Dear House Judiciary Committee: In Questioning William Barr, Employ the Ethics Complaint That 27 Distinguished DC Lawyers Filed Wednesday

FREDERICK BARON, DENNIS AFTERGUT, AUSTIN SARAT

Frederick Baron, former associate deputy attorney general and director of the Executive Office for National Security in the Department of Justice, Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, and Austin Sarat, Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College, call upon the House Judiciary Committee to carefully read the ethics complaint by 27 distinguished DC lawyers against William Barr before questioning him today, July 28, 2020.

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State v. Morrison

Docket: 56/19

Opinion Date: July 28, 2020

Judge: Hotten

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals reversing in part Defendant's convictions for involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and neglect of a minor stemming from the death of her infant, holding that the evidence was insufficient to support Defendant's convictions for involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment. Defendant's four-month-old infant died as a result from asphyxia after Defendant slept on top of her infant after a virtual "Moms' night out" drinking beer with her friends via Facebook livestream. Defendant as convicted of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and neglect of a minor. The Court of Special Appeals concluded that Defendant's conduct was insufficient to support a finding of "gross negligence," which was required for the involuntary manslaughter conviction and that the evidence was insufficient to support the reckless endangerment conviction. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that the evidence was insufficient to support Defendant's convictions for involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment because the conduct neither rose to the level of gross negligence more constituted a "gross departure from the conduct of a reasonably prudent person" such that it could be deemed reckless.