SUGAR SUGAR

Good Wednesday morning. Today is the 16th day of the year. President Obama takes the oath of office this Sunday privately before a public inauguration on Monday. 

Reminder: the memorial for Jim Best is Thursday evening at "The Hole In The Wall" at 14421 South Dixie Highway, starting around 6pm. 


SUGAR: Is usually bad for you: 
According to the NY POST, female students in NYC, both  law students and college undergrads, are joining a website wherein they enter into companionship arrangements with older men who pay their tuition. There's something about that that just seems....creepy. 

Closing arguments in the long running case over the disappearance of foster child Rilya Wilson are set for next Tuesday before Judge Tinkler-Mendez. 

Don't fly 787's. 

Lance Armstrong told Oprah he was a cheat. 

 A BOAT IS A BOAT UNLESS  A  JUDGE SAYS IT'S A HOUSE. 
In Lozman v. Riviera Beach, the US Supreme court just created a "reasonable observer" addition to Maritime Law. Congress didn't ever consider or pass such an addition to the law. Justice Bryer just created it by Judicial Fiat. The question surrounded whether Maritime law should apply to a docked houseboat. Up until the decision, if it floated, it was a boat. Now...maybe it is...maybe it isn't. And for our purposes, who was in the majority is what matters. Those strict constructionists- Alito, Thomas, and Scalia- those judges who rail against judges who act as legislators, and hold firm to the principle that judges must only interpret the law as it exists in a document-strict and original constructionists- those judges meekly joined the majority. It was left to Justices Kennedy and Sotomayor to hold firm to conservative principles of jurisprudence: 
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in an opinion joined by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.  They described the “reasonable observer” test fashioned by the Breyer opinion as based upon notions that have “never appeared in any of our cases.”  The majority’s application of it here, the dissenters said, “effectively (and erroneously) introduces a subjective component into the vessel-status inquiry,” even while acting as it was creating an “objective” test.  The majority, Justice Sotomayor wrote, “works real damage to what has long been a settled area of maritime law….Numerous maritime industries rely heavily on clear and predictable legal rules for determining which ships are vessels.”  That will now be frustrated, the dissenting opinion said, by the majority’s “distorted application of our settled law.”

And finally this: In the inaugural day parade, there will be floats to honor Hawaii- Where President Obama grew up, Chicago Illinois, where President Obama lived after school, and Kenya- just to mess with Republican birthers. 

See You In Court.