Law and Magic Blog

Jacob Loshin Discusses "Crush Videos" (U.S. v. Stevens)

Lawyer/magician Jacob Loshin discusses the recently argued case United States v. Stevens here. The case involves free speech and animal cruelty, specifically "crush videos."

More Attorney/Magicians

More attorney/magicians: the late Harry Bernstein, known as the Amazing Brando, and Kenneth Zommick, a graduate of UC Berkeley Law School. After a long career as an an attorney, Mr. Bernstein performed for years with his wife Dorothy. Mr. Zommick was a member of the Magic Castle.

Update: With regard to Mr. Kam's comment, I thank him but I'm not certain what Mr. Sherman has to do with this case or this post. The language Mr. Kam, himself a noted lawyer/magician, cites comes from Judge Trott's dissent, and it is indeed wonderfully magical. Judge Trott is a lawyer/magician, so magical references come naturally to him, and a number of writers have quoted this particular passage in "law and magic" pieces.

Law and Magic In New Orleans

From New Orleans Magazine, May 2009: this interesting piece by Carolyn Kolb on magicians in the City That Care Forgot. Ms. Kolb notes that a local judge helped test Harry Houdini's escape skills, and that local lawyer Lawrence "Cadillac" Smith put himself through Loyola Law School with money he made as a magician. Read more here.

A Law Student/Magician Across the Pond

Emma Higginbotham interviews Cambridge University law student and magician Chris McGeever here.

Magic in the Courtroom: A Foreign Lawyer Briefs the Case

A Queen's Counsel weighs in from across the pond on behalf of Steven Leventhal. After citing the fact that Mr. Leventhal uses that dollar bill trick (everybody talks about that dollar bill trick), David Pannick writes in part for the Times of London: 

Counsel are not required to stick rigidly to the point. They are allowed to illustrate their case by the use of literature, fable and even the lyrics of pop songs. At the Soham murder trial in 2003, Maxine Carr’s defence counsel, Michael Hubbard, QC, quoted to the jury Engelbert Humperdinck’s song Please Release Me, Let Me Go, to make the point on behalf of Ian Huntley’s former fiancee: “For I don’t love him any more.”

Why should magic tricks be any different? Why, indeed?

Babson College's Laurence Moss Dies

Laurence S. Moss, Professor of Law and Economics at Babson College, has died. He was 64. Dr. Moss was known for his use of magic to teach the principles of economics. Prior to his tenure at Babson, he taught at the University of Virginia and at the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He held a PhD from Columbia and a JD from Suffolk Law School. He was admitted to the practice of law in Massachusetts in 1986. Babson College held a memorial service for him on May 7. Here is a link to his obituary and guest book in the Boston Globe.

Lawyer/Magician At an Inaugural Ball

Lawyer/magician Kenneth Trombly strolls into history at the Salute To Heroes Ball January 20, 2009.

He tells me that's a card springing flourish. 

[Photograph courtesy Ken Trombly].

Another Pennsylvania Lawyer/Magician

Mark LeWinter is another "magical" lawyer practicing in Philadephia. When not performing magic in the courtroom, he entertains sick children at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. I think all these magical attorneys need their own bar association.

Paul Fegen, Lawyer/Magician

Paul Fegen, a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Law, is a well known attorney in the L.A. area. He also created the concept of leasing law suites, a concept so successful that such suites are now known as "Fegen Suites."  As the Fantastic Fig, he is also a well known "psychic magician."

Magic For Tax Day

In honor of the Ides of April (Tax Day), here are some mentions of Tax Law Magic.

Christopher H. Hanna, who as Adam Gopnik notes is both a law professor and a magician, has published From Gregory to Enron:  The Too Perfect Theory and Tax Law, 24 Virginia Tax Review 737 (2005). Here's a link to a prior Law and Magic Blog post. Professor Hanna also published The Magic in the Tax Legislative Process at 59 Southern Methodist University Law Review 649-688 (2006). 

Indiana University law professor Leandra Lederman writes about real taxes, virtual worlds and magic circles here.

Attorney Lisa Davis discusses those "magic words" you need to include if you want your organization to be recognized as a legitimate 501(c)(3) corporation. 

What tax courts and Article III courts have never recognized as magic words are those phrases or notions that encompass the idea that the Sixteenth Amendment is somehow unconstitutional, or that one can willy-nilly refuse to pay one's federal income taxes on some wild theory or other, or refuse to file one's returns. This area is a minefield and one must tread carefully. That's what recently got actor Wesley Snipes into trouble. Although a jury acquitted him of tax fraud, it convicted him of failing to file his tax returns.

Why do tax resisters claim we don't have to pay federal taxes? One popular argument is that Ohio, one of the states that ratified the 16th Amendment, wasn't actually a state of the United States in 1911. For more "tax protestor" claims that courts have found invalid, see this great page by George Washington Law School's Jonathan Siegel.