Peeping At School

How embarrassing for the state of Texas! Amid self praise from Texas politicians and officials about how education reform in that state has made its school systems among the nation's best, comes news of the nation's best superintendent peep artist. That's because a school superintendent in the Bruceville-Eddy school system, outside of Waco, Texas, was arrested after placing a video camera that resembled an air freshener in a woman's bathroom at the the school administration office.
Danny "Peep" Doyen, 46, admitted to police he bought the camera with a school district credit card and placed it in the bathroom in order to obtain nude photos of female employees. He was arrested and sent to jail on charges of improper photography or visual recording, punishable by up to two years in prison. After Peeps was arrested the school system waved it's hands in a show innocence in an attempt to let people know the incident was isolated. It searched al bathrooms on school campuses and found no other cameras or any recorders.
Peeps was discovered after a school credit card statement for a $299 purchase turned up with no vendor name indicated on the voucher. A system auditor then forwarded the matter to investigators who later found that Peeps had submitted an invoice for the purchase, which included a description of the camera and a Web site address. Peeps is expected to plead guilty and be sentenced soon to a prison with no female bathrooms!
In the U.S. we don't think very fondly of lawyers. They are treated like dogs, and sometimes deserve it, as they instigate frivolous lawsuits and make excessive demands when representing their clients. But maybe those lawyers really are dogs- pit bulls, that is. At least that's the impression a Florida law firm has given in it's ads, ads that other Florida lawyers are "howling" are unfair representations of their profession.
Now the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that the dog lawyer ads are unconstitutional in response to a complaint from other Florida lawyers of the Florida bar Association. It seems that two Fort Lauderdale lawyers have been running a TV ad that showed a spike-collared pit bull (supposed to represent lawyers who doggedly fight for their clients) wearing the company logo. The ad also gave the firms telephone number as 1-800-PIT BULL. Haha In their successful suit to stop the caricature of lawyers as pit bulls, the Florida Bar said the ads "demean all lawyers and thereby harm both the legal profession and the public's trust and confidence of our system of justice."
My! That is a rather reaching compliant. In my view those lawyers predatory and dishonest methods are what demean the profession, not a humorous ad using a pit Bull. And as far as shaking the trust the public has of lawyers....what trust? Lawyers have already made their bad reputation, independent of funny ads. Well, the court ruled in favor of the litigants, saying that the ads violated a prohibition on legal advertising that suggests behavior, conduct or tactics that are "contrary to the rules of professional conduct." Further, it ordered the two lawyers to attend an advertising ethics workshop and receive a public reprimand for running the ads. Sigh.....Instead, I think that Pit Bull should bite the judge and all the members of the Florida Bar!