Archive for August 2010
How to Lose Your Appeal: Ignore the Court’s Rules / Make the Court Find Your Argument
It’s one thing to get practice tips from judges at a seminar or in a bar publication. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Yvette Miller has some tips in appellate advocacy in this Month’s Georgia Bar Journal (PDF page 28 – worth the wait for it to download). It’s quite another thing to get advocacy advice…
Read More11th Circuit Reverses Conviction on Failure to Charge on Reliance on Advice
Professor Ellen S. Podgor reports in her White Collar Criminal Prof Blog that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed several convictions in Kottwitz.pdf because of a trial court’s failure to charge the jury on the defendants’s good faith reliance upon an accountant’s advice. The Court has also held that, regardless of the strength…
Read MoreGeorgia JQC Sweeps Another Judge’s Conduct Under the Rug
It appears that the best place in the State to skirt the edge of the law is the judicial chambers of a Georgia court. If your crime catches the attention of the Judicial Qualification Commission and they investigate first, then you might lose your job. But that’s about it. Brian K. Finnicum, the Editor of…
Read MoreE-filing in the Georgia Court of Appeals versus the Supreme Court
I have been E-filing in the Georgia Court of Appeals and the Georgia Supreme Court since both courts started offering it. I can’t tell you enough about how great it is to be able to upload a pdf rather than do all of the other archaic stuff that is involved in paper filing a brief.…
Read MoreWho is Your Client on Appeal?
This week we had to take our son to see his pediatrician. He, like many little guys his age, has a tendency to get ear infections. We love our doctor. And it would be easy for anyone who observed her to know why. She is fantastic in the nuts and bolts of medicine. Beyond that,…
Read MoreGeorgia Court of Appeals to Tack on “Convenience Fee” for E-filing
Yesterday, I E-filed two briefs in the Georgia Court of Appeals. At the log in screen I was greeted by a message from the clerk’s office indicating that they are going to tack on a $15.00 “convenience fee” for every case you e-file in the Georgia Court of Appeals, effective September 6. The explanation offered…
Read MoreIt Isn’t Done Until You Have Communicated in Georgia Appeals and Habeas Cases
Scott Greenfield wrote a good story a few days ago in his blog, Simple Justice. I say “good” in the sense that it made me evaluate the part of practicing law where it can be easiest to drop the ball. In the post, he tells the story of a call he received from the relative…
Read MoreGPDSC is Getting a Lawyer to Investigate Itself
R. Robin McDonald is on a roll. She reports in the Fulton Daily Report’s ATLAW Blog that The Georgia Public Defender Standards Council has retained the previous president of the State Bar of Georgia “to investigate whether an affair between former Griffin Superior Court Judge Paschal English and Kim Cornwell, a Griffin Circuit public defender,…
Read MoreSecond Song About People Who Need an Appeals Lawyer
Last week’s song was about a guy moments away from the ultimate penalty. This week’s song is about a man with some interesting multi-jurisdictional issues whose central crime is “borrowing” a car. But he also awaits trial in California, it appears. No appeal here, necessarily, but perhaps it might be good to work out some…
Read More21 Judges Disciplined by Georgia’s Star Chamber, the JQC
Robin McDonald’s article poses the question of why the Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission has zapped so many judges this year. The simple answer is that they deserved it. But, read a little more, and the story is pretty disturbing. While the commission has taken out some judges who had it coming, I can’t say that…
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