Jefferson v. Lias, ___ F.4th ___ (3d Cir. 2021). Back in 2019, this post discussed a circumstance where two of the three judges on a Third Circuit panel filed an opinion concurring in the panel’s unanimous opinion, of which those two judges were, of course, also part. Yesterday, a panel of three other Third Circuit judges went that one better in this case, which was brought under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1983, and on other theories. The case involved “a police shooting that occurred during the course of a car chase,” as Judge Restrepo summarized it in his unanimous...

State v. Fair, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). Here is how Judge Fisher began his opinion for the Appellate Division in this matter: “Defendant was charged in a one-count indictment of making terroristic threats within the meaning of ‘N.J.S.A. 2C:12-3a and/or b.’ The indictment was never amended, and defendant never moved for a particularization of what part of N.J.S.A. 2C:12-3 was being charged. Instead, the matter went to trial and, after two days of testimony, the jury was asked to decide: whether, on May 1, 2015, defendant threatened to commit a crime of violence...

Due to my fifteen-year service on the Supreme Court of New Jersey Committee on Character, the date of any Supreme Court decision that implicates the Committee on Character is a significant date. On this date in 2000, the Supreme Court decided In re Jackman, 165 N.J. 580 (2000). The issues in that case, as summarized by Justice LaVecchia in her unanimous opinion for the Court, were “whether Steven B. Jackman, an applicant for admission to the bar of this State, engaged in the unauthorized practice of law while he was employed as an associate attorney in a New Jersey law firm prior to...