Free Republic

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- Kootenai County commissioners have suspended a public defender who allegedly sent them a crude message in a greeting card about a mistake in her pay increase. Public defender Linda Payne delivered the missive after the county miscalculated pay benefits and told county attorneys they could expect about $5,000 more per year than was actually approved — then retracted it the next day. Payne's hand-delivered greeting card was accompanied by a jar of petroleum jelly and a tube of red lipstick. "The next time you choose to give us something please lubricate and/or kiss first," she wrote...

CHICAGO -- A judge accused a federal prosecutor of misconduct for turning grand jury materials over to a plaintiff's lawyer in a hospital-fraud case, sparking a dispute that has led to an investigation of several lawyers in the U.S. attorney's office, court records show. In response, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald asked a federal appeals court to force U.S. District Judge James F. Holderman to disqualify himself from making rulings during the investigation. The monthslong feud between Holderman and federal prosecutors was made public when hundreds of pages of court papers were unsealed Friday. "Throughout these proceedings, Judge Holderman has...

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- Two men have been arrested for trading lawyer jokes while waiting on line to get into First District Court in Hempstead. The two men, 69-year-old Harvey Kash, of Bethpage, and 65-year-old Carl Lanzisera, of Huntington, were in court Monday as part of their work with Americans for Legal Reform, a group that monitors how the courts serve the public. While waiting on a long line to get through into court, they began telling each other lawyer jokes such as, "How do you tell if a lawyer is lying? Answer: his lips are moving." Well, an attorney within...