It was several years back when I received a jury summons from Lake County. I complied by showing up at the Lake County Government Center Auditorium. I watched some video, some of which was preliminary juror preparation and some of which was to distract us while we waited and waited. Finally, I was part of […]
The quotation from above is found in the case of Hess v. State, 297 N.E.2d 413 (Ind. 1973) and again in Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973). There is no more interesting First Amendment defense to a criminal prosecution from the days of war protests on college campuses. Curiously, the Hess case seems relevant […]
Now that our SCOTUS has overturned Roe v. Wade, it is proper to wonder what happens next in Indiana. The Hoosier State had no “trigger” law awaiting the overturning of Roe. Still, it is among some 26 states where abortion is already banned or severely restricted or expected to become banned or severely restricted. The […]
Pretty far down in the CLB’s “random quotes” section there is John Donne’s famous Meditation XVII, best known by the opening phrase that “no man is an island.” Donne’s thought continues to “any man’s death diminishes me.” Donne’s observations are not applicable to the death of Salvador Ramos of Uvalde, Texas. We are not diminished […]
My first contact with the name Sabrina Bell came in 2019 when she and other (male) downstate judges and a magistrate partied hard after driving up to Indianapolis for a judicial conference. After far too many hours of drinking and bar-hopping a group of four found themselves at a downtown White Castle Restaurant around 3:15 […]
It was my first year of law school in early January of 1973 when the SCOTUS handed down its Roe and Doe Opinions effectively recognizing (or creating?) a constitutional right to abortion. Only Associate Justices William Rehnquist (a Nixon appointee) and “Whizzer” White (a Kennedy appointee) dissented. I made note of many within the law […]
On April 13, 2022 our unanimous SCOTSI handed down its decision (Opinion by CJ Rush) in Community Health Network v. McKenzie. The litigation arose after “medical records coordinator” Katrina Gray improperly accessed and disclosed information from the confidential medical records of Heather McKenzie and several of Heather’s family members¹. Katrina was then in the employ […]
This writing comes less than 24 hours after the infamous Jussie Smollett was sentenced in Chicago following his convictions on five counts of felony disorderly conduct in the nature of false reporting to police. See the Featured Article of December 10, 2021 “Marching for Jussie” for the CLB review of the conviction and the statement […]
This week may “long live in infamy” by those recalling the Russian military invasion of the nation of Ukraine. To the extent that the CLB has a foreign policy, the position here is that Vladimir Putin must pay. The U.S. will not and should not “nuke” Moscow to take out Putin. Nor is the U.S. […]
In 1977 an abused Michigan housewife named Francine Hughes took revenge against her sleeping husband by setting the bed afire. A bit of gasoline sprinkled about abetted the flames. Francine was tried for murder and acquitted by a jury by reason of temporary insanity. While the story has no shortage of drama, the interesting legal […]