Vivia Chen
The American Lawyer
In his famous dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Texas’s same-sex sodomy law, Antonin Scalia railed against the legal profession for embracing the “anti-antihomosexual culture.” Well, Scalia got that right.
Not only are the nation’s elite law firms not anti-gay, they are putting out the lavender welcome mat. Perks that seemed radical just 10 years ago are now standard fare at Am Law 200 firms: health care benefits for domestic partners, nondiscrimination pledges and sponsorship of gay organizations. Firms are also stampeding to recruit candidates at gay job fairs. And according to a survey by gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign, the legal profession ranks high in gay-friendliness when compared to other industries.
All that good news makes the recent lawsuit against Sullivan & Cromwell for sexual orientation discrimination especially ironic. With 11 gay partners, S&C has become a mecca for gay lawyers. Though S&C’s numbers are striking — particularly for a Wall Street firm — we found progress across the board. Cravath, Swaine & Moore, arguably the most elite of elite New York firms, now counts five open gays in its club of 87 partners. (more…)
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The Marketplace
By Michael Hayes
ATLANTA — In a unanimous opinion, a three-judge panel for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an Alabama statute banning the commercial distribution of sex toys, saying that there is no fundamental right to privacy raised by the plaintiff’s case against the law.
According to the statute, it is “unlawful for any person to knowingly distribute any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.â€
In 1998, the Alabama chapter of the ACLU brought suit on behalf of several plaintiffs — chief among them adult toy retailer Sherri Williams — seeking to enjoin the statute. The recent ruling by the 11th Circuit marks the third trip through the appellate process for the case.
In his opinion affirming the Alabama District Court’s ruling, Judge Charles Wilson concluded that the state has a “legitimate rational basis for the challenged legislation†despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision — Lawrence vs. Texas which overruled anti-sodomy laws across the country. (more…)
The case is Williams vs. Morgan, 06-11892.
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The Marketplace
By Douglas McCollam
It was just before 3 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon last November when a contingent of police gathered outside the home of Louis Conradt Jr., a longtime county prosecutor living in the small community of Terrell, Texas, just east of Dallas. Though the fifty-six-year-old Conradt was a colleague of some of the officers, they hadn’t come to discuss a case or for a backyard barbeque. Rather, the veteran district attorney, who had prosecuted hundreds of felonies during more than two decades in law enforcement, was himself the target of an unusual criminal probe. For weeks the police in the nearby town of Murphy had been working with the online watchdog group Perverted Justice and producers from Dateline NBC’s popular “To Catch a Predator†series in an elaborate sting operation targeting adults cruising the Internet to solicit sex from minors. Dateline had leased a house in an upscale subdivision, outfitted it with multiple hidden cameras, and hired actors to impersonate minors to help lure suspects into the trap. As with several similar operations previously conducted by Dateline, there was no shortage of men looking to score with underage boys and girls. In all, twenty-four men were caught in the Murphy sting, including a retired doctor, a traveling businessman, a school teacher, and a Navy veteran.
Conradt had never shown up at the Dateline house, but according to the police, using the screen name “inxs00,†he did engage in explicit sexual exchanges in an Internet chat room with someone he believed to be a thirteen-year-old boy (but was actually a volunteer for Perverted Justice). Under a Texas law adopted in 2005 to combat Internet predators, it is a second-degree felony to have such communications with someone under the age of fourteen, even if no actual sexual contact takes place. Armed with a search warrant — and with a Dateline camera crew on the scene — the police went to Conradt’s home to arrest him. When the prosecutor failed to answer the door or answer phone calls, police forced their way into the house. Inside they encountered the prosecutor in a hallway holding a semiautomatic handgun. “I’m not going to hurt anybody,†Conradt reportedly told the police. Then he fired a single bullet into his own head. (more…)
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The Marketplace
By Jim Christie
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The biggest sexual discrimination case in U.S. history advanced against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Tuesday when a top court ruled that more than a million women could join a suit charging bias in pay and promotions.
The plaintiffs estimate they could win billions of dollars in lost pay and damages and that as many as two million women who have worked for Wal-Mart in its U.S. stores since 1998 could join a class-action lawsuit.
“It is time for Wal-Mart to face the music,” Brad Seligman, a lawyer for The Impact Fund, a nonprofit group in Berkeley, California representing the female plaintiffs, told reporters.
“Two courts now have ruled that Wal-Mart is going to have to face a jury … We fully expect Wal-Mart to keep appealing but we’re very confident now that two courts have upheld this (class) certification,” he said. (more…)
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The Marketplace
A case in California’s Ninth Circuit Court in Pasadena is asking the court to decide if stating specific preferences in roommate ads is discriminatory and in violation of federal Fair Housing statutes.
The suit was filed against Roommates.com by the Fair Housing Councils of San Fernando Valley and San Diego.
According to the Ninth Circuit lawsuit, if a straight woman were to advertise that she is seeking a gay male roommate, it could be seen as potentially discriminatory towards applicants who aren’t gay males.
(more…)
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The Marketplace
By PHIL DAVIS, Associated Press Writer Tue Jan 30, 3:43 PM ET
TAMPA, Fla. – A woman who told police she had been raped was jailed for two days after officers found an old warrant accusing her of failing to pay restitution for a 2003 theft arrest.
While she was behind bars, according to the college student’s attorney, a jail worker refused to give her a second dose of the morning-after contraceptive pill because of the worker’s religious convictions.
The 21-year-old woman was released Monday only after attorney Vic Moore reported her plight to the local media.
(more…)
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The Marketplace
From the website about the Genarlow Wilson case:
Genarlow Wilson sits in prison despite being a good son, a good athlete and high school student with a 3.2 GPA. He never had any criminal trouble. On the day he was to sit for the SAT, at seventeen years old, his life changed forever. He was arrested. In Douglas County he was accused of inappropriate sexual acts at a News Year’s Eve party. A jury acquitted him of the allegation of Rape but convicted him of Aggravated Child Molestation for a voluntary act of oral sex with another teenager. He was 17, and she was 15.
Along with the label “child molester†which will require him throughout his life to be on a sexual offender registry, Genarlow received a sentence of eleven years — a mandatory 10 years in prison and 1 year on probation.
On July 1st, the new Romeo and Juliet law went into effect in Georgia for any other teen that engages in consensual sexual acts. That change in the law means that no teen prosecuted for consensual oral sex could receive more than a 12 months sentence or be required to register as a sex offender.
Had this law been in effect when Genarlow Wilson was arrested, or had been done after the Marcus Dixon case, Genarlow would not now be in jail.
Genarlow and his mother are overjoyed that no one else in Georgia will have to know their pain. In the meantime, however, the legal fight goes on for Genarlow Wilson.
Genarlow has been incarcerated since February 25, 2005. (more…)
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The Marketplace
Gallery Carre
