Archive of entries posted on 29th July 2025

Here Come DEI Judge

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Obama-Appointed Judge Accused Of Fabricating Quotes Wholesale
The Daily Caller | July 28, 2025 | Natalie Sandoval

To typo is human. To falsely attribute quotes in a legal opinion is what’s alleged of U.S. District Court Judge Julien Neals.

Neals delivered an opinion June 30, 2025, which caught the eye of attorney Andrew Lichtman. Lichtman had appeared before Neals on behalf of defendants in a recent civil suit.

Lichtman issued a letter to the judge “bring[ing] to the Court’s attention a series of errors in the Opinion — including three instances in which the outcomes of cases cited in the Opinion were misstated (i.e., the motions to dismiss were granted, not denied) and numerous instances in which quotes were mistakenly attributed to decisions that do not contain such quotes.”

Wouldn’t those be covered in pre-pre-pre-pre-Law 101?

Lichtman alleges six mistakes contained in the opinion. He lists several quotes which, he claims, Neals attributed to cases wherein they do not appear.

Neals’ opinion cites City of Warwick Retirement System v. Catalent, Inc.: “The absence of insider trading is not dispositive.”

No such quote appears in the referenced document.

Lichtman also claims Neals’ opinion “attributes two quotes to Defendants that they are not alleged to have made.”

Neals withdrew his opinion following Lichtman’s letter, according to Bloomberg News.

“That opinion and order were entered in error,” reads a notice posted by the court to the case docket, Bloomberg reports. “A subsequent opinion and order will follow.”

Damned fortunate thing this wasn’t a capital murder case!

Absent comment from Neals or Lichtman, speculation plods [points?] towards the simplest explanation for the odd opinion: a bad use of artificial intelligence.

Bloomberg and The Volokh Conspiracy, a blog written by law professors and legal scholars, suggest AI may be the culprit in this case. [As in using “plods,” above?]

“I suspect there are many judges throughout the country that have issued opinions with hallucinations,” writes constitutional law professor Josh Blackman for Volokh.

LLD on LSD? Loosely In Camera With Diamonds?

“Savvy litigators should start combing through all adverse orders, and try to determine if there are obvious indicia of hallucinations. This will make excellent grounds for reversal on appeal.”

♪ “Indicia de Vida, Baby . . . ” ♪

Blackman suspects a law clerk, rather than 60-year-old Neals, was responsible for the errors.

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Straight Line of the Day: Why Gardening Is Dangerous: …

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Man carrying home his gardening tools arrested by armed police in Manchester
Guardian UK | 07 28 2025 | Hannah Al-Othman

A man who had returned home from his allotment with a trug of vegetables and gardening tools strapped to his belt was arrested by armed police, after a member of the public said they had seen “a man wearing khaki clothing and in possession of a knife”.

Samuel Rowe, 35, who works as a technical manager at a theatre, had come back from his allotment in Manchester earlier this month and decided to trim his hedge with one of his tools, a Japanese garden sickle, when police turned up on his doorstep.

“I just heard shouting behind me, and then two armed officers shouting at me to drop the knife,” he said. “And then they turned me around, pushed me up against my house, cuffed me, and then they arrested me, put me in the back of the van.”

The tools he had on his belt, he said, were a Niwaki Hori Hori gardening trowel in a canvas sheath, and an Ice Bear Japanese gardener’s sickle.

When he was arrested, Rowe said, the officer pulled the trowel out of its sheath, and said: “That’s not a garden tool.”

“I said it is, because it was in the Niwaki-branded pouch that you get at garden centres,” Rowe said.

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