Eideard

A Florida lawmaker is pushing to repeal a state law that makes it illegal to cohabitate with someone who is not their spouse, and makes it a crime punishable by a $500 fine and up to 60 days in jail.

According to 2010 U.S. Census figures, at least 544,907 Floridians reported being an “unmarried partner” — meaning they live in an intimate relationship with someone they are not married to, and thus are in defiance of Florida statute 798.02…

Last week, state Rep. Ritch Workman filed legislation — HB 4021 — to repeal that provision, as well as a related one that bars people from “living in open adultery…”

“What you do in your bedroom is your business, not the business of my great state,” said Workman, a Republican from Melbourne, adding that the statute is rarely enforced. “Quite frankly, I just want it gone…”

Actually, over 100 couples were arrested and charged under the law in the last year. Which illustrates how backwards Florida is – if nothing else.

Workman, himself married with two children, stressed that his legislative initiative is not anti-marriage or anti-family.

Rather, he described it as a practical move to remove statutes that are no longer realistic in today’s society. Workman said most legislators, even those who are more conservative in Florida, don’t want to discuss cohabitation and adultery.

“And I say ‘Great, let’s not talk about it,’” he said. “Let’s talk about an unenforceable and unenforced law that needs to be off the books.

Go back to our post a few days ago about the failure rate of Bible Belt marriages compared to educated parts of the country.

Bush’s bubba Bremer with his Blackwater bodyguards
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The private security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide, long plagued by accusations of impropriety, has reached an agreement with the State Department for the company to pay $42 million in fines for hundreds of violations of United States export control regulations.

The violations included illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, making unauthorized proposals to train troops in south Sudan and providing sniper training for Taiwanese police officers, according to company and government officials familiar with the deal.

The settlement, which has not yet been publicly announced, follows lengthy talks between Blackwater, now called Xe Services, and the State Department that dealt with the violations as an administrative matter, allowing the firm to avoid criminal charges.

Don’t slap their wrist too hard. The Obama administration continues to employ these gangsters.

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In strikingly unenthusiastic fashion, federal Judge Jed Rakoff signed off on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s plan to fine Bank of America $150 million after failing to tell shareholders of about $16 billion in impending losses at Merrill Lynch.

“While better than nothing, this is half-baked justice at best,” wrote Mr. Rakoff in his ruling released Monday, a week before the case was scheduled to go to trial. “The amount of the fine appears paltry.”

The judge wrote in his report that his court was “shaking its head” and that, based solely on the merits, the settlement between the SEC and BofA should be rejected as “inadequate and misguided.” Yet he elected to go along with the SEC’s proposal, citing deference to the authority of regulators and adding that federal judges should be wary of the “power to impose their own preferences…”

The judge’s ruling also seems like a final slap at the reputation of the SEC. The federal agency was prepared to accept a $33 million fine from BofA last year until Mr. Rakoff rejected that settlement.

In the end, the judge signed off on the $150 million penalty—equal to about 3% of BofA’s pretax income last year—by citing a distinguished soothsayer and baseball player. In considering the tortured nature of the BofA case, the judge quoted Yogi Berra, who is said to have said: “I wish I had an answer to that because I’m getting tired of answering that question.”

In other words, everyone’s favorite cronies at the SEC are still taking care of their country club buddies. They’re just getting better at covering their tracks.

Same model and make – different owner

The Swiss legal practice of fining offenders according to their means has proved painful for a millionaire motorist who has been hit with a record fine of $290,000 after Swiss police caught him racing through a village at 100 km per hour in his red Ferrari Testarossa, Swiss media reported on Thursday.

A court in the northeastern Swiss canton of St Gallen gave the millionaire the hefty penalty, which outstripped the previous record of 111,000 francs handed a Porsche driver in 2008 in Zurich, after a string of previous traffic offences.

“The accused ignored elementary traffic rules with a powerful vehicle out of a pure desire for speed,” the court said in its judgment of the motorist, who clocked speeds of up to 137 km per hour on country roads, said daily Blick…

So, if I get caught speeding in Switzerland – they’d only dock me a chunk of my social security check?

Some legal experts question the constitutionality of a $1.92 million fine given to a woman accused of pirating 24 songs. A Minnesota jury ordered Jammie Thomas-Rasset to pay that yesterday, saying she “willfully” violated music copyrights and should cough up $80,000 per illegally downloaded track.

The verdict brings a new twist to a seemingly endless legal battle brought about by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA)….

The size of the fine was guided by U.S. copyright law, which provides for a penalty of anywhere from $750 to $150,000 per violation. It was up to the jury, however, to decide where to land within that spectrum. The problem, von Lohmann says, is that there are no meaningful guidelines on how that decision should be reached….

Here’s where things start to get dicey: The Supreme Court has previously indicated that “grossly excessive” punitive damage awards are a violation of the U.S. Constitution. An award can be considered “grossly excessive” if there’s too big of a gap between the actual harm done and the amount of money being named.

This story isn’t so much about the RIAA as it is about how our legal system works. The better your lawyer, the lower the fine. If you’re poor, you’re screwed. Besides, many jurors are sheep, and are  incapable of judging the law as well as the facts, or even knowing the difference.

Who thinks that this is an equitable punishment? No one of merit is my guess.

A federal appeals court has thrown out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson’s breast-baring “wardrobe malfunction.”

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity…

The 90 million people watching the Super Bowl, many of them children, heard Justin Timberlake sing, “Gonna have you naked by the end of this song,” as he reached for Jackson’s bustier…

“The Commission’s determination that CBS’ broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast was actionably indecent evidenced the agency’s departure from its prior policy,” the court found.

In challenging the fine, CBS said that “fleeting, isolated or unintended” images should not automatically be considered indecent.

Living in a society where the morality of prudes prevails politically doesn’t help, either.

A French court has ordered online auctioneer eBay to pay nearly 40 million euros in damages to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury goods, in a ruling cheered as a victory for copyright protection.

The Paris commercial court ruled in favour of six LVMH brands and also barred eBay from selling four perfumes — Christian Dior, Kenzo, Givenchy and Guerlain — on its websites…

Describing eBay’s anti-counterfeit measures as “empty”, Gode said the court decision was “important for the creative industry” and that it “protected brands by considering them an important part of French heritage…”

The court issued a cease and desist order to eBay, barring it from running ads for the perfume and cosmetic brands or face a fine of 50,000 euros per day.

I can’t speak personally about the eBay experience. I must be one of the six people remaining in Santa Fe who doesn’t spend excess hours vested in the quest for scarce goods at auction.

Counterfeit goods are dross in the marketplace and only serve to reinforce profits based on fraud. eBay has a responsibility to do some serious self-policing if they wish to avoid further prosecution.