By Zachary Margulis-OhnumaEvery criminal lawyer knows that feeling when you get the call from the prosecutor telling you: your client is getting indicted, does he want to testify? Your stomach sinks. It’s different from hearing that your client is worried
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I was sexually harassed in a strip club. Can I sue?
By Zachary Margulis-OhnumaMany workers in strip clubs are well-paid, hard-working women supporting their families and using the extra income from the club to take control of their lives. Many clubs treat their workers fairly. Many customers are polite and appropriate.But
Tracy McCarter: Free at Last
By Zachary Margulis-OhnumaAfter subjecting her to thirty-three months of living hell, the Supreme Court of the State of New York has finally, finally, finally dismissed the charges against Tracy McCarter, a battered woman whose husband died while he was attacking
I am Adnan Syed
The protagonist of the legendary Serial podcast that put the scourge of questionable convictions into millions of ears in 2014 was set free yesterday after 24 years in prison. Adnan Syed, 17 at the time, was convicted of stabbing his
What do you mean they searched my house? Warrants, receipts and affidavits explained
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma
If it could happen to defeated former president Donald Trump it could happen to anyone: the feds swooped in and searched his house last week—all 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms were up for grabs. Go big or
A kind of justice
By Zach Margulis-OhnumaShe sat in front of me, bald, shellshocked, speechless, drug addled.The government had charged her with moving massive quantities of GBL and meth, gal Friday to a big-time drug dealer working the nightclubs.She was looking at a ten-year
I'm a First Amendment Lawyer. Johnny Depp's verdict won't survive appeal.
By Zachary Margulis-OhnumaThe jury has spoken and the sexiest pirate on the planet deserves $10 million because his ex-wife wrote in the Washington Post that she is a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” That comes out to $2 million dollars
Free Speech for All?
As Justice Lewis Powell wrote in 1980 in Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Serv. Commission, “there is no de minimis exception for a speech restriction that lacks sufficient tailoring or justification.”Even for someone convicted of a sex
Can the Supreme Court survive the stench?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma
Two unprecedented things happened in the legal world this week. First, someone at the Supreme Court—in an unheard of breach of protocol—leaked the draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health out to the public. Second, the
What the sentences for child pornography are supposed to be
We heard a lot in the last week about judges who sentence people to too little prison time for child pornography. In case it was not obvious coming from foamy-mouthed demagogues in what was once the world’s greatest deliberative body,