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November 21, 2014
"'Power and Greed and the Corruptible Seed': Mental Disability, Prosecutorial Misconduct, and the Death Penalty"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper by Michael Perlin available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The Supreme Court’s death penalty jurisprudence is based in large part on the assumption that jurors can be counted on to apply the law in this area conscientiously and fairly. All our criminal procedure jurisprudence is based in large part on the assumption that prosecutors and judges will act fairly. I believe that these assumptions are based on nothing more than wishful thinking, and that the record of death penalty litigation in the thirty-eight years since the “modern” penalty was approved in Gregg v. Georgia gives the lie to them.
This article focuses solely on the role of prosecutors in this process, and the extent to which prosecutorial misconduct has contaminated the entire death penalty process, especially in cases involving defendants with mental disabilities. This is an issue known well to all those who represent such defendants in death penalty cases but, again, there is startlingly little literature on the topic. It is misconduct that is largely hidden and ignored. The article begins with some brief background on issues that relate to the treatment of persons with mental disabilities in the criminal justice system in general. It then discusses prosecutorial misconduct and the outcomes of that misconduct, with special attention to a cohort of appellate decisions in unheralded and rarely (if ever) discussed published cases that, in almost every instance, sanction such misconduct. Next, it demonstrates how some prosecutors purposely flaunt the canons of ethics in the prosecution of defendants with mental disabilities in death penalty cases, and then will discuss some solutions raised by scholars to (at least, partially) cure this problems, and concludes with some modest suggestions of my own.
November 21, 2014 at 11:54 AM | Permalink
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From the beginning of the paper:
"The death penalty is disproportionately imposed in cases involving defendants with mental disabilities. Persons with mental disabilities are significantly over-represented at every level of the criminal justice system. Estimates of those with mental retardation range from 10-30%,6,7 and of those with mental illness from 10-70%."
Who on earth takes that 70% rate seriously? And the citation provided by the good professor?
Cantor JD: Of pills and needles: involuntarily medicating the psychotic Inmate when execution looms. Ind Health L Rev 2: 117-70, 2005.
Not an epidemiological study but a law review. I have yet the time or patience to look up Ind piece, but I'm pretty confident that any 70% figure is going to have, shall we say, a rather "broad" definition of mental illness.
When you cite a "study" that says 70%, your credibility goes right out the window.
Posted by: Sarah | Nov 21, 2014 2:56:14 PM
"Defendants
with mental retardation “have diminished capacities to understand and process
information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to
5 engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of
others.”15, pp. 318-19
That is also true of intelligent people with antisocial personality disorder. Someone needs to kill to really enjoy sex. There is something defective about the person. His reward system is weak, so only intense experiences can give him pleasure. We can show that on PET scan. Here is the locus of his disability. Why don't we divert him to special Serial Killer Court where he can receive therapy instead of taking up a costly prison bed?
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 21, 2014 9:55:43 PM
The average IQ of American blacks is 85, because they devalue education. They are street smart geniuses otherwise. MR for them is not at 70 and below. It is at 55 and below. Perlin has not corrected for this factor. Why is this self evident fact not considered, because he is biased against black victims, in favor of layer job generating black criminals.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 21, 2014 10:02:56 PM
Perlin assumes that retardation or mental illness makes one less culpable, and that guilty murderers are being abused by prosecutor cover up of such information. Not true. All beahvior is brain based, and their crimes are no more or less biologically, involuntarily determined than any othe behavior. You gegt pleasure from shopping. we can show tht finding a bargain even something newver to be worn or used, just lights up your dopamine neurons. Should you be excused from paying the huge credit card bill.
We knew from age 3, Prof. Berman was destined to go to Harvard and to succeed more than others at learning. We can show his PET scan to be different from that of Charles Manson. Should Prof. Berman be made to return the salary of his endowed chair in the law, and affirmative action be taken to replace him with Charles Manson, for diversity and balance? All behaviors are brain based, and imaging will eventually get quite specific for all of them.
These false mitigating factors are all actually aggravating factors, necessitating a rush to execution to keep people safe from stupid and crazy killers.
Thought experiment for Perlin. Choose your cellmate. A mob assassin or Cho, the guy who killed students at Vech after he figured out they got together with the ducks in the pond that had been tormenting him for years. He killed them only to defend himself. They and the ucks should have stopped tormenting him. Cho has no culpability whatsoever according to the lawyer, Perlin. We, back here on earth would like to see him gone as soon as possible. To validate this viewpoint, put him in general population, see how even criminals handle him and their own safety.
Cho's Youtube video explaining his torments.
The 2 minute vid from NBC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KElyLrrTLB0
By the way, dozens of warning complaints had been sent to authorities about him. I bash the legal system. In his case a judge ordered him into involuntary treatment, and I have no criticism of the legal system, albeit it was too slow. He went to student clinic, told them he was fine. They subscribed to Federal imposed sicko policy, the Recovery Movement, and released him from care, despite the court order. The most horrifying outcome of the Governor's investigation? These politically correct treatment providers, a year later, when they knew they were not going to be sued, they said they would do make the same decision, not impose treatment on the patient, the head of the treatment team according to the sicko Federal policy imposing the Recovery Model.
I may go over there, and tell them I am a heroin addict. As head of the treatment, I demand they procure me more heroin. All PC is case, so I indirectly blame the lawyer in this case, at the federal level. The lawyers at the street level did their jobs.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 21, 2014 10:27:43 PM
Young and crazy. Not executed. Escapes. Thank the lawyer for protecting this rampage killer. Gave the middle finger to victims' families in court, wore T-shirt saying "Killer". Make him roomies with Perlin. Not culpable at all according to Perlin. File ethics charges against his prosecutor instead, according to Perlin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrj1GmHlPwo
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 21, 2014 10:46:05 PM
As tragic as many crimes can be, an overwhelming level of vengeance is applied by juries when determining punishments. While there are some truly evil people out there, executing the mentally disadvantaged turns us into the killers ... they can't possibly appreciate the gravity of what they've done, so what justifies the state in committed 2nd or 1st degree murder against these troubled people?
Posted by: Suzanne | Nov 21, 2014 11:53:18 PM
Suzanne: If you are not a lawyer, I respect your opinion, and cannot really argue with your personal opinion.
If you are a lawyer, you have been badly misled by your legal indoctrination. It had he features and structures of an indoctrination into a criminal cult enterprise. After 1L =, you came to believe in mind reading, future forecasting, and that standards of conduct should be set by a fictitious character. Why fictitious? So that the standards may be objective,of course. if I told you I held these beliefs, at a party, you would say and do what? He is nuts, and I would like to go elsewhere now. Your profession is crazy, and lives in an upside down, black is white Twilight zone world.
So the most dangerous people are protected and immunized by your profession. Why? Because they generate lawyer make work jobs. The profession does not even care about any of them, just their pretext to generate jobs. The masking ideology of this criminal cult is evolving standards of human decency, humanity, as a pious mask on the face of its rent seeking.
You are talking as if making arguments with a retributionist. Retribution is from the Bible, therefore violates the Establishment Clause as a motivator of the death penalty. The Bible was written by a bunch of animals from Iraq and Palestine. You want to live like those pigs, go ahead. They wacked, XXX rated rantings from the Bible are nuts.
The sole mature and lawful goal of punishment is incapacitation. Death is the best incapacitation. Once you accept incapacitation as the sole goal, every thing clears up, and crime ends, because the criminals are gone, assuming a zero deterrent effect.
As to deterrent, we have discussed many times the dose-response curve of likely all remedies. Too little, it does not work. Too much, it is toxic. There is an unknown number of executions likely with 4 numbers in it, that would rid us of the violent birth cohort, and practically end all crime by attrition. As technology develops, reliable genetic markers could one day indicate the necessity of an abortion. If the mother refuses, sanctions should ensue.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 22, 2014 12:21:14 AM
Perlin's article is hardly that. It is a rant. He could have simply said prosecutors are lying, evil, unethical slugs and be done with it. I don't see how his paper contributes to any improvement in this area of law. Frankly his snide remarks sprinkled throughout while surely warmly received by those who agree with him only put off those of us who bring these cases and apply the care and caution that he desires.
Posted by: David | Nov 22, 2014 8:58:02 AM
Ricky Jackson walked out of jail in Cleveland, Ohio today after spending 39 years on death row, making him the longest-held prisoner to be exonerated in the United States.
Ricky Jackson was just 18 years old when he and two others, Wiley and Ronnie Bridgeman, were convicted in the 1975 murder of Harold Franks after 12-year-old Eddie Vernon testified he saw the attack. All three men were sentenced to death. Mr. Jackson’s death sentence was vacated and the Bridgemans’ sentences were overturned when Ohio’s death penalty was found unconstitutional in 1978. Ronnie Bridgeman was released after serving more than 25 years in prison and is now seeking to clear his name; Wiley Bridgeman was freed today.
Prosecutors dropped the charges against Ricky Jackson after Eddie Vernon recanted and admitted that he did not witness the crime at all. Vernon said a friend had given him the men’s names, and after he told authorities the names and that he’d seen the killing, Cleveland police fed him information about the crime and what happened. Several people confirmed the boy was on a school bus nowhere near the crime scene at the time of the crime.
No other evidence linked the men to the murder. A gun and car seen at the crime scene were linked to a man who was arrested in 1978 for another murder, but he was never charged in Franks’ murder. In dropping the charges against Jackson, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said, “The state is conceding the obvious.”
Ricky Jackson will be the 148th person exonerated from death row in the U.S. since 1973, the fifth in 2014, and the seventh in Ohio since 1973.
The fact that Mr. Jackson was sentenced to death despite his innocence adds to the growing body of evidence demonstrating unreliability and arbitrariness in death penalty cases.
Posted by: peter | Nov 22, 2014 12:39:39 PM
Peter. That argument is invalid. All human activity has an error rate. Transportation slices and dices 30,000 people a year. So suspend all human transportation until that is corrected. That includes walking since hundreds or thousands of pedestrians are killed.
Suspend all medical care until its 1% error rate is fixed. That rate kills thousands of innocent people.
Suspend construction, housecleaning, farming, sewage treatment, electricity generation, etc. for the same logic that you are using.
Now compare those error rates to those of the lawyer. This dumbass is inflicting a 90% false negative error rate allowing 90% of major crimes to go unanswered. And when this idiot has a guy, in 10% of cases it is the wrong guy. That makes the exoneration rate of around 5% lower than expected for the work of this idiot. I would be willing to arrest the entire hierarchy of rent seeking idiots, try them and execute them. Start with a fresh batch watched over by a licensing board in the executive branch as all other licensing is placed. The board would consist of non-lawyers. They would straighten out these idiots when they screw up. End all sovereign immunities, and compensate the victims of their false positive errors, but also the class of minority victims of excessive crime, because the lawyer dumbass is protecting minority predators from the eradication that is necessary to end all crime. Ultimately, an amendment should prohibit all lawyers from all policy positions on the bench, in the legislature, and in the executive. All lawyers have been made into lawyer dumbasses by 1L. Until they repent and reform, banish them from government policy.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 22, 2014 10:08:19 PM
Error?????????????????????????????
"....Eddie Vernon recanted and admitted that he did not witness the crime at all. Cleveland police fed him information about the crime and what happened. Several people confirmed the boy was on a school bus nowhere near the crime scene at the time of the crime."
This was about police and prosecutors more interested in basking in the glory of "solving" a crime and enhancing their own reputations than in Justice.
Posted by: peter | Nov 23, 2014 5:29:14 AM
Peter. I am appalled by this conduct. I support full tort liability. This conduct would be considered an intentional tort. It would subject the police, personally and as agents of the prosecutor, to exemplary damages, such triple the value of the actual damage. To deter. Because of their immunity, there is full justification in formal logic and morality for violence against these intentional tortfeasors. I would pull the law license of the prosecutor. If there is anything more you would like done, than personal destruction, let me know. To deter.
I have also supported changing the Rules of Evidence to require some objective verification of all eyewitness testimony, since most of it is false memory implanted by the police interrogators for laziness purposes. I have been aware and proposed remedies for your concern.
Now you tell us how to protect the hundreds of people murdered in prisons every year, many by fully immunized people with LWOP.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 23, 2014 10:53:21 AM
Supremacy - I see that some of my points, especially on mental health, are now being discussed in other threads but these are my immediate thoughts (necessarily brief) to your question:
Whilst your proposals might be welcome of themselves, they are NOT an effective deterence (as execution and LWOP are not effective deterence against acts of violence and murder). There multiple issues here from the need to de-politicize both the police and prosecution service ( and the appointment of judges) to national (federal) professional standards and training with real and vigorous systems for ensuring and enforcing accountabilty of both.
With regard to prison and more general violence and murder, there are two strands to consider:
1. The need to reduce risk in the wider world by attending to social disadvantage and inequality, a wide-ranging issue of course, encompassing education, housing, employment, health, discimination, all issues in fact which breed conditions and opportunities for crime; and in the prison environment by combining risk identification and management with a more professional prison service which employs educationally and professionally trained personnel in a career structure which recognizes the role prisons have for rehabilitation. If you treat people as scum in overcrowded and poor conditions they will tend to act accordingly. If you employ ill-educated minders to oversee a warehouse of criminals you will see resentment and opportunity for exploitation. Expectations need to be raised of prison officers and managers, supplied with the appropriate resources to do a professional job (that does not mean the supply of tasers!), and prisoners given the incentive to modify and improve behavior. Just demanding it or imposing ever more harsh regimes is not the answer.
2. Recognize that mental illness is a major cause of all "crime" - improve access to mental heath treatments and management regimes both in the wider free community and in prisons (or better still more appropriate medical centers) instead of bundling people together or in isolation in concrete and steel warehouses. Encourage lasting family relationships and friends rather than deter or prevent by "video only links" and behind glass policies, huge distance from home, and the general ill-treatment of poor living conditions (this includes not only physical conditions but overcrowding, food, access to books, technology, phones etc). Even where mental illness is not a causal feature of crime, poor prison environment is likely in many places and for many people to engender or exacerbate mental illness. I put the word "crime" in inverted commas for a reason - many people end up in prison BECAUSE they are mentally ill and their behavior is disturbing to others. It should not be a crime to be mentally ill.
Posted by: peter | Nov 23, 2014 12:41:26 PM
Peter. The modern view of catastrophes, including the death penalty imposed on an innocent person, is that multiple factors cluster in space and time. The prevention of even one, even a weak factor, can prevent the entire catastrophe. One development is to avoid the blame game, so that people do not cover up. Then risk specialists propose changes to the entire system to prevent them. This approach is also far superior to torts, which induces cover up, and resistance to change. Torts also deters the entire industry, and is a form of unauthorized industrial planning. It is a legislative function to set policy, and not the role of a single rogue judge.
You mentioned professionalism. Often the most experienced person in the court is sitting on the bench. He is not allowed to participate in any way. Say a judge drives by the intersection of an accident on the way home. He gets impeached for his ex parte action. I have repeatedly proposed the separation of lawyer and judge training. Judges need to be selected for their fitness to judge. They should be older have experienced the stress of decision making, as in retired military, and tasted of the bitter fruit of error. Then they study the law 2 years, and judge under supervision another. Then take a licensing exam. The licensing board must be in the executive branch, and include non-judges. The judge should be allowed to do anything to get an accurate result in the cases. Although punishment as his only tool qualifies the activity of judging for strict liability, it should be held to a level of accepted professional standards. They should carry liability insurance, and compensate the victims for any deviations and damages from the standards.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 23, 2014 6:56:49 PM
"It should not be a crime to be mentally ill."
Mental illness by definition is a socio-normative construct. The law is a socio-normative construct. There is an inherent conflict between the law and psychology and the question is simply who is going to be the master. In our democratic society the self-evident answer should be the law. So like it or not some mental illness will be categorized as crimes.
Now it may be that as time marches on people will eventually come to see that certain conditions are better treated as meal health issues rather than through the criminal justice system. That has to come from the bottom up, from the people themselves. It should not be imposed by a group of experts from on high.
Posted by: Daniel | Nov 23, 2014 8:06:56 PM
Daniel. Do you agree that normal or even superior behavior has the same biological and environmental components as behavior by the insane? To test this hypothesis, try to make a fundamental change in your behaviors. Try to lose weight. Try to change your fastidiousness or slovenliness. Try to change how you talk to people, go to a customer service course at Nordstrom's to see if that helps you. Your behaviors are just as determined as those of any insane person. In their cases, they have even greater culpability because there is technology to help them and the y failed to take advantage of it. As intoxication is not an excuse to crime, so staying insane and not getting treatment should not be either. Both are voluntary decisions.
If anyone argues that sentencing should be mitigated for insanity, then Prof. Berman's salary should be dropped to $8 since he did not deserve to be so intelligent. Nor should any pitcher be paid $millions for his 1 in a million talent to be able to throw a curve ball at 90 mph.
So mental illness and addiction should be aggravating factors, not mitigating factors.
At the gut level. They give you a choice of cellmates. Mob assassin, the Unabomber. Why would you inflict on the public, including the innocent people working an visiting prisons, greater risk than you would take for your own safety.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 24, 2014 1:33:43 AM
Supremacy - I welcome your proposals and support of professional paths for judges and lawyers, including prosecutors, and also I hope the police force (which has shown yet again yesterday the woeful standards of training and ethos in too many places across the US).
Yours views on mental health, as expressed to Daniel in relational to criminal culpability/liability, are ill-informed to say the least.
Daniel - "Now it may be that as time marches on people will eventually come to see that certain conditions are better treated as meal health issues rather than through the criminal justice system. That has to come from the bottom up, from the people themselves. It should not be imposed by a group of experts from on high." I am interested to read the convoluted and conflicted reasoning you take here. What is the point of having specialisms and experts in society if their views are not to be taken seriously and acted upon. It may not be their job to dictate policy but it is most certainly the job of elected public officials to give weight to them and to act accordingly. Policy can be explained to "joe public" in a process of public education, but the decisions have to be taken by those appointed to to make them. It is unfortunate that the polarized politics of the US turns every decision into a political interest statement rather than being made in the public interest. Only a fool (not meant personally) can believe this represents true democracy. Stagnation would result if every decision had be made bottom up because the average individual has little appreciation either of the detail or overall significance of the need, and the evidence for it.
Posted by: peter | Nov 24, 2014 5:17:40 AM
Peter. Cellmate with whom you have to stay in a locked cage for 12 hours a day in Supermax. Mob assassin or Unabomber? Unabomber is highly intelligent, Harvard trained mathematician, with lots of theories on ecology. Here is a report of his model behavior and good rapport with staff. Frustrated by the inconsistent handling of packages he is still sending out. Not on meds however, and still very far "out there." Unabomber or Mafia assassin for you personally?
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/behind-bars-unabomber
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 24, 2014 6:27:33 AM
Supremacy - I have the greatest difficulty identifying any purpose or relevance of your question. To what extent his behaviour is a result of mental illness, prior or since his incarceration, I have no idea. Maybe it is just a coping mechanism in the knowledge that he has no hope of a future beyond the walls of his confinement. That he is not aggressive seems good, and makes one wonder whether the refusal to allow him a job might change one day. I have no idea what caused his criminal behavior or whether that was influenced in any way by a psychotic condition or whether the condition is treatable. You note that he is either not on meds or not taking them. If his condition is treatable and he might be diagnosed some day as no longer a risk to the public, I have no knowledge. All I can say is that if there is a treatable condition then he should be in an environment where he can be treated and would be more receptive to that treatment. However shocking a crime, the response to it must reflect the causal factors, the level of responsibility of the person concerned, and the outlook for change and risk.
The mob assassin can assumed to be a psychopath who kills for reward. Whether an individual is a risk to others outside the conditions where reward was a factor I have no idea, and is likely to vary from one individual to another, the mix of those he might be permitted to associate with, and the effectiveness of the environment in which they might co-exist.
But I'm still no further to having any idea how this helps our discussion.
Posted by: peter | Nov 24, 2014 9:32:31 AM
Peter, I don't see where you and I disagree. It always puzzles me when people think they are attacking me by agreeing with me.
"It may not be their job to dictate policy"
Exactly. That's all I am saying. The question is simply who is the boss. That doesn't mean that I advocate that the boss (in this case the public) should stick their fingers in their ears going "la la la". Change takes time. Things which were thought wrong for centuries in many parts of the world (homosexuality) are now popular today. I do not counsel inaction, I counsel patience. Impatience can lead to worse results than the problem one is trying to solve. Perhaps that is where we disagree--your impatience leads you to see stagnation whereas my patience allows me to see percolation.
Posted by: Daniel | Nov 24, 2014 6:47:30 PM
Daniel - my "impatience" is born of the knowledge that whilst those capable of ensuring change today dither and procrastinate, men and women are still needlessly being put to death or locked away often in the most appaling conditions for effectively a life time. What recompense can you give a man wrongfully locked away for 39 years from the age of 18? What recompense can you give a man locked up and abused in Guantanamo Bay having been cleared for release but still held for petty and irrational political reasons? How can anyone have confidence of change when a president of the United States swears to close Guantanamo Bay within months of taking office and then refuses to take the executive action to honor the promise? Who will help a man first wrongfully sentenced to death then re-sentenced to 60 years, only to find 30 years later when parole release was due, the state court imposes a further 70 years (total 130 years) on the pretext that one of the charges was not given a sentence at the time of the first sentence? The list goes on and on. Yes, drugs policy is beginning to change - but rarely for the benefit of those already unfairly incarcerated. Yes, the death penalty has been abolished by a number of states in recent years - but the Supreme Court shuts its eyes and ears to the evolving trend and to the voice of International forums. You and I may see and agree on the future, but I do not apologize for my lack of patience.
Posted by: peter | Nov 25, 2014 9:08:33 AM
Peter. My question is utilitarian. Would you like to be in a cage with someone insane, fearing for your safety far more than with a mob assassin who may have killed 10 times more people, but has self control and discipline? If you would not, you cannot impose the risk on others.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 25, 2014 3:17:03 PM
Supremacy - insanity and mental illness are not one and the same. But so far as I am concerned neither state is properly treated as criminal. An act they may commit may be criminal but without the mental capacity at the time of commission, they are not criminally responsible. They should therefore be treated in a clinical environment, even if that environment for some may be within prison walls. In the UK we have a high security psychiatric hospital known as Broadmoor, which houses the most disturbed who have committed the worst crimes. Here they are able to receive the best specialist help and treatments available. Some will never be released because they are literally insane and will never recover. But it is certainly true that others who are mentally ill, just as in the US, end up in regular prisons. Some receive the treatments needed, others do not. I do not suggest there is an easy answer and the same debate is going on over here seeking a better solution. Both obvious alternatives, better and more widespread provision for treatments inside prison, or the availability of more specialist clinical units outside, require the allocation of considerable financial resources. But mental illness has to be put on an equal footing with physical illness if these problems are to be overcome.
Posted by: peter | Nov 25, 2014 6:38:51 PM
Peter. It is a fundamental philosophical problem. You are a retributionist, thinking of fairness, and such. I am an utilitarian, thinking only of safety and advantages. Retribution is Biblical, from a book written by Iraqi and Palestinian peasants. Retribution violates the Establishment Clause. It is also immature, and starts a cycle of revenge. It is of no benefit to the owner of the law, the taxpayer.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 25, 2014 7:13:02 PM
Supremacy - Actually no, the law is not owned by the tax payer. It is a body of past legislative decisions, often subject to new interpretations as it is applied to new and distinctive circumstances, and often too, subject to amendment, refinement or change. In recent years in particular, it has also grown in scope in almost exponential fashion as politicians have vied for public opinion advantage. The pressure at the present time is to reign back the law as citizens begin to appreciate the excesses of interference in their ordinary lives and the disastrous effects of mass incarceration on society. The custodian of the law is the US Supreme Court - but neither is it owned by them.
Posted by: peter | Nov 26, 2014 6:13:26 AM
Peter. Thank you for challenging the idea of ownership of the law. Federal law precludes copyrighting of the law, and charging for access to it. Owning is the ability to exclude, legally speaking. I like your custodian analogy for the Supreme Court. They clean up the dirt and loose ends.
17 U.S. Code § 105 - Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works
Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.
Settled law has also extended this idea to all laws and public regulations. Here is a review by a lawyer working for a legal research service, so biased in favor to public access. However, I could not dispute any argument he made.
http://reinventlawchannel.com/ed-walters-who-owns-the-law/
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 30, 2014 2:01:11 PM
