A Judge Tried to Get Out of Jury Duty. What He Said Cost Him His Job.; The New York Times, February 6, 2025

Ed Shanahan, The New York Times ; A Judge Tried to Get Out of Jury Duty. What He Said Cost Him His Job.

[Kip Currier: A bedrock principle of the American judicial system is a commitment to equity and fairness by those who are entrusted to be impartial adjudicators. This story reveals an individual who makes a mockery of that ethical imperative.]

[Excerpt]

"When Richard Snyder was running to be a town justice in tiny Petersburgh, N.Y., in 2013, he told a local news site that he would be fair and honest on the bench. Because he was not a lawyer, he also said he was “looking forward to learning about the law.”

He just learned something about it the hard way.

Mr. Snyder, a Republican, was unopposed in that 2013 race and won it with 329 votes. But in December he resigned after a disciplinary panel found that he had tried to get out of grand jury duty by introducing himself as a town justice and saying he could not be impartial based on his opinion of those who appeared in his court.

“I know they are guilty,” Mr. Snyder said in arguing to be excused, according to a court transcript. Otherwise, he explained, “they would not be in front of me.” (The judge dismissed him and notified the disciplinary panel.)"

Supreme Court Denies Trump’s Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid Sentencing; The New York Times, January 9, 2025

Ben ProtessKate Christobek and Adam Liptak , The New York Times; Supreme Court Denies Trump’s Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid Sentencing

"Four of the court’s conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — noted dissents without providing reasons."

New York’s First Black Librarians Changed the Way We Read; The New York Times, June 19, 2024

 Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times; New York’s First Black Librarians Changed the Way We Read

"Today, figures like Schomburg and the historian and activist W.E.B. Du Bois (another collector and compiler of Black books) are hailed as the founders of the 20th-century Black intellectual tradition. But increasingly, scholars are also uncovering the important role of the women who often ran the libraries, where they built collections and — just as important — communities of readers.

“Mr. Schomburg’s collection is really the seed,” said Joy Bivins, the current director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, as the 135th Street library, currently home to more than 11 million items, is now known. “But in many ways, it is these women who were the institution builders.”

Many were among the first Black women to attend library school, where they learned the tools and the systems of the rapidly professionalizing field. On the job, they learned these tools weren’t always suited to Black books and ideas, so they invented their own.

At times, they battled overt and covert censorship that would be familiar in today’s climate of rising book bans and restrictions on teaching so-called divisive concepts. But whether they worked in world-famous research collections or modest public branch libraries, these pioneers saw their role as not just about tending old books but also about making room for new people and new ideas."

Ethics Panel Cautions Judge in Trump Trial Over Political Donations; The New York Times, May 17, 2024

William K. Rashbaum, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, The New York Times ; Ethics Panel Cautions Judge in Trump Trial Over Political Donations

"A state ethics panel quietly dismissed a complaint last summer against the New York judge presiding over the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, issuing a warning over small donations the judge had made to groups supporting Democrats, including the campaign of Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The judge, Juan M. Merchan, donated a total of $35 to the groups in 2020, including a $15 donation earmarked for the Biden campaign, and $10 to a group called “Stop Republicans.”

Political contributions of any kind are prohibited under state judicial ethics rules...

In its 2024 annual report, the commission said it was made aware of dozens of New York judges who had violated the rules against political contributions in recent years. Most were modest amounts, the report said, and many appeared to stem from the misperception that the rules only apply to state campaigns. In fact, judges are prohibited from contributing to any campaigns, including for federal office."

Artificial Intelligence Law - Intellectual Property Protection for your voice?; JDSupra, January 22, 2024

 Steve Vondran, JDSupra ; Artificial Intelligence Law - Intellectual Property Protection for your voice?

"With the advent of AI technology capable of replicating a person's voice and utilizing it for commercial purposes, several key legal issues are likely to emerge under California's right of publicity law. The right of publicity refers to an individual's right to control and profit from their own name, image, likeness, or voice.

Determining the extent of a person's control over their own voice will likely become a contentious legal matter given the rise of AI technology. In 2024, with a mere prompt and a push of a button, a creator can generate highly accurate voice replicas, potentially allowing companies to utilize a person's voice without their explicit permission for example using a AI generated song in a video, or podcast, or using it as a voice-over for a commercial project. This sounds like fun new technology, until you realize that in states like California where a "right of publicity law" exists a persons VOICE can be a protectable asset that one can sue to protect others who wrongfully misuse their voice for commercial advertising purposes.

This blog will discuss a few new legal issues I see arising in our wonderful new digital age being fueled by the massive onset of Generative AI technology (which really just means you input prompts into an AI tool and it will generate art, text, images, music, etc."

ChatGPT: Ethics and the 21st Century Lawyer; New York State Bar Association (NYSBA), July 24, 2023

New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) ; ChatGPT: Ethics and the 21st Century Lawyer

"The ChatGPT Lawyer incident raises many questions of skills and ethics.  This program will discuss the disciplinary decisions arising from that incident in the Southern District of New York and how this may inform future use of AI technology in the practice of law in federal and state court. Panelists will cover the use of Chat GPT and the use of AI in other legal research tools (Westlaw, Lexis). Attendees will gain an understanding of best practices for writing briefs and citing cases appropriately using AI."

Two New York nurses charged with forging Covid vaccine cards to earn more than $1.5 million; CNBC, January 29, 2022

Jessica Bursztynsky, CNBC ; Two New York nurses charged with forging Covid vaccine cards to earn more than $1.5 million

"Two nurses on New York’s Long Island are being charged with forging Covid-19 vaccination cards and entering the fake jabs in the state’s database, a scam that allegedly raked in more than $1.5 million."