The L.A. Times quotes “attorney Stephen Yagman” today, in an article about a federal ruling on jail overcrowding:

Attorney Stephen Yagman, who represents the inmates involved in the lawsuit, said Pregerson’s ruling meant that the violations of the prisoners’ rights would be presented as a proven fact to a jury should the case not be settled and go to trial.

Inmates would have to prove only that they deserved to be compensated for having slept on the floor, Yagman said.

“This is quite an extraordinary ruling,” Yagman said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

There’s more:

Yagman, however, said he had evidence showing that the practice was continuing.

. . . .

Yagman, who named Sheriff Lee Baca as a defendant in the suit, said Sunday that he had two other class-action cases involving inmates who were forced to sleep on floors from May 2005 to as recently as this year.

There’s just one little thing about Yagman that The Times‘s Matt Lait neglects to mention: Yagman is going to have a hard time continuing to represent these inmates . . . because he has been convicted of numerous felonies in federal court, and is likely headed to federal prison.

Indeed, the State Bar has taken notice, and has put Yagman on interim suspension. As the Metropolitan News-Enterprise reported on September 14:

The Sept. 7 [State Bar Membership Records] report listed civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman as among those recently placed on interim suspension following criminal convictions. Yagman, who was suspended Aug. 23, was convicted in federal court June 22 on one count of tax evasion, one count of bankruptcy fraud, and 17 counts of money laundering.

Although he was later acquitted by the judge of six of those counts, he remains convicted of thirteen felonies. He is certain to be disbarred.

None of this merits even a whisper in today’s article.

Relish the contrast between the paper’s kid-glove treatment of Yagman and its harsh treatment of my former boss, Hon. William D. Keller. When Yagman slandered Keller, in false comments that he later apologized for, the L.A. Times repeated the allegations time and time and time again. Even if a story about Keller had absolutely nothing to do with Yagman, the ghoulish Henry Weinstein would drag out the old discredited allegations and pop them into the story, just to take a swipe at Judge Keller.

Meanwhile, the paper protects the reputation of a liberal lawyer who stands convicted of thirteen felonies.

You just gotta love this paper.

P.S. One of the most endearing things I read about Clarence Thomas in Jeffrey Toobin’s “The Nine” is that he tells friends the happiest day of his life was when he cancelled his subscription to the Washington Post. Clarence, I can’t say the same about the day I cancelled my subscription to the L.A. Times . . . after all, that day must compete with my wedding day, the day I got engaged, and the births of my children.

But it’s up there, baby. It’s up there.