Miscellaneous

Whited sepulchre watch

By Walter Olson, Ted Frank, and David Nieporent

Client #9, also known as Eliot Spitzer, enthusiastically enlisted in a crusade for tougher anti-prostitution laws and specifically for steps to raise the penalties for "johns" who patronized the women involved. The campaign bore fruit, and in his first months as Governor signed into law what advocates call "the toughest and most comprehensive anti-sex-trade law in the nation". Among other provisions, the law "lays the groundwork for a more aggressive crackdown on demand, by increasing the penalty for patronizing a prostitute, a misdemeanor, to up to a year in jail, from a maximum of three months." (Nina Bernstein, "Foes of Sex Trade Are Stung by the Fall of an Ally", New York Times, Mar. 12).

Full post as published by Overlawyered on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).