Climate didn’t discriminate this previous vacation weekend. Brutal is placing it mildly. Local weather change is actual and if you don’t consider me, then learn Jeff Goodell’s guide of a number of years in the past, “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.”
I’m not right here to debate local weather change points. All you need to do is go searching you, and when you don’t, disgrace on you. We are able to go away unreality to 47 and his peeps; he can’t control the weather, at the very least not but. And likewise learn Goodell’s book on rising seas. I don’t know which guide is scarier.
Bear in mind the TV present “The Apprentice” that gave 47 his begin? Bear in mind his bombastic sentence? “You’re fired!” 47 should be rubbing his little palms with glee provided that the Supreme Court docket has now validated his proper to fireside high authorities officers. In a 6-3 choice, they pooh-poohed the concept unbiased companies are actually unbiased and thus are topic to termination by whim. (I ponder what the outcry might be when Democrats are free to rent and fireplace at will. Simply asking.) Nonetheless, the one exception to a president’s free will is that they can’t fireplace a member of the Federal Reserve. Lisa Cook dinner nonetheless has her job as a Fed member whereas the lawsuit claiming she falsified loan documents wends its means.
And yay for the uncommon victory that the Supreme Court docket gave to mail-in ballots. As a California resident of one of many 18 states that enables mail-in ballots, I’m delighted. With mail-in ballots, there may be completely no excuse for not voting. Voting is essential, no matter who you select to vote for. Sure, I’ve my preferences, however the appropriate to vote is one thing that many different nations don’t (and will by no means) have. Isn’t that what the 250th anniversary was all about? With mail-in ballots, saying that you simply don’t or didn’t have time to vote is a flimsy excuse, particularly in these states that permit time off from work to vote, California being considered one of them.
Even after 50 years as a training lawyer, I’m nonetheless gobsmacked at how cavalierly counsel can behave in courtroom. Exhibit 1 is the persevering with runaround between the DOJ and federal district choose Leonie Brinkema. The courtroom refused to simply accept the DOJ’s oral illustration that it had pushed a stake by way of the center of the proposed weaponization fund that 47 wished. The courtroom ordered declarations to that impact be made beneath penalty of perjury. The DOJ lawyer informed the courtroom that “the courtroom’s calls for had been pointless,” aka “pound sand.”
Whoa, if I or simply about every other lawyer had so responded, we’d have been within the custody of the sheriff forthwith, with time to rethink the best way to converse to the courtroom. Decide Brinkema decided that the lawsuit difficult 47’s January slush fund was not moot and scheduled briefing. Any moral subject right here? Focus on.
In a carefully watched case right here in Los Angeles, 10-2 for acquittal was the end result. Bear in mind the devastating Palisades fireplace of early January 2025? (To not point out the Eaton fireplace that devastated communities within the San Gabriel foothills.) One controversial subject within the Palisades fireplace has been how that fireplace began. A small fireplace began on January 1, and LAFD extinguished it. However utterly? The younger man prosecuted by the DOJ for the Palisades fireplace doesn’t get to stroll away, he’s nonetheless in jail, awaiting retrial. With a hung jury that favored acquittal by a large margin, does retrial make sense?
The courtroom did instruct the jury with the Allen charge, typically known as the “dynamite cost,” which basically says that no different jury might do a greater job of reaching a verdict and ordered them to proceed deliberations. Nevertheless it didn’t work.
The First Assistant US Lawyer right here in Los Angeles hopes that within the retrial, he could have “higher jurors.” Good luck with that. Simply because 10 of the jurors didn’t purchase the prosecution’s concept of the case does that ipso facto make them unhealthy jurors? I don’t assume so. The prosecution nonetheless should show its case past an affordable doubt. Any moral subject right here? Focus on.
So many individuals misplaced all the things, together with lives. It’s ridiculous to say that local weather change performed no half. Phooey on the declare that subsequent time across the authorities could have “higher jurors.” Provided that the DOJ is 47’s lap canine, is that any shock? Focus on.
Jill Switzer has been an energetic member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers training regulation in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a various authorized profession, together with stints as a deputy district lawyer, a solo observe, and a number of other senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which supplies her the chance to see dinosaurs, millennials, and people in-between work together — it’s not at all times civil. You possibly can attain her by e mail at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.
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