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Anonymous Quote of the Day
For those feeling sanguine about health care reform:
Let me get this straight: we just signed into law a health care plan... written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it... passed by a Congress that hasn't read it (but exempts themselves from it)... signed by a president that also hasn't read it (and who smokes)... with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes... all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese... and financed by a country that's broke.What could possibly go wrong?
Nope, No Balm in Gilead. Sorry.
Nobody knows for sure whether Texas has executed an innocent person. Insiders recognize that the odds are excellent, but there hasn't been the sort of thoroughgoing review of the evidence that would be required to exonerate an executed person. Cameron Willingham is looking like a good candidate, but the State of Texas is in no hurry to conduct that review in Willingham's case.
This is understandable: many powerful people have invested a good deal in their belief that the State of Texas does not execute innocent people. Their confirmation bias leads them to avoid acquiring any information that challenges their preconceptions. There's no benefit to anyone in reevaluating Willingham's case in light of modern science. Cameron Willingham is not going to get any less dead.
We've seen confirmation bias in Hank Skinner's case, too. In that case, there is untested biological material-blood, skin from under fingernails, a rape kit, hair-that contains DNA. This DNA, if tested, might show that a man named Robert Donnell left his blood on the probable murder weapons and his skin, hair, and semen at the scene of the killings. While this itself mightn't conclusively prove (because nothing short of a smiting by God will convince the DA) that Skinner didn't do the killing, it would tell a story very different than the State's theory, and would raise vast doubt about Skinner's guilt.
Three Years
Today begins my fourth year of writing Defending People. It all started on March 19, 2007 with Introduction. Since then I've written 1,325 posts and published over 6,000 comments. I've had about 429,065 unique visitors, and received enough positive feedback to keep me both blogging and humble.
Thank you for reading Defending People. Without you I'd be muttering to myself.
John Coby Writes Blog Post With Words “Gay Nigger”
Someone using John Coby's email address and a link to his blog tried to leave the following comment to this post:
Your article is a bit too long for a blog entry. I couldnt finish it.
I emailed Coby to ask if it was actually him leaving this moronic comment. He did not respond. Judging, however, from recent content on his blog, I suspect that this comment is reflective of his thought processes.
Coby wrote a post last Friday about Judge Larry Standley's speech to Clear Springs High School students entitled Harris County Republican Judge Larry Standley Caught DWI. The punchline:
When asked for a comment Standley replied with slurred speech, incoherent rants, a rather graphic reference to someones mother, and passed gas while falling off his high horse.
Not that funny, but okay-about what we expect from a mindless political hack from either party.
What is the Code for Lawyer?
I recently read Clotaire Rapaille's The Culture Code. Rapaille is a marketing researcher who "is an internationally known expert in Archetype Discoveries," which is a field of study that he invented. In The Culture Code Rapaille discusses some of the results of his research into "the unconscious meaning we apply to any given thing-a car, a type of food, a relationship, even a country-via the culture in which we are raised." A Code, in Rapaille's argot, is the archetype imprinted on members of a culture in connection with such a thing.
In America, for example, the Code for Jeep is HORSE. In France and Germany, the Code for Jeep is LIBERATOR. In America, the Code for America is DREAM; in France the Code for America is SPACE TRAVELER; in Germany the Code for America is JOHN WAYNE.
Marketing is effective when it takes into account the Code for the thing being marketed. When America stops behaving like John Wayne (as, for example, when it shoots first), Germans' opinion of America falls. Jeeps with rectangular headlamps don't sell like Jeeps with round HORSE-like headlamps. Restaurants that treat food as FUEL (America's Code for food) sell more food.
Why is the Trial Lawyers College Afraid of these Three Women? [Updated]
Three really smart creative empathetic lawyers-Joane Garcia-Colson, Mary Peckham, and Fredilyn Sison-are directing a four-day Trial Boot Camp in Palm Springs, California from May 13 to May 16, 2010. Tuition is $750. I know these women well from the Trial Lawyers College and psychodrama workshops, and I recommend their boot camp highly to women trial lawyers. (I would attend, but I am short on X chromosomes.)
Joane, Mary, and Fredi are great teachers. They are, as Trial Lawyers College ("TLC Inc.") President Jude Basile admits, "splendid people and magnificent warriors."
Most importantly, until the beginning of February, Mary and Fredi were part of the Trial Lawyers College staff (Norm Pattis, former staff himself, describes the way things work). Then Mary was simply not invited back to staff training. Fredi was explicitly told by Jude that she was being removed from staff because of her association with Joane and the Trial Boot Camp, which TLC Inc. saw as "competition" for TLC.
Two New Blogs
Two blogs recently added to the blogroll:
Liberty and Justice for Y'all-Texas criminal law mostly-anonymous (except for front man B.W. Barnett) group blog. They are writing for a Texas-criminal-law-savvy audience so far, but they're just getting warmed up.
Trial Theory-Trial practice group blog. TLC grads Bobby Frederick (of the South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog), Paul J. Smith (of the Life and Times of a Texas Country Trial Lawyer Blog), Karl Dickhaus (get Karl to tell you about his last two years), and apparently six or seven others.
Check them out and give them some comment love.
Jamie Spencer (of the Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog) is also starting a group blog, Affirmative Links; with posts like January's riveting "Hello world!" and last month's compelling "Here is a second test post," it's a real page-turner.
Students' Responses to Judge Standley's Talk
Clear Springs High School students' responses to the folderol surrounding Judge Standley's talk at their school last week (from Facebook):
Mickey Carr These are some of my friend's replies (from clear springs students) when I asked what had happened and from other friend's status updates as well, I didn't put their name up here, but once again I hope these offer a little comfort.
"This whole thing is RIDICULOUS. he didn't say it was "ok to do drugs as long as we didn't get caught." what he was really saying was he knows that he can't stop us no matter what adults tell us not to do because we are bound to experiment because we are teenagers, but we must know the consequences and the severity of the damage we could cause. i think a lot of people are just being immature about this whole thing. it just takes one person to blow shit out of proportion. you really think a JUDGE would say it's "ok" to do drugs at an assembly for MADD? come on now. jeez."
Subpoenaing Out-Of-State Witnesses
Somehow I seem to have become the go-to guy for out-of-state lawyers trying to get Harris County witnesses subpoenaed to trial out-of-state. This is sort of a see-one-do-one-teach-one procedure, and I've done five, so it's time for me to pass on what I know.
The procedure is contained in the Uniform Act to Secure Attendance of Witnesses from Without State. According to California lawyer Robert Scofield, the Act has been adopted by every state but North Dakota, and by the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. North Dakota Century Code 31-03-25 through -31, however (PDF), looks substantially the same as the Act (one of North Dakota's twelve lawyers can perhaps confirm my impression).
In Texas, the Act is codified at Code of Criminal Procedure Article 24.28.
Summoning a witness from, say, Texas to Nebraska is a six-part procedure:
Judge Standley and the MADDing Crowd
Defending People readers know that I am not fond of MADD. There are huge opportunity costs and unintended consequences inherent in a single-issue advocacy organization having the political power that MADD has.
Now, using a little bit of that stick to bring a county criminal court judge in to talk to high school juniors about driving while intoxicated is a great idea. Such a judge sees hundreds of 17- and 18-year-olds a year in his courtroom because of DWI charges, among other things. He might be expected to talk straight with he students about the very real damage done by alcohol and drugs. And, indeed, it seems that even MADD didn't have the arrogance to expect him to say what they wanted:
"It's very difficult," said MADD Southeast Region Executive Director Bridget Anderson [who wasn't there for the talk]. "A judge has their own views and they talk as they choose. We can't monitor and script them on what they say."
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