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Comment on In Memoriam: Harwood Alexander "Bill" Bannister (1914 – 2010) by KAS

KAS — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:11:52 +0000

Your family, friends and colleagues will forever remember your patience, kindness and integrity

Comment on WA Legal Roundup: Division II by Avendora

Avendora — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:53:25 +0000

“The court argued that reading the RCW as a whole clearly establishes that the superior court does not have authority to dismiss the special sexual motivation allegations unless its the State, not the defendant that moves to withdraw the special allegation. ”

So the Legislature removed the Courts ability to judge in a non-partial way when they disallowed the Court to remove the SSMA if the Defendant asks for it, but can if the State asks for it (which the almost never do…)… Sounds like a Separation of Powers issue…

Comment on Court of Appeals: Div. I – Homeless Sex Offenders: Register, register, register by Avendora

Avendora — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:50:06 +0000

As I quoted before… US v Brown 381 US 437 (1965) says:

“We do not hold today that Congress cannot weed dangerous persons out of the labor movement, any more than the Court held in Lovett that subversives must be permitted to hold sensitive government positions. Rather, we make again the point made in Lovett: that Congress must accomplish such results by rules of general applicability. It cannot specify the people upon whom the sanction it prescribes is to be levied. Under our Constitution, Congress possesses full legislative authority, but the task of adjudication must be left to other tribunals.”

Again I ask: “If these laws are made to target sex offenders only, then that would indicate that the entire Registry (and all laws that use it for precedence) would have to fall, would it not?”

Still waiting for an answer…

Comment on Washington Legal Roundup – Division I by A

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:09:20 +0000

He was growing all that pot to sell it. And he probably died by his own gun. It’s a sad, sad story.

Comment on Washington Legal Roundup – Division I by Avendora

Avendora — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:51:18 +0000

Silly question…

US. v Brown 381 US 437 (1965) [http://supreme.justia.com/us/381/437/case.html] states that:

If Congress cannot establish law that specifies who the law will apply to without violating the Bill of Attainder Clause in the Constitution, then how have they gotten away with “Registries” all these years?

I’m not arguing “Punitive v Regulatory” found in Smith v Doe (2003), but that the entire registry is a Bill of Attainder. Thus being void from it’s inception…

Comment on WA Legal Roundup: Division II by Justin Walsh

Justin Walsh — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:54:18 +0000

Yulia,

I appreciate you taking the time to draft a comment. Please appreciate that the ALP analysis is based on the majority opinion of the court and is meant to be a quick and dirty summation of often complex factual patterns. We of course appreciate the explanation of things that often don’t make it on the record, which provide our readers with greater understanding.

Justin P. Walsh
The Prof

Comment on WA Legal Roundup: Division II by Yulia Khorun

Yulia Khorun — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:34:28 +0000

FYI, I did not lie to the court. There was snow on the road and I could not travel to Tacoma from Issaquah.

In general, I do not have an opinion as to the decision of the appeallate court on the issue of what trial court judges could do in SGAL hearings.

On the issue of frivolousness of the appeal I strongly disagree. If you read the trial records you will notice that (1) I did not lie; (2) I stated several times that I was not involved with the case before that first hearing; (3) the case was not as simple as the SGAL wanted it to show and I never said it was easy.

Yes, I and some support stuff in our firm (she was fired after that hearing) made mistakes. My main mistake was that I was extremely inexperienced and took blame for the work I did not perform. I should have known better.

Comment on WA Legal Roundup: Division II by L

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:19:36 +0000

Man. That seems like a singularly unwise appeal.

Comment on Washington State Supreme Court: No Judicial Immunity for Obeying Judge’s Direction to Take Man to Jail by Justin Walsh

Justin Walsh — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:44:14 +0000

Well that’s the court saying the actions were moving person. The actual action was set into motion by the judiciary. The judge makes decisions about the conduct in her court: Who can be in there; presentation of cases; incarceration of individuals. I don’t think its necessarily an executive function to move prisoners if you’re moving prisoners at the direction of the court. If it was a deputy removing the person at their own discretion or based on their own judgment, I would say yes, that is executive. Given the state of quasi-judiciary functioning in executive agencies, its surprising that the court saw this as black and white.

Comment on Washington State Supreme Court: No Judicial Immunity for Obeying Judge’s Direction to Take Man to Jail by L

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:19:18 +0000

but that’s the question of the case — what’s judicial immunity? is it simply a cloud that follows a judge around, or does it have something to do with the judicial function? the court decided (I thought) that junior officers could get judicial immunity if the act was judicial. But here, the act was executive. The officer made the decision about how to secure this guy within his (her?) expertise as an executive officer, trained in the movement of persons, not as a judicial officer, trained in the findings of fact and the application of law. Shrug.