In one of the first legal challenges since the #MeToo movement forced the California Legislature to confront its history of dismissing sexual misconduct in its own workplace, the Senate is trying to fend off a former employee's lawsuit with arguments that she's not covered by new whistleblower protections and that the Capitol, as part of the public sector, isn't covered by state labor laws.
The state Senate made the arguments in a recent court response to a lawsuit by a former employee who alleges that the Senate broke eight different laws in firing her several months after she reported that she was raped by a fellow staff member--including laws that prohibit retaliation and require employers to accommodate workers experiencing disabling trauma. The Senate is asking the court to throw out half the allegations in advance of a hearing on Tuesday.
A lawyer for a former Stanford swimmer ... tried to convince an appellate court Tuesday to overturn his client's conviction -- on the novel grounds that the athlete wanted "outercourse" with his intoxicated victim, not intercourse.
"Outercourse," his lawyer Eric S. Multhaup explained to the three poker-faced justices, is sexual contact while fully clothed. Turner had his clothes on when he was caught by two Swedish graduate students making thrusting motions on top of a half-naked, intoxicated, unconscious woman, his lawyer noted.
Mili Mitra opines in the WaPo that "the 'outercourse' defense is so patently ridiculous that it reads like a headline from the Onion."
Clever word plays may be good for giving academic articles catchy titles, but they are not so good for advocacy. Remember "affluenza"?
I really have to wonder about the defense's decision to appeal in this case. There are six grounds in the appellant's opening brief. Only one is sufficiency of the evidence, an argument which, if successful, precludes retrial. If he "wins" on any of the others, the case goes back for retrial and, if reconvicted, resentencing. Does the defendant really want that? A greater sentence cannot be imposed just to be vindictive about the appeal, but a greater sentence can be imposed if the second judge believes that a greater sentence is appropriate for the crime.
Having gotten off much too lightly the first time, shouldn't Turner quit while he is "ahead," relative to where he is likely to be on resentencing?
A Chicago man accused of sexually assaulting three young girls told prosecutors he considered himself a boy in a man's body, according to Cook County court documents.Joseph Roman, 38, is charged with predatory criminal sexual assault stemming from repeated attacks on three girls who were 6 to 8 years old at the time, according to prosecutors. Roman was a friend of the girls' families at the time of the attacks between 2015 and January of this year.
During a hearing Wednesday, prosecutors said Roman admitted to some of the attacks and told Chicago police "he is a 9-year-old trapped in an adult's body." He was ordered held without bail
