If the president’s solution to sorting out disputes between cops and people who get angry with them is to sit everyone down for a beer, then he’s either looking for excuses to drink and stumbled on a doozy, or he’s going to have to learn to handle his Bud Lights. Why? Our next couple is waiting in the wings :
District resident Pepin Tuma, 33, an attorney in private practice, said the arrest took place at 17th and U streets, N.W., shortly after midnight July 26, seconds after a police officer overheard him telling two friends “jokingly” and in a loud voice, “I hate the police.”
Tuma said he made the comment in jest as he and two friends, who also are lawyers, were walking to Dupont Circle gay bar Cobalt while talking among themselves about the controversial arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates in Cambridge, Mass., for disorderly conduct.
In an e-mail to Lanier, Tuma said that after repeating twice to his friends in a “sing-song” voice, “I hate the police,” an officer “charged 40-50 feet towards us while yelling at me phrases like ‘who do you think you are’ and ‘who do you think you’re talking to.’”
“As Officer Culp moved me toward a police cruiser, he told me to ‘just shut up, faggot,’” Tuma told Lanier in his e-mail.
Will that be two Bud Lights, gentlemen?
I tend to doubt that a personal meeting with the warring factions will produce sufficient change. While Henry Gates’ problem may have been a little closer to the President’s heart, them being friends and all, he can’t now ignore the gay bashing cop. That would be offensive.
But the problem isn’t black. Or gay. It’s cop. And the more we try to wiggle between the hard facts, the cold law and appeasing that large segment of society that is very fond of police officers, no matter what (and coincidentally, isn’t always so fond or tolerant of blacks or gays). We just don’t seem to be making much headway with the notion that being disrespectful, even mean, to a police officer is not a crime. Maybe some of the TV talking head guys will borrow this quote from a commenter at Turley’s blog:
“The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.” Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 462-463 (1987)
Seriously, it’s the perfect length for a sound bite and will make you seem remarkably learned. We won’t tell where you got it from. Promise.
Sitting around a courtroom waiting for your case to be called is one of the primary activities of a criminal defense lawyer in New York City. There are many things to do to occupy your time, ranging from counting to 21 on body parts to silent critique on the latest in street fashion. One of my personal favorite pastimes is to watch young lawyers, men and women I’ve never before seen, stand up and make the most of their 30 seconds before the court.
There are occasional flashes of brilliance, guts, creativity. There is a more steady stream of lawyers repeating the typical jargon, routine sounds that tell us that whatever purpose is being served during those precious seconds, it’s not different to the lawyer than the case before it or the case after. It’s as if this was a big charade with a predetermined outcome, and they are just going through the motions. And indeed, that’s exactly what it is to them.
Most young lawyers, and far too many more experienced ones as well, have a deep desire to play the role of the yeoman. They learn in their first few weeks of practice to mouth the words that the bulk of lawyers do, so they can repeat the mantras of the law like a pro. Their last two years of law school, steeped in theory that bears no connection to anything they will ever have to do for client, they are left with only the most basic lessons of year one. The lessons of ancient history. They want to be accepted by the guild of lawyers who regularly appear, and these lawyers say the mantra so perfectly that they are the models the new kids emulate.
I was once one of these young lawyers, but had a nagging belief that if I looked harder, tried harder, thought harder, I could find a way to accomplish anything. Which brings me to Dan Hull’s post, imploring lawyers to get some fresh eyeglasses.
Few of us can have Albert Einstein’s talent for Western logic, or IQ. But Einstein’s advantage over other physicists may have been that he was a “new soul”; he looked at everything as if he were seeing it for the first time.
Work. He approached it from a wellspring of joy. There are others like him in that respect. Those are the kind of people I want as friends to inspire me, and as co-workers to solve clients’ problems. I’ll take an IQ a lot lower than Einstein’s (for associates, though, Coif or Law Review would be nice).
Reverence and a child’s awe. That’s the outlook I prize. Energy, intensity and creativity always seem to come with it.
Dan has captured the essence of what it means to be a lawyer. No, not one of those yeomen who can spout the mantras with perfection. That’s not lawyering. Every case, every client, is an original. It’s the very first time. No case has ever happened before, and it’s entirely up to you to invent it in whatever fashion best serves your client.
The vast majority of lawyers, not to mention judges, view the law as something that’s already happened. Some brilliant person who died centuries ago came up with the ideas, and everything since is just its routine application, with the odd minor tweak here and there.
There are few lawyers, a handful, who create the law. Who challenge precedent. Who broaden old horizons, and see new ones that no one has ever seen before. To this handful of lawyers, no case is typical. No client is common. No scenario is garden variety. Every one is absolutely, totally, completely new. Every case is an opportunity to be a virgin. Again.
These lawyers look at a case like a child, unaware of what “can’t be done” and determined instead to just find a way to do it. They see the law as if it’s the first time, with infinite possibilities and no fear that the burdens of the past will crush their spirit. They believe that they can accomplish great things.
Which lawyer are you? Which lawyer do you want to be? It’s entirely up to you.
So Plaxico Burress had a gun. He had it on him when he went out in Manhattan to do a little partying. In some cities in America, this makes him a regular guy. In Manhattan, this makes him so serious a criminal that he’s got to go to prison. Dallas Cowboys fans finally have a reason to love New York’s highly restrictive carry law. But the New York Football Giants need him. The New York football fans want him.
The New York County District Attorneys office has a different idea for Plax’s new training regimen. According to Sports Illustrated, negotiations for a plea broke down with Ben Brafman, Plax’s lawyer, shooting for one year, and the prosecution demanding two. After trial, he’s looking at three and half. Anyone who lived through the Ray Handley years knows that the Giants can’t take two years of failure, no less three and a half.
The Plax defense is a strategic nightmare. There is none. There is no question that he had the gun, and no question that he committed a crime. The only argument in his favor is that he did not possess the gun to be an evil, violent person, to use it for unlawful or malevolent purposes against another. Wrong? According to the law, no question about it. Bad? Well, that’s according to whether you feel that someone is bad just because a law says you can’t do something. Laws, like panty hose, are written so one size fits all. As the photo of Plax and Brafman shows, one size does not fit all. No, that’s not a doctored photo. Brafman is, well, diminutive in stature. But he’s got one heck of a bite.
The old saw is that when the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue the facts. But here, everything is against Plax. For many lawyers, begging would come to mind as the best option. But I doubt that Ben Brafman is much for begging.
Given the situation, and the defendant, it was only natural that thoughts would turn toward the long ball. Plaxico would do the unthinkable. He would walk into the grand jury, face 23 (they will all show up for this one) good men and women (hopefully more men than women) and tell the truth. He would tell them what he did and why he did it. He will explain that one size does not fit all, and hope that at least a majority of the 23 accepts the idea that they, good citizens of New York County, will decide that New York’s very strict, very harsh gun law doesn’t fit the wide out. They will return a “no true bill.”
Despite our country’s rich history of nullification, it’s frowned upon by the law as a means of allowing a person to escape criminal liability. It’s the longest of long shots, the ultimate end run. It’s a “hail Mary.” If there’s anyone in New York who can bring the “hail Mary” home, it’s Plaxico Burress.
Some say it’s crazy. Some say it’s too risky. I say Brafman nailed it. When Ben Brafman puts his mind to a case, he’s one of the best there is. And when it’s a high profile case, Ben puts his mind to it.
Vermont Lawprof Michael McCann considers the risks of the move:
Depending upon the prosecutor’s style and tactics, Burress may have testified in a very hostile environment. By testifying, Burress may have also unwittingly revealed his potential trial strategy to prosecutors. Even worse, if he ultimately faces a trial and testifies in it, his testimony must be consistent with his grand jury testimony, for otherwise he could face additional charges for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Given those drawbacks, Burress’ decision to testify would appear unwise.
In some other case, some typical case, McCann’s points would have some merit. But one size does not fit all. Plax has nothing to give away, and there’s no reason in the world for him to fudge his testimony. There’s no secret awesome trial strategy to reveal. On the law and facts, he dead as they come. These are the cases that separate pedestrian lawyering from greatness. Even when looking brilliance square in the face, some lawyers won’t recognize it. Not even some lawprofs.
The SI article offers an explanation of the defense side by “New York criminal defense attorney and former Manhattan prosecutor Jeremy Saland.” Gulp. Apparently his bona fides as a criminal defense lawyer are inadequate, requiring him to establish his value by announcing that he was a former prosecutor. It’s worth noting that Saland has a blog called New York Criminal Lawyer Blog, a sleazy, unadulterated, self-promotional, advertising blog. It’s a shame that a decent blog name died for this purpose.
Saland attempts to explain what Brafman was thinking:
Burress’ appearance before the grand jury appears driven not by a desire to claim innocence but rather by a desire for jury nullification — meaning, in this case, the grand jury would decide to disregard the actual law which Burress appears to have broken.
“By humanizing himself beyond the perception that he is a privileged athlete, painting himself as remorseful, and establishing that he was the only one hurt, Burress hopes that he can mitigate and ‘nullify’ the evidence,” Saland says. “Yet, the reality for Mr. Burress is that unless he can sway the emotions of the grand jury towards ‘nullification,’ he lacks a true legal defense.”
On a superficial level, he’s accurate. But if that was all Plax had to offer, he might as well surrender while he’s at 100 Centre Street, as that’s not going to do the trick.
The grand jury testimony has got to distinguish between the purposes served by the law, to prevent people will ill-intent, criminal motives, from walking around the City with gun in waistband to shove into the ribs of some working man who’s just left the ATM, or the lesser culpable drug dealer just protecting himself from deal gone bad, and the well-intended, even constitutional, purpose of a target for the criminal.
Plaxico Burress must show the grand jury that he didn’t carry a gun to stick anyone up. He would never harm another human being deliberately (off the field). He wasn’t carrying the weapon to use it affirmatively against another person. None of the purposes for which the Legislature made it illegal to possess a weapon apply to his situation. One size does not fit all.
Plax has to explain to the jury what it’s like to be a sports hero in this town. While most New Yorkers admire his efforts on behalf of the New York football Giants, there are people walking around who see a bullseye on his back. Whether because he’s wealthy, and would provide a good yield to anyone who wanted whatever was loose in his wallet, or just because taking down Plaxico Burress, big time wide out for the Giants, would make some punk a big man on the street. At least in his own, warped mind. High profile people are targets to people with sick minds. Plaxico Burress is one such target. He may be big and tough on the football field, but he’s just a normal guy, trying to enjoy a night out with friends, and hoping to make it home without incident. Is that too much to ask?
But Plax, that’s why New York City has a police force larger than the population of most midwestern cities. True dat, but they aren’t standing next to you when the shiv slips between your ribs. The reality, as Plax must explain, is that the cops will show up to cordon off the crime scene, but a little too late to stop the bleeding. It’s not the cops’ fault. They can’t be everywhere. But that won’t save Plaxico Burress from death at the psycho’s hand. He felt the need to be capable of defending himself, and he is, like it or not, a target.
Plax will be remorseful. It wasn’t his plan to break the law, but just to survive a night out. Is it wrong, when someone has a bullseye on his back, to want to survive? Is it better to break no law but lie dead on the floor? Since Plax would never use his gun offensively, criminally, against another person, is the purpose of this harsh law served by prosecuting him? Is anyone better off by putting Plax in prison for years? Years! That’s what this law demands. Does it make any sense this time? He’s not the man for whom this law was intended. One size does not fit all.
And there’s no downside, as McCann suggests. There’s no trial strategy that might be spilled inside the grand jury. There’s no trial strategy beyond nullification. You can bet your life that Ben Brafman prepared Plax within an inch of his life for this grand jury testimony, and should he testify at trial, there will be no inconsistency. Nor should there be. There’s no reason for Plax to lie. The truth is the best he’s got, and the only thing to do is tell it well.
Will it work? Who knows, but given what’s at stake and the options available, it was a bold move. Why pass up the first opportunity to prevail upon the soul of the grand jurors to serve a higher purpose than rubber stamp an indictment. There are too few chances to pull down the long ball to pass up this first and ten opportunity. It’s just a matter of doing it well, doing it right, and there aren’t many lawyers capable of clearly understanding how to make the most of this opportunity, maximize the chance for success. There aren’t too many lawyers with the stomach to make such a bold play.
And if you’re wondering, should this attempt to nullify fail, anticipate that Ben Brafman’s next tactic, post-indictment, will be a major effort to apply Heller’s constitutional right to self-defense to Plaxico Burress’ reason for carrying a gun. Given the particulars, this could prove to be the perfect case to put Scalia’s dubious dictum to the test. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark Baker was hard at work on the memorandum of law already.
When lawyers chided the lawprofs about their alleged disconnect from the actual practice of law, the usual response is that they not only engage in their scholarly endeavors, but roll in the trenches every now and again to keep their law chops in shape. Given Paul Lippe’ssalvo across the bow of the Academy, this detail is elevated to critical status.
I held this claim to be sacred. My heart is now broken. Southwestern Lawprof David Fagundes has crushed my spirit.
I wrote a few weeks ago about whether lawprofs count as lawyers. There is, in my opinion, no right or wrong answer to this question, but one distinction between the two is clear: you have to be a bar member to do much of the work of a lawyer, but you don’t have to be a bar member to work as a law professor. Indeed, some law professors, such as HLS’s Duncan Kennedy and Scott Brewer, have never even taken a bar exam.
That said, I’d wager that most law professors are bar members, and I’m no exception, having been a member of the California Bar since 2003. When I was working at a firm, this was a requirement, but since I left for academia, it obviously isn’t any longer, and I’ve grown ambivalent about whether it makes sense to maintain active bar membership status (primarily because of the high cost of bar dues: $410 last time around and going up every year).
While David didn’t ask for the opinion of practicing lawyers, but rather elected to keep it within the chorus, I realize that my barging into the discussion is boorish and vulgar. But then, I’m a lawyer. What would you expect?
First, David, there is a “right answer” to the question of whether lawprofs count as lawyers. You should. Not that you do, but you should. Here’s a secret for all the lawprofs harboring doubts as to their lawyerdom. You’re supposed to be teaching kids to become lawyers. That’s why the kids are paying tuition. That’s why your employer is accredited. That’s why you get a paycheck, modern pedagogical notions notwithstanding. If there were no students, you would have to work for a living. See the connection?
The obvious cliché to be inserted at this moment is “those who can do; those who can’t teach.” I don’t buy into that joke at all. Some of you guys are awfully smart. Some just think brilliant thoughts. But when brilliance looses its connection to purpose, then it ceases to matter. Once you’ve elected to divorce yourself from the practice you’re charged to teach, you have lost your intellectual authority.
It seems that the trend, if anything, should go in the exact opposite direction. Certainly nobody needs another law review article that no one in a position to make or influence the course of the law will ever read, but the real world could use some more laboring oars rowing toward a more just society. Lawprofs should not only be required, required, to be members of the bar (including the bar of the state in which they teach), but should be required to engage in the practice of law throughout the course of their teaching career.
It’s like this: Guys (and gals, since I know Ann Bartow keeps numbers on this sort of thing), having some clue about how the things you spout actually happen, whether in the courtroom, the wood-paneled office, the street or the kitchen table, is necessary for you to impart to young minds what they will spend the rest of their natural lives doing, assuming they make it out of law school, pass the bar and stay in the profession long enough. They believe you when you tell them things. They believe you know what you’re talking about. They trust you. And it’s not worth it for you to actually do, every once in a while, the thing you teach? Aw, come on. Even if you suck at being a lawyer, at least you will have some idea of what it means.
In reaction to challenges such as Lippe’s, lawprofs respond that they believe that law schools are doing an adequate job at turning out people capable of practicing law. In order to credit this opinion, however, there must be a basis for the lawprofs to know what constitutes the capacity to practice law. How does a lawprof who has never passed the bar judge such a thing? What about the lawprof whose entire frame of reference consists of three years writing memos at Biglaw? Or the one whose experience was limited to a United States Attorney’s office? This isn’t the practice of law. At best, you’re barely out of knickers. You only get to have an opinion if you have basis in reality to form it. That basis has to be earned, and you can’t earn it if you don’t do it.
Still don’t believe me? How do you think Charles Nesson is doing on the Joel Tennebaum trial? Put aside the fact that he forgot how one dresses for trial. Do you think it’s significant that Nancy Gertner, as good a judge for Nesson as could possibly be, had her fill of him from the outset:
Indeed, on several occasions “sustained” escaped from Judge Gertner’s lips before Oppenheim even had the chance to object. Chiding Nesson on his frequently unorthodox questions, Judge Gertner at one point told the evidence professor, “I’m just trying to translate this into the Federal Rules of Evidence.” And when Nesson, reacting to a sustained objection, explained what he was trying to “say,” Gertner cut him off: “You’re not supposed to be saying anything. You’re supposed to be asking questions.”
Is Nesson brilliant? Not if he can’t ask an unobjectionable question. And this is someone who is supposed to teach evidence to law students? Scholarship is no excuse for functional imcompetence.
David Fagundes would do well to keep his bar admission active. Not just active in terms of paying the freight, but active in reality. If he wants credibility in the classroom, or even in the law review, there’s only one place to earn it. It’s not the marble hallways of academia. It’s the trenches of the courtroom. At the absolute least, you ought to know where the local courthouse is.
The following is added for practicing lawyers only. All lawprofs can return now to more scholarly pursuits. Bye.
Just so you know, some of the lawprofs will come by and read this post. Chances are slim that they will comment here, or write about it elsewhere. They hate it when someone like me, a pedestrian lawyer, takes them on. I get nasty emails, asking me to keep them private, lambasting me for being so mean and confrontational. Why can’t I be more like them, collegial, and demure.
But they will read the post, if for no reason that to have yet another reason to stick a pin in their voodoo doll of me. It’s a shame that we can’t have an honest discussion between the scholars and the trench lawyers, but they find our manner offensive and prefer to hide amongst their own where no one will ever say anything mean about them or facially challenge their facile self-deception.
As it’s becoming universally recognized that law schools, aside from its other problems, is becoming increasingly less relevant in producing competent practitioners, this discussion needs to be had. Until lawprofs are willing to have a real discussion with those who work in the trenches about where it’s failing, nothing will change. That conversation will not happen until the lawprofs decide to stop hiding from us. That they can’t handle the confrontational, even vulgar, manner in which we hash things out is part of the problem. We are lawyers, Lawyers face challenges head on. That they refuse to do so demonstrates why their lack of participation in the profession, as well as the discussion, imperils the future of law school.
So when you see that no lawprof respond, don’t assume they know nothing about this post. They do. Know that they have chosen to hide their sensitive heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge that there is a whole bunch of practicing lawyers who aren’t impressed with how they’ve chosen to put their brilliance to use. And that’s why law schools can’t produce functional lawyers.
I may be too hard on them, but somebody has to call them on this nonsense.
Update:Rick Bales, a lawprof at Chase Law School, Northern Kentucky University, left this comment to David’s post:
As privileged members of a distinguished profession, I believe we are ethically obligated to provide pro bono representation to those less fortunate. It is doubly true because we serve as role models for our students. In most states, however, we cannot perform pro bono legal work without a bar license. This, I believe, is reason enough to get a bar license in the jurisdiction in which you teach.
Rick Bales is my hero. I believe that Chase Law School has just hit Number 1 in USN&WR, and Bales is up for a Nobel Prize. Or at least a Greenfield Prize. I’m naming my next kid after him. Maybe even my next two kids. Or more.
As battles break out in backwaters over the proper attire for court, lawyers in the Big Apple felt confident that they could hold their head high, knowing that their judges, for all their other faults, perceived or real, were above such petty concerns. While this remains true in the land of fashion week, our heads hang in shame for the province to the north.
Bronx Judge Joseph Dawson has had enough of the skimpy, casual attire worn by defendants in his courtroom – and Monday he decided to let everyone know it.
“Your client comes up in a T-shirt and sweatpants, chewing gum?” Dawson chided lawyer Edward McGowan. “This court deserves more respect than that.”
Dawson admonished another man sporting a T-shirt and shorts: “I’m not saying you have to wear a suit. You don’t. Just wear something appropriate.”
Finally, a judge bold enough to state the obvious. Dress for probation. How many defendants have suffered the Rock just to put them in a slimming jumpsuit in place of those hot pants or, God forbid, the Frankie Say Relax t-shirt.
It used to be that the mere fact that a defendant showed up for court was enough respect to sate the appetite of a judge. They were so easily pacified across the river. Isn’t it time that defendants came to appreciate that court wasn’t a place to model the latest in Juicy Couture? Granted many defendants would sweat standing before a stern-faced titan of the law, but that doesn’t mean he should wear special enabling pants for the occasion.
Though Edward McGowan does note a problem with the edict:
McGowan, a lawyer with the nonprofit Bronx Defenders, said while the judge’s position is reasonable, sometimes “the clothes they got [are] the clothes they got.”
“All of our clients are poor,” he said. “What may be the best clothes they have might be considered by others to be disrespectful to the court.”
If you’ve ever taken a leisurely stroll down the Grand Concourse, you will note that there is neither a Gap nor Banana Republic to be found. Rather, the haberdasheries offer a style of clothing that is appealing to local tastes, at a price point matching the fiscal sensibilities of the natives. Very few people in the Bronx have a preppie wardrobe hiding in the back of their closet. It’s just not the way they roll.
I learned this from my own experience, advising (well, actually demanding) that my clients dress in accordance with my own refined sense of propriety and fashion-backward thinking, anticipating that attire more appealing to the tastes of the judge would remove a nasty distraction. I explained to my clients that court was not a place to meet new friends of the opposite sex, and it therefore would not harm their status on the street to dress in manner befitting a court appearance.
Of course, after acquittal, they would rip off the Oxford button down shirt in the hallway, revealing the “Vote For Pedro” tee underneath. Freedom is sweet.
During my decades as arbitrator in Manhattan small claims court, I was once confronted by a litigant who sat before me with his shirt open from collar to waist, revealing a hairless chest and the same musculature I possess, though mine is covered by the requisite layor of human protective material. It was, to be blunt, disturbing. I asked him why his shirt was fully open, and he told me it was “a look.”
Judge Dawson’s expectation that defendants consider the fact that they are going to court when they select their attire in the morning hardly strikes me as much of a stretch. Even in the Bronx, consideration of the day’s events should guide one’s choices. However, when one’s Sunday Best on the Concourse is either the best they can do, or a casual reflection of a cultural distinction, perhaps it would be wise to spend less time concerned with the questionable merit of halter tops or droopy pantaloons and appreciate the fact that the defendants have appeared as required by law, turned off their cellphones so as to avoid disruption and kept their hands to their sides.
Yes, the Bronx is where court-friendly fashion goes to die. But if that’s the only thing that dies in the Bronx, we’re way ahead of the game. No disrespect intended.
Throughout the Bernie Madoff fiasco, little made much sense. Ike Sorkin’s strategy of an open plea to an information. Denny Chin’s 150 year sentence. The government’s forfeiture stipulation with Ruth allowing her to keep $2.5 million. Finally, somebody has decided to do something inside the box, and it’s about time. The WSJ Law Blog reports that Irv Picard, trustee of the BLMIS, Bernie’s biz, wants Ruth’s dowry back.
For decades, Mrs. Madoff lived a life of splendor using the money of BLMIS’s customers. Regardless of whether or not Mrs. Madoff knew of the fraud her husband perpetrated at BLMIS, during the past two- and six-year statutory periods, she received tens of millions of dollars from BLMIS for which BLMIS received no corresponding benefit or value and to which Mrs. Madoff had no good faith basis to believe she was entitled. The purpose of this action is to recover that money to the extent possible for the benefit of BLMIS and its defrauded customers.
If one believes that Ruth had no clue that hubby Bernie was scamming the hell out of his customers, then she bears no moral or legal culpability for his actions. A stretch, but speculation as to the quality of their pillow talk is none of my business. But that has no bearing on whether Ruth gets to keep the loot.
I can appreciate, as can any right-thinking person, how difficult this has been for Ruth. Suffering the humiliation of falling from grace, not to mention losing her American Express Black Card and replacing it with a Wal-Mart Master Card. Seriously, she was left with only a pittance to survive.
Now $2.5 million in the bank, for most people, would be considered a respectable nest egg. Enough to do a dinner at Sonic plus a movie once a week. Enough to buy a new car every three years, if only a Corolla. But enough to survive if she was careful. And cut coupons. For most, this is doable, even normal and expected. But these would require choices and skills that are unfamiliar in Ruth’s world. It’s not her fault. Bernie’s take home pay was very healthy, and when your sugar daddy brings in the big bucks, you’re allowed to live a decent life.
But a Life of Splendor? Sure. Why not? If you’ve got the wherewithal, enjoy your life to the fullest. As far as you know, it’s your money, your life, and you get to live it any old way you please. Sorry for the anrachosyndicalists in the neighborhood, but rich people get to live like rich people. It’s not a crime. Unless it was a crime, which changes things.
Picard, whose job it is to recapture as much of the money that went through Bernie’s hands as possible and then dole it out to the victims of his fraud, has the duty of trying to get his hands on the money the government inexplicably decided to leave to Ruth. That’s his obligation, and he’s absolutely right to fulfill his obligations with zeal. He owes Ruth no sympathy, and she isn’t exactly a sympathetic person in the scheme of who’s been hurt here.
However, there’s no reason to attack Ruth’s lifestyle in the process, or to vilify her for having done what every red-blooded filthy rich American wife would do under the same circumstances. Picard doesn’t need to justify doing his job by literally adding insult to injury. Irv doesn’t need to win a public relations battle over his efforts to impoverish Ruth Madoff; there’s no one coming to her defense.
And is it wrong to leave Ruth broke? No. Not because she enjoyed the benefits of the good life, a life to which she was seemingly entitled given the zeros in the family bank account. This is America. People are allowed to be wealth and enjoy a Life of Splendor. It’s what the rest of us strive to achieve. Well, maybe not exactly a life of splendor, but the ability to afford to do as we please. To denigrate someone for enjoying the life which she can afford is to suggest that there’s evil in financial success. It is not evil. It’s the American way.
Ruth Madoff will learn to survive, just as the other 99.9% of Americans do. She will carefully follow the health care debate (health care is very important as one ages), and since she won’t be dining at the best restaurants frequently or attending charity Galas every Friday night, her clothing needs will be modest.
On the other hand, it’s unlikely that she will be eating cat food to survive. If she finds herself falling short at the supermarket check-out counter, she can always ask one of her sons for a loan. They still have a few bucks socked away.
When I received the email this morning from my buddy, the TV news talking guy, it was clearly not to be. He asked me to do color commentary on Ben Brafman’s strategy of putting Plaxico Burress into the grand jury to testify. He needed some background about what it all meant, the rules, the crime, the sentence. That was easy enough, but I was just too busy to go on air.
I called a friend of mine to ask him if he wanted to do it, but he was out of the office. Either he was too busy or he’s not taking my calls anymore. Either way, he wasn’t going to work.
Any Manhattan criminal defense lawyer want to do commentary on Plaxico Burress grand jury testimony today? DM me.
Hear that? Shhh. Listen closely. That, dear readers, is the sound of silence. No response. Nothing. Dead, perfect silence.
Now this would have been a pretty easy gig, it being a CPW3 and there being absolutely no defense on the facts. Sure, there was a Heller implication, but that wasn’t on the table today. So here is an opportunity for someone to get themselves on a network in New York City to talk about Plax. Yet not a single response.
This caused me to take a look at my followers, who at this moment in time number 573 after twitter’s vetting of spammers the other day. What did I see?
One wants me to look at her XXX pictures. Another has cheap airfares. A third tells me he’s a rainmaker of some sort, who follows twice as many people as follow him. A few people who have something to do with SEO. Then there are some who look to be lawyers.
Who are you people? Why have you followed me? I have almost 600 people following me, and how many could care less about what I have to twit. Not a soul there who cares a whit about what I was twitting. It went to the girl with the XXX photos. The rainmaker guy. Do they want to read my twits? I don’t think they do. I don’t think they follow me because they are interested in the same things as me. I think they want something from me. What could it be?
Whenever there’s a challenge to the efficacy of twitter, people post comments about community building, networking, and other meaningless marketing jargon and concepts artfully designed to sound as if it’s important and substantial. It’s so routine that I would expect the response to be straight out of Bangalore, all prepackaged and none bearing a resemblance to the use of English with which I’m familiar.
I am fully prepared to accept that twitter is working just great for all these business folks who have thousands of people dying to learn about their latest adventure in sales. It sounds remarkably like a commercial to me, and I’ve never been fond of commercials, so I don’t follow them. But I assume it must work for someone, or all these people wouldn’t be so excited about it. They must be thought leaders, which makes me thought leaderless.
So if there are almost 600 people in my room, but not one interested in what I’m twitting, then why am I doing this? And who are these people taking up space in my twitter room, giving me the impression that they want to read my twits when they aren’t really interested in me at all?
It seems that there might be a few lawyers, most likely within my particular niche, who would think that I might be a good person to follow. Maybe they do, and there’s no room for them with all the women with XXX pictures of themselves crowding the door. Maybe they got tired of the crowds and all left and followed someone more important than me. Maybe they aren’t really on twitter at all.
But not one person responded to my twit about the Plax commentary. Not one lawyer made a peep. In fairness, I checked the woman with the XXX pictures to show me. You never know. She could have a strong interest in criminal law.
The economic opportunity on the internet, while still evolving, has one significant flaw. There is a very low barrier for entry. That means that almost anyone can start up a business online and make a go of it. While this can present a vast opportunity for scammers and thieves, it similarly presents a bit of a problem for lawyers.
Almost daily, I receive an email about some new lawyer search website, spamming me about how it’s the Number 1 website to promote my practice. Lately, the spam has come as emails thanking me for joining their Number 1 website. Except, I don’t know who they are and I most assuredly haven’t joined.
The business model is simple. Put together a list of lawyer names and addresses from publicly available sources, mix in a basic search function, and you too can be the Number 1 lawyer search website on the internet. After that, it’s just a struggle for SEO supremacy and some advertisements. Lawyers are notorious at paying for advertisements if they can be sucked into believing that they will get business, whether it’s the yellow pages or the latest scummy effort like lawyersearch.com, whose 3 emails arrived yesterday.
Why was the site founded? The site was founded by Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School graduates who kept receiving the same requests from their friends, family, and neighbors: Do you know a good lawyer in this practice area?
But not a name to be found. Harvard really? Not that it matters.
Some will remember my thoughts about USLaw.com, the scummy website the skims blog content off RSS feeds to sell advertising on its site, under the theory that if they can steal it, it must be their right. This new lawyersearch is such garbage that they’ve listed at least one dead lawyer from my cursory inspection. I’m fairly certain that he didn’t join from the grave.
So why should we care that these entrepreneurs are skimming our content, taking out name, capitalizing off our existence to manufacture an enterprise? This is America, the land of opportunity. Shouldn’t every slacker be entitled to make a cheap buck off his effort to join the many others before him with the same idea?
To the person who finds your name on the website of some scum, along with his promises and representations, whether they be free consultations, brilliance or success, you are now perpetually tainted by whatever characterizations and representations that this entrepreneur, a total stranger to you, has imposed. For the poor reader who came upon your name through that website, it is no different than if you spoke the words yourself. You may not bear any responsibility whatsoever for the misinformation, but you are nonetheless tainted as far as the reader is concerned.
I googled myself today, and see that I am listed on many, perhaps hundreds, of legal directories. One might suppose that I am deeply engaging in marketing, getting my name listed wherever possible. I’m not. I don’t have a clue how I got there, but there I am. Much of the information is wrong, but it’s still there.
If nothing else, it gives the impression that I have sought to promote my availability to the public. I don’t see voices raised to inform the public that the lawyers listed in these low-entry-barrier scams have nothing to do with them, don’t endorse them, would prefer that they disappear off the face of the internet. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks this is a problem?
But I did not join your “club” and do not support your efforts. I don’t care how wonderful you think you are, what an important and valuable service you believe you are offering to the public (with a mere side of self-serving profit for yourself using my name). I am not part of your path to financial independence, and the fact that I can be easily found online, or that I have an RSS feed available to readers, does not mean that you are entitled to build your business on my coattails.
I am not a member of your club. I do not want to be a member of your club. Leave me out of your scam.
And to other lawyers, consider what your inadvertent inclusion in these lawyer search websites means for your integrity and public perception. This has grown far out of control, and every lawyer whose name shows up in these scummy websites is presented as every bit as scummy as the low-threshold entrepreneur. Is that who you want to be? Think about it.
Imagine, if you will, the judge taking the bench in the hushed, wood-paneled courtroom, and suddenly the room bursts out, NORM!
Even writing these words, a smile comes across my face. Not only for the pleasant memory of my favorite part of Cheers, but the idea that a judge might sit on the federal bench, less concerned with the solemnity of his reception than with the product of his efforts, would really be something.
Alas, it’s just a dream.
For a brief, shining moment, the possibility was out there that Norm Pattis might be appointed a United States District Court Judge. I was honored to be amongst the friends he called when the opportunity was first posed. His question was simple: Is this nuts? The answer seemed clear. Of course it is, but how can you say no?
We are offered only so many opportunities to do something meaningful in life. To pass them up is to waste them. It’s wrong to squander such opportunities. They are precious.
One such opportunity is to write a blawg, to possibly change a few minds, or let some folks know that they aren’t alone in their thinking. Another is to walk into court with the accused and bang one’s head against the wall, day after day, in the hope that every once in a while the right thing will happen. And then there is the chance to sit on the big bench and be the decisionmaker, the person who can, with the wave of a hand, stroke of a pen, utterance of a word, make justice happen. How can you say no to that possibility?
When the opportunity was dangled in front of Norm, he reacted as any sane person would. With grave reluctance. Sure, the opportunity was overwhelming. But he wasn’t the sort of guy who had himself fitted for a black robe at 29, just in case. He had dreams of power and prominence. The thought of sitting outside on a beautiful day reading a book brought him fulfillment.
But what about the dark side? Norm Pattis made a career out of speaking his mind, telling the truth as he saw it, and never pulling a punch. I flatter myself to think that I follow in his footsteps. He made enemies. That happens when one doesn’t sugar coat the truth, or keep one’s friends out of bounds. Even friends could be the target of Norm’s barbs, and if they were real friends, they understood and shot a barb or two back at him, to be followed by a beer and a laugh. But some couldn’t take it, and cried about how mean Norm could be. Yes, Norm made some enemies.
To become a federal judge, one needs to garner the support of the state’s federal politicians, particularly the senior senator. That’s who whispers in the President’s ear and says, “do me a favor and appoint my buddy here.” The minimum qualification for being the beneficiary of such a whisper is to not make too many enemies.
After a while, Norm heard back from the powerful fellow in his state, a fellow I might add whose mealiness knows no bounds. His very voice makes me twitch, I find it so grating. Yet, the people of Connecticut elected him, proving that they spend far too much time drinking gin and chatting with Muffy than checking their pants to be sure they’re still there.
It all came crashing down on me the other day. I am told that I will not enjoy the support of the Senator who matters in these things. And my congresswoman won’t extend a hand either. I am dead in the water, it seems, despite the good wishes from folks in New York.
I am not surprised, even if rejection hurts. I’ve thrown so many stones in my life it was hard to believe that some would not boomerang and come hurtling back at me. So in the trenches I remain, free to speak my mind and do as I please. Things could be worse.
I can’t say I’m surprised either. Norm didn’t fit the mold. Nobody who one would really want to sit on the bench fits the mold. But only those who do will get the support of important senators. That’s the way it works. If guys like Norm, or maybe even like me, had aspirations of greatness, we would have to sit in silence and bite our tongue. There is no way we could speak or write openly and honestly without making enemies.
Norm made his choice. He will suffer for it. As will the rest of us.
Mobile police used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf and mentally disabled man Friday after they were unable to get him to come out of a bathroom at a Dollar General store, authorities said.
After forcibly removing Antonio Love from the bathroom of the Azalea Road store, officers attempted to book the 37-year-old, on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and failure to obey a police officer, but the magistrate on duty at the jail refused to accept any of those charges.
Love was both deaf and mentally disabled, with the intellectual capacity of a 10 year old. After remaining in the rest room of the dollar store, it’s understandable that employees had some concern. So where is the dividing line between reasonable cause for concern and the use of taser and pepper spray? And then there’s always the resort to arrest and charges to cover up and justify their use of force.
Use of the Taser and the pepper spray appear to be justified according to the department’s policy, he [Christopher Levy, a Police Department spokesman] said.
This line, which almost invariably appears in every media account following the inappropriate use of force, often goes unnoticed, but is possibly the most troubling of all. Why should the police department’s “policy” trump the law, the Constitution, the rights of citizens to exist without being harmed by police resort to force whenever it suits them? The answer, it appears, is that its a necessary component of the public relations efforts of law enforcement to instill a belief in the public that they are entitled to do so. It’s their policy. And if it’s their policy, it must be proper. After all, if it was improper, it couldn’t be their policy, could it?
The most dangerous sense to live without when confronted by police if the ability to hear. When someone appears to ignore a command by a police officer, it tantamount to a facial challenge to their authority, Nothing raises fear and ire more than the refusal to succumb to their authority. Whether one prefers to all it deference, obedience, obsequiousness, it’s all the same to a cop. You’ve been given an order. You’ve failed to comply (often, fast enough). You deserve whatever follows.
It’s one thing to argue that someone of great intelligence, not to mention hubris, made the active choice to assert his rights, challenge conduct by an officer that was unlawful, or at least unjustified, and risk the consequences. But there are many people in our society who make no such decision. They simply can’t hear. They cannot hear the command, and cannot obey what they cannot hear. There is no moral wrong, even in the minds of the most blind adherent of police obedience, for a deaf person to be deaf. Or is there?
To this end, I note some of the more challenging comments from Jonathon Turley’s post about Antonio Love. First this :
If someone is disabled to that degree, then may be they should not be let out by themselves. How do the police know the individual in that bathroom is not dangerous? Newsfalsh: Police is not an expert in diagnosis on the spot.
I guess it is probably easy to judge others from comfort and safety of your place. I am not an LEO, I just hate people who feel entitled and are abusive towards the society. The handicapped man has been failed by his family and society, otherwise he would have been kept under supervision. Being drunk, drugged, or mentally ill, is not a carte blanche to inflict abuse on society or LEs. LEOs have to ensure their own safety first, when confronted with potentially dangerous situations. There is no way of telling what the “suspect” in the bathroom might have done beforehand. Monday morning quarterbacking anyone?
and
Freedom is not absolute and entails certain responsibilities, whether it is freedom of expression, moving around, etc. In this case, the guy disrupted a business establishment, and caused concern, if not fear in employees, and possibly the patrons in that establishment by his “freedom to move”. Freedom of moving about does not equal occupying the facilities of a restaurant for that length of time. Staying one hour in a public bathroom does raise legitimate concern about possible suspicious activity and public safety.
NPO, thank you for making a valid point. That man may have been engaged in any number of dangerous activities inside that restroom. It’s people like you who should be running things around here, and making the country a safer, and more hospitable place for true Americans.
God Bless You, friend …
As these comments demonstrate, the ability to rationalize the use of force by police, even at the expense of someone who is wholly blameless for his having refused to comply, seems utterly boundless. This forces me to ask, what is a deaf person, or for that matter, a blind person, a mentally disabled person, to do? It’s fine to assert that the police were merely wrong and this incident should never have happened, but unlike a Henry Gates who had a choice in how his interaction with Sgt. Jim Crowley came down, Antonio Love made no decision to take a chance.
This is hardly the first time a cop used unnecessary and inappropriate force on a deaf person, and it surely won’t be the last. As the case of Christopher Ferrell in Fort Worth showed, even the effort on the part of a deaf man to inform the police of his disability by taking a card out of his pocket that explained he was deaf can be the impetus for harm. There doesn’t appear to be much of a viable way to address the conflict of demanding cop and disabled citizen that results in safety and sanity.
One of the most distressing aspects is that promoted by Turley’s commenter, that a disabled person has no business being out in public, enjoying as much of life as he is capable. Others, in reaction to the Ferrell case, were ready to brand him with the scarlet letter, for his own good. It would appear that too many people are willing to either limit the rights of others to enjoy the rights and privileges of citizens of this country, or stigmatize them for convenience. And these include the well-intended folks, only trying to help.
This reaction stems from the belief that there is no stopping police from the knee-jerk resort to force at the slightest provocation, or the perception that force would relieve the officer of any potential risk or complete his mission with the least possible effort. Shifting the onus to citizens to accommodate police “policy” is not merely enabling, a giant leap down a slippery slope, but the perpetuation of the problem for citizens generally, and the disabled in particular. The solution is to stop the wrong, not blame the victim.
Don’t blame Antonio Love for being deaf and mentally disabled. Don’t blame his family for letting him out in public. Blame the men who employed force when they could have employed reason. If only Love was a Harvard professor and friend of Obama, perhaps the many inquiring minds of this nation would put in the effort make this a teaching moment. Antonio Love deserves no less than Henry Gates.
The old saw is that when the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue the facts. But here, everything is against Plax. For many lawyers, begging would come to mind as the best option. But I doubt that Ben Brafman is much for begging.