Adam Savader, at only age 22, has demonstrated that he has enormous talent, along with a serious mental illness.  The odd mix, along with the New Yorker's penchant for stalking Michigan students, has landed him in federal prison for 30-months.

It is uncommon to hear names like Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Bill Clinton invoked at a sentencing hearing.  Yet that's what went down in Judge Marianne Battani's courtroom in the United States District Court here in Detroit last week.

Savader, a campaign volunteer for Newt Gingrich, sank into a deep depression when that campaign fell apart in 2012.  So he took-up cyberstalking Michigan college co-eds; hacking into their digital files and extracting nude photos, then texting demands for more photos of the victims under the threat that he would transmit the pics he extracted to their relatives.

To do this, the man from Great Neck, NY, used an alias in conjunction with a Google phone service. He bullied one young woman with the following text threat:

You have until noon. I am not bluffing. Don't be stupid. Once I send pics of you, they cannot be unsent.

Now, Savader has plenty of time to re-think such aggressive cyberthreats.

Recognizing that posting nude pics of oneself is legal, Judge Battani wondered aloud why young women were motivated to do so, thereby setting themselves up for hackers like Savader.  At his sentencing hearing, Savader quoted Bill Clinton, while his lawyer invoked letters written on Savader's behalf [long before his cyberstalking charges were filed] from the manager of Newt Gingrich's campaign, and U.S. Representative Paul Ryan, acknowledging the felon's hard work on the Gingrich and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns.

We here at the Law Blogger heartily agree with Judge Batanni's warning: think twice about posting nude pics of yourself on-line.  Guys like Adam Savader are out there in cyberspace, lurking like a ghost ready to pounce.

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Yes, the ballot proposal writers hired by our pot lobby handed criminal defense lawyers a gift-horse when they wrote-up the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.  Just how are folks supposed to get their marijuana anyway?

A 3-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals has reversed an Isabella County Circuit Judge that had denied the county prosecutor's request for an injunction that would close down the local Compassion Apothecary; a medical marijuana dispensary.  After this decision, consider the Apothecary closed.

The sole issue decided in the case was whether the MMA provides for the "sale" of medical marijuana.  The Court of Appeals said, "no".  That was a foregone conclusion under any plain reading of the provisions of the Act.

Anyone reading the MMA will note that the referendum writers, in their wisdom, provided two ways for "patients" to obtain their, er, "medication".  Either you "grow your own", or you get your pot from a certified care provider who can only service 5 patients at a time with an overall limit to the total number of marijuana plants on the premises.  The MMA is silent, however, on dispensaries; nor does it provide for transfer by sale.

The Compassion Apothecary [BTW, even the name of this dispensary was illegal so they changed it to "CA"] is a membership-based collective designed to distribute a continuous supply of marijuana to certified patients.  The Apothecary  operates a locker system whereby patients and care providers pay monthly fees for both membership in the collective and use of a locker.

The CA is a "no grow" and "no smoke" facility.  Patients can inspect [see, smell and touch] a wide variety of marijuana strains prior to purchase.  The pot price is set by the care provider; the CA takes a 20% "service fee" on the transaction.

Sounds like an organic "win-win" right?  Wrong.  The collective ran afoul of the law, according to the Court of Appeals, as the MMA does not allow patient-to-patient sales or transfers.  Also, the Court held that the CA illegally "possessed" the marijuana under both the Public Health Code, and the MMA.

Accordingly, the Court of Appeals concluded that the CA could be shut down on the basis it was a "public nuisance" as contended by the Isabella County Prosecutor.  Case closed; the CA dispensary, and all others like it, are out of business by operation of this published, thus binding, decision of the Court of Appeals.

While the CA huddles with its attorneys to decide whether to take further appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette applauded the decision as a much needed patch on a law that "has more holes than Swiss Cheese."   AG Schuette told the Detroit News that the MMA has been "hijacked" by folks looking to profit from pot sales and by unscrupulous doctors issuing bogus patient certifications.

This blog has long-held the view that the MMA is a poor law.  The Act does not square with the reality that many qualified "patients", perhaps even a majority, once endorsed by Michigan's DCH, smoke pot recreationally, not medicinally.

Some "On-the-Take" physicians conduct cursory reviews of an applicants' medical records in their assessment of a claimed chronic or debilitating medical condition, as required under the Act.  Schuette is looking to criminalize bogus physician certifications.  We're certainly behind that legislative initiative; good luck Bill.

Whenever a law is based on a fiction, as this one is, our jurisprudence suffers.  As AG Schuette correctly points out, too many folks are equating legalization of marijuana with the medicinal use of marijuana.  In this decision, the Court of Appeals removes this stubborn disconnect.

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San Diego Attorney
Todd Macaluso

I recall putting on my shirt and tie for court while watching GMA two years ago and seeing one of my law school acquaintances, Todd Macaluso, being interviewed as the newest member of Casey Anthony's so-called "dream team" of defense lawyers.  The interview in Florida was surprising to me, as I thought Todd was a product liability lawyer in California.  Hey, headlines are headlines, right.

Todd comes from a wealthy family out east and he married well; very well.  Not interested in Harvard, NYU, or any of the tony east coast law schools, Todd collected his sheepskin right here in the "D" from the University of Detroit School of Law; class of 1987.

Before his graduation ceremony was even concluded, Macaluso was probably on a private jet to San Diego, where he hung his shingle and hasn't looked back.  And apparently he has not stopped playing around with private aircraft either, from the way the headlines read this week.

Although forced to quit the Casey Anthony case due to a serious attorney discipline conviction and imminent disbarment in California, Todd is right back in the cockpit, just in time to seize the spotlight, allegedly ferrying Ms. Anthony about the country on his private Pilatus PC-12 turbo-prop aircraft.

The national media, led by Nancy Grace, is in an absolute frenzy over Anthony's location.  Knowing Todd, he is loving every minute that he is able to steal the show by flying the infamous "Tot Mom" hither and yon.  Hopefully, his 15-minutes will expire by month's end.

Macaluso is a poster child for the adage: "image is everything".  He is acknowledged, among dozens of others, in United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's book, Making Your Case.  A mutual friend who's been to Macaluso's home says there is a photo of Todd on his yacht with Justice Scalia, apparently a friend of the extended Macaluso family.

In 2007, Macaluso received the President's Award from the UDM School of Law.  In presenting this award, UDM acknowledged Todd's lobby efforts in Congress to regulate pharmaceutical sales over the Internet. Nothing was mentioned, however, about the opportunistic nature of his burgeoning criminal defense practice.

With the benefit of hindsight, I just have to wonder if my alma mater would have bestowed its President's Award on a graduate who soon would be disbarred for misspending client trust funds; or whether Justice Scalia would acknowledge an attorney that has not only joined forces with a most infamous client, but has positively delighted in concealing her location, while she prepares with her lawyers to fleece all of us.

Only in America folks; only in America.

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There is a bill pending in the Michigan Senate which, if passed, will require bars and restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages to make self-operated breathalyzers available to patrons.  The bill, sponsored by Senator Bert Johnson of Highland Park, was submitted to the Senate Committee on Regulatory Reform on June 1, 2011.

Presumably, the legislative wisdom associated with such a law would be to provide bar patrons with some immediate feedback relative to their blood alcohol level.  There is a large body of published analysis, however, impugning the accuracy of these devices.  For example, if any alcohol or a variety of other agents are present in your breath sample, the results will be distorted.

One advantage of this law is that if patrons discovery they are "Super Drunk", with a blood alcohol in excess of .17, they would presumably not risk the enhanced penalties by venturing onto the roadways.

In a court of law, the preliminary breath test (PBT) results generated from such devices are not deemed admissible in court.  Like field sobriety test results, the PBT can generally only be used to demonstrate whether there was probable cause to support a drunk driving arrest.

These machines cost anywhere from $250 to $950.  Every bar, restaurant, or entertainment venue will have to purshase a series of these devices.  Resources will be devoted to operating and maintaining the breathalyzers by the waitstaff at each speakeasy.  Liability steming from this legislative requirement will result in lawsuits.

On the other hand, the more awareness that is raised about drinking and driving, the better.  The question is whether the costs imposed on restauranteurs, then passed on to patrons, is worth it.

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It's still too early to tell if Michigan's new "Super Drunk" driving law is having an effect on making our roadways safer.  The law took effect last November.

Some following the law have noted that due to plea deals, many convicted of this law are going to rehab rather than jail.  One of the provisions of the law was to double the jail term from 90 to 180 days for convicted super drunk drivers.

According to Eaton County district judge Harvey Hoffman, an early proponent of the new law, more folks are jumping into sobriety courts, or extended rehabilitation programs.   Judge Hoffman cites chronic jail overcrowding as a chief factor in sentencing super drunks to rehabilitation over a six-month jail bit.

Of course, here in Oakland County, there is no such thing as a plea bargain and the prosecutor no longer participates in district sobriety courts.  If you are charged under the Super Drunk law, you will not get an offer to reduce the charge to impaired driving, even if it is your first offense.  Your fate will be in the hands of your sentencing judge.

By comparison, the Eaton County prosecutor has a new policy in super drunk cases of approving a plea reduction to impaired in exchange for the accused's assent to enter into a sobriety court program, forcing the offender to come to terms with their drinking problem. 

The 0.17 blood alcohol level which triggers the new law is not an outrageously high BAC.  On average, the BAC of an arrested driver is 0.16; very close to the super drunk threshold.

So the best thing to do is simply stay off the roads when you've had too much to drink; that way, we're all safer.  If you cannot do that, go on ebay and purchase a "Big Blue Book" as a compulsory 12-step program may be in your future.

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Veteran defense lawyer Michael McCarthy (L)
and veteran prosecutor John Skrzynski

Prosecutors cannot take their time once they make the decision to prosecute a case.  Generally, the law does not reward any party that sleeps on their rights and duties.

Normally, the prosecutor has a certain period of time, known as the "statute of limitations", within which to charge a crime.  An exception to this rule is murder; there is no statute of limitations on a murder charge.

The Oakland County Prosecutor recently brought two cases that alleged murders that took place in 1978 and 1968, respectively.  The 1968 case charged Nolan Ray George, a suspected serial killer, with the first degree murder of Gwendolyn Perry.  Likewise, the 1978 case charged Wilburn Cooper with first degree murder.  

Cooper's jury convicted him in two hours flat.  As for Mr. George, his defense lawyer, veteran attorney Michael McCarthy attempted to keep out evidence of so-called "prior bad acts"; two prior murders.  Oakland Circuit Judge Michael Warren ruled the other murders admissible; George also was jury convicted in short order.

Forty years, thirty years, or ten; if the prosecutor can marshal evidence to prove the elements of an open murder charge beyond a reasonable doubt, murderers should pay the price for their heinous crimes.  The competing interest, of course, is that any evidentiary trail grows ice cold over the decades; a defense is very difficult to mount with the passage of an ocean of time. 

Mr. McCarthy was probably asked why on earth he would represent a serial killer a dozen times if he was asked once.

The criminal justice system requires seasoned defense lawyers to force the government to prove its case; each and every time.  Only in this fashion do we maintain our individual liberties and avoid becoming a police state.

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