Best Legal Defense Ever

Marin County is well known for being affluent, educated, and left leaning. Rarely is it known for producing high school miscreants who tote automatic weapons in sportscars stolen from celebrity chefs.  But somehow, in the land George Bush once jibed for its excess quantity and use of hot tubs, it happened.

I highly recommend you read the link above.  It reads like a Michael Bay re-make of Scarface... in San Francisco. 

For me, the best part is hands down, the legal team's defense: "My client is a (17-year-old) who stands accused as an adult of sophisticated and extraordinarily serious crimes," Dresow said. "It is worth noting that some of the allegations related to the car occurred when he was 16."

Brilliant.

Microsoft and Facebook Share AOL Patents

After losing to Microsoft in an auction for an AOL patent portfolio, just days later Facebook went to Microsoft to pen an agreement to acquire a portion of the same portfolio.  Clearly, there something in there that was must-win intellectual property, right? Perhaps something to stave off a certain Yahoo! IP suit? Maybe.  Here's what Facebook's general counsel said: "This is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook's interests over the long term." 

Shoot first and secure legal authority later. I've heard that strategy before...

Yup, the west is as wild as ever.

Lawsuits Under the ADA

... this article almost makes the New York Times sound vaguely like a conservative oracle.  

File this away under "why people hate lawyers."

Very Good Sentences

From Yokai Benkler's Wealth of Networks (free to download here):

the causal relationship between law and human behavior is complex. Simple deterministic models of the form “if law X, then behavior Y” have been used as assumptions, but these are widely understood as, and criticized for being, oversimplifications for methodological purposes. Laws do affect human behavior by changing the payoffs to regulated actions directly. However, they also shape social norms with regard to behaviors, psychological attitudes toward various behaviors, the cultural understanding of actions, and the politics of claims about behaviors and practices. These effects are not all linearly additive. Some push back and nullify the law, some amplify its the causal relationship between law and human behavior is complex. Simpledeterministic models of the form “if law X, then behavior Y” have been usedas assumptions, but these are widely understood as, and criticized for being,oversimplifications for methodological purposes. Laws do affect human behavior by changing the payoffs to regulated actions directly. However, theyalso shape social norms with regard to behaviors, psychological attitudestoward various behaviors, the cultural understanding of actions, and the politics of claims about behaviors and practices. 

And a great, simple example:

Decreasing the length of a “Walk” signal to assure that pedestrians are not

hit by cars may trigger wider adoption of jaywalking as a norm, affecting

ultimate behavior in exactly the opposite direction of what was intended.

This change may, in turn, affect enforcement regarding jaywalking, or the

length of the signals set for cars, because the risks involved in different signal

lengths change as actual expected behavior changes, which again may feed

back on driving and walking practices.

This Stag Staffer is constantly amazed at how often this simple, common sense point is lost in so much of our discourse.

Gun Laws

Dear Readers,

While, in general, the Daily Stag Hunt has little interest in entering the public debate over Florida gun laws until we've actually collected more data (a shocking position, I realize), there is an op-ed article in The New York Times which deserves attention.  The former chief of the Miami police force explains why he opposed the 'stand your ground' law.  It's an interesting article. 

The description of the author is also notable:

John F. Timoney is a former Miami police chief, Philadelphia police commissioner and deputy police commissioner in New York. He is now senior police adviser to the Bahrain Minister of the Interior.

Ah yes, Bahrain.  That bastion of personal liberty.

Nevertheless, aside from that obviously unfair ad hominem attack, the article is worth a look.

--- Stag Staff