Wednesday Writs for 8/28

Em Carpenter

Em was one of those argumentative children who was sarcastically encouraged to become a lawyer, so she did. She is a proud life-long West Virginian, and, paradoxically, a liberal. In addition to writing about society, politics and culture, she enjoys cooking, podcasts, reading, and pretending to be a runner. She will correct your grammar. You can find her on Twitter.

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23 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    L8: I am always conflicted regarding stolen valor. It’s most definitely sh*try behavior, and possibly fraud (if used to extract money from persons or businesses), but absent any fraud, I have a hard time with it being criminal.

    Of course, in these two cases, there was more established criminal behavior, and the stolen valor was just icing.Report

    • Em Carpenter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      Yes, agree. Here they were not charged with a crime for lying about their service; they were punished more harshly for their other crimes because they lied specifically to try and get probation/parole. One got himself enrolled in a special corrections program for vets!Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      As a Native American, I see stolen valor as yet another indicator of how easily hackable social rewards have always been but having wikipedia at your disposal makes passing the quick and easy gatekeeping tests simple for everybody.

      “Oh, you like Tupac? Name three of his songs!”

      “I get around, Changes, and Dear Mama! Everybody always says ‘California Love’ but that’s more of a Dre song, if you ask me.”

      Now I can tell you all about how I went to basic at (googles) Fort Benning, my rope was a jerk who thought he was God, and my DI was a short Black guy who made me (and all of us) run until we puked because one of the guys in my squad lost a pair of pants and the DI *SCREAMED* at us all, like it was our fault, and he got in my face and hit me in the bridge of my nose with the brim of his hat and asked me how in the flying frig you can lose a pair of pants and I wasn’t allowed to laugh but he made us all run anyway.

      And then I won the Medal of Honor in Yemen and everybody clapped.Report

    • veronica d in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      It probably shouldn’t be illegal, but I fully support the private groups that work to expose these fuckers.Report

  2. Em Carpenter says:

    Yes, agree. Here they were not charged with a crime for lying about their service; they were punished more harshly for their other crimes because they lied specifically to try and get probation/parole. One got himself enrolled in a special corrections program for vets!Report

  3. DensityDuck says:

    [L1] wow that was some dumb stuff from Brennan

    “This Constitution does not recognize that times change, does not see that sometimes a practice or rule outlives its foundations.”

    in support of “the man who provided the sperm IS YOUR FATHER AND SHALL BE FOREVERMORE THERE IS NO OTHER POSSIBILITY REGARDLESS OF WHO’S BEEN PART OF YOUR LIFE AND FOR HOW LONG”

    which would seem to be a somewhat…traditional take on the matter

    *****

    That said, the government’s first priority has always and strongly been to place children with biological parents, no matter what else. Foster parents have had to deal with this for a long time; see also the ICWA.Report

    • Pinky in reply to DensityDuck says:

      IANAL, and there was a lot of stuff going on in those opinions, but it seemed to me that Brennan was the one making a moral argument and Scalia was the one defending the law. Dumb law is law, and the Court’s distaste for dumb law doesn’t give them the right to overturn it. I think if Brennan and Scalia lived in California, they’d both vote against the law as it stands.Report

      • Ozzy! in reply to Pinky says:

        I dunno that the law is dumb. what do you think the time limit should be for claiming ownership of a child? 2 years seems quite reasonable to me.

        I guess there could be extenuating circumstances, like the child wasn’t known to be the plantiff’s progeny, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.Report

    • dragonfrog in reply to DensityDuck says:

      Is that what it’s in support of? Or is it in support of “More than two parents can be ongoing parts of a child’s life and that’s actually alright” – and in particular that ongoing three-parent coparenting is probably preferable to serial-monogamous two-parent coparenting where the kid keeps getting bounced every few years between “Dad A is a bum and forever out of your life, Dad B is your only real forever dad now” and “Dad B is history, you have to call Dad A ‘Dad’ now and don’t let me catch you referring to Dad B as ‘Dad’.”

      I mean, I’m pretty biased on this front, but that really is how I read it.Report

    • PD Shaw in reply to DensityDuck says:

      I think my state’s law is similar, and I think the underlying priority is stability.

      For example, the wife cheats on husband and has a child she knows is not her husband’s and doesn’t tell him. They raise the child together for a few years, but they decide to call it quits. The mother tells her child the truth — he’s not your dad. The dad finds out. However, because the dad didn’t take steps to determine whether or not the child was his own within the first two year’s of the infant’s life, the presumption of fatherhood becomes irrefutable. The dad will be required to pay child support because he waived the right to raise that issue without any knowledge that there was an issue. He may be required to pay the child’s way through college.

      You can insert different motivations for the actors, and people’s reaction will change. But motivations in this area can be mixed and inscrutable, judges acting as decisionmakers can bring their own biases to the table. So one priority is line-drawing that doesn’t require that search. The main priority though is that the child has come to rely on the person he or she thought was the father, and if blood was important to the father he could have made the determination. A lawyer-friend who identified somewhat with the tea-party complains that the mother committed fraud by concealing facts that would have given reason to discover the parentage.Report

  4. Aaron David says:

    L1 – They all got it wrong. Joint custody should have been given to Mike and Gerald, with Carol losing out.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Aaron David says:

      It’s My Two Dads! With the actual backstory.Report

      • Aaron David in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        In all seriousness, as young divorced parents my ex and I did everything we could to keep our son away from BS like this. We ended the marriage by going to marriage counseling to help make it as easy on him as possible. Not introducing him to people we were seeing unless it was very serious was the way of things for us, for instance, my wife did not meet him for over a year after we started dating, In other words, we put him first, not us, as we didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of our parents.

        I truly feel bad for the daughter.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to Aaron David says:

          That’s the way it should be done.

          Too bad so many ‘adults’ can’t do that for their kids, their own egos are so much more important.Report

          • Aaron David in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

            Egos and libidos.

            But, yeah, at least our parents’ generation, the first with such a wave of divorces that no one really knew what was going on. H and I really wanted to keep our son away from that, as we both recognized the damage it did to us. I do see a lot more men stepping up to the plate in helping their partners with children from former relationships, or being the sole parent if the mother is unwilling or unable. Which is nice.Report

    • Ozzy! in reply to Aaron David says:

      What’s the deal with the CA ad litum attourney joining the plaintiff here? Is that just automatic? IANAL obviously.Report

  5. George Turner says:

    L3: On the one hand people are demanding politicians do something about the price of prescription drugs, while on the other they’re insisting that drug companies contribute billions to every states’ general fund.

    Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the drug companies make all their money off heroin addicts and use the Narco-Columbian levels of profit to subsidize normal folks cancer drugs?Report

  6. greginak says:

    OT but given the new and seemingly bizarre immigration rule re: kids born out of the US to mil/gov workers maybe Lee ( or other law talker) could give us an explainer. I’m sure he has nothing else to do. I’ve read a bit and it seems sort of clear but with no obvious good reason from what i’ve read.Report