Daily Archives: March 12, 2004

Texans turn a sixth round draft pick into a third round pick

Posted on by
Reply

As noted in this earlier post, the Houston Texans chose former University of Michigan quarterback Drew Henson in the sixth round of last year’s NFL Draft even though Henson was playing baseball at the time in the New York Yankees minor league system. The Texans’ figured that Henson’s mediocre baseball skills would eventually lead him back to football, and today their gambit paid off. The Texans traded their contract rights to Henson to the Dallas Cowboys for a third round draft choice in the 2005 NFL Draft. By focusing on preserving draft picks, the Texans are building a formidable foundation of good, young players. The third round draft pick that the Texans received in this deal will probably be much more useful for them next year when the team will likely be maturing into a playoff caliber team than the sixth round choice would have been for this season’s team.

The Durst Lawyer Annuity

Posted on by
Reply

The Chronicle reports on more developments in the ongoing saga of Robert Durst and his high profile defense team. Although the bail jumping charges appear to be legitimate, it strikes me that the other charges being pursued against Durst (abuse of a corpse?) appear to be quite strained. One gets the impression that the prosecution still cannot figure out how it lost its murder case against Durst. Earlier posts on the Durst case are here and here.

The Saudi War on George Bush

Posted on by
Reply

Via Instapundit, Ed Lasky, a contributor to The American Thinker, posits in this article that Saudi Arabia has launched an undeclared war on President Bush in an effort to sabotage the long term success of America?s war on Islamic fascism. Mr. Lasky points out that President Bush has fundamentally altered the previous cozy relationship between the Saudi Royal Family and the Bush Family:

The terror attacks convinced George W. Bush that America?s approach to the Middle East needed to be drastically changed, to ensure America?s safety. His campaign to oust the Taliban from theocratic rule in Afghanistan and his defeat of Saddam Hussein sent a message to the Saudis that ?business as usual? was a thing of the past. In calling for liberalism throughout the Arab world and for the acceptance of other religions, Bush challenged the support structure of the Saudi royal family, whose legitimacy is predicated on their role as defender of Islam?s holy sites and propagator of the faith.
Much more importantly, in severing the ties that once bound, Bush II has declared that the ties of filial duty, which both animate and constrain the dynamics of the Saudi royal family, do not matter so much in his family. Not anymore, at least, no matter what the former appearances. In doing so, George Bush has become an apostate to the Saudis. It is not merely a matter of interests, but rather an issue of deep principle, fundamentally linked to their own way of life, and to their survival.
From the vantage point of the Saudis, Bush II is not just unreliable, but also a danger. He is a self-identified born-again Christian, and is closely allied with the religious wing of the Republican Party. In a theocratic nation which forbids the practice of Christianity, a leader linked to rival religion is anathema. In their eyes (as well as those of some of President Bush?s most ardent opponents) he may seem to be something of a theocrat himself, but from a longstanding historical rival religion.
When the President?s Christian moorings are combined with the exaggerated role that Jewish neo-cons supposedly have in the White House (once again the fevered imaginations of the Saudis bear some resemblance to those of the President?s most extreme domestic antagonists), trouble of the most fundamental sort looms for their regime. All along, the fanatic Wahabbi wing of the clergy has preached that a holy war exists with the West, and that accommodation with the infidels can only be a tactical pause in the eventual all-out war. From their perspective, it is easy to understand why George W. Bush — the Christian ?puppet of the Jews,? and thus the embodiment of Wahabbi nightmares — needs to be removed from office.

Mr. Lasky goes on to predict that the Saudis will attempt to use their power within the OPEC to increase energy prices that would create a lag on the U.S. economy, which would lead to voter disenchantment with President Bush in November. I am not convinced of the economic viability of that theory, but Mr. Lasky’s views on the Saudi Royal Family’s view toward President Bush appear to be on target.

Professor Volokh on the basis of one’s political position

Posted on by
Reply

The always insightful UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh has an interesting post on his blog in which he addresses the fallacy of the common argument in political debates that “we don’t like the other side attempting to impose their beliefs on us.” Professor Volokh points out:

. . . as it happens, many laws — civil rights laws, for instance — were motivated by religious opinions (it’s the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., you might recall). But more importantly, all of our opinions are ultimately based on unproven and unprovable moral premises. For some of us, the moral premises are secular; for others, they’re religious; I don’t see why the former are somehow more acceptable than the latter. And the slogan “separation of church and state” hardly resolves anything here: Churches may have no legal role in our government, but religious believers are just as entitled to vote their views into law as are atheists or agnostics.
Of course, it’s perfectly sound to disagree with people’s views on the merits: If I don’t agree with the substance of someone’s proposal, whether it’s religious or secular, I’ll certainly criticize the substance. And naturally people will often find others’ religious arguments unpersuasive — “ban this because God said so” isn’t going to persuade someone who doesn’t believe in God, or who has a different view of God’s will. (Likewise, many devout Christians may find unpersuasive arguments that completely fail to engage devout Christians’ religious beliefs.) But there’s nothing at all illegitimate about people making up their own minds about which laws to enact based on their own unprovable religious moral beliefs, or on their own unprovable secular moral beliefs.

Meanwhile, this Logos blog post points to a couple of interesting op-eds on the gay marriage debate, and includes the following passage on marriage and divorce from the late great Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, which includes a great observation from Mr. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” regarding his well-known affection for wine:

Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one; the other is the quite different question — how far Christians, if they are voters or members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for everyone. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.”

So, Professor Dershowitz, you want to rumble?

Posted on by
1

As noted here, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz earlier this week in a Wall Street Journal ($) op-ed slammed Martha Stewart‘s criminal defense team’s handling of the case.
Today, in a letter to the WSJ, attorneys Michael F. Armstrong, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom‘s Robert S. Bennett, and Ronald P. Fischetti lay the wood to Professor Dershowitz. They note:

Alan Dershowitz’s attack upon Robert Morvillo, led counsel in the recent trial of Martha Stewart (“With Lawyers Like These . . . ” editorial page, March 8) is both superficial and scurrilous.
Prof. Dershowitz, an academic who doesn’t try cases, demonstrates his lack of trial experience in his criticisms of Mr. Morvillo. For example, he derides Morvillo for not “introducing testimony by dozens of others ? experts, eye witnesses, character witnesses — who may have strengthened Ms. Stewart’s case.” He gives no indication as to the subjects upon which such experts might have opined, or the events such eyewitnesses might have observed. Nor does he mention the elementary fact that by calling character witnesses a defendant can open the trial to hearsay testimony about rumors and gossip, otherwise inadmissible, that could be far more harmful to Ms. Stewart than the testimony of friendly witnesses would be helpful.
Prof. Dershowitz also criticizes Mr. Morvillo for the fact that Ms. Stewart did not testify. But Prof. Dershowitz provides no basis by which one could conclude whether that decision was made by Mr. Morvillo or Ms. Stewart. No one, certainly not Prof. Dershowitz, can know what Mr. Morvillo’s advice was on this matter, and Mr. Morvillo cannot respond to Prof. Dershowitz’s charges without improperly revealing communications between himself and his client. Unfortunately, Prof. Dershowitz’s modus operandi here — attacking another lawyer knowing that he cannot defend himself without revealing privileged communications — is the same tactic he has employed to garner press coverage for his Monday-morning quarterbacking in other high-profile cases.
Far worse than his posturing, however, is his unsupported and almost casual attack on Mr. Morvillo’s ethics. He strongly suggests that Mr. Morvillo’s trial tactics were motivated by his desire to protect the lawyers who originally represented Ms. Stewart and who chose to allow her to be interviewed by the government.
Prof. Dershowitz charges that these lawyers and Mr. Morvillo were part of an “old boy network of former New York prosecutors who sometimes refer cases to each other.” On this alleged fact — and this alone — Prof. Dershowitz feels free to suggest that the decision not to have Ms. Stewart testify was motivated by Mr. Morvillo’s desire to avoid “potential embarrassment” to his friends and that the decision “may” have been influenced by “considerations other than the interests of his client.” This serious accusation, lacking as it does the slightest shred of supporting evidence, is reckless and irresponsible. Anyone who knows Mr. Morvillo knows his longstanding reputation for zealous devotion to his clients. To imply that he would rather see his client convicted than subject prior counsel to outside criticism is simply ludicrous. Moreover, Prof. Dershowitz’s promise — that the former lawyers would have been exposed by Ms. Stewart’s taking the stand — is erroneous. The lawyers had already figured heavily in the trial evidence and one of them actually testified.
Robert Morvillo has a reputation among fellow practitioners as a trial lawyer of great expertise who has always adhered to the highest ethical standards. Prof. Dershowitz has been frequently criticized for his conduct in cases. He would be well advised to stick to what he knows and resist the urge to view every guilty verdict in a high-profile case as just another opportunity for further self-aggrandizement at the expense of others.

Your serve, Professor Dershowitz.

Shell under the microscope

Posted on by
Reply

In the wake of its earlier write down of oil and gas reserves and resulting management purge, Royal Dutch/Shell Group is the subject of NY Times and Wall Street Journal ($) articles today regarding the management failures that led to the overstatement of reserves. The WSJ article is the better of the two articles, and makes the following observation:

. . .the big forces that helped humble Shell are already clear. The oil giant has been plagued by what was once a source of strength: a quirky, loose corporate structure bestriding its twin bases in England and the Netherlands. And it erred in overrelying for growth on its traditional prowess for finding oil, as new discoveries have grown harder to eke out. The revision has also painted a starkly different picture of the company’s recent performance, showing Shell lagging behind competitors in key performance measures instead of just keeping up. The company has replaced reserves at a much lower rate than originally thought, and its costs are significantly higher.

And somewhat more ominously for Shell, the WSJ observes:

A number of mysteries remain unanswered. How did Shell misjudge its reserve so badly? Why didn’t anybody catch the mistakes before now? Why didn’t Sir Philip disclose them sooner? Did Shell actively try to hide the problem? The company’s current top executives — including Shell’s chief financial officer and the man who replaced Sir Philip as chairman — are under pressure to disclose what they knew about the reserve problems and when. Shell’s board signaled in a statement Tuesday that it is standing by them.
***
The SEC and Shell’s internal investigators are looking into whether the company’s bonus system provided financial incentives to employees to overstate reserves, according to people familiar with both probes. Shell has acknowledged shortfalls in its reserve oversight and auditing processes, and has restructured its auditing process.

Meanwhile, in this related article, the WSJ reports on the absurdly understaffed nature of the Securities and Exchange Commission‘s staff that reviews the oil and natural-gas reserves that publicly-owned oil companies claim in their regulatory filings. The entire job is left to just two staff petroleum engineers.