The New York Times covers silly and embarrassing place names in England.

He lays it out straight, so there is no room for unpleasant confusion. “I say, ‘It’s spelled “crap,” as in crap,’ ” said Mr. Pearce, 61, who has lived in Crapstone, a one-shop country village in Devon, for decades.

Via Scalzi.

Wrapping up a brief in opposition to a motion for a new trial, based in part on allegations of juror misconduct.

Opposing counsel writes:

"During the course of the trial, [opposing counsel] observed [juror #4] giving [opposing counsel] a number of hostile, angry stares.  [Juror #4] frequently smirked, grimaced, or laughed during [opposing counsel's] presentation of the evidence, rather than paying attention to the witnesses or evidence presented."

What I write in response:

"To the extent that Plaintiffs seek a new trial based on allegations of misconduct by a juror, “it must be shown that the jury was actually prejudiced” against them. [citations omitted] Plaintiffs have not proven prejudice. Rather, they have presented a conjecture by their counsel that a juror’s stares, smirks, grimaces, and laughter, seen and overheard by no one except their counsel, “must have” affected the verdict.  Such conjecture is not evidence, nor does it justify giving Plaintiffs a "second bite at the apple" following a fair trial before a conscientious jury."

What I'd like to write in response:

"Of course the guy was giving you a hostile, angry stare.  If his eyes had been lasers, you'd have a hole in your head.  You took the man out of work for ten days trying a case that we could have tried in three.  I was feeling hostile and angry toward you on day six.  As for the laughter, believe me, after you spent an entire afternoon trying and failing to get [rejected expert witness] qualified as an expert, the judge, the clerk, and the bailiff were laughing at you too!"

Unfortunately, this post will have to do.

One of my favorite books on American history and sociology is David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America.  Fischer examines how various British subcultures transplanted themselves to America, and how they've fared in their geographic and cultural enclaves.  As a southerner with Appalachian roots, I find Fischer's analysis of the Scottish and Black Irish warrior tradition, which lives on today in the southern piedmont and Appalachians, spot on.  Among other things, this subculture inclines toward the model of the heroic frontiersman, or highwayman, righting wrongs, defending his people, and "doing the right thing" regardless of what the neighbors or folks in Washington may think.  Historical models include President Andrew Jackson, General Douglas MacArthur, and the James gang founded by Frank and Jesse James.

Scotch-Irish warrior culture lives on in some rather curious legal institutions in the area.  Tennessee, for instance, still maintains the office of Constable, an elected but unpaid law enforcement officer (he has to furnish his own badge, gun, police cruiser, and equipment, and he need receive no law enforcement training) who has equal authority with county sheriffs (a more modern and professional office) to enforce laws, provide emergency service, get cats out of trees, and  punish wrongdoers.  The Constable is a sort of one-man adjunct to law enforcement, elected by the people and sent out like an unguided missile to punish crime, without training and with only the equipment he can afford.

But what sort of man, in this economy, wants an unpaid job which comes with such danger and authority?  In the case of Roane County Tennessee Constable Mark Patton, county authorities who are trying to oust him from office allege that it's a bully and a thug so dangerous and unstable that even his fellow law enforcement officers and the mayor fear him.

Patton, elected constable for the Kingston area in 2006, has posed for pictures on the Roane County Courthouse steps clutching a large stick reminiscent of Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser, made famous in the movie “Walking Tall.”

In Patton's case, it's alleged, the big stick isn't just a weapon: It's a metaphor for his style of law enforcement.

The ouster complaint alleges that Patton’s misconduct “shocks the conscience of the residents of Roane County,” that he has threatened law enforcement officers and elected officials, that residents fled in fear of his appearance on the courthouse steps in August, and that the sheriff was “forced to draw his sidearm … to protect himself from the defendant.”

Patton in September allegedly assaulted residents in Kingston City Park. The complaint says he has pursued a “personal vendetta” including a pattern of “stalking, intimidating and harassing various individuals.”

Patton, it's alleged, has arrested sheriff's deputies who stopped friends for traffic violations, and last year maced a group of young men for the offense of playing basketball in public.  The county sheriff has issued a public safety warning, directing citizens who are being stopped for traffic offenses to drive to the sheriff's office before getting out of their vehicles.

Why does 21st century Tennessee need an office that appears to amount to the position of "elected town bully"?  Defenders of Patton and the office claim tradition, "We've always had a constable."  Perhaps it's time to set tradition aside.  I'm sure that in Massachusetts, many swore when the office of Witchfinder General was finally abolished, but the state doesn't seem to have suffered too much in the intervening centuries.

Legal Blog Watch reports that megafirm Allen & Overy has recently been forced to address a somewhat, if you will pardon me, sticky HR situation.

One of the world's largest law firms, Allen & Overy, has ordered a senior lawyer in its Moscow office to stop publishing erotic fiction on her personal Web site. A spokesman for the firm told news reporters that the saucy stories written by lawyer Deidre Dare, who is from the United States, violated the firm's strict rules governing employee conduct.

One wonders how specific these strict rules are. Do they strictly prohibit writing erotica, or blogging, or blogging about writing erotica? If so, was that really a problem before? If not, are they simply relying upon some sort of vague don't-do-anything-to-embarrass-the-firm language? If that's the case, it hardly seems fair. Someone named Deirdre Dare is almost certainly compelled by fate and narrative convention to either write erotica or to solve mysteries, possibly with the help of an anthropomorphized animal sidekick. Are there no reasonable accommodation requirements?

Anyway, Allen & Overy is being rather Victorian about all of this. As is appropriate for a scandal involving a lawyer in Russia, they are trying to transform poor Ms. Dare into an unperson:

In addition to censoring Dare's fiction, it appears the firm also put a lid on her firm biography. One news report earlier this week quoted her firm biography's description of her practice: "Deidre is an international finance and projects lawyer who has represented diverse clients involved in financings, equipment leasing and projects around the world." But her biography page now is virtually blank, one of the few without even a photograph. Instead, it instructs anyone wanting her CV to e-mail the Web site's administrator.

In the internet age, of course, this is the equivalent of closing the barn door after the horse has been shot. Like the decision to make an issue of this in the first place, Allen & Overy's actions are naive. Rather than make it less likely that the firm will be associated with bad sex writing, it has almost guaranteed that Ms. Dare will gain far wider fame, and the firm wide derision. Bear in mind, Allen & Overy, that most people — including most of your clients, even though they won't say it to your face — hold everyone from porn scriptwriters to slash-fiction bloggers in higher esteem than they hold lawyers.

Transgendered person Sierra Broussard, of Appleton Wisconsin, claims that she has suffered discrimination by being denied access to a toilet:

Broussard, previously known as Slade Michael Broussard, said she was twice denied entrance to Park Central, 318 W. College Ave., because of her race and her transgender status.

The civil complaint said one employee said if she "used either bathroom it would cause confusion for the other patrons," and claims she was told to go to another club, one that caters to "her kind."

As I mentioned recently in another post, I think that discrimination, legal or otherwise, against gay people is on the way out and will be illegal, except in the case of churches, within a few years or decades.  The transgendered, however, are another story.  While this suit also claims that Broussard was discriminated against on the basis of race (she claims to be half white and half black, though no evidence of racial discrimination is cited in the linked story), it's pretty obvious that Broussard was denied access to the ladies' room because she still has a penis:

Her name and appearance identifies her as a woman, but her identification lists her as a man, and she doesn't plan on having the necessary surgery to complete her transformation from male to female.

but was wearing a dress and a wig or some other clothing that indicated an identification with the fairer sex.  Not being a Wisconsin lawyer, I don't know whether or not transgendered status is a protected class in Wisconsin, but I do know this:  Regardless of how crass, crude, and churlish the bouncers at the Park Central Bar in Appleton Wisconsin may be, a bar that admits people who have penises into a ladies' room faces massive potential tort liability.

For that matter, the idea of someone wearing a dress standing next to me at a urinal, in the men's room, is uncomfortable.  I'm a bathroom-private sort of person.  I yell at my dogs to get out of my bathroom at home.  I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it at all, and might suffer the alleged fate of astronomer Tycho Brahe, if a strange woman were standing at the urinal next to mine.

Some day, the right to bathroom privacy will have a showdown with the right to be whatever gender one wishes.  First they'll clash in a bathroom.  Then they'll clash at the Supreme Courtroom.  May the right to privacy win.

Spotted while traveling to a deposition this afternoon, in a rural southern community.

As a lawyer, and as someone who writes about legal issues as a hobby, I'm constantly frustrated by the fundamental legal illiteracy of the media. That illiteracy is made up of one part ignorance to two parts sheer laziness — most of the legal issues that the media gets wrong are not really that complex, and most reporters could get it right if the were just willing to do a bit of digging.

It would be bad enough if a legally illiterate media merely misinformed the public. But the media's illiteracy allows it to mislead and frighten the public with various legal chimeras. Case in point: a recent Los Angeles Times article suggesting that the PATRIOT Act has led to people being classified as terrorists for misbehaving on airplanes.

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I didn't vote for the man, but I do vote for his action figure:

Seven kinds of awesome, rolled into one.

Things I learned today that I did not know before: the President gets billed for food and incidentals for himself and his family unless they are for state functions.

President Obama may have his own executive chef now, but when his family and personal guests eat what’s coming out of the kitchen, he’ll have to foot the bill himself. Luckily for him, though, the government picks up the tab if he’s having a state function at the White House, which could get pricey since the White House’s website touts that its five chefs can crank out dinner for 140 or hors d’oeuvres for over a thousand people.

Does someone really keep track? Apparently, the White House functions like a luxury hotel in this regard. At the end of each month, the president receives a bill for his food and incidental expenses.

….

Nancy Reagan was famously taken aback by this practice when an usher presented her first bill in 1981, saying, “Nobody ever told us the president and his wife are charged for every meal, as well as incidentals like dry cleaning, toothpaste, and other toiletries.”

…

In a fascinating article in this month’s National Geographic, former White House chief usher Gary Walters said that he couldn’t remember any first families not complaining about the high prices of the food.

On the one hand, I approve of government employees paying their own costs. On the other hand, I'm inclined to cut someone some slack when they are functional prisoners. Paying for four (or eight) years of hotel food and service would be pricey — which only serves to emphasize the practical impossibility of anyone but the rich achieving the office of the President.

Sometimes the universe offers you a story upon which to comment that is so beautiful, so perfect, that you look around suspiciously, sure that it's a trap, certain that some cartoon anvil will fall onto your head as you step onto the X to take your shot.

Former French President Jacques Chirac went to the hospital yesterday. No, he's fine. Why did he go? Well:

Former French president Jacques Chirac was rushed to hospital after being mauled by his own 'clinically depressed' pet dog.

The 76-year-old statesman was savaged by his white Maltese dog – which suffers from frenzied fits and is being treated with anti-depressants.

The animal, named Sumo, had become increasingly violent over the past years and was prone to making 'vicious, unprovoked attacks', Chirac's wife Bernadette said.

As a fellow depression sufferer, I rather sympathize with Sumo. I wonder if savaging a Frenchman is theraputic? Has France asked the U.N. to write Sumo any stern letters yet?

Allow me to speculate that the Daily Mail is not the most reliable source for stories about humiliations suffered by French leaders.

While you were dreaming of sugar plums and watching the inaugural ball, a familiar part of the world outside America and Old Europe was up to some pretty awful things.

Stanislav Markelov was shot close to the Kremlin by a man using a pistol with a silencer. Before escaping, his assassin also shot and seriously wounded two women walking with the lawyer. …

Markelov was one of Russia's best known human rights lawyers. He had represented the family of an 18-year-old Chechen woman who was savagely raped and murdered in 2000 by a former Russian army colonel.

Timing coincidence?  I think not.  I'll blow my common law defenses and rely on New York Times v. Sullivan: I suspect, given the timing and recent history, that Markelov was assassinated by elements within the Russian government when it knew no one would be watching.  Vladimir Putin, unlike the Communists who preceded him, understands how western media work.

When the world economy is riding high again (and it will ride high again), Russia will still be ruled by Putin, with all of its oil wealth.  The only reason Garry Kasparov is still alive is that he's too well known to die by "suicide," to be shot "resisting arrest," or be imprisoned in a "corruption scandal."  Russian liberals less well known are dying like redshirts in a Star Trek episode.

In the campaign gone by, Barack Obama showed himself to be tough and shrewd.  Let's hope that toughness and shrewdness carry over to dealings with people who make John McCain look like Ronald McDonald.

I'm not about to add it to the blogroll or anything, but it might be worthwhile to check out New Majority, a website / group blog begun by David Frum, best known as George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speechwriter.   Frum is an interesting character, not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination (as a promoter of "compassionate conservativism" and the war on terror, he believes that big government has something to offer on matters domestic and foreign), but at least on cultural matters, he doesn't have the moralistic bug up his butt that been drives believers in individual liberty away from the Republican Party.

Among other things, New Majority argues that Republicans are losing the culture wars, and potential allies, because they're fighting the wrong battles.   In particular, as James Kirchick argues, they've already lost the battle on same sex marriage, whether they know it or not:

Given the fact that nearly 40 states have passed laws in some way or another defining marriage as between a man and a woman, the notion that conservatives should drop gay issues may seem counterintuitive. But these successes are illusory. America has witnessed a sea change in attitudes on the subject of homosexuality over the past 35 years. In 1973, for instance, 73% of Americans viewed same-sex relations as “always wrong.” In 2006, that figure stood at 56%. In February of 2004, 61% of Americans supported banning gay marriage; two years later that figure dropped to just 51%. Likewise, support for the right of gays to serve openly in the military now stands at nearly 80% (a majority of Americans opposed open service when it first became a national controversy in the early months of the first Clinton administration), and about half of Americans support allowing gays to adopt children.

As Kirchick doesn't point out but should, state constitutions are easy to amend.  A bill and a referendum suffices in most states.  Age and death may wipe out most of the setbacks the SSM movement has suffered in 10 years, certainly in 25.  On other fronts, Republicans alienate people who might be allies on other fronts, economic, security, or cultural, by fighting a losing war on science.   If the Republicans want to argue, contra my friend Andrew, that the government has no business subsidizing writers, or promoting atrocities like UNESCO and the Durban conference, I'm with them.  If they want to teach children that creationism is as well-founded as the theory of evolution, I'm out.

A promising start, in any event.  Now get around to convincing Republicans to stand, meaningfully, for less government spending, for marijuana decriminalization, for a relaxation of federal obscenity laws, against entanglement with religion, against domestic spying, and against bailouts, and your new, improved Republican Party may get my vote.

TYWKIWDBI offers a rather startling graph showing the growth of government jobs against the growth of construction and manufacturing jobs:

Note that the provenance of the chart is not entirely clear. But if accurate, it is startling and a reason for concern. Are we twice as well governed now as we were in 1969? Do we get twice as much liberty, security, and rule of law from the government?

Via Game Politics, I see there is a new article refuting the proposition that there is a link between video games and school shootings. The author of the study, Christopher Ferguson, reviews the mixed results of past studies on the supposed link between game violence and actual violence, critiques the methodology of the studies finding such a link, and points to the lack of evidence tying gameplay to action in recent school shooting cases. He also graphs school violence against game sales, showing that the former has not risen with the latter.

Ferguson also attributes the blame-video-games movement to "moral panic," and compares it to past panics like those surrounding Dungeons & Dragons. Will folks like Joe Baca listen? It's unlikely. Moral panic sells even better than video games.

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