Judge Alex Kozinski granted a highly-unusual joint prosecution and defense motion to suspend a trial this week. The case involves charges of obscenity against Ira Isaacs for films he markets.

What proponents of the proposed system are not emphasizing is that the “early offer” system would prohibit injured victims from seeking compensation in the courts – essentially replacing your right to a jury trial with a compensation schedule much like worker’s compensation programs – unless “gross misconduct” could be proved. Even the law professors who authored the study admit this is a rarely proved in lawsuits.

Mary Culpepper and two other relatives last month were awarded $2 million each, with the cost to be paid 90 percent by operators of a nursing home, Manor Care Health Services, and 10 percent to be paid by Tucson Medical Center.

But the victory of Michael Gableman over Louis Butler was stands out because the race came with such cost, partisanship, and confrontation—hardball trends that are expected to appear in judicial races nationwide. At an estimated $5 million, the cost of the Wisconsin race set records, and its campaign ads—largely sponsored by outside groups—were so negative and in some cases so misleading that they were criticized by a state watchdog group. One of Gableman's ads falsely implied that Butler had gotten out of jail a convicted rapist who then committed a second sexual assault. (In fact, the second assault occurred after the man served his full sentence.) Another ad by the pro-Butler teachers union accused Gableman of sentencing child sex offenders far below the maximum, but it used the example of an offender who received a higher sentence than the one the prosecutor recommended.

Proponents say mandatory arbitration is quicker and cheaper than going to court. But critics contend the process isn't always fair.

An International Paper employee was on her company-supplied cell phone as she drove west on an interstate near Dublin, Ga., when she rear-ended a vehicle. The collision pushed hit car into the ditch on the right side of the road, overturning it so that the driver's side hit and then slid along the roadway -- with the driver’s arm trapped between the door and the asphalt. Medical complications eventually forced the driver, a widowed mother of four, to have her arm amputated almost up to the shoulder.