There were three cases from the Ohio Supreme Court this past week:  one held that the Patients Bill of Rights overcome a county nursing home’s claim to sovereign immunity in a lawsuit brought on behalf of a patient; another held that an arbitrator could use case law in defining what constituted “good cause” if the contract he was interpreting didn’t define it; and the third held that “attempted” drug crimes were governed by the individual drug statutes, rather than the general attempt statute. 

In the court of appeals, not too much went on, for whatever reason.  Maybe the mail didn’t get to Lexis-Nexis; at any rate, there were only about 50 decisions last week.  The highlights: 

1st District affirms conviction of tampering with evidence where defendant threw down bag of cocaine in an attempt to avoid being caught with it… 8th District reverses conviction of receiving stolen property, finds evidence insufficient to show defendant knew car was stolen… 12th District holds that trial court’s colloquy regarding defendant’s right of self-representation was insufficient… 12th District holds that email messages don’t amount to lease contract, also holds that effect of eviction on credit rating prevents tenant’s claim from being moot… 11th District holds that magistrate not required to evaluate tax consequences of marital distribution where parties don’t present expert testimony on that issue…

Yesterday was exactly one year since I made my first post on this blog.  In May of last year, I had exactly 17 hits; last month, it numbered in the thousands.  True, a number of those were Google or Yahoo searches from wherever, like the guy from the Isle of Anglesey who, for reasons known only to him and his god, decided to search the Florida law on obstructions in the aisle.  But I’ve got a number of regular readers, too.  More importantly, I enjoy doing this.  It keeps me abreast of what’s going on in the law, and it satisfies my writing jones.

I’m going to make some changes, though.  First, once I figure out how, I’m going to turn off the comment feature.  I’ve had about 12 comments in the past year that are actually valid.  Unfortunately, the way the Internet works, I get about that many spam comments every ten minutes.  Rather than scanning several hundred messages telling me the great variety of drugs I can purchase online, to say nothing of helpful hints on how to increase my penis and/or breast size (I’ve decided to hedge my bets and do both), just to find the occasional comment from a real person, I’m going to drop that feature.  If there’s something you think is worth mentioning, send me an email, and I may even use it as a jump-off point for a post.

That’s another thing:  feel free to drop me an email, telling me what you think of the site, or making suggestions.  Shorter posts?  More on civil cases/criminal cases?  Less commentary?  More commentary?  I’m always open to ideas.

Last, I’ve put links to some other sites here, and will be featuring them a little more.  One of the new ones I put up is CrimeLaw, because I ran across this comment.  What it says is obviously true, and something I’ve certainly noticed, but he puts a slightly different, and more interesting, slant on it.

Do this: Go into any criminal court in the country during a person’s first appearance.  Count the number of people wearing a suit or even business-casual clothing.  When I first saw a full courtroom, I almost wept.  “No one,” I thought to myself, “was ever told that you should wear a suit to court.”  Think that through.  Many people go through their entire lives without anyone guiding them, telling them basic things like, “Appearances matter.”  Imagine what other lessons they must have missed out on?

See you tomorrow.