• Sometimes, Superman can’t catch a break. Above, in the cover to Superman Supacomic #162, he is found guilty of “crimes against humanity” by the Guardians of the Universe. We think there may be a few appellate issues here, though. First, why are a group of aliens judging Superman’s treatment of humans? For that matter, Superman is an alien himself, but the Guardians of the Universe, whether judges, members of a jury, or both, don’t appear to be his peers. But the most peculiar component of this judicial procedure is that one of the judges feels comfortable completing the sentence of the other. Yikes.
• An aside: This past week, one of the contributors of Abnormal Use got in some hot water for mentioning in front of a friend’s toddlers that Superman was, in fact, an “illegal alien.” This revelation, though certainly true, is apparently not for young ears. Don’t try and guess which one of us did committed that social faux pas. Please.
• Alan H. Crede over at the Boston Personal Injury Lawyer Blog speculates that “Someday A Legal Blog Will Win A Pulitzer.” Yeah, maybe, but we here at Abnormal Use are seeking something a bit more respectable than that: an EGOT.
• Friend of the blog Jeff Richardson, author of the great iPhone J.D. blog, summarizes this week’s iPhone and iPad related news here, including his thoughts on the recent revelation that one’s iPhone may be tracking more personal location information than previously thought. He does not seemed too alarmed about the news, nor do we.
• Don’t forget: You can follow Abnormal Use on Twitter at @gwblawfirm.

Depicted above is the cover of the Perry Mason Mystery Magazine #1, published way, way back in 1964. Perry Mason is, of course, the archetypal lawyer, but we’re not quite certain what he is doing with the firearm in his possession. The text on the cover tells us that the gun is one of only two clues Perry has to solve a case, but it seems like what he is doing is evidence tampering. Spoliation, anyone? And what did he do with the glass eye?

Steve Bradford at the Business Law Prof Blog has an interesting post on the ethical issues surrounding attorneys seeking colleagues’ advice on Internet listservs and email lists. Apparently, the Oregon State Bar recently addressed the issue. The only point the Oregon State Bar apparently neglected to address is why anyone is still using listservs in 2011.

We send our congratulations to Robert Wilcox, who was selected this week as the new dean of the University of South Carolina School of Law. Wilcox had previously served as the associate dean for academic affairs at the school.

Friend of the blog Jeff Richardson offers these thoughts about the 2011 ABA Techshow at his site, iPhone J.D. As huge followers of the latest technological trends, we sure wish we could have been there. Unfortunately, we could not make it this year. Alas.

Findlaw’s Decided blog has the latest on the ultimate fate of the appeal of the Winklevoss twins in their continuing legal dispute with Facebook. (Yes, yes, we saw The Social Network and dug it and its many deposition scenes, despite the inaccuracy of them.). Oh, and does any duo sound more like a pair of comic book villains that the Winklevoss twins?

• “In another few seconds, I’ll know ‘The Verdict,'” exclaims the apparent defendant featured on the hard boiled cover of Tales of Justice #60, published way back in June of 1956. The series, which billed itself as a compilation of “real rugged tales of justice in action,” does not appear to be the type of lighter superhero fare we typically feature on Friday Links. But there’s a tinge of optimism to the series, it seems, as the cover proclaims that it features “True tales proving that justice always wins!” That’s encouraging.
• There’s a lawsuit over the Dr. Who villain Davros! (Hat tip: Media Law Prof Blog).
• You might recall that in February we mentioned that our own Jim Dedman was doing some music blogging on the side for an Atlanta-based music website. He’s written a review of the new album by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, which hits stores soon. Check it out.
• Last week, Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy mentioned our recent April Fool’s Day post. As you may recall, we wrote about a fictitious court that held that the Star Wars prequels were unreasonably dangerous and defective as a matter of law. Wise jurisprudence, that. That said, we loved reading the comments to Eugene’s post.
• Remember Cracked magazine? Not unlike Mad magazine, the juvenile humor themed Cracked, once a staple of newsstands in long ago days, has made a name for itself in the Internet age by creating lists of famous this or thats in popular culture. Well, this week, Christina H. at Cracked published a column entitled “6 Famous ‘Frivolous Lawsuit Stories That Are Total B.S.,” which includes the Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case. All we can say is that Christina obviously didn’t read our FAQ on the case. However, we must confess a bit of jealousy that our friends at Overlawyered are cited in the piece.
• Friend of the blog Ryan Steans of The Signal Watch blog recently visited London for the first time and marveled at the sense of history. Comparing England’s approach to history to America’s, he had this to say over at his blog:
  

  It strikes me that we in the vast, vast majority of the geography of the US do[es] not have memorials to those who died more than 200 years ago, and the further west one travels in the US, the briefer our sense of history as much more than an abstraction of something left behind somewhere else. A lack of living history, of being surrounded by those who’ve gone before (some winning, many not winning) may be what gives us an inflated sense of destiny, like a teenager who sees only a future as a rock star ahead of them when they pick up their first guitar and who can’t be bothered to learn more than the chords of their current favorite songs.

  And as hard fought as democracy has been here in the US, it was also the first step we took as a nation. Everything prior to the French-Indian Wars is buried in a sort of primordial soup of witch-hunts and Indian killing that we’d rather not discuss. In England, this period is just short of current events. You can see the change from one-thousand years of feudal clashes to the rise of democracy in the stones and monuments, and there’s something to that, I think. We’re a blip on the continuum, it seems to say, and what we do while we’re here is important, but it will also pass, and those who are remembered are remembered as either good or terrible souls, and history will look back on you with an audio tour that will speak frankly about your deeds as people walk on your grave.

  Very interesting.

• Above, you’ll find the cover of Four Color #13, published way, way back in 1942. We here at Abnormal Use are not criminal lawyers, so we can’t say how often prosecutors disarm thugs on city rooftops. We do remember something from law school about prosecutorial discretion, though, so perhaps cavalier rooftop melees fall into that category. We’d have to look at our notes. Nevertheless, we are big fans of the exploits of Mr. District Attorney.
• Yes, yes, our Star Wars post this morning was, in fact, an April Fool’s Day joke. It was a bit more transparent than our April 1 offering from last year, which you can revisit here.
• Yet again, we’ve recalled some legal rock songs we neglected to include on the list we published two weeks ago. How could we forget Wilco’s “Passenger Side,” in which the singer notes, “I’ve got a court date coming this June / I’ll be driving soon”? Or Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ “Paris (Ooh La La),” in which the singer exclaims, “If I was a judge, I’d break the law”? Or even Son Volt’s “Down to the Wire,” which features the line, “No jury will have a final say / Everyone knows the jury is guilty.” Oh, well, we’re sure others will come to us in the future, as well. Let us know if you recall any we haven’t mentioned.

• The comic book cover above, that of Green Lantern # 80, published way back in 1970, depicts a newspaper cover alerting the world to the death sentence of Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and an unidentified third conspirator. According to one of the sub-headlines, the judge says the trial was “fair and impartial.” Well, at least there’s that. If you read the excerpt of the article at the bottom of the cover, you’ll see that the charge at issue was “crimes against humanity” and that Green Lantern “protested the evidence and moved for a retrial,” which was denied. It appears the court in question was the Intergalactic Court, Genocide Division. Think they appealed? Let’s hope so.
• One of our readers writes in to remind us of the late Elizabeth Taylor’s connection to legal history on film. In 1951, following a successful career as a child actress, she appeared in A Place in the Sun, based on the novel “An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser, itself inspired by the criminal case of People v. Gillette, 191 NY 107 (1908). In the film, Taylor played the chief love interest of the defendant, based on Chester Gillette (played by Montgomery Clift), who killed his other love interest (played by Shelley Winters). The prosecutor was played by Raymond Burr, who went on to become far more famous as television lawyer Perry Mason. One notable footnote: In the movie, the death was accidental; in real life, Gillette was executed for the murder.
• David Post of The Volokh Conspiracy has a pretty interesting blog piece about a federal judge’s rejection this week of the Google Books settlement agreement.
• If you haven’t heard, legendary bluesman Pinetop Perkins died this week at 97 years old. He was still recording and touring well into his 1990s. Back in the day, he was a member of Muddy Waters’ band. We here at Abnormal Use were fortunate enough to see him in concert just a few years ago in nearby Asheville, North Carolina. It was a good show.
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes excerpts from a ten page deposition in an open records dispute over the definition of the term “photocopying machine.” It’s got to be read to believe, so we’d advise that you head over there for a chuckle or two.

  Our favorite parts:

  Marburger: Let me be clear. The term “photocopying machine” is so ambiguous that you can’t picture in your mind what a photocopying machine is in an office setting?

  Patterson: I just want to make sure I answer your question correctly.

  …

  Cavanagh: Dave, the word “photocopying” is at issue in this case, and you’re asking him whether something is or isn’t a photocopy machine, which is a legal conclusion —

  Marburger: This isn’t a patent case. There’s no statute that defines — where I’m asking him to define technology for me. I’m asking — I want to find out from a layperson’s perspective, not an engineer’s perspective, not a technician’s perspective, but from — I have an idea.

  …

  Patterson: If you’re referring to a type of machine where you place a piece of paper on the top and press a button and out comes copies of it, they usually refer to it as a Xerox.

  Marburger: Have you ever heard it referred to as photocopying?

  Patterson: Not with my generation, no.

  (Hat tip: Overlawyered).

Wonder Woman is arrested by a police officer in the comic book cover above, that of Super Friends # 40, published back in early 1981. We think we know how this story will end, as we previously wrote about a Wonder Woman encounter with the judicial process when she was forcibly removed from a courtroom for disruptive outbursts. In this altercation, Wonder Woman exclaims that she has “done nothing wrong,” although Superman’s response is puzzling. He remarks “We know Wonder Woman is innocent – but we can’t prove it!” Does the Man of Steel not know of the presumption of innocence?

Speaking of which, friend of the blog and law professor Mark Osler (who we once interviewed here for our Abnormal Interviews series) recently claimed on his own blog that Batman went to Yale Law School. We’re not so sure about that, but okay.

How can you not read this post by John A. Day, of the Day on Torts blog, which begins with the following sentence: “A plaintiff in a slip and fall case in New York was permitted to testify as an expert on pigeon droppings.” There’s a Daubert joke in that tale, but we can’t quite get there.

We’re crestfallen that we neglected to include Husker Du’s “Sorry Somehow” in the list of rock songs about lawyers and the law we posted this past Monday. That 1980s college rock classic includes the immortal line, “Send me a subpoena, baby, tell me what to do.”

In light of our love of the character, we direct you to a post at the Legal Profession Blog entitled “Calling Jackie Chiles.” The post is not about “Seinfeld,” but rather the dismissal of a personal injury suit arising from an accident at a Starbuck’s.

• Superman is identified as a murderer by a child witness on the cover of Superman Supacomic #115, depicted above and published way back in 1969. There are a few problems with this scene, of course, including the fact that the child witness cannot be testifying if Superman is in the witness stand himself. Further, aren’t there all sorts of laws that seek to protect child witnesses? The inconsistencies may be explained by the fact that this series – containing reprints of American Superman titles – was actually published in Australia. But, in the end, this is a fun cover, as we see not only the judge and members of the jury, but also the court reporter dutifully transcribing the proceedings.
• As you know, we here at Abnormal Use love Twitter, and we follow many, many legal personalities thereon. However, we must direct your attention to @SCBarrister, a brand new legal parody account which emerged last week. It’s quite funny. Think of it as the South Carolina Twitter version of the old Anonymous Lawyer blog.
• Best legal headline of the week? It’s got to be “Zoo sea lions face legal hurdle” from last Saturday’s issue of The State. Let’s hope the sea lions aren’t pro se.
• Earlier this week, we interviewed the two authors of the funny and clever Law and the Multiverse blog. Friend of the blog Alberto Bernabe, who runs the Professional Responsibility blog, recently commented upon one of their posts in his own piece, entitled “Did She-Hulk violate the rules against solicitation of clients?” Of course, Bernabe didn’t do a post when we mentioned She-Hulk’s legal career. Alas.
• You’ve got to give Colin Miller of the EvidenceProf Blog some props for his Radiohead reference in his post entitled “(Not) OK Computer: Supreme Court of Georgia Finds Computer Printout Not an Original or Duplicate for Best Evidence Purposes.” We’ve been trying to work Radiohead references into our posts for the past fourteen months, but as of yet, we’ve been unsuccessful.

As our regular readers know all too well, we here at Abnormal Use typically adorn our weekly Friday Links posts with legal themed comic books covers. Today, of course, shall be no exception, as we feature the covers of issues #2 and #3 of the NCSC Justice Case Files. However, we must confess that we, as well as our firm of Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A., played a role in distributing these comic books to schoolchildren across South Carolina to better acquaint them with the legal process. That’s right, dear readers! We’re now comic book distributors!

Well, kind of.

The comics themselves are actually the brainchild of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), which sought to advance civics education by creating the three issues, all of which address legal topics in an attempt to educate the public. Our firm, along with another South Carolina firm, purchased more than 3,000 of the comics books to donate to South Carolina teachers. Apparently, they’re a hot property, as 65 schools requested them for their students.

So, now we here are now just bloggers, we’re in the comics industry! Who knows what will be next? Perhaps DC Comics will now ask us to write a few issues of Batman?

(Side note: Don’t you think the guy holding his hand to his heart on the cover of issue #3 – depicted below – looks a lot like Dwight Schrute?)

See here for our official press release on this project.

• Back in the 1980s, The Flash was put on trial for the murder of Professor Zoom, a villain also known as the Reverse Flash. Above, you’ll see the cover of The Flash #347, published back in 1985, which features the faces of the twelve members of the jury called upon to weigh the evidence against the hero. (We wonder how that voir dire was conducted.). Below, at the end of this post, you’ll find the cover of The Flash #348, which features the verdict rendered by that jury. Let’s just say it did not go well for The Flash.
• You’re likely aware that the U.S. Supreme Court issued not one, but two, opinions on preemption this week (one on express preemption in the vaccine context, another on implied preemption in the automotive industry context). We here at Abnormal Use are preparing are own post(s) on those cases, but in the mean time, please check out the coverage and analysis by our friends at the Drug and Device Law Blog here and here.
• Trademark lawyers might be interested in this post at the Reverb blog, published by Seattle Weekly, detailing four Pacific Northwest local bands that share a name with national acts. I guess this means we here cannot call our musical side project Arcade Fire or Nirvana. Alas.
• We must offer our congratulations to Jeff Richardson of the iPhone J.D. blog, whose site just celebrated its one millionth page view. We’d like to say we were trailing him and approaching that number ourselves, but unfortunately, we aren’t quite there yet.
• Lawyerist has a must-read post entitled “How Lawyers Can Protect Against Wi-Fi Security Risks.” An important topic, particularly if you are using an unsecured wi-fi network while on the road. As always, beware of such things.

• “No, no! I’ll tell all!” screams the apparent criminal defendant in the comic book cover above, that of Badge of Justice #4, published way back in 1955. The gavel comes down, leading us to wonder what “baffling adventures” take place within the issue, which cost only 10 cents at the time of publication. This cover, certainly, depicts a much more realistic and hard-boiled version of the criminal justice system than our usual superhero books.
• Plaintiff’s lawyer Bill Marler of The Marler Blog, asks: “What do Lady Gaga, food poisoning and the White House have in common?” A good question, that.
• We’ve cited to The Word Spy before (here and here), and we couldn’t resist linking its entry for Googleganger, defined as “[a] person who has the same name as you, and whose online references are mixed in with yours when you run a Google search on your name.” We here at Abnormal Use have certainly run into our own Googlegangers before, an experience which prompted existential crises, to be certain.
• The Constitutional Law Prof Blog writes about South Carolina Senate Bill 500, which calls for an analysis into whether our fair state should adopt its own currency. We’re for that if our logo would go on the new South Carolina quarter, but against it if it will not.
• The Rainmaker Blog, in a post entitled “Social Media for Attorneys: Brave New World or Business as Usual?,” posts an image of a lawyer advertisement originally published in the Indianapolis Gazette in 1822. My, how times have changed. Or have they?
• We learn from this piece at Stereogum that former Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’arcy Wretzky is facing her own set of legal troubles. Yikes.
• We’re always on the lookout for blog posts on law schools in North and South Carolina, that being our region and all. The Business Law Prof Blog notes that the Charleston School of Law is now seeking visiting profs. Meanwhile, The Constitutional Law Prof Blog reports on a Campbell Law Review Symposium entitled “Liberalism, Constitutionalism, and Christianity: Perspectives on the Influence of Christianity on Classical Liberal Legal Thought.” Campbell, of course, recently relocated its campus to Raleigh, NC.