Wednesday Writs: Frothingham v. Mellon Sets Legal Precedent For Karens

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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10 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    WW2: Exactly how long do police/DAs need to investigate such things? How long should a person be deprived of their property while the state gets around to it?

    Perhaps the DA could pull a couple of uniforms away from chasing down expired tags and hanging air fresheners and get them looking into something that might be a bit more important?

    Priorities are a pain, but we all have to deal with them.Report

    • Doctor Jay in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      I would expect that the authorities weren’t spending every minute of those 14 days trying to track this down, but rather they are making calls, waiting for them to be returned, sending letters, working 2 dozen other cases all at same time. And so on. That’s the usual thing.

      And this implies there is some discretion available to investigating officers. They can make something like this a priority or just do something pro forma. I think we could stand to look at this a bit more.Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Doctor Jay says:

        Sure, but then the DA kinda needs to say what he needs. He doesn’t get a year or more to investigate such things.

        Perhaps the law should be modified to allow the DA to ask for more time (because they are waiting on so-and-so to call back, or the recent protests stretched resources too thin, etc.), which also gives the citizen a chance to answer that request.Report

    • PD Shaw in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      From one of the links to the piece, he “was committed for a brief time for evaluation. No medication was prescribed at that time.” We don’t know what the evaluation was or whether or not he even spoke.

      If the mental health professional concluded he was an imminent risk to himself or others, he would have remained in the facility for observation until he could be safely discharged. At best, the evaluation was inconclusive, and at worst, it was evidence that he wasn’t an imminent threat. Imminence seems to me like within the next 14 days.Report

      • Doctor Jay in reply to PD Shaw says:

        Spree killers usually don’t present psychological/psychiatric symptoms beforehand, if I recall correctly. I’m not even sure about afterwards. So I don’t put a lot of hope in this approach, though I think it’s worth pushing further on.

        At the same time, as attention getting as they are, I don’t think they represent a terribly large fraction of wrongful deaths.Report

  2. Richard Hershberger says:

    ” The named plaintiff was a Ms. Frothingham; her first name is lost to history so I will assume it is in fact Karen.”

    Made me look! Sadly, it was Harriet: https://books.google.com/books?id=9Nw3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA252&dq=Frothingham+v.+Mellon&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgkv7ZgJDwAhX5EVkFHQeaDDMQ6AEwBXoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q=Frothingham%20v.%20Mellon&f=falseReport

  3. Kolohe says:

    Ww5 – the absolutely stupidest reason for losing your job for using the n-word is in a conversation ‘why can’t I use the n-word?’

    Not that losing your job isn’t appropriate, it’s just a really really stupid way to go these days. What is it that invokes the desire in so many people to have that conversation?Report

  4. Brandon Berg says:

    WW3: I had a brief Mandela effect moment when I thought I remembered Kristen Smart being found alive and well a few years ago, but that was Elizabeth Smart.Report