The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it would hear an appeal from a death row inmate who is slated for execution in Alabama because of a mix-up in the mailroom of one of New York’s most prominent white shoe law firms.

Two associates at the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell were representing pro bono a client in Alabama named Cory Maples in his death row appeals. An Alabama state court sent the associates two copies of a judicial order in Maples’ case, but since the associates no longer worked at S&C, the mailroom staff sent the orders back to the court unopened and stamped “Return to Sender.”  By the time Maples had found new counsel, the deadline for appealing from the court’s order had passed.  The 11th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals held that it was too late for Maples to appeal, even though the fault was completely that of his attorneys.

The New York Times notes that while the blame has been shifted to the clerks in the mailroom,

An Alabama lawyer, John G. Butler Jr., also represented Mr. Maples and also received a copy of the ruling. Mr. Butler said in a sworn statement that he was Mr. Maples’s lawyer in name only, serving as local counsel for the New York lawyers handling the case. He said he had not passed the ruling along to them or to Mr. Maples.

[WSJ Law Blog]

[NYT]

“Two softball coaches at a Texas high school are being sued after allegedly confining a teenaged girl in a locked room, forcing her to confirm her sexual orientation, then outing her to her parents before ejecting her from the softball team. The lawsuit states that the school district defended the actions by saying the teachers were “legally obligated” to inform the parents of the child’s sexuality.” [Raw Story]

Oklahoma City Police Department Crime Report: “ON 12/17/10, AT 945 HOURS, RP WOODSIDE ADVISED ME THAT SHE HAD A STUDENT IN HER CLASSROOM, IN POSSESSION OF A PERMANENT MARKER. AR [age 13, name redacted] WAS WRITING ON A PRICE OF PAPER, WHICH CAUSED IT TO BLEED OVER ONTO THE DESK… I ALLOWED RP TO SIGN A CITATION AGAINST AR AND AR WAS TRANSPORTED TO C.I.C. [juvie] BY SGT. SPENCE. SGT. SPENCE BOOKED THE MARKER INTO THE PROPERTY ROOM.” [The Smoking Gun]

I wanted to post something about this story three months ago, and then forgot. An article in my fishwrap updating the story has reminded me to do so.

Texas takes its sports seriously, or at least football and basketball (the male version).  The role of the girls, of course, is to be the pretty cheerleader cheering on the jocks.

That is kopacetic, of course, until you’re asked to cheer for your rapist at a basketball game.

And you’re told to chant:

No, really. That was the chant. You can’t make shit like that up.

Are you ready to rumble? C-SPAN is airing the battle in San Francisco, beginning at 10 am PST.

Three judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments this morning on whether Prop. 8 is constitutional.

The first hurdle will be for the proponents of the ballot measure to explain to the court how they even have standing to appeal district judge Vaughn Walker’s August 4 decision striking down Prop. 8, seeing as how the named defendant, the Guvernator, and AG/soon to be Governor Moonbeam refused to appeal the decision.

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“Citing cases dating back as far as 1928, a judge has ruled that a young girl accused of running down an elderly woman while racing a bicycle with training wheels on a Manhattan sidewalk two years ago can be sued for negligence.” Juliet Breitman, the alleged perp, was 4. [NYT]

Justice John Paul Stevens, king of the cranky-pants dissents, today writes a concurrence in Graham v. Florida for the sole purpose of bitch-slapping Justice Clarence Thomas.  The ladies of SCOTUS joined him in the pile-on.

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