“Just Do It, Again,” Don Imus and Pacman Jones

24 Jun

Filed Under Don Imus, Athletic Justice, NFL Arrests, Adam "Pacman" Jones | Leave a Comment

Now linked by an infamous on-air comment, radio bad boy Don Imus and NFL bad boy Adam “Pacman” Jones share a talent for recidivism.

Imus can’t help but make racist comments on this radio show. (It almost undeniable at this point that the disc jockey holds racist views.)

Jones can’t help but get arrested– six time sine being drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2005.

College	Sentenced to one year in prison for a bar fight in Morgantown, West Virginia which sentence was suspended in exchange for two years of probation.
July 13, 2005	Arrested and charged with assault and felony vandalism after a nightclub altercation.
September 5, 2005	Verbal tirade after the Nashville Sports Council Kickoff Luncheon when told by valet he’d have to wait for his car.
October 2005	West Virginia probation extended 90 days for not contacting probation officer and not reporting his July 2005 arrest.
March 23, 2006	Charged with marijuana possession in Fayetteville, Georgia. (Claimed at the time he knew how to beat the NFL’s drug test.
August 25, 2006	Arrested and given six months probation for disorderly conduct and public intoxication after being ordered by the police to leave a Murfreesboro night club where Jones claimed a woman stole his wallet and the woman claimed Jones spat on her.
October 26, 2006	Issued a citation for misdemeanor assault after a female student from Tennessee State University claimed he spit in her face at a Nashville night club.
Feburary 19, 2007	In the middle of a fight and shooting at a strip club in Las Vegas that left one man paralyzed and two more wounded. The fight started after Jones showered strippers on stage with over $80,000 dollars. The club owner claims Jones was beating a strippers head against the bar while threatening to kill one of the club’s employees.
January 3, 2008	Accused of punching Wanda S. Jackson in the face at Atlanta strip club Body Tap Strip Club. Jackson claims Jones punched her in her left eye.

Other recent news involving NFL players involved in crime:

Carolina Panthers receiver Dwayne Jarrett pleaded guilty to driving while impaired on Monday.
Arizona Cardinals running back J.J. Arrington was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after reportedly being involved in a fight in his home town of Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
New York Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw started a 30-day sentence for violating probation terms of a previously undisclosed juvenile offense.
Buffalo Bills running back Marshawn Lynch will plead guilty to unspecified charges after a a hit-and-run car accident that injured a pedestrian last month.

ANALYSIS: Brinkley Risks Embarassment to Gain Settlement

23 Jun

Filed Under Divorce, Christie Brinkley | Leave a Comment

Hell hath no fury like Christie Brinkley in divorce court.

Payback is a bitch. Round One goes to former supermodel Christie Brinkley after a New York divorce court granted her Motion for an open courtroom divorce trial. Her soon-to-be-ex husband, Peter Cook, who was desperate for a private divorce, can expect to be publicly humiliated if reports are true that Christie is planning on introducing evidence of his alleged affair with an 18-year-old assistant, as well as his alleged attraction to internet porn and to combing the web for swingers.

It is a great tactical move on Christie’s part. If Cook knows his reputation will be further soiled in the press (he was already slaughtered and humiliated two years ago when news of the split was first made public), he might choose to back down, abandon a trial, and seek a settlement. Or he could be intimidated into modifying his quest for those extra millions if the cost to his personal reputation becomes too high. (He owns an architectural office in the Hamptons and no doubt will need clients to continue hiring him to support his lavish lifestyle.) And finally, for every dagger that Christie throws, and as Cook’s name gets dragged through media mud as he attempts to defend it, he may become too worn down to continue to fight a strong fight.

Cook’s lawyer wasted no time in criticizing Christie as a bad mother for seemingly wanting her children exposed to the couple’s dirty laundry when she blocked Cook’s request for a closed courtroom. But that’s just “lawyer spin” on behalf of his client. Most divorce courtrooms are considered public, where spouses’ friends, neighbors– and in this case the media– can watch the drama unfold, one embarrassing detail at a time. While judges will close off child custody matters to the public, the divorce trial itself, where couples battle over assets and alimony, is a public affair. And in New York, one of the few states still operating under “fault divorce” law, even more intimate secrets are aired, because a couple must prove who was at fault for the break up and why. The Brinkley/Cook divorce is certainly expected to get messy.

So the world will get to watch Christie Brinkley have her day in court… and for poor Peter Cook– every dog must have his day too.

Stacy Schneider, Esq. is the author of He Had It Coming: How to Outsmart Your Husband and Win Your Divorce.

Too Much Fun in Vegas for Oakland Raider

18 Jun

Filed Under Athletic Justice, Javon Walker, Robbery | Leave a Comment

Former Denver Bronco and newly signed Oakland Raider wide receiver Javon Walker was found unconscious with a broken face after an evening of flashy celebration at a Las Vegas night club (see video below). It is unclear if Walker was the victim of a targetted robbery initiated at the door of his hotel room as an some internet rumors indicate or a revenge attack for upstaging the posse of another sports star at Hard Rock Hotel’s Body English night club as other internet rumors speculate.

Justice Cowed: How “obscene” were the videos Kozinski’s recused himself from the case over?

13 Jun

Filed Under Judge Alex Kozinski | Leave a Comment

Kozinski cow girl With a one sentence explanation, one of the most respected judicial authorities on the First Amendment, Judge Alex Kozinski, removed himself from what will likely become a landmark obscenity case.

“In light of the public controversy surrounding my involvement in this case, I have concluded that there is a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial. I recuse myself from further participation in the case and will ask the chief judge of the district court to reassign it to another judge.”

Did Judge Kozinski need to be cowed into this decision? How necessary was this recusal? Our opinion, as previously described, is that the judge’s awareness of run-of-the-mill “viral humor” made him more likely to be an impartial magistrate than a judge too cloistered to have a practical sense of “contemporary community standards” even if the public perception of the whole website controversy might tend towards irrational umbrage.

How similar are the images discovered on the Kozinski family computer and images at issue in USA vs. Ira Isaacs?� Judge for yourself.� USLaw.com has compiled several still images form the videos contained in the Isaacs indictment.� (WARNING: Extremely graphic.)

We happen to agree with former Kozinski clerk, law professor and prolific legal blogger Eugene Volokh that the humor on the judge’s server are not remotely in the same league as Isaac’s art. We are therefore uncertain of the ‘manifest necessity’ existed on behalf of the parties at trial or on behalf of the judge at the bench.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

Interviews with the artist, Ira Isaacs: AVN, Radar.

The USA vs Ira Isaacs dba “STOLEN CAR FILMS” dba “LaMedia” indictment.

What “Stuff” was on Judge Kozinski’s Personal Website?

12 Jun

Filed Under Judge Alex Kozinski | 6 Comments

Judge Alex Kozinski: The Skunk hit the fan An aggrieved attorney encouraged the LA Times to discover pornographic material on the website of a respected Appeals Court Judge who is presiding over a federal case of a filmmaker accused of distributing “criminally obscene” videos depicting bestiality and defecation. While the Times described the pornographic content found on the personal website alex.kozinski.com of Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, as including a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows, a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal, images of masturbation and public and contortionist sex, a slide show striptease featuring a transsexual, a series of photos of women’s crotches as seen through snug fitting clothing or underwear, and content with themes of defecation and urination, the Times did not reveal the specific URL of the material or display the described images so that readers could form their own opinion about their characterization.

USLaw.com has been able to partially recreate the content which was described by Judge Kozinski, known for his often outlandish sense of humor, as “funny… odd and interesting… part of life”. The hundred plus files constitute the type of “viral videos” and images that are commonly circulated among men of a certain humor by email. Very few appear to contain any nudity and those that do present it in the context of humor (though the type of humor that may arouse the enmity of some feminists and moral fundamentalists). The files are no longer available to be downloaded from what is now claimed to have been the Kozinski family computer, so we have provided several images that were reportedly captured from the server by the Times’ tipster in December, 2007 and others which internet archival services indicate resided on the server in the recent past. In addition, links are provided to google search results which contain files whose names, and therefore content, are similar to those that existed on the server:

Files Described but not Shown by LA Times

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