Judicial Reports: LexPress: Kinder, Gentler Court
By Lily Henning
Posted 09-26-06
The latest in smoothing the justice system's rough edges, and reports on why Saddam's in more trouble — while Liza's in less.
A KINDER, GENTLER COURT
Today’s edition of The New York Law Journal has a look at a new court part in Suffolk County that’s the first of its kind in the country. The guardianship part in is the latest in a growing body of specialized courts in New York. Like a handful of other specialized courts in the state, this one integrates pending cases that involve one person before a single judge. Established in response to complaints about the experiences of people involved in guardianship cases, the court’s layout is designed to make court a friendlier experience, especially for the elderly. Supreme Court Judge Patrick Leis III, Suffolk County's administrative judge, presides there.
CONTROLLING LEGAL AUTHORITY?
Judge Mohammed al-Ureybi tried to keep an already tenuous hold on his courtroom today, ejecting Saddam Hussein from his genocide trial again. It’s the third day that al-Ureybi has thrown Hussein out of the courtroom. Reuters, via The New York Times, noted that “chaos reined” in the court following the firing of the chief judge in the case last week. The chaos extends to reports on the bench itself. We’re a little confused, for example, about who is presiding as chief judge in the case now. The AP reports, within an hour of Reuters and also via the Times, that it was Chief Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa who ejected Hussein.)
UPDATES
Briefly in Manhattan Supreme Court: Five female Emergency Medical Service captains, according to the New York Post, are filing a sex discrimination suit in Manhattan Supreme Court today, claiming that the FDNY tried to prevent them from advancing in their careers . . . Judge Jane Solomon (whose profile is on the homepage of Judicial Reports right now) threw out the $10 million civil suit filed against entertainer Liza Minelli by her estranged husband. Solomon accepted Minelli’s doctors’ explanation in court, according to an AP dispatch, that David Gest’s headaches were caused by a type of herpes, not by physical abuse by Minelli.
SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
A woman who tried to influence a juror in a trial in Mineola civil trial should not have been found guilty of contempt of court, according to a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reported in The New York Law Journal. The woman approached a juror in a cafeteria nine floors away from the courtroom, and because of that distance, her interaction with the juror can’t be considered to have disrupted proceedings.
LEXBLOG: REHEATED LEFTOVERS
Over at the New York Observer's Politicker blog, Azi Paybarah warms up campaign finance leftovers in the 2006 Attorney General race. Candidates Mark Green, Charlie King, and Sean Patrick Maloney all exited the race with over $100,000 burning a hole in their pockets.
These figures matter as campaign consultants consider what might happen if Supreme Court justices are chosen through open primaries next year—$100,000 could become chump change in judicial campaigns.
LEXBLOG: HONORABLE BOB DYLAN?
After painstakingly analyzing scores of judicial opinions, a law professor discovered that the esoteric folk singer Bob Dylan is the most used (and abused) lyricist in court papers, the Legal Blog Watch noted last week. Enjoy this rare glimpse into the jukebox of justice:
"The professor, Alex B. Long of Oklahoma City University School of Law, recently published his findings in an article, '[Insert Song Lyrics Here]: The Uses and Misuses of Popular Music Lyrics in Legal Writing.' He writes that one Dylan lyric, 'You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,' has virtually become boilerplate in California appellate decisions discussing the need for expert testimony."
Posted by Dirk on September 26, 2006 11:11 AM to Judicial Reports