Attorney Find Blog

An interesting post over at The Divorce Blog lays out an innovative new approach to child support enforcement: put a picture of the “deadbeat” on pizza boxes. With non-payment of child support at crisis levels across the country, many states and counties have enacted creative programs to attempt to enforce child support obligations or collect from unwilling parents. The pizza box initiative is the brainchild of the Butler County, Ohio Child Support Enforcement Agency Director, and follows other Ohio counties that have included flyers featuring deadbeat parents with utility bills.

A newswire story this week indicated that several Vanderbilt University students had been notification that they’d been targeted as defendants in lawsuits by EMI Music, SONY BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group.  Then, the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA) offered the students a surprising option–visit a website and settle your claim online.  Yep, settle the claim online.  I visited the website, and the front page offers two options–you can visit a page of Frequently Asked Questions about the lawsuits, or you can click to settle your claim online using a major credit card.

The FAQ page encourages visitors to settle their claims by suggesting, among other things, that:

• The settlement amount is generally lower if the case is settled before the record company incurs litigation expenses;
• Ignorance of the law is no excuse;
• It’s too late to fix the situation by deleting files or declining future participation; and
• You can still be identified even if you used a wireless connection.

RIAA even points out that if you’re over 18 and you settle before a lawsuit is filed, it’s your choice whether or not to tell your parents that you’ve been involved.  However, once a lawsuit is filed naming you as a defendant, it becomes a matter of public record.

The site offers the possibility of payment plans for those who can’t afford a lump-sum settlement, but warns that there will be additional fees to cover the “administration costs” of the plan.

In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court made a significant ruling with regard to the 1st amendment rights of students.   That landmark decision protected 13-year-old Mary Beth Tinker’s right to wear a black armband to school as a protest against the Vietnam War.  Political speech like Tinker’s protest is, of course, precisely what the 1st amendment intended to guarantee, and enjoys elevated protection when compared to other types of speech such as commercial speech.

Thus, the Tinker case isn’t entirely analogous to the case before the U.S. Supreme Court now–a case in which Joseph Frederick is fighting for his right to…unfurl a “humorous” banner reading “Bong Hits for Jesus” across the street from his high school in Juneau, Alaska.

There’s an interesting analysis of the case–and what it says about the state of our society–at www.firstamendmentcenter.org

We’ve all encountered clients over the years who have created terrible messes for themselves–sometimes messes we can’t fix, and sometimes messes that take months and thousands of dollars to untangle when the initial process would have been very quick and inexpensive by comparison.  It’s certainly understandable when consumers, unfamiliar with the intricacies of the legal process, hope to simply handle things on their own and save some time and money.  It often works out very poorly, but it’s an understandable impulse.

The impulse to profit off of those very people by promising them something comparable to legal services without the necessary qualifications is less understandable in my book.  In fact, it’s reprehensible.  We saw a version of this in February, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that a seller of bankruptcy petition software was a “bankruptcy petition preparer” under the law. 

In that case, bankruptcy petition software had been touted as “an expert system” that could aid the consumer in selecting exemptions, populate information entered by the consumer to the right areas of the petition and schedules, and even provide “stealth techniques”.  Ironically (but not surprisingly) the software came to light when a trustee discovered errors in a petition and learned that it had been prepared using the “expert system” in question.

Now, the Minnesota Attorney General is suing two California companies who have taken the same concept to a much more profitable level.  American Family Legal Plan and Heritage Marketing and Insurance Services, Inc. aren’t preparing bankruptcy petitions, though–they’re preparing trusts.

According to the Attorney General’s office, the companies market estate planning services to senior citizens by direct mail. Then, an agent purporting to be an estate planner meets with the prospective clients at home and distorts and misrepresents the impact of probate fees and estate taxes.  The agents then sell boilerplate “living trust” plans to each client, regardless of assets, marital status, existing estate plan, etc.  The plan is “approved” by an attorney who never meets with the client, and the agent receives a commission of $600-800.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s office also indicated that the companies were the subject of lawsuits in at least two other states, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Sadly, in many cases the senior citizens apparently victimized by these companies could have received personal estate planning advice and document preparation from a qualified estate lawyer for about the same amount of money paid out to these companies for one-size-fits-all documents that might not protect their particular interests at all.

Joseph Kopera, a state police ballistics expert who testified throughout the state of Maryland, reportedly committed suicide last week after defense attorneys uncovered apparent discrepancies in Kopera’s educational records.  Attorneys working with The Innocence Project were reviewing transcripts of Kopera’s past testimony when they noted that his representations regarding his degrees were inconsistent from one case to another. 

Colleagues insist that Kopera was a skilled and dedicated professional, and that with or without degrees his work was above question, but from a legal standpoint it won’t be quite that simple.  The fact that Kopera apparently perjured himself in various court appearances will undermine the credibility of his testimony, even if was qualified to make the determinations he made. 

The Baltimore County Prosecutor’s office and the U.S. Attorney for Maryland have both reportedly indicated that they would be reviewing cases in which Kopera had testified.  While Prosecuting Attorneys have been quick to attempt to limit the scope of the inquiry and to point out that the revelation that Kopera’s credentials were not as they were presented might not have any significant impact, at least one former assistant state’s attorney sees it differently, and reportedly told the Baltimore Sun that the problem “cannot be overstated”, and that prosecutors around the state would likely be dealing with the fallout for years to come.

The Maryland State Police have been notifying prosecuting attorneys and defense attorneys across the state, while

Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted yesterday of perjury and obstruction of justice. While Libby’s attorneys immediately requested a new trial and indicated plans for an appeal if a new trial was not granted, and publications like The National Review decried the verdict and the process that led up to it, those who support Libby’s conviction are no happier.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has indicated that no additional charges will be filed, although even the Libby jury reportedly stated that Libby wasn’t in this alone. The lack of charges relating to the real issue at hand–whether or not CIA agent Valerie Plame was intentionally “outed”–inspired strong reactions from an unlikely combination of officials. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apparently called for a commitment from the White House not to pardon Libby just moments after the conviction was announced, and former CIA officials have been quoted expressing relief at the conviction but concern that it doesn’t go far enough.

The White House is still declining to comment, classifying the case as an “ongoing criminal investigation” until such time as the appellate process has been exhausted.

Michelle Rodriguez offered a lengthy explanation for the fact that she’s still wearing an alcohol monitoring device on her website this week.  There’s a lot of information about false positives and shampoo and lemon water and Rodriguez’s purported offer to serve jail time instead of wearing the monitoring device, but the crux of the 1000+ word explanation seems to be that this kind of treatment just isn’t right for Michelle Rodriguez.

Her words:  . I think that level of vigilance is great for alcoholics, druggies, and heroin addicts. Yet I felt for someone like me, who loves her life too much to f*ck it up for a sip of a beverage, this level of control just isn’t necessary.

What’s especially interesting is that Rodriguez’s declaration that this kind of monitoring is “great” for the real bad guys, just not for her, comes on the heels of her argument that it doesn’t work, and that her whole experience has been a string of false positives.  She says that she feels like a guinea pig for new technology and then, in the very next sentence, tells us that’s great for other people, but not for her.

The technology either works or it doesn’t. I haven’t heard a lot of reports of false positives, but it is a new device and there may still be bugs.  If there are still bugs, those bugs will likely occur just as often when the device is attached to a lowly heroin addict as they do when attached to Michelle Rodriguez.   One thing we know about the device is that it monitors ALCOHOL content, not heroin, so Ms. Rodriguez’s reasoning may be a little questionable when she suggests that it makes more sense to put an alcohol-detecting device on a heroin addict than on a repeat drunk driver–which, in case we’ve lost sight of that fact in the face of all this drama, Michelle Rodriguez is.

Even if she does assure us that she “loves her life too much to f*ck it up for a sip of a beverage”.

For celebrity DUI news, visit our affiliate’s Celebrity DUI Spotlight

After not seeing his wife since her mysterious disappearance in 2002, a Maryland man has sought a divorce, according to a story in the Arbutus Times. D.J. Rust Jr. testified last week in a Howard County Courtroom last week that he had not seen his wife since her disappearance and has no reasonable expectation of reconciliation with her. A judge said that she will recommend that Rust’s divorce request is met and that he gets custody of the couple’s 7-year-old son. Rust could receive his divorce decree by mail in less than a month, according to the judge. Maryland divorce law says that both couples have grounds for divorce after being separated for two consecutive years and having no reasonable expectation of reconciliation.

A Baltimore County detective was at last week’s hearing to follow the divorce proceeding and Rust’s activities. Rust was the last person to see his wife when she disappeared on the day of her son’s third-birthday party and has been the subject of a police investigation ever since. Michelle’s parents last saw their only daughter with her husband and son the night before she went missing, and her father later found her 1998 van empty near an intersection on the day of her disappearance. The parents have said that they think Michelle, who was a diabetic and needed daily medication, is dead, according to the story.

Police determined foul play within months of Michelle Rust’s disappearance, but have not located a body or any of her clothing and jewelry, which when she was last seen included a black V-neck top, white gold cross necklace, diamond engagement ring, and blue sapphire ring. A Baltimore detective assigned to the case said that police will continue to follow the activities of D.J. Rust Jr. until his missing wife is found. Rust and Michelle’s parents declined comments for the story.

Michelle Rust was 24-years-old at the time of her disappearance. She was 5-foot-4 and weighed 140 pounds. Posters describe her as being a blue-eyed white woman with red hair. Police ask people with any information about Michelle Rust’s disappearance to call 410-307-2020.

Recently, we talked about the Florida legislature’s issues with the state’s personal injury protection law, which will sundown in October. While the debate over whether or not personal injury protection should be required rages in Florida, Michigan lawmarkers are debating another facet of n0-fault insurance: the prohibition on lawsuits for all but the most serious of injuries.

In Michigan, personal injury protection covers not only medical bills but up to three years of lost wages. But in order for a car accident victim to sue for additional damages such as pain and suffering, the injury must impair the victim’s “general ability to lead his or her normal life”. A restrictive State Supreme Court ruling in 2004 determined that the injury must affect “the course and trajectory” of one’s general life. According to a representative of the Coalition Protecting Auto No-Fault, the State Court of Appeals has ruled against injured parties and in favor of the insurance company in 140 of 165 cases heard since that ruling.

Now, some lawmakers are attempting to reverse the impact of that decision, but Michigagn Republicans and automobile insurance companies say that reform would bring a flood of lawsuits.

There’s an interesting post on The Divorce Blog about a proposed Maryland law that would require Orthodox Jewish men filing for divorce to sign an affidavit indicating that they had removed all religious barriers to remarriage for their wives. Under Jewish law, a man must release his wife before she can remarry after a divorce, although there is no such restriction on remarriage by the husband.

The proposed legislation raises interesting questions about the already murky division between state authority and religious commitment in the marriage arena.