related to a politician and her qualifications are secondary, that is a problem and that is our concern.”

A "DISTURBING PATTERN OF INEFFECTIVENESS" 
The New York Times today explores the disturbing glut of immigration cases before the Second Circuit, many of which are being handled by attorneys who either lack the expertise to manage their clients’ claims or are simply too inundated with cases to provide effective counsel. The Times singles out one attorney in particular, Frank R. Liu, who despite being warned repeatedly by the court for providing substandard representation, has filed more than 50 appeals there for clients in the last three years alone. (The Times cites as evidence two briefs Liu submitted to the Second Circuit in October 2006, which contained 27 duplicative paragraphs and no explanation of lower court rulings.) Responding to Judge Robert A. Katzmann's assessment of a “disturbing pattern of ineffectiveness” at the lower levels of the immigration bar, Liu said, “I think the judge has a point, actually. . . . Some attorneys, including myself, do not spend enough time. We’re not trained properly in terms of federal appeals. I ventured into an area I found later was very demanding. I was probably not qualified to do the job.” 

HARRY POTTER, INC V. FAIR USE DOCTRINE 
Meanwhile, The New York Law Journal reports on Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s appearance yesterday before Southern District Judge Robert Patterson. Rowling has sued the author of a Harry Potter lexicon for copyright infringement, alleging that the volume — which alphabetically lists characters, places, spells, creatures and objects in the Potter series — may have interfered with her plans to produce a Harry Potter encyclopedia and give the proceeds to charity. “Should my fans be glutted with a surfeit of substandard so-called lexicons or guides, I’m not sure I would have the will or the heart to write my own encyclopedia,” Ms. Rowling said. Patterson is to rule whether Rowling’s claims are trumped by the Fair Use Doctrine. “The Lexicon, whether on the Web or in book form, is a valuable tool to find and remember details from this elaborate world,” said the attorney for RDR books and the executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society, Anthony Falzone. “Profit was never the point. They did this because it was a labor of love.”

$1 MILLION IN RACIAL HARASSMENT CASE 
Last week an Administrative Law Judge recommended that Amelia Kearney, the mother of a 12-year-old middle school student in the Ithaca City School District, should receive $1 million after the school failed to protect the girl from racial harassment. The Ithaca Journal has the story. The Judge, Christine Marbach Kellett, wrote: “While it is true that [Kearney’s daughter’s] peers were the actors in terms of the racially offensive taunts, discriminatory remarks, racially abusive language, and despicable conduct that should not be tolerated, this case is really about the failure of the adults responsible for the students in their school to stand up to and stop conduct they knew was wrong. At each opportunity the adults made the wrong choice: they protected the perpetrator and thus permitted the repeated discriminatory conduct to be inflicted on the complainant’s child. This is a gross abuse of their authority, their discretion, and an abdication of their responsibilities to [Kearney’s daughter], to complainant and the school population at large.”

Posted by Jesse on April 15, 2008 09:21 AM to Judicial Reports