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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAfter the tragic gun accident on the set of the movie Rust<\/em><\/strong> in which Alec Baldwin was holding a gun that fired a live round and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins<\/strong>, New Mexico passed a new law providing mandatory jail time for involuntary manslaughter involving a firearm. The prosecutors charged Baldwin under the new law and you might recall headlines and commentary focusing on the fact that Baldwin faced mandatory prison if convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Baldwin\u2019s lawyers passed Criminal Law 101 pointed out the ex post facto problems of charging Baldwin under the new law. In the \u201cmotion\u201d filed with the Court, Baldwin\u2019s lawyers said that prosecutors in the case had \u201ccommitted an unconstitutional and elementary legal error\u201d by charging Baldwin under a statute that didn\u2019t exist at the time of the shooting. Instead of admitting error and apologizing, the prosecutor said that they agreed to dismiss the mandatory jail time charge \u201cin order to avoid further litigious distractions by Mr. Baldwin and his attorneys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the New Mexico prosecutors, holding them to the criminal rules established by the Constitution is a \u201clitigious distraction.\u201d In my opinion, this whole prosecution is a \u201cpolitical\u201d distraction brought by New Mexico politicians trying to make a name for themselves out of a horrible accident. They tried to throw the kitchen sink at Baldwin, but ex post facto got in the way. Now, without mandatory prison time to hold over his head, I almost guarantee they will not get a guilty plea and the chance of a conviction is slim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Live Nation<\/strong> and subsidiary Ticketmaster<\/strong> asked a U.S. judge on Friday to halt a proposed consumer class action over their sales of Taylor Swift <\/strong>concert tickets and instead force claims to be heard privately in arbitration. Arbitration is a four-letter word to trial lawyers who file lawsuits for consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trial lawyers want consumer claims alleging fraud or faulty products to be heard in court, by a jury of other consumers. Companies want claims against them to be heard in a private meeting called an \u201carbitration\u201d where the case is settled by lawyers trained to be essentially a private judge. Arbitration is far less risky than letting what big companies see as the unsoiled, uneducated masses decide their legal liability. In just about every consumer transaction, from buying Taylor Swift tickets on-line, to buying a new car, to buying a new computer at Office Depot<\/strong>, companies insert arbitration provisions in the sales documents where the consumer, almost always unknowingly, agrees to give up the constitutional right to a jury trial and instead go to arbitration. When consumers say that they did not know they agreed to arbitration, the rule that a person is expected to read every word of a contract, every word of the \u201cterms of use\u201d of a website, comes into play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor Swift fans may soon learn these lessons. Ticketmaster and Live Nation are hoping to head off a lawsuit in California federal court accusing them of violating antitrust and consumer protection laws. The lawsuit alleges the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster eliminated market competition and let the companies charge higher prices for Swift tickets. The companies argue that a customer must agree to arbitration multiple times in the on-line buying transaction and that customers are bound to those \u201cI agree\u201d clicks. Next time you agree to terms and conditions, read through it and notice the arbitration agreement. You can either click it or shake it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ghislaine Maxwell<\/strong> has asked a United States appeals court to throw out her conviction for helping Jeffrey Epstein <\/strong>sexually abuse teenage girls, saying a slew of errors marred the case as prosecutors made her a scapegoat because the financier was dead. Maxwell is currently in a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida<\/strong>, serving a 20 year sentence. I say feed her to the gators and move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mitchell Driskell practices law with the Tannehill Carmean firm (voted Oxford\u2019s Best Law Firm every year since 2010) and has been an Oxford lawyer for twenty two years. You can call him at 662.236.9996 and email him at mitchell@tannehillcarmean.com. He practices criminal law, civil law and family law.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alec Baldwin and Ex Post Facto Let\u2019s say that you get caught stealing eggs and are arrested. Before<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123458,"featured_media":116423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18405],"tags":[24139,19411,24586,24590,24587,24591,24588,5,642,7299,7067,4,20429,11591,18284,3,24589,753,655],"class_list":["post-127092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mitchell-driskell","tag-alec-baldwin","tag-barstool-briefs","tag-ex-post-facto","tag-ghislaine-maxwell","tag-halyna-hutchins","tag-jeffrfey-epstein","tag-live-nation","tag-mississippi","tag-ms","tag-new-mexico","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford","tag-tallahassee","tag-taylor-swift","tag-the-local-lawyer","tag-the-local-voice","tag-ticketmaster","tag-tlv","tag-university-of-mississippi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/MitchellDriskell-columnHeader-03-300.jpg?fit=300%2C152&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Should\u2019ve Said No\u2014To Arbitration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Sex Trafficking Sidekick Seeks Second Chance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n