Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Or boats... Here's how Chief Judge Kozinski starts out an opinion in NEW HAMPSHIRE INS. v. C’EST MOI, INC.:

KOZINSKI, Chief Judge:
We consider the doctrine that’s on everyone’s lips: uberrimae fidei.

I had no idea either. According to Black's law, the Latin phrase means: The most abundant good faith; absolute and perfect candor or openness and honesty. It's a common phrase for you maritime lawyers.

As for planes, here's John Pacenti's article about seizures related to aircraft.

I know, I know -- this isn't the most gripping post I've ever done. But help me readers -- are there any great trials out there to blog about?

In the meantime, you can check out the other local blogs for fun posts about our state legislature at work allowing exemptions for plumbers re the low underwear law (via Rumpole) or fighting over fees (via South Florida Lawyers). And for my AUSA friends, here's a piece about shackling PDs (don't get too excited).

"RAZOR MANIAC JUMPS FED PROSECUTOR IN COURT"

Luckily it wasn't in this District. It happened in the Eastern District of New York.

Above the Law has more details including the transcript of the proceeding and the actions of the court reporter, who jumped on the defendant.

When I was a PD, a colleague (who was a former cop) had a client rush the judge. The PD jumped on his back and pinned his arms behind his back as the Marshals watched. It was a pretty funny sight...

My Apologies

Sorry for being gone the last couple days.

I will get back to blogging soon.

In the meantime -- it's March Madness. If you want to win a Supreme Court bobblehead, fill out your brackets here. Quickly!

Or catch up on all the recent cert grants in the Supreme Court (and the Heller arguments).

Of note to many of you -- the Miami Zuckerman Spaeder office has closed as everyone has bolted. Mike Pasano, Steve Bronis, Paul Calli, Tom Meeks, Walter Tache, and Marissel Descalzo are headed to Carlton Fields. Not sure where the other Miami Zuckerman lawyers are headed.

Greenberg Traurig indicted...

...in Guam (via ABA Journal).

It relates to the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Dersh on Spitzer

Here is Professor Alan Dershowitz's take on the Eliot Spitzer case. I post it because it is very different than the way most of us feel about Mr. Spitzer. Here's a snippet:

The federal criminal investigation that has led to Eliot Spitzer's resignation as governor of New York illustrates the great dangers all Americans face from vague and open-ended sex and money-transaction statutes.
Federal law, if read broadly, criminalizes virtually all sexual encounters for which something of value has been given. Federal money-laundering statutes criminalize many entirely legitimate and conventional banking transactions. Congress enacted these laws to give federal prosecutors wide discretion in deciding which "bad guys" to go after.
Generally, wise and intelligent prosecutors use their discretion properly -- to target organized crime, terrorism, financial predation, exploitation of children and the like. But the very existence of these selectively enforced statutes poses grave dangers of abuse. They lie around like loaded guns waiting to be used against the enemies of politically motivated investigators, prosecutors and politicians.

He concludes:

Lavrenti Beria, the head of Joseph Stalin's KGB, once quipped to his boss, "show me the man and I will find the crime." The Soviet Union was notorious for having accordion-like criminal laws that could be adjusted to fit almost any dissident target. The U.S. is a far cry from the Soviet Union, but our laws are dangerously overbroad.

Both Democrats and Republicans have targeted political adversaries over the years. The weapons of choice are almost always elastic criminal laws. And few laws are more elastic, and susceptible to abuse, than federal laws on money laundering and sex crimes. For the sake of all Americans, these laws should be narrowed and limited to predatory crimes with real victims.


Thoughts?