"Where is he in law school?"
The question was natural enough. A good friend asked it of me after I raved about one of my summer associates.
"Good question," I responded. "I never thought to ask."
She was incredulous. Not only had I never inquired about where the young man went to law school, I had no idea about his class rank. All I knew was that he had bounce. That was enough for me.
The conversation took place a few years ago. (I note the time qualification so that none of the three interns we have wandering around this summer get big heads.) I was reminded of it reading this morning's piece in The New York Times about law school grade inflation. The simple truth is that grades do not matter. I wish more law students realized that.
News that schools such as New York University, Tulane and Loyola are going to boost the grade point averages of students to make them appear more competitive on the open market is a sign of something akin to moral bankruptcy. Are firms hiring lawyers supposed to be fooled by grade inflation? The very notion that law school administrators would take this step to assuage the feelings and sensibilities of students graduating with mountains of debt and degrees of little utility reflects a stunning poverty of vision. Creating a Potemkin village for commencement services won't make the future of most young lawyers any brighter.
The fact is that brilliant lawyers with glowing resumes are a dime a dozen. Pluck some kid from Harvard or Yale and stick 'em in front of a computer. In no time flat you'll have a great brief on any conceivable legal topic. Sadly, almost all such briefs read the same. In truth, many lawyers from other schools could do just as well.
What can't be tested for or graded in law school is bounce, the ability to read a person, a judge, a jury and size up the social and emotional vectors that make a moment unique. That is a function of social intelligence, the most valuable form of intelligence for a lawyer. People, flesh and blood people, have conflicts; legal doctrine takes one only so far. The wisdom to know what to do and when to do it distinguishes the wheat from the chaff in the law as in any profession.
A lawyer must know his or her own story, the forces that have made them into a person with a discernible character. The lawyer must then learn how to recognize all that moves her, including her own feelings, a topic that makes lawyers of a certain generation and temperament squirm. A good lawyer learns to discern what motivates his client, his adversary, and how to meet the challenge of a given conflict with the legal doctrine at hand. But here is something they can't teach you at Harvard, Yale or any other law school: Being an effective advocate is a question of heart not head. Grades don't measure people sense.
Grades don't matter, I tell you. In the course of my legal career I have been involved in hiring decisions for dozens of lawyers. Not once have I asked about grades. Rarely have I even asked what school they graduated from or their class standing. What matters is a lawyer's ability to speak a coherent sentence, to stand when others would fall, to recover from the inevitable sorrow that makes a lawyer's life unique. This quality is bounce, and I can tell whether someone has it within the first interview.
You can make a better writer and a more competent researcher out of a lawyer with bounce, but you can't make a law review wizard respond to the human dimension of our work if he lacks heart. Papering over a generation of young lawyers with the fool's gold of a glowing transcript tricks no one.
Shame on NYU, Loyola and the other grade-inflating ninnies. If your graduates can't get jobs how about doing something to actually prepare them for work in the real world of lawyering? How many schools require students to take a course on mental-health issues affecting litigants? How many schools require students to read great literature or the classics? How many schools insist that students get out of the classroom and into a courtroom, prison or juvenile detention center? Not enough, I say.
I am thrilled with the quality of young lawyers who come knocking on my door looking for work. Most don't stay very long. The pressure destroys some; the allure of easy money distracts others. But those who stay in this line of work have heart. They had it when they got here. All I do is try not to break the hearts they bring; I sometimes fail.
All of which to say that law school grades, like size in certain other pursuits, really don't matter: What matters is how you love, and that is something you aren't taught in law school. Or, if you are taught at all about love, it is to love the wrong thing. Let me say it again: Grades don't matter. Smart deans know that.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Judas and the Judge
Tomorrow George Leniart will be sentenced as a capital felon. The state did not seek the death penalty. Why? Because the state had no body, no tangible proof that there was, in fact, a murder. But it went ahead and charged Mr. Leniart anyhow. It did so based on the word of several jailhouse informants. It did so by arguing to a jury that a prior guilty plea to a rape means he must have raped again, only this time killing and disposing of the body such that no sign of it has ever existed, anywhere.
The sentence the court must impose by statute is life without the possibility of parole. The court has no choice. Oh, it can stack some time on top of the only life that Mr. Leniart will live and call it justice. But such concurrent time is meaningless, a fool's errand.
The courtroom will be filled with thrill seekers of a different sort, all coming to see the hammer fall. The press will be there. Law enforcement officers will be there; indeed, lawmen have already thrown themselves a banquet to congratulate themselves on getting a conviction in this case. They believed Mr. Leniart to be a bad man. So they congratulate themselves on having Mr. Leniart behind bars for life, but the sad fact remains: the lawmen failed to solve the murder. They have no body to show the grieving family after 15 years of looking. What they have is half a case. What they have is the hope this speculative mound of evidence means what they say it does.
That the case was enough to convict Mr. Leniart does not surprise. Three jailhouse snitches came to court and ran their mouths about the things they contend Mr. Leniart told them. The stories do not match. The boy who was with Mr. Leniart and the victim the night she was last seen testified about what he did that night. He testified that he was only trying to mess with his father's head when he confessed to killing her.
Mr. Leniart sought to call an expert on jailhouse informants and the powerful pressures brought to bear on hopeless men locked in cages. The expert has testified before Congress, written scholarly articles and a book; she teaches law. But the judge muzzled her. The jury never heard a word of what she had to say. The trial judge concluded that it was within the province of the jury to know what kinds of games lawmen play with the heads of those locked out of sight and mind. On what planet do ordinary people know the look and feel of a cell?
Oh, that the judge were as sparing with the state's evidence. She permitted a woman who claimed she had been raped by my client just months before the victim in my case went missing. This woman was a drunken child at the time of the alleged rape. She described being strangled to the point of passing out, and awakening to see my client on her still. Armed with this vivid image and an isolated alleged comment to an informant, the state argued that the missing victim in this case was killed in just the same way as the all-too-real victim was raped and assaulted -- by a strangulation, only this time gone too far.
I argued that my client could not get a fair trial if evidence of the prior bad act were admitted. All that linked the living victim and the missing person was some chatter from a jailhouse snitch. No physical evidence corroborated the claim. The jury was invited to speculate that Mr. Leniart killed one girl in the same way he had assaulted another.
The rub in this case is that the judge slated to try the case was by consensus of all the lawyers involved in the case unlikely to admit the evidence of the prior strangulation. Had that judge tried the case, my client would today be free. But the judge got sick, and a different judge, this one recently a prosecutor, donned the robe. The consensus now was that the evidence would be admitted. It was. The result is mandatory life without possibility of parole for a man convicted because of allegations of a prior bad act. Forgive me if I call this something less than justice.
Tomorrow the courthouse will fill with groupies looking for a show. We have decided to say little and to save our words and hopes for an appeal and a new trial. When I look at the judge I will end such remarks as I make with the simple story of Jesus and Judas at the last supper. As Jesus and the disciples supped, Jesus knew Judas' intent. One of the other disciples turned to Jesus to ask what was the matter. Jesus looked to Judas and said: "That thou doest do quickly." So it will be from my lips to the judge's ears.
Impose the sentence you must, judge. The die is cast and was cast as a consquences of decisions made at trial about what a jury can and cannot hear. We do not expect justice. We expect a life sentence. Impose it and do so quickly. Let's end this charade so that we can seek justice in another court on another day.
The sentence the court must impose by statute is life without the possibility of parole. The court has no choice. Oh, it can stack some time on top of the only life that Mr. Leniart will live and call it justice. But such concurrent time is meaningless, a fool's errand.
The courtroom will be filled with thrill seekers of a different sort, all coming to see the hammer fall. The press will be there. Law enforcement officers will be there; indeed, lawmen have already thrown themselves a banquet to congratulate themselves on getting a conviction in this case. They believed Mr. Leniart to be a bad man. So they congratulate themselves on having Mr. Leniart behind bars for life, but the sad fact remains: the lawmen failed to solve the murder. They have no body to show the grieving family after 15 years of looking. What they have is half a case. What they have is the hope this speculative mound of evidence means what they say it does.
That the case was enough to convict Mr. Leniart does not surprise. Three jailhouse snitches came to court and ran their mouths about the things they contend Mr. Leniart told them. The stories do not match. The boy who was with Mr. Leniart and the victim the night she was last seen testified about what he did that night. He testified that he was only trying to mess with his father's head when he confessed to killing her.
Mr. Leniart sought to call an expert on jailhouse informants and the powerful pressures brought to bear on hopeless men locked in cages. The expert has testified before Congress, written scholarly articles and a book; she teaches law. But the judge muzzled her. The jury never heard a word of what she had to say. The trial judge concluded that it was within the province of the jury to know what kinds of games lawmen play with the heads of those locked out of sight and mind. On what planet do ordinary people know the look and feel of a cell?
Oh, that the judge were as sparing with the state's evidence. She permitted a woman who claimed she had been raped by my client just months before the victim in my case went missing. This woman was a drunken child at the time of the alleged rape. She described being strangled to the point of passing out, and awakening to see my client on her still. Armed with this vivid image and an isolated alleged comment to an informant, the state argued that the missing victim in this case was killed in just the same way as the all-too-real victim was raped and assaulted -- by a strangulation, only this time gone too far.
I argued that my client could not get a fair trial if evidence of the prior bad act were admitted. All that linked the living victim and the missing person was some chatter from a jailhouse snitch. No physical evidence corroborated the claim. The jury was invited to speculate that Mr. Leniart killed one girl in the same way he had assaulted another.
The rub in this case is that the judge slated to try the case was by consensus of all the lawyers involved in the case unlikely to admit the evidence of the prior strangulation. Had that judge tried the case, my client would today be free. But the judge got sick, and a different judge, this one recently a prosecutor, donned the robe. The consensus now was that the evidence would be admitted. It was. The result is mandatory life without possibility of parole for a man convicted because of allegations of a prior bad act. Forgive me if I call this something less than justice.
Tomorrow the courthouse will fill with groupies looking for a show. We have decided to say little and to save our words and hopes for an appeal and a new trial. When I look at the judge I will end such remarks as I make with the simple story of Jesus and Judas at the last supper. As Jesus and the disciples supped, Jesus knew Judas' intent. One of the other disciples turned to Jesus to ask what was the matter. Jesus looked to Judas and said: "That thou doest do quickly." So it will be from my lips to the judge's ears.
Impose the sentence you must, judge. The die is cast and was cast as a consquences of decisions made at trial about what a jury can and cannot hear. We do not expect justice. We expect a life sentence. Impose it and do so quickly. Let's end this charade so that we can seek justice in another court on another day.
Humanitarian Law Project's Slippery Slope
Today's Supreme Court decision involving material support for terrorist organizations leaves unanswered a question the Government apparently argued and dissent framed: Can a lawyer be prosecuted for representing a terrorist group before the United Nations or even the Supreme Court itself?
The simple answer is that the Court did not decide this issue. A more complicated question is what will happen when this issue reaches the Court, as it inevitably will.
By a vote of 6-3, the Court upheld application of a statute making it a criminal offense materially to support known terrorist organizations. The Court rejected challenges that the statute was so broad as to be effectively without standards for determining when it should be enforced, in violation of the Fifth Amendment, and challenges that it violated the First Amendment's companion rights to freedom of speech and association. The narrow scope of the ruling is cold comfort to civil libertarians.
The statute applies only to those organizations deemed terrorist by the State Department. A group so designated may appeal the designation within 30 days. In the case decided today, several groups and individuals challenged whether material support of a Tamil and Kurdish group was prohibited if it involved no more than the provision of "training," "expert advise or assistance," "service" or "personnel' to a designated terrorist group. The Court's majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, took special pains to limit the Court's holding to these four types of material assistance.
Those looking for a bright line through this dark wood of error should focus on what appears to be the test for distinguishing material support from mere support. "The statute reaches only material support coordinated with or under the direction or a designated foreign terrorist organization," Roberts wrote. Presumably, work done in support of a terrorist group but neither coordinated with the group nor directed by the group remains protected by the First Amendment.
This is a mighty thin line. The Court's sub rosa importation of the independent contractor/employeedistinction will no doubt prove troublesome in cases to come. How do we determine when a person supporting a group is working independently or under the control of the group? While that question might be easy to determine, the question of when a supporter's activities are coordianted by a prohibited group is of necessity a far murkier issue.
At its core, the Humanitarian Law Project decision disturbs because of its reliance on the slippery slope sort of argument that justifies any assertion of government power. Although the plaintiffs in this case argued that their purpose was merely to teach groups how to petition the United Nations, Congress and other bodies for relief, the majority held that these services, which translate easily into money, are so fungible that they might free up resources for violent uses. What's more, diplomatic efforts might become time-buying ruses bent to the service of terrorist intent. All cows, Hegel once observed, look alike in the gray twilight of evening.
The dissent shreds this reasoning, and suggests that whatever deference the Court should give to findings by Congress and the Executive branch about the practices of terrorist organizations, the right to advocate for peaceable change is a core Constitutional value of ancient and venerable lineage. Frankly, I think the dissent has the better argument. Once the slippery slope analogy is adopted, there is no stopping the slide into tyranny. Consider what has become the Fourth Amendment's "reasonableness" requirement as to searches and seizures.
I read Humanitarian Law Project with a gnawing sense of uncertainly, recalling that in the days immediately post 9/11, I was contacted by the embassy of a Middle Eastern country to represent a foreign national. The man was in custody. They feared that American intelligence agencies were working him over. It turns out those fears were unfounded, but I wondered, as I traveled to the prison to meet him, whether my Government would consider me an enemy, too, for insisting that anyone in the United States was entitled to the full protection of the law. As the dissent in Humanitarian Law Project make clear, that question is far from decided.
I vote with the minority on this one. It ought not to be a crime to teach people to use peaceful means to accomplish their ends.
The simple answer is that the Court did not decide this issue. A more complicated question is what will happen when this issue reaches the Court, as it inevitably will.
By a vote of 6-3, the Court upheld application of a statute making it a criminal offense materially to support known terrorist organizations. The Court rejected challenges that the statute was so broad as to be effectively without standards for determining when it should be enforced, in violation of the Fifth Amendment, and challenges that it violated the First Amendment's companion rights to freedom of speech and association. The narrow scope of the ruling is cold comfort to civil libertarians.
The statute applies only to those organizations deemed terrorist by the State Department. A group so designated may appeal the designation within 30 days. In the case decided today, several groups and individuals challenged whether material support of a Tamil and Kurdish group was prohibited if it involved no more than the provision of "training," "expert advise or assistance," "service" or "personnel' to a designated terrorist group. The Court's majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, took special pains to limit the Court's holding to these four types of material assistance.
Those looking for a bright line through this dark wood of error should focus on what appears to be the test for distinguishing material support from mere support. "The statute reaches only material support coordinated with or under the direction or a designated foreign terrorist organization," Roberts wrote. Presumably, work done in support of a terrorist group but neither coordinated with the group nor directed by the group remains protected by the First Amendment.
This is a mighty thin line. The Court's sub rosa importation of the independent contractor/employeedistinction will no doubt prove troublesome in cases to come. How do we determine when a person supporting a group is working independently or under the control of the group? While that question might be easy to determine, the question of when a supporter's activities are coordianted by a prohibited group is of necessity a far murkier issue.
At its core, the Humanitarian Law Project decision disturbs because of its reliance on the slippery slope sort of argument that justifies any assertion of government power. Although the plaintiffs in this case argued that their purpose was merely to teach groups how to petition the United Nations, Congress and other bodies for relief, the majority held that these services, which translate easily into money, are so fungible that they might free up resources for violent uses. What's more, diplomatic efforts might become time-buying ruses bent to the service of terrorist intent. All cows, Hegel once observed, look alike in the gray twilight of evening.
The dissent shreds this reasoning, and suggests that whatever deference the Court should give to findings by Congress and the Executive branch about the practices of terrorist organizations, the right to advocate for peaceable change is a core Constitutional value of ancient and venerable lineage. Frankly, I think the dissent has the better argument. Once the slippery slope analogy is adopted, there is no stopping the slide into tyranny. Consider what has become the Fourth Amendment's "reasonableness" requirement as to searches and seizures.
I read Humanitarian Law Project with a gnawing sense of uncertainly, recalling that in the days immediately post 9/11, I was contacted by the embassy of a Middle Eastern country to represent a foreign national. The man was in custody. They feared that American intelligence agencies were working him over. It turns out those fears were unfounded, but I wondered, as I traveled to the prison to meet him, whether my Government would consider me an enemy, too, for insisting that anyone in the United States was entitled to the full protection of the law. As the dissent in Humanitarian Law Project make clear, that question is far from decided.
I vote with the minority on this one. It ought not to be a crime to teach people to use peaceful means to accomplish their ends.
Westlaw's Lightning Fast Response
I wrote the other day about my decision to stop doing business with Westlaw. My primary complaint was that the firm's billing practices are at best Byzantine, although the practices lack the charm of the exotic. Readers from across the country responded. I am not the only person who Westlaw has taken for granted.
It turns out that Westlaw can respond when it wants to, so I need to correct the impression that the company cannot find it's hindquarters with either hand.
We informed our local sales representative that we were taking down our web page from the Findlaw account, a subsidiary of Thompson West's, and moving elsewhere. Guess what? The page came down in record time. We're naken today with no online presence for the first time in years. Alas, poor Internet.
So here's the moral of the story: When West has you in the grips of a contract from which it can extract a dollar by squeezing, it will twist until your accountant weeps. But on a month-to-month contract, the moment you stop paying, the company stops playing.
West can listen when it wants to. It can respond when it is in the company's interest to do so. Hence proof positive that the company could be responsive if it wanted to be on other matters. It just doesn't care. It just wants to get paid.
It turns out that Westlaw can respond when it wants to, so I need to correct the impression that the company cannot find it's hindquarters with either hand.
We informed our local sales representative that we were taking down our web page from the Findlaw account, a subsidiary of Thompson West's, and moving elsewhere. Guess what? The page came down in record time. We're naken today with no online presence for the first time in years. Alas, poor Internet.
So here's the moral of the story: When West has you in the grips of a contract from which it can extract a dollar by squeezing, it will twist until your accountant weeps. But on a month-to-month contract, the moment you stop paying, the company stops playing.
West can listen when it wants to. It can respond when it is in the company's interest to do so. Hence proof positive that the company could be responsive if it wanted to be on other matters. It just doesn't care. It just wants to get paid.
CNN: Time For A New King?
It looks as though I will have to act fast if I ever hope to land a spot as a guest on the Larry King show. The king of CNN has but a year left in his contract. At 76, with ratings flailing, King is no longer the thing he once was. Rumor has it that CNN is clueless about his replacement.
All lawyers like being on television. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. It's fun to plead a case before millions. I've blabbed away on many shows I admire, and some I don't: I've had a shot at 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Geraldo Rivera, Inside Edition, something or other with Sam Donaldson, and a bunch of other segments of brief notoriety. (My favorite? Diane Sawyer. She would have been dynamite in a courtroom: she has an instinctive ability to connect that is uncanny.)
But I have never done Larry King. Or, rather, King has never done me.
I suppose that is because I am decidedly uncool. King speaks with easy familiarity to and about the rich and powerful. He confers some sort of secret membership to a club I've never been invited to join merely by saying hello. Alas. I never made the list of cool kids in high school either. Come to think of it, I've never had a chance to talk to Don Imus, either.
A report in this morning's New York Times trots out names of the usual suspects as potential replacements for King: Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Piers Morgan. Even Eliot Spitzer's name has been thrown into the mix. Please, say it ain't so.
It's time for new wine. I mean Larry King didn't spring fully formed from the brow of Lord Network. King apparently got his start in decidedly inglorious surroundings. He was the color commentator for the Shreveport Steamer of the World Football League. King is an acquired taste.
I've a proposal for CNN. Break the mold. Turn your back on the established personalities and media darlings of the day. Create a new king, even as you created King.
Americans love the courts and crime. We're thrilled when a politician tumbles and is exposed as venal. Each of us is passionate about what justice requires, even if few of us agree on what is just. And we all love stories. So why not a storyteller on CNN? Someone familiar with the courts? Why not, since we won't pick one for the Supreme Court, a trial lawyer?
The great and colorful voices of King's generation are, like King, perhaps too long in the tooth to want to bite down on a new commitment. Gerry Spence is in his early 80s. F. Lee Bailey, though sharp as a tack, seems content these days to take it easy. Sure, Mickey Sherman is always available, but he is, well, Mickey Sherman. It's time for a new generation.
Oh, I know about Nancy Grace and the former blonde judge from Court TV whose name I cannot recall. But why do prosecutors and judges get to have all the fun? Who speaks for the defense on prime time? Anyone?
How creative is CNN prepared to be? Will they turn the time slot over to a trial lawyer? What not create a new star? Scott Greenfield over at Simple Justice has developed a following with a simple formula: three opinions a day, day in day out, and a web of friends and contacts stretching coast to coast. He has a distinctive voice.
Of course, if he declines, I have another candidate. He also has a voice, although not so well known. He's opinionated, brash and also loves the limelight. What's more, he's wanted to appear on King's show. C'mon, folks. Try a virtual unknown. Give me a shot. I am at least as entertaining as a color commentator for the WFL. And I cost a lot less.
All lawyers like being on television. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. It's fun to plead a case before millions. I've blabbed away on many shows I admire, and some I don't: I've had a shot at 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Geraldo Rivera, Inside Edition, something or other with Sam Donaldson, and a bunch of other segments of brief notoriety. (My favorite? Diane Sawyer. She would have been dynamite in a courtroom: she has an instinctive ability to connect that is uncanny.)
But I have never done Larry King. Or, rather, King has never done me.
I suppose that is because I am decidedly uncool. King speaks with easy familiarity to and about the rich and powerful. He confers some sort of secret membership to a club I've never been invited to join merely by saying hello. Alas. I never made the list of cool kids in high school either. Come to think of it, I've never had a chance to talk to Don Imus, either.
A report in this morning's New York Times trots out names of the usual suspects as potential replacements for King: Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Piers Morgan. Even Eliot Spitzer's name has been thrown into the mix. Please, say it ain't so.
It's time for new wine. I mean Larry King didn't spring fully formed from the brow of Lord Network. King apparently got his start in decidedly inglorious surroundings. He was the color commentator for the Shreveport Steamer of the World Football League. King is an acquired taste.
I've a proposal for CNN. Break the mold. Turn your back on the established personalities and media darlings of the day. Create a new king, even as you created King.
Americans love the courts and crime. We're thrilled when a politician tumbles and is exposed as venal. Each of us is passionate about what justice requires, even if few of us agree on what is just. And we all love stories. So why not a storyteller on CNN? Someone familiar with the courts? Why not, since we won't pick one for the Supreme Court, a trial lawyer?
The great and colorful voices of King's generation are, like King, perhaps too long in the tooth to want to bite down on a new commitment. Gerry Spence is in his early 80s. F. Lee Bailey, though sharp as a tack, seems content these days to take it easy. Sure, Mickey Sherman is always available, but he is, well, Mickey Sherman. It's time for a new generation.
Oh, I know about Nancy Grace and the former blonde judge from Court TV whose name I cannot recall. But why do prosecutors and judges get to have all the fun? Who speaks for the defense on prime time? Anyone?
How creative is CNN prepared to be? Will they turn the time slot over to a trial lawyer? What not create a new star? Scott Greenfield over at Simple Justice has developed a following with a simple formula: three opinions a day, day in day out, and a web of friends and contacts stretching coast to coast. He has a distinctive voice.
Of course, if he declines, I have another candidate. He also has a voice, although not so well known. He's opinionated, brash and also loves the limelight. What's more, he's wanted to appear on King's show. C'mon, folks. Try a virtual unknown. Give me a shot. I am at least as entertaining as a color commentator for the WFL. And I cost a lot less.
Smart Thinking In Philadelphia's D.A.'s Office
There may be hope after all, at least in Philadelphia. R. Seth Williams, the city's new district attorney, is doing the unthinkable: he's trying to get smart on crime. In Williams' mind that means something more than throwing the book at everyone who makes a mistake. It means making an intelligent assessment of what is worth prosecuting. Would that there were more prosecutors like Williams.
It is too often the case that police and prosecutors disclaim responsibility for their actions: If they detect what they think is a violation of the law, arrest is automatic. It is then left to the criminal justice system to dispose of the new case on terms it deems just. After all, it is lawmakers who define what is and is not a crime.
This is the coward's way out of really reading the separation of powers clause extant in virtually every state constitution. Good government is not the stuff of mindless automatons, each marching lock step to the silent rhythm of Big Brother's respirator. We ask homeowners to "call before you dig" as to hidden power lines on or near their property; is it really too much to ask prosecutors to think before they prosecute?
Lawmakers are often detached from the consequences of the decisions they make. It is easy to posture deep in a legislative cocoon about the need to get tough on crime. Each year, there are new crimes, new mandatory minimums, new bandages to slap on the gaping wounds of a society rubbed raw by an economy that doesn't work and a melting pot boiling over with rage. We expect too much of the courts when we ask the criminal justice system to dispose of every errant soul detected on law enforcement's radar.
In Philadelphia, Williams is traveling to schools, talking to kids about the importance of hope, of good grades, graduation and taking control of a future that too often looks frightening and foreboding. What's more, he is directing his office to plead out lesser offenses such as the possession of marijuana, a cocktail rolled in cigarette papers, from jail time to community service.
Williams knows he has bigger issues in the city of brotherly love. The city has the highest per capita murder rate of any city in the nation. Its conviction rate for these offenses is at the bottom of anyone's list of statistics. Williams hopes that by focusing on what matters, city residents will not only feel safer, but also be safer.
Of course, Williams has critics. The former D.A., Lynne Abraham, thinks Williams is a little too cozy, even if unintentionally, with the Mexican drug cartels, who will benefit from the city's new more lenient marijuana prosecution policy. That's just silly. The war on drugs is a resounding failure. The city tries as many as 4,000 marijuana cases a year. Disposing of these cases with something less than trial will help the city more intelligently focus scarce criminal justice resources.
I like what I am reading about Williams. He's making intelligent decisions as a prosecutor, a feat all too rare in the nation's courthouses. Keep an eye on this prosecutor. He's going places. I hope his message of intelligence use of prosecutorial discretion spreads like wildfire.
It is too often the case that police and prosecutors disclaim responsibility for their actions: If they detect what they think is a violation of the law, arrest is automatic. It is then left to the criminal justice system to dispose of the new case on terms it deems just. After all, it is lawmakers who define what is and is not a crime.
This is the coward's way out of really reading the separation of powers clause extant in virtually every state constitution. Good government is not the stuff of mindless automatons, each marching lock step to the silent rhythm of Big Brother's respirator. We ask homeowners to "call before you dig" as to hidden power lines on or near their property; is it really too much to ask prosecutors to think before they prosecute?
Lawmakers are often detached from the consequences of the decisions they make. It is easy to posture deep in a legislative cocoon about the need to get tough on crime. Each year, there are new crimes, new mandatory minimums, new bandages to slap on the gaping wounds of a society rubbed raw by an economy that doesn't work and a melting pot boiling over with rage. We expect too much of the courts when we ask the criminal justice system to dispose of every errant soul detected on law enforcement's radar.
In Philadelphia, Williams is traveling to schools, talking to kids about the importance of hope, of good grades, graduation and taking control of a future that too often looks frightening and foreboding. What's more, he is directing his office to plead out lesser offenses such as the possession of marijuana, a cocktail rolled in cigarette papers, from jail time to community service.
Williams knows he has bigger issues in the city of brotherly love. The city has the highest per capita murder rate of any city in the nation. Its conviction rate for these offenses is at the bottom of anyone's list of statistics. Williams hopes that by focusing on what matters, city residents will not only feel safer, but also be safer.
Of course, Williams has critics. The former D.A., Lynne Abraham, thinks Williams is a little too cozy, even if unintentionally, with the Mexican drug cartels, who will benefit from the city's new more lenient marijuana prosecution policy. That's just silly. The war on drugs is a resounding failure. The city tries as many as 4,000 marijuana cases a year. Disposing of these cases with something less than trial will help the city more intelligently focus scarce criminal justice resources.
I like what I am reading about Williams. He's making intelligent decisions as a prosecutor, a feat all too rare in the nation's courthouses. Keep an eye on this prosecutor. He's going places. I hope his message of intelligence use of prosecutorial discretion spreads like wildfire.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The Nigerians Aren't Alone In Fostering Internet Scams ...
... So is the Democratic Party. I got this email this morning. Apparently, I have some sort of account. See for yourself. I have an account number and everything. There is even a date the account was opened.
The only problem is I have never made a contribution and I do not recall ever opening an account. Could it be that the Democrats are resortint to fraud to raise money?
Mind you, I am more sympathetic to the Democrats than the Republicans. But Internet scam artists all deserve scorn. Shame on the Democratcs.
Here'a copy of the email:
Supporter Number Supporter Name Supporter as of Contribution Status
5678697 NORMAN PATTIS 04/08/2008 Pending
Dear NORMAN,
We were reviewing our supporter records and saw that you had not yet made an online gift to the DSCC. The November elections feature a huge and ever-shifting map. And Karl Rove's American Crossroads group just announced on Friday that it is turning the full force of its fundraising machine against no fewer than eleven Democratic candidates.
The DSCC is counting on every one of our grassroots supporters to defeat Republicans and defend President Obama in November. We can't win without your help. Would you consider making a contribution today? Even $5 will make a difference in races from coast to coast.
Please click here to make a gift of $5 or more to the DSCC.
When you give to the DSCC, you'll become part of a powerful grassroots force that has helped elect 14 new Democrats to the Senate since 2006. There is no path to victory in November without the support of committed Democrats just like you. Please consider making an immediate donation.
Thank you.
J.B. Poersch
P.S.: Even a gift of $5 will make a difference in November. Please become a supporter of the DSCC today. We need your help to win in November!
The only problem is I have never made a contribution and I do not recall ever opening an account. Could it be that the Democrats are resortint to fraud to raise money?
Mind you, I am more sympathetic to the Democrats than the Republicans. But Internet scam artists all deserve scorn. Shame on the Democratcs.
Here'a copy of the email:
Supporter Number Supporter Name Supporter as of Contribution Status
5678697 NORMAN PATTIS 04/08/2008 Pending
Dear NORMAN,
We were reviewing our supporter records and saw that you had not yet made an online gift to the DSCC. The November elections feature a huge and ever-shifting map. And Karl Rove's American Crossroads group just announced on Friday that it is turning the full force of its fundraising machine against no fewer than eleven Democratic candidates.
The DSCC is counting on every one of our grassroots supporters to defeat Republicans and defend President Obama in November. We can't win without your help. Would you consider making a contribution today? Even $5 will make a difference in races from coast to coast.
Please click here to make a gift of $5 or more to the DSCC.
When you give to the DSCC, you'll become part of a powerful grassroots force that has helped elect 14 new Democrats to the Senate since 2006. There is no path to victory in November without the support of committed Democrats just like you. Please consider making an immediate donation.
Thank you.
J.B. Poersch
P.S.: Even a gift of $5 will make a difference in November. Please become a supporter of the DSCC today. We need your help to win in November!
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