March 17, 2008 | Vol. XI, Issue 25

UF Law Faculty in the News

Fletcher N. Baldwin
Chesterfield Smith Professor; Director of UF Center for International Financial Crimes Studies; Honorary Fellow, Society for Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

• Washington Post, March 4. Quoted in article discussing Washington, D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi’s move to fill two critical posts after the largest embezzlement scandal in city history erupted at the Office of Tax and Revenue. Gandhi hired Cordi, 64, as the tax director and Andary, 60, as the chief of internal audits and investigations. Their extensive resumes show that they are the right choices for the difficult task, yet each lacks experience in a critical area. Baldwin, who specializes in financial crime, said it is important for financial investigators to have expertise in the field because they must deal with complicated paper transactions and banking regulations. "The illicit money is laundered in banks, so you have to have some expertise," Baldwin said.

Lyrissa Lidsky
Professor; UF Research Foundation Professor

• Time Magazine, March 3. Discussed the tort law related to a recent incident in the Bahamas that left Markus Grohn, an attorney from Australia, dead. Grohn signed up for a dive that put him face-to-face with killer sharks spanning 18 feet in length — without a cage to separate him from the man-eaters. The issue of taking your chances in these inherently dangerous sports is further discussed by Lidsky in the article. “One of the things about these high risk activities is that if you're going to participate in them you assume a certain kind of risk," Lidsky said. In the case of Groh, the question is whether the tour operator failed to use reasonable care when he took a group of tourists diving for sharks without using cages. "Is the thing that killed him something that you normally associate with shark watching?" Lidsky asks, "Or, is it something that could have been avoided had the company used reasonable care?"

Michael Siebecker
Assistant Professor

• Investment News, March 3. Quoted in an article discussing open-access to hedge fund information that may lead to a lawsuit against the Securities Exchange Commission. Siebecker discussed the free speech argument and said it could come down to whether the hedge fund information is deemed political or commercial in nature. “The pot of gold is getting something characterized as political speech, but if it is determined to be commercial speech that would be much more favorable to sustaining the regulations," Siebecker said. "The Supreme Court has never defined the difference between commercial and political speech, and the problem arises when you have an amalgam of political and commercial speech.”.

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse
David H. Levin Chair in Family Law; Professor; Director, Center on Children and Families and Family Law Certificate Program; Co-Director, Institute for Child and Adolescent Research and Evaluation (ICARE)

• St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 20. Quoted in an article discussing how Police in Florida sometimes go beyond their legal authority when interrogating suspects while they are in school. This article says Florida law gives children more rights than adults and police must engage in a careful give-and-take discussion of Miranda warnings and prove kids know what they're doing when they waive constitutional rights against self-incrimination. Woodhouse, who is the director of the Center on Children and Families, said beneath that requirement lies a body of state and federal court rulings that say children need adult help in managing adult situations, “A big, bright 13-year-old may just completely lack experience and judgment and perspective because they haven't been around for very long," Woodhouse added. "They haven't been exposed to a lot of situations. They just don't get it.”

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