The Tom Spargo Witchhunt

I ran across a mention of Tom Spargo today and figured I'd look into his situation. I've always liked him. I knew him before he was a judge. He handled an election law case in front of the judge I worked for, and was a pleasure to work with. I knew him as a judge, and he was one of my favorites. He combined brains, hard work and common sense. That last one is very special.I also worked with him

Dan Abrams and the Presumption of Innocence

I just read this op-ed piece by Dan Abrams in the Wall Street Journal. He responds to criticism about media ignoring the presumption of innocence. In one sense he is correct -- that the presumption really applies to juries. The general public is not required to presume someone innocent. But his characterization of the criminal process is what got me.My favorite quote is this one: Essentially we

Judicial salaries

I saw this comment on the Times Union Capitol Confidential blog: "Students graduating from law school this year (who have not even passed the bar exam) are making more then these judges who have worked hard through out their career to be voted or appointed to these positions."Yes, a few law graduates get jobs at $160K/year. It's also true that once or twice a year a high school kid goes to the

Philadelphia Traffic Court - the delicious irony

Great story in Philadelphia. 15 candidates for traffic court judge in the Democratic primary. Of those 15, 8 owe parking fines. Three of the eight actually owe over $1000 in fines. One of the other candidates has his car registered in another county. And four candidates don't even have a car registered in their names.These are the people who may be ruling on traffic court matters in Philadelphia.

Winning and Losing for the Wrong Reasons

I wrote before about winning and losing. There I was talking about "unwinnable" and "unlosable" cases. Now I'll talk about winning and losing for the wrong reasons.Most of our work involves cases where we expect the results to be straightforward. Take personal injury cases where the client is a passenger and had a broken bone. In such cases liability is essentially clear in one respect - it's not

Another judge with a policy

I just recently did a post criticizing the notion of judges having policies. So I was in Court the other night and had another such encounter.This again is a judge I like, arguably one of my favorites. He has a warm personality, a good sense of humor, respects not only the lawyers but the people who come before him as well. He also has policies, or at least one policy.My client was accused of