Housed

With the possible exception of Ron Paul and his supporters, there’s general agreement that law-abiding people are entitled to some form of shelter even if they can’t pay for it. There’s also agreement, though it’s less broad, that landlords shouldn't be able to discriminate against potential tenants who would be paying their rent with help from the government. Today, the SJC, in DiLiddo v. Oxford St. Realty, Inc., No. SJC-9962, determined that this right of tenants to be free from discrimination vastly restricts the ability of landlords to negotiate lease provisions with local housing authorities. In other words, if you’re going to be a lessor of residential property, you can’t reject a potential tenant because he or she will use a government voucher to pay rent, even if the governmental entity that will be paying that rent is insisting upon lease provisions with which you don’t agree.

Doesn’t it seem like there could be constitutional problems with this? The SJC seems to think so. Chief Justice Marshall specifically and prominently notes that “[t]he defendants make no challenge, constitutional or otherwise, to the validity of the statute . . . .” Did the defendants make a conscious decision to avoid Fifth Amendment arguments? Or did they just miss the issue? Or is there no issue?

October 18, 2007

Hire the Frickin’ Expert

If a case is going to require expert testimony, or even if the other side is going to put an expert witness (or, say, six expert witnesses) on the stand to testify about a critical aspect of the case, it’s going to be a good idea to hire an expert witness. In this arson case, a lawyer did not hire an expert witness to rebut arson allegations against his client or to help him cross examine the state’s expert witness. He just poked around the site of the fire and decided to go along with the state’s determination that the fire in question had been set intentionally.

His reward? Public statements in federal courts that his performance as an attorney had been “deficient.” That’s like getting a gold star, except the complete opposite.

October 3, 2007

Not Thinking Outside the Box

An interesting Appeals Court decision today. Something I didn’t know is that automobile companies have started putting “black box” recorders – a la commercial and other aircraft – that record things like vehicle speed in the moments before an airbag opens. Well, the Appeals Court held that these event data recorders produced evidence that a prosecutor can use when trying someone for negligent homicide. That’s a pretty notable holding and pretty big deal for lawyers that do motor vehicle cases, whether on the civil or criminal side.

So you’d think that the lawyer for the defendant would retain an expert witness to rebut the Commonwealth’s highly qualified expert who explained how these recorders work and how accurate they are. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? Because you’ve got to fight fire with fire and all that. Well, you’d be wrong.