June 30th, 2018

More SCOTUS; More Tissues

Back in 2009 when Justice David Souter retired, I wrote that I would love to see SCOTUS judges who had actually practiced law with living, breathing, broken humans sitting, at some point, in their offices.

This week, with Justice Kennedy’s announced retirement, Trump said he wanted yet another Harvard or Yale judge. As if we didn’t already have a bench stuffed with them.

Diversity takes many forms. Sometimes it is has to to do with gender, race, religion, etc. But there is another kind of diversity, and that goes with what we actually have done with our lives.

Hopefully, we won’t see yet another person who has spent a lifetime on the bench or in academia (or combined), and one that has lived a life (from the law-related perspective) with diversified experience.

My 2009 post regarding the filling of the Souter’s seat (by Judge Sotomayor) is re-printed here in full:

The SCOTUS Nominee and The Tissue Box Test

I want to talk about tissues and the law and Supreme Court nominees. As the legal blogosphere and political Washington buzz about the judicial philosophy President Obama will be looking for in a judge to replace Justice David Souter — and what underrepresented social niche the nominee will come from, be it female, black, Hispanic, gay, etc. — what I want to know is if the nominee has ever had a box of tissues on his or her desk. For clients.

I want a nominee that knows what it’s like to have someone cry in their office. I want a nominee that has been there when someone tells them that their mother/father/brother/daughter was arrested/injured/killed and that they are desperate for help.

I want a nominee to know what it’s like to see real people — not political philosophies or corporate giants trying to add a few cents per share to their earnings — in their office in distress, and to represent them. I want a nominee that has experienced being the last, best hope for a downtrodden individual and the problem brought in the door. I want someone who knows what it’s like to be the underdog against corporate or government interests.

I want a nominee to know what it’s like to make the rent. To pay an employee. From their own pocket and not someone else’s. To answer the phones. To argue the case. To battle against deception. To actually practice law in the real world instead of in the ivory tower under the protective wings of others.

Our court is stuffed with Harvard and Yale law school grads, most of whom I think never actually tried a case for a private client, financed a case, or fought for an individual before ascending to the lofty heights of the appellate bench.

Last week Norm Pattis wrote on why we need a trial lawyer on the Supreme Court.He said:

A trial lawyer knows about raw human need and the law’s rough edges. It is a trial lawyer’s job to find the intersection of terror, fear and tears with the high doctrine and principle of the law. Not one member of the current court has ever sat with a client and his family during jury deliberations to discuss what will become of a family should the client be sent to prison.

We don’t have anything resembling a cross-section of society on the court. We don’t have people who look at broken bodies up front and personal in their offices. That’s why we have the tissue box. It isn’t to wipe our own noses.

At Simple Justice, Scott Greenfield picked up the Pattis theme with this about the birth of the trench lawyer movement:

In the trenches, we experience life, along with the huddled masses who care far less about whether a judge is a constructionist or originalist or texturalist. We know the consequences of decisions, together with the consequences of delayed decisions. Our view is ground level, and our understanding of how badly the law can hurt comes from holding the hands of the maimed. We know that people lie, cheat and steal, but we know that isn’t limited to the defendants. We have philosophies, but we live realities.

Perhaps life’s experience representing individuals will mean something different to the practitioner-judge than the philosopher-judge when the government strips away rights. Or corporations do a cost-benefit analysis and determine a few deaths aren’t so bad for their product because the profits will still exceed the legal payouts.

If Obama wants a judge who “understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook” then he better find a lawyer who once had that tissue box on the desk for the clients.
———————–

 

June 14th, 2018

NY Senate Passes 2nd Bill in 2 Weeks Restricting Free Speech

Dear NY Senate:

What the heck is going on up there in Albany? Last week you passed an anti-cyberbullying bill that restricts free speech and conduct in such a way that, if ultimately signed, is guaranteed to be tossed into the trash heap by courts because it violates the First Amendment.

And this week you do it again?! This time with your Elder Abuse Bill (S.409) that makes it a crime for caregivers (including family) to post photos on social media if elderly, vulnerable seniors aren’t able to give consent.

Now I understand it might have made you feel good to pass such a bill, and you get to boast to constituents that you are doing something in Albany, but do you realize what you have really done?

For the benefit of those who voted for the bill but didn’t read it, this is what is made into a misdemeanor:

A  PERSON IS GUILTY OF UNLAWFUL POSTING OF A VULNERABLE ELDERLY PERSON ON SOCIAL MEDIA WHEN, BEING A CAREGIVER WHILE PERFORMING THEIR  DUTY  OF CARE  FOR A VULNERABLE ELDERLY PERSON, HE OR SHE POSTS AN IMAGE OR VIDEO OF SUCH PERSON ON SOCIAL MEDIA INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED  TO  FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE,  TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, SNAPCHAT, TUMBLR, FLICKR AND VINE, WITHOUT SUCH PERSON’S CONSENT.

First off, while the First Amendment says that Congress “shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech,” and the amendment applies to the states, there are still some very limited exceptions to it. But this just isn’t one of them.

The First Amendment is no defense to conspiracy discussions about committing a crime, or defamation, or inciting imminent lawless action, or obscenity or copyright.

I don’t see posting pictures of elderly Ma or Pa on that list. For this bill, if signed, to pass constitutional muster, the Supreme Court would have to create a wholly new category of restricted speech. Do you think they will do that? Or more importantly, did you even analyze that?

My guess is no since this bill passed 61-0, and there are more than a few lawyers in the Senate.

So, let’s say, on disabled Ma’s birthday you (a caregiver) hold a party for her, even though she can only semi-appreciate it. Then you share those party photos on Facebook for your friends and non-attending family members. Guilty of a misdemeanor.

You should note that the bill doesn’t clearly say when the photos had to be taken. It’s a crime if just three conditions are met: that the subject of the picture is a “vulnerable elderly person,” that the person sharing it is a caregiver, and that the sharing is “without such person’s consent.”

So let’s say that on Veteran’s Day you share a photo of your disabled WW II father for whom you sometimes care. He’s 20 years old in that long-ago-taken pic and in uniform. You are proud of his service (as was he) as part of the Greatest Generation. Guilty of a misdemeanor.

And the same is true for sharing any other photo for such people taken during their lifetimes: From childhood, parties, weddings (including their own), vacations, anything you can think of.

Since New York has about 20 million people, do you appreciate the scale of how many misdemeanors are being created for sharing a photo of a disable loved one? Even if the Supreme Court did create a new category of restricted speech for this, the bill is both vague and over broad.

If this was a new category of restricted speech — you can’t post photos of incapacitated people without their consent — then the slippery slope also says it is OK to criminalize the posting of photos of other incapacitated people. Like kids. How many kid pictures are shared on social media?

The justification for this bill is that the posting of photos of disabled elderly people has become a problem:

Recent media reports have highlighted occurrences of a caretaker
taking unauthorized photographs or video recordings of a vulnerable
elderly person, sometimes in compromised positions. The photographs
are then posted on social media networks, or sent through multimedia
messages. Such action, dehumanize individuals and create an
environment that perpetuates a disrespectful and/or potentially
abusive attitude. Caretakers are required to provide care and services
in an environment that all individuals are treated as human beings.

How big is this problem that you think it justifies a change in the First Amendment that affects millions of people sharing loving photos of their elderly parents?

 

June 12th, 2018

NY Senate and Cyberbullying, Part 2

Last week I saw a tweet come into my feed from the NY Senate about the 56-0 passing of a cyberbullying bill. I quickly knocked out a post ripping it for two reasons: The complete lack of a definition and the fact that it violated the First Amendment.

That post was picked up by Scott Greenfield.  Then Greenfield’s post was seen by Tim Cushing at Techdirt. Which in turn was seen by Eugene Volokh. A little old school blogging as people added thoughts.

Now I have more to add: The first being a semi-correction that includes some  additional criticism of the Senate. But the second is some actual praise.

First, as Volokh pointed out, the bill was an amendment to the Education Law, and the Education Law has an existing definition of cyberbullying that is defined elsewhere. The first of the Senate’s failings was the lack of a reference to that definition section.

That lack of a reference, Greenfield points out today in likewise doing a second post on the subject, threw us both off as this isn’t the way New York usually drafts its statutes. As Greenfield notes:

Had it been the Senate’s intent to borrow the definition from another section of the Education Law to create its new crime, and, indeed, to establish the basic elements of the offense as would be minimally necessary for a crime to pass constitutional muster, there should have been a reference in the new crime to the definition upon which it relies. This is how New York laws are drafted, how a criminal offense is framed as to contain the bare minimum required to establish the elements of the offense.

It never occurred to Turk or me that there would be a New York law devoid of a definition or elements which would leave it to us to go searching the laws to figure out whether there was some definition, something to establish the elements of the offense, lurking in the darkness somewhere else. You don’t do that. You don’t create a crime and omit either the definition or an express reference back to the section setting forth the definition upon which the legislators relied.

This failure of form, hoping for an implicit reference to the definitions section that exists elsewhere, is the lesser of the two problems. Because that existing definition is so chock full of vagaries as to render it unconstitutional as a criminal statute. These are the provisions (as originally made into law for school administrative purposes, not criminal purposes):

the creation of a hostile environment by conduct or by threats, intimidation or abuse, including cyberbullying, that
(a) has or would have the effect of unreasonably and substantially interfering with a student’s educational performance, opportunities or benefits, or mental, emotional or physical well-being; or
(b) reasonably causes or would reasonably be expected to cause a student to fear for his or her physical safety; or
(c) reasonably causes or would reasonably be expected to cause physical injury or emotional harm to a student; or
(d) occurs off school property and creates or would foreseeably create a risk of substantial disruption within the school environment, where it is foreseeable that the conduct, threats, intimidation or abuse might reach school property.
Acts of harassment and bullying shall include, but not be limited to, those acts based on a person’s actual or perceived race, color, weight, national origin, ethnic group, religion, religious practice, disability, sexual orientation, gender or sex. For the purposes of this definition the term “threats, intimidation or abuse” shall include verbal and non-verbal actions.

So let’s say that Student A passes Student B in the hall. A smiles at B. Then A texts to B, “I’ll see you on the playground at lunch!”

Are they friends? Enemies? Was A flirting with B? Threatening B? Does A simply want to hang out with B? Should B be afraid? Enthralled? Bored to tears?

Would this conduct and speech “reasonably be expected to cause a student to fear for his or her physical safety?”

Would this conduct and speech, unreasonably and substantially interfere with a student’s educational performance, opportunities or benefits, or mental, emotional or physical well-being?

Who the hell knows?

And if you can’t figure out whether something is a crime or not, then the law is vague. And it is likewise over broad as it will sweep up into its net perfectly innocent conduct and speech.

But there is another part to this posting. And that part is praise.

The praise is not for the bill, but for the Senate’s use of Twitter to quickly and cheaply disseminate information in an easily accessible form to the public.

For all the howling and caterwauling about how bad Twitter is, filled with bots, trolls, and those who think they will somehow “win” arguments and “own” their opponent, the one thing it is particularly good at is the rapid dissemination of information by public bodies.

That is how I easily found the bill’s Senate passage, and that is what allows us to publicly debate it’s merits.

So. The bill itself gets an F, but the Senate’s information distribution gets an A+.

 

 

June 4th, 2018

New York’s New and Improved (?) “Anti-Cyberbullying” Bill

It’s known in the New York Senate as Bill S2318. And it passed the Senate unanimously yesterday, by a vote of 56-0. Must be pretty good, huh? Unanimous!!!

It’s an anti-cyberbullying bill and who would ever want to be against something like that! I mean, bullying is bad, cyber or not, right?

Just one teensy little problem seems to have escaped the drafters, however. This “cyber-bullying” that they wish to make a misdemeanor has a flaw. I’m almost embarrassed to mention it, but here goes.

Cyber-bullying doesn’t seem to have a definition.

Here’s the entire pertinent text:

 S 12-A. CYBERBULLYING. 
1. AS USED IN THIS SECTION, THE FOLLOWING TERMS SHALL HAVE THE FOLLOWING MEANINGS:
A.  MINOR SHALL MEAN ANY NATURAL PERSON OR INDIVIDUAL UNDER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN.
B. PERSON SHALL MEAN ANY NATURAL PERSON OR INDIVIDUAL.

2. ANY PERSON WHO KNOWINGLY ENGAGES IN A REPEATED COURSE OF  CYBERBUL-BULLYING OF A MINOR SHALL BE GUILTY OF AN UNCLASSIFIED MISDEMEANOR PUNISHABLE  BY  A FINE OF NOT MORE THAN ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS, OR BY A PERIOD OF IMPRISONMENT NOT TO EXCEED ONE YEAR, OR BY BOTH SUCH FINE  AND  IMPRISONMENT.

There is, of course, lots of conduct that we can all agree is bullying, right?  A kid gets taunted by classmates for his less-than-personal personality, and it’s a no-brainer, right?

Well, almost right. I mean, friends do this kind of stuff to their good buddies after all.  It isn’t just for enemies.

But still, let’s say it is an “enemy” of sorts — two kids that actually hate each other. How do they know where the line in the sand is located as to what is legitimate and what isn’t?

So if Kid A wants to say that Kid B’s support of Trump is “idiotic” or “moronic,” or that Kid B seems to be a clueless asshat for believing what s/he believes, would that conduct, if done online, be cyber-bullying? How about if it didn’t involve politics at all, and was purely personal?

Don’t we have a right to call each other schmucks?

The lack of an adequate definition is an obvious problem, and one that is already known to New York because our top court struck down such a bill in 2014 in People v. Marquan M. — and that bill actually attempted a definition:

  1. “any act of communicating … by mechanical or electronic means,”
    • “including posting statements on the internet or through a computer or email network,”
    • “disseminating embarrassing or sexually explicit photographs;”
    • “disseminating private, personal, false or sexual information,”
    • “or sending hate mail,”
  3. ”with no legitimate private, personal, or public purpose,”
  4. “with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten, abuse, taunt, intimidate, torment, humiliate, or otherwise inflict significant emotional harm on another person.”

How, exactly, is a person to know if their conduct/speech is a problem if there’s no definition? We lawyers like to call such statutes vague or overbroad. They either don’t tell you exactly what conduct is criminal (vague) or they word the statute so broadly it sweeps perfectly constitutional conduct into its orbit of criminal conduct.

And now we have version 2.0 of a bill with no definition, and this is supposed to be better than version 1.0?

Since the matter was covered by Eugene Volokh back in 2014 when its first iteration was deep-sixed by the Court of Appeals, I feel no need to re-write what he already tapped out on his keyboard. You can read it here:  New York’s highest court strikes down cyber-bullying law

It was likewise covered by Scott Greenfield:  NY Court of Appeals Holds Cyberbullying Law Unconstitutional

And there’s a Syracuse Law Review article on the subject.  And the NY Civil Liberties Union.

And, for the legislators that might not want to read the works of lawyers, there’s even a Wikipedia entry for the case.

There is no point passing version 2.0 of a law that will one day be ruled unconstitutional.

I know it may look good to constituents to say  “We are trying to do something!”, but it would be nicer to see at least a couple of folks say, “I’m not going to waste the taxpayer’s money with a bill that most surely will end out on the trash heap.

Updated 6/12/18: NY Senate and Cyber-Bullying, Part 2

 

 

April 16th, 2018

Should the Disruptive CUNY Students Be Punished?

Last week I wrote about a group of students at CUNY Law who decided to disrupt the First Amendment speech of Prof. Josh Blackman. They didn’t like the way he thinks laws and the constitution should be interpreted, so they figured if they could shout him down this would magically change the way laws and the constitution get interpreted.

It didn’t go well for the students, and they’ve been widely widely ridiculed regarding their conduct. And yeah, the talk was to be about free speech, of all things.

But Prof. Eugene Volokh of UCLA Law — also the founder and longtime editor of group law blog The Volokh Conspiracy — has this interesting thought about whether these students should be punished:

The protest, I think, shows a narrow-mindedness on the students’ part, and an unwillingness to listen to substantive argument. But the heckling, which seems like an organized attempt to keep Blackman from speaking, is something much worse — something that universities ought to punish, and that I would think many universities would indeed punish, at least in other situations.

But the question of punishment is twofold: For even if you think they should be metaphorically spanked, the question remains as to constitutes suitable punishment. A punishment must, after all, fit the crime.

So here’s my two rupees on the subject. The answer to the first question is an easy yes. An organized effort to silence a speaker is a major no-no, not just for any university students, but especially for law students. They should know better.

And the “punishment” should be compulsory participation in CUNY’s Moot Court program, which exists as a competition among students.

For those non-lawyers reading here, the usual moot court format is for a legal problem to be given and a team of students to write a brief. One student might handle an issue of whether the case is properly in this court (jurisdiction) while another might handle the substantive part (i.e. Is it constitutionally protected speech if a person does xyz?).

The Moot Court room at SUNY Buffalo, my alma mater.

But this is the kicker, and the reason it’s such a valuable teaching tool: The students argue the side that they briefed on day one, but the next day must argue the other side. And they do it before a panel of “judges” that are busy firing questions at them as if in an appellate court. It’s the closest, most realistic, experience to an actual courtroom that a student will have in law school.

The requirement of arguing both sides forces the students to look at problems in a more objective light. It may force students to make arguments that run contrary to their own feelings about how a law should be read. It will force students to look at the warts of their own arguments, as almost all arguments have warts someplace.

Without an ability to understand all sides of an issue, it’s impossible for practicing lawyers to give objective advice to their clients — and that is what we get paid to do. This forces the issue to the forefront.

The moot court competition law school was, for me, the single most valuable experience of my academic experience. It did more to turn me from a student into a lawyer than anything else.

Those students that were disruptive — and it is yelling and screaming that are disruptive, not holding signs no matter how inane they may  be  — clearly have not yet learned enough about the law if they are acting out the way they did. They are not even close to ready for their legal careers and representing people.

While it may be easy to think some other, more traditional, type of punishment should be administered, the question any laws school should ask is, “What will make them better lawyers?”

And ten years later, they will send thank you notes to the administrators that made them do it and the professors that oversaw the program.