The extraordinary legal career that Larry Manzanares spent 25 years building will be forever tainted by the scandal and criminal charges he now faces, according to some legal experts.
"This debacle will follow him to the grave, regardless of guilt or innocence," said Denver lawyer Scott Robinson.
"He's always going to have that black cloud hanging over his head," Robinson said. "He'll be like Marley's ghost, pulling the weight of the chains that he's forged in life."
Manzanares, 50, was charged with three felonies Wednesday in the theft of a state-owned computer from the courthouse. Investigators found "massive" amounts of pornography on the computer, which Manzanares tried to delete before turning the computer over to police.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Manzanares became a Denver county judge in 1992, a district judge in 1998 and was appointed Denver city attorney in January. His salary was $125,473.
This is a hard fall for a person whose career appeared to be on a rapid rise to even greater achievement, said Denver lawyer and former prosecutor Craig Silverman.
Sara Caplan, a former lawyer for Phil Spector, will be held in contempt of court if she refuses to testify about whether she saw a defense expert mishandle material that could be evidence in the music producer's murder trial, the judge ruled this morning. The decision carries criminal penalties, but the contempt ruling was immediately stayed until June 22 to allow Caplan time to appeal to a higher court. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler also gave the parties until Monday at 9 a.m. to work out a compromise.
Fidler said it was the first time in his 25 years on the bench that he has had to punish an attorney with contempt. The jurist was clearly sorrowful that the dispute over Caplan's testimony led to his decision.
"It goes without saying that nobody wants to be here today," Fidler said as he recited his ruling from the bench. "Nobody has any personal animus against Miss Caplan. "I admire her for taking the stance she is taking; I don't agree with it," Fidler said, adding later that as a judge he had no choice. "You often have to do things you don't like." "I see no reason why Miss Caplan should not testify," said Fidler, who was a defense attorney for 10 years. "There is no other person who can testify to what she saw."
As Paris burns back in county jail, the debate over her short-lived release rages on, with law experts dissecting the thorny legal issues raised by the Simple Life star's sentence.
The main issue? Whether Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer was correct in overruling Sheriff Lee Baca's decision to transfer Hilton to house arrest after just three full days in jail for what was originally a 45-day sentence.
"It's really bizarre that the most frivolous person in the western world in the most frivolous case in which she didn't know she has a license to drive might end up creating precedent that could affect thousands of prisoners and where they're housed and how they're housed for years to come," said Stan Goldman, professor of criminal law at Loyola University Law School.
Goldman and others agree the showdown creates a legal quandary—i.e., whether the elected sheriff is truly independent of the judiciary and whether Judge Sauer overstepped his bounds.
Hours after Paris Hilton was sent home under house arrest Thursday the judge who originally put her in jail on a reckless driving probation violation ordered her back to court to determine whether he should return her to jail.
Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer issued his order after the city attorney filed a petition late Thursday afternoon demanding to show cause why Sheriff Lee Baca should not be held in contempt of court for releasing Hilton Thursday morning and demanding that Hilton be held in custody.
Hilton was ordered to report to court at 9 a.m., Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini told the Associated Press.
"My understanding is she will be brought in in a sheriff's vehicle from her home," Parachini said, adding that although Hilton is at home she is technically in custody because she is under house arrest.
Good. Although I can understand why Sheriff Lee Baca let her go: Would you want to have to put up with her whining, teary, herpes-infected ass for 23 days? I don't think so. Details here from the AP via the San Francisco Chronicle.
The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.
After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.
"We are currently investigating the veracity of these serious claims of his participation in projects that don't align with the biblical standards and moral code upon which the ministry was founded," Answers for Genesis spokesman Mark Looy said in a written statement.
The actor, Eric Linden, owns a graphic Web site called Bedroom Acrobat, where he has been pictured, smiling alongside a drag queen, in a T-shirt brandishing the site's sexually suggestive logo. The Web site, which has a network of members, allows users to post explicit stories and photos.
"Hustler" publisher Larry Flynt - just days after posting a $1 million bounty for verifiable information on the sexual exploits of U.S. Congress members and political leaders -- says he's already been deluged by more than 200 leads pouring in from around the country, "80 percent of them on Republicans.''
"I'm not interested in exposing anyone's sex life,'' said Flynt, in a telephone interview with the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday. "It's the hypocrisy I'm after. I think that if someone takes a public position contrary to their private life, they're fair game.''
The article notes that when President Clinton was facing impeachment over the Monica Lewinski affair, "GOP House Speaker elect Bob Livingston resigned after Flynt prepared to go public with an informant's details of his illicit affair." Details here from the San Francisco Chronicle.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and caused him to be hospitalized.
The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods of New York said he bought the nutrition beverage made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG at a drugstore on June 5, 2004, and drank it.
Woods' court papers say he woke up the next morning ''with an erection that would not subside'' and sought treatment that day for the condition, called severe priapism.
They say Woods, 29, underwent surgery for implantation of a Winter shunt, which moves blood from one area to another. . . .
[N]ovartis' Boost Plus Web site describes the drink as ''a great tasting, high calorie, nutritionally complete oral supplement for people who require extra energy and protein in a limited volume,'' in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- The state Assembly voted Tuesday to allow same-sex couples to marry, challenging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has said he will veto the bill if it passes the full Legislature.
Legislators approved the measure on a party-line vote of 42-34, with the majority saying lawmakers should not to wait for the state Supreme Court to act on the issue.
A debate about California's one man-one woman marriage law of 1977 is likely to be decided this year or early next year by the high court.
The bill now goes to the Senate, which adopted a similar measure in 2005. Schwarzenegger vetoed it.
Former Brooklyn Justice Gerald P. Garson was sentenced Tuesday to 3 to 10 years in prison for bribery and receiving rewards of official misconduct.
At the end of a proceeding that lasted more than two hours, Garson, 74, was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.
But before the day was out, 2nd Department Justice Edward D. Carni had issued a temporary stay keeping Garson on $15,000 bail until a full panel can hear his request for a stay pending appeal on June 12.
Acting Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey A. Berry told a crowded courtroom that he himself, as well as his colleagues on the bench, have "to bear the stigma of what you did" -- create the perception that "justice could be bought" in Brooklyn.
Before pronouncing the sentence, Berry heard a divorce litigant, Sigal Levi, whose case was at the heart of the bribery case say, "I hope and pray to God" that Justice Berry will "give you what you deserve."
Garson, 74, also briefly addressed the court, breaking down in sobs several times as he apologized to his former colleagues on the bench and his family.
Garson was convicted in April of accepting thousands of dollars worth of free meals and drinks from Paul Siminovsky, a now disbarred lawyer, in exchange for providing ex parte advice, court assignments and favors such as free range of the former judge's robing room. He was also convicted of one count of illegally accepting a $1,000 fee from Siminovsky, for having referred two clients.
Details here from the New York Law Journal via Law.com.
Even as the Boston-based firm bumps associate salaries nationwide, it seems to be enticing some associates to leave
While Bingham McCutchen is now paying top dollar to hold on to associates at its offices across the country, in San Francisco the firm seems to be paying top dollar so some of them will leave.
Several mid-level and senior litigation associates have taken a buyout deal from the 1,000-lawyer, Boston-based firm, according to multiple sources inside and outside the firm. Four attorneys recently left the firm, and three traded in their full-time associate status for the part-time title of contract attorney, those sources say.
On Tuesday, the firm raised associate salaries in all offices to the $160,000 scale, following crowds of other large firms that have done the same.
Anthony Carbone, chair of the firm's committee on associates, described the personnel moves in San Francisco as "mutually agreeable transitions" initiated by associates based on their individual situations -- not layoffs initiated by the firm.
This makes me sad. I worked at McCutchen Doyle Brown & Enersen in San Francisco for several years before leaving in 2000. (That was long before the merger that created Bingham McCutchen.) I loved that firm and the people there. I have no desire to trash them, but things don't seem to be going well for the San Francisco office since the merger.
Details here from The Recorder via Law.com.
McGuireWoods and former partner Eliot Disner aren't wasting time before duking it out over control of a $49 million class action against BAR/BRI, the nation's leading bar review company. Less than two weeks after Disner says disagreement over strategy led to his ouster from the firm, the lawyer has asked a judge to name him "co-lead counsel" in the BAR/BRI litigation. McGuireWoods has fired back, arguing that Disner, already in line for a 30 percent cut of the attorney fees, should have no role whatsoever.
A prosecutor apparently targeted for firing had supported Native American voters' rights.
WASHINGTON — For more than 15 years, clean-cut, square-jawed Tom Heffelfinger was the embodiment of a tough Republican prosecutor. Named U.S. attorney for Minnesota in 1991, he won a series of high-profile white-collar crime and gun and explosives cases. By the time Heffelfinger resigned last year, his office had collected a string of awards and commendations from the Justice Department.
So it came as a surprise — and something of a mystery — when he turned up on a list of U.S. attorneys who had been targeted for firing.
Part of the reason, government documents and other evidence suggest, is that he tried to protect voting rights for Native Americans.
At a time when GOP activists wanted U.S. attorneys to concentrate on pursuing voter fraud cases, Heffelfinger's office was expressing deep concern about the effect of a state directive that could have the effect of discouraging Indians in Minnesota from casting ballots.
Saying a bankruptcy judge was "a few french fries short of a Happy Meal" may cost an out-of-state lawyer the ability to practice in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida.
The comment already has cost Chicago-based McDermott Will & Emery partner William P. Smith [left] his client -- Miami Beach's Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute.
Bankruptcy Judge Laurel Myerson Isicoff in Miami also slapped the hospital with a restraining order at the same hearing where Smith made his fast-food quip. She found Mount Sinai's anti-competitive actions in the bankruptcy case of South Beach Community Hospital violated bankruptcy law.
During a May 7 hearing, Smith told Isicoff, "I suggest with respect, your honor, that you're a few french fries short of a Happy Meal in terms of what's likely to take place."
Under the California Arbitration Act (CAA) (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 1280–1294.2), a petition or response seeking to correct or vacate an arbitration award must be brought in the superior court within 100 days after service of a signed copy of the award (id., § 1288), while a petition to confirm the award may be brought within four years after service (ibid.). (Section references are to the Code of Civil Procedure unless otherwise indicated.)
Here, the arbitrator issued an award in favor of plaintiff. Defendants did not file a petition or response in the trial court to correct or vacate the award within the 100-day period. (See §§ 1285–1286.8.) Three weeks after the period expired, plaintiff filed a petition to confirm the award. In their response, defendants challenged the award as invalid. The trial court entered judgment confirming the award.
We conclude that, because defendants did not bring a timely petition or response to correct or vacate the award, the trial court had no choice but to disregard defendants’ challenge and “confirm the award as made.” (§ 1286.) We therefore affirm.
States' compensation for wrongful imprisonment ranges from zero to millions of dollars.
This month, two men – both freed last year after DNA evidence exonerated them of the crimes for which they'd been in prison – received drastically different news about how they might be compensated for those lost years.
Connecticut legislators voted to award $5 million to James Tillman to help him get his life back on track after 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn't commit.
The Florida Legislature, on the other hand, denied Alan Crotzer's request for $1.25 million and let a bill die that would have standardized a compensation system for victims of wrongful conviction.
"I felt so disappointed," says Mr. Crotzer, who served more than 24 years in a Florida prison until DNA evidence cleared him of rape and kidnapping charges. He's been working odd jobs that pay less than $300 a week since he got out. "The bottom line is, I don't think I could ever put a price on freedom…. But they've got to put a system in place. [This issue] isn't going away."
The cases are typical results of the patchwork of compensation laws in the US, say experts. Last month, the 200th person was exonerated due to DNA evidence, but the majority of those released have gotten nothing but an apology – and sometimes not even that.
The District Judge Elizabeth Halverson saga is starting to creep beyond the borders of Nevada and into the California news media, while locally the docudrama is the first thing many of us read each day. When they make a TV special of it, I'd like to suggest a name: Power and Paranoia.
Halverson spent nine years as a fairly lowly law clerk. (I always assumed the 425-pound woman, according to her driver's license, stayed as long as she could for the county's health insurance coverage.) After she was fired, she ran for one judgeship, lost, but in 2006 won on her second try.
Before long, stories started coming out of the Regional Justice Center about her contemptuous behavior toward her staff, particularly her bailiff, Johnny Jordan. Halverson, who had never had real power, was relishing it, throwing a pencil on the floor and ordering him to pick it up. Jordan was ordered to give her foot rubs and back massages. He has since filed a complaint against his former boss alleging discrimination based on sex and race. He is black and says she treated him like a "house boy."
Her court clerk, Katherine Streuber, said the judge's behavior was "vile, angry, degrading to anyone within her path." Streuber also objected to being called "the evil one" and "the anti-Christ" by the judge. (We in the news business hear that every other day, but courthouse employees are unaccustomed.)
For the past few days, this website has been getting several thousand junk or spam comments and trackbacks every day. They appear to be coming from automated "web bots" and appear to be malicious -- they don't even try to advertise anything, and instead just seem to be trying to overrun this website or my server.
I have taken every measure I can think of to stop this onslaught, but it keeps coming. For the time being, I am going to disable the comments and trackbacks on this website completely. Hopefully in a few days or weeks I'll be able to re-enable them.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
It's bad enough when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turns down a lawyer's appeal in a per curiam opinion. But it's even worse when the court describes a lawyer's conduct with an arcane word that might require a trip to the dictionary for full explanation.
Just ask Cletus Erenster, a Houston civil rights lawyer and partner in Washington & Erenster, whose appeal associated with long-running litigation against Dillard Department Stores Inc. was dismissed after the 5th Circuit found that the history of the case reflected "extreme pettifoggery by and on behalf of" appellant Erenster and others. A pettifogger, according to Webster's New World Dictionary, is "a lawyer who handles petty cases ... ."
"I feel hurt by that. And I don't agree with it, because civil rights work is important," Erenster says. Erenster says he has filed numerous suits against Dillard's alleging the store racially profiled minority customers.
He allegedly set up a Web site to solicit clients against Dillard's that infringed on the department store's trademark, according to Dillard's briefs in Evanston Insurance Co. v. Dillard Department Stores Inc., a case in which the 5th Circuit lists Erenster as an interested party-appellant. [See the court's opinion.]
A Manhattan federal judge has rebuked a Dorsey & Whitney partner for supposedly trying to circumvent a protective order on documents obtained in discovery.
In a sharply worded decision issued Thursday, Southern District of New York Judge Harold Baer said he would rule at a later date on a motion to sanction the partner, Kristan L. Peters. He advised her for now to attend a June 17 continuing legal education course titled "Ethical Bounds of Aggressive Litigation."
But Peters Thursday said the judge's decision was "riddled with errors" and said she and her firm had done their best to "jump through hoops" set by Baer.
Careful, there, Ms. Peters . . . . Details here from the New York Law Journal via Law.com.
Eliot Disner is out of a job, less than a week after court filings made public his objections to the $49 million settlement negotiated by his firm, McGuireWoods, in an antitrust class action against the parent company of BAR/BRI, the nation's largest provider of bar review courses.
Disner, who was a partner in the Los Angeles office of McGuireWoods, said that the firm fired him Wednesday. "I was terminated because [McGuireWoods] said that my work on the BAR/BRI case had hurt the [firm's] reputation," Disner said. His concerns about the proposed settlement with West Publishing Corp., which offers BAR/BRI bar review courses nationwide, surfaced in an objection to the class settlement that was filed last week by three lead plaintiffs.
William Allcott, a McGuireWoods spokesman, declined to discuss the reasons for Disner's termination. "All I can say is Disner is no longer with McGuireWoods," said Allcott, a partner in the firm's Richmond, Va., office.
Details here from The American Lawyer via Law.com.
