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Recent Blog Posts
Car Keyers and the Importance of Having Gideon
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog...
... or a maladjusted government-loving fear-slave. Or simply a lousy lawyer.
The internet is mostly terrible that way. Anonymous people say things that they would never say for attribution; even using their names, people make claims about themselves among strangers that would be risible to those who know them. (Anyone with a law degree can, for example, hold himself out to be a DUI lawyer, regardless of his lack of any actual experience in the field.)
The anonymity made possible by the internet is valuable in certain narrow circumstances. For example, the Publius Exception, which applies when the writer is dealing with matters of pure thought (rather than fact or opinion), so that the writing's effect does not depend on its writer's credibility; and the Candidus Exception, which applies when, by writing important truths, the writer places himself in danger that might prevent his writing further.
Rescheduled From This Thursday
In yet another attempt at morale-building, Pat Lykos is ordering every Harris County assistant district attorney to attend her swearing-in ceremony on January 1, 2009.
January 1, 2009 is a county holiday.
Does anyone remember the boxing video game from the '80s? You'd hit your opponent, and the machine would say "body blow! body blow!" and then once you'd softened him up enough you swung for his jaw and the machine would announce, "Knockout!"?
I feel like I'm watching Pat Lykos working the controls while the image of Jim Leitner on the screen roughs up the other fighter, "Office Morale."
Go, Pat, go!
Justice vs. Fairness
Illinois criminal-defense lawyer Jeremy Richey asks, "is it ethical to plead not guilty" when you know that you are factually guilty? He (being a criminal-defense lawyer) gets the answer right, of course: no [edit: duh, yes].
But I've been thinking: in addition to the fact that any boob who has ever sat through an episode of Law and Order thinks himself an expert on the criminal justice system by virtue of that experience, one of the factors that helps make serious discussion of criminal justice issues radioactive is that people think that words in the criminal justice system have the same meaning as in The World.
In The World, "not guilty" means "didn't do it." Not so in the criminal justice system, where it means, "the government hasn't proven it."
"Guilty" means "did it" in The World. Often in the criminal justice system it coincidentally seems to mean the same thing, but sometimes it instead means "the witnesses lied too well".
Because Sometimes We Buy Our Own Bullshit
In the comments to Murphy's Law of Investigation we had a little discussion of what a lawyer should do when his client maintains his factual innocence, and he discovers that there is evidence that, if analyzed, could either confirm that factual innocence or conclusively disprove it.
Renaissance man Joel "JDog" Rosenberg wrote of a hypothetical rape kit with untested DNA:
If you open Schroedinger's rape kit, you're pretty sure that either a: he walks, or b: it's over, 'cause he's going to be convicted. There is no reverse Brady obligation; you don't have to point out to the prosecutor that there's this untested rape kit, that you think he or she overlooked. Since you decide that this is a decision you have to run past your client, he says, hey, I didn't do it, but I trust you to do the right thing for me.Isn't there at least an argument that you leave it alone, at least until the jury comes back?
Big Trouble Only
A few rules for those looking to hire a criminal-defense lawyer to represent them in Houston:
If you've been arrested for a felony, and you don't think you're in at least $10,000 worth of trouble, please call someone else.
Some cases are going to cost a lot more than $10,000 todefend. No felony charge should be treated as less than $10,000 worth of trouble.
If you recognize that you're in at least $10,000 worth of felony trouble but you can't scrape together that much money, I may take your case anyway. But I won't represent someone who thinks that his freedom and his future are worth less than $10,000.
There are plenty of lawyers who will agree with your valuation ofyour good name; there are lawyers who think your future is worth $200per court appearance. But I won't refer you to them because I don't want tobethe guy referring you to the lawyer who doesn't think your freedom andyour future are worth less than $10,000.
Georgia Wants to Kill
When the government wants to stick a needle in a human being's arm and inject chemicals into his body until he's dead, is it too much to insist that they be able to convince 12 other human beings, selected in a process that is fair to the government, that a) the person will be a danger to others if he's sentenced to life in prison instead of death; and b) there are no mitigating circumstances?
In Georgia, it is apparently too much. The government there wants to be able to kill people based on verdicts less-than-unanimous (Houston DUI lawyer Paul Kennedy - I know, it's not the newest of news, but I'm clearing up some posts I started in the last few days).
This is reminiscent of Chuck Rosenthal's position against LWOP: that it would make it harder for the State to sentence people to death.
But our justice system is, as Paul says, not a blood sport, and the death penalty is not the goal of some game; it is, rather, a means to an end. "Because it will allow us to kill more people" is a shitty reason to change the law, even if the change wouldn't violate the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. For all but the very worst of the worst murderers, the government will be very hard-pressed to convince 12 jurors that LWOP is not enough.
More on Mark Sandoval
Rick Casey researched Mark Sandoval's disciplinary record back in October of last year (when he was representing Elizabeth Shelton's mother).
Sandoval has been sanctioned four times by the State Bar of Texas. The least serious was failing to show up for four successive trial settings for a client.The most serious involved submitting a voucher to an insurance company for a settlement in a wrongful-death case listing as clients both the mother and the father of the deceased. Although Sandoval did not actually represent the father, the father's name was forged both on the settlement papers and on the insurance check made out to Sandoval and the two parents.Sandoval did not respond to the Bar's request for documents that would show what happened to the $168,750 in insurance money. After a jury trial, his law license was suspended for three years, ending in 2001.
There's more; read Rick's article. Also this one:
More Trial Music
More trial music: Greg Trooper's Perfect World, also from his Noises in the Hallway
Best line ever: "I'm not the prince of darkness; tonight I am its king."
Buy the album. Then buy every other Greg Trooper album. Then buy everything by Slaid Cleaves and Eric Taylor. Impossible to go wrong with these singer-songwriters. They're the sole practitioners of the music business.
For Your Listening Pleasure
Greg Trooper's Pirate's Life, from his Noises in the Hallway
Trial music!
Criminal Defense Chat with Scott Greenfield
Here is an interview with Scott Greenfield that I recorded a couple of months ago. CharonQC's interview of Brian Tannebaum inspired me to try to put it on line.
Let's see if it works, shall we?[audio:http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/24606/In_the_can/01_DP_Podcast_001_guest_Scott_Greenfield.mp3]
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