Mark Bennett, who has been engaged in a discussion that should have died a painful death long ago, has taken me to the woodshed for my very limited involvement on this go’round.
(Orthogonally: there is a building trend of passive-aggressiveness in the blawgosphere—lawyers criticizing other lawyers’ ideas without naming the other lawyers. Norm Pattis has long written this way; Scott Greenfield and John Kindley seem to be joining him. While I think I understand the impulse [is this the happysphere?], the practice usually seems contemptuous and is often dishonest. John’s post, for example, by referring to “RCDLs” generally, conflates my thoughts with ideas of Scott’s with which I don’t agree.)
Guilty, but with explanation. I’m often criticized for naming names when my point can be made in a softer, more obtuse fashion. As Bennett notes, it’s passive-aggressive, and dishonest. It allows one to feign a position of being nice while doing the damage one intends. It allows one to avoid responsibility for one’s words and views.
I’ve often written about conceptual errors espoused by new lawyers, where they announce their belief that each new lawyer is entitled to recreate the role of criminal defense lawyer in a way that comports with his personal philosophy and sensibilities. They are wrong. There is no room for equivocation on this subject; then you undertake to defend someone, you defend them. If you can get off the worst monster who ever walked the earth, you do so. If there’s a disingenuous, unfair, unjust opportunity to win the case (within the bounds of the law), you win. That’s our role, and any discussion to the contrary, or trying to justify what we do in terms of “justice”, is misguided.
But this is an old discussion, long ago had at great length. It’s involved a few different new lawyers, one of whom was John Kindley. I’ve no doubt that John is an intelligent person, but he’s also a very troubling lawyer , one whom I have serious doubts belongs in the role of criminal defense lawyer given his expressed understanding of his duty. As Bennett points out, I referred to him in my post and should have named him. That’s the honest thing to do, and my failure to do so was wrong.
My reason was two-fold. I’ve twice banned him from commenting here, due to his narcissism, belligerence and incredibly verbose, brutally boring and pointlessly tedious comments, which are invariably all about him. John, who has a blog of his own called People v. State, responded by arguing that I could dish it out but couldn’t take it. In John’s world, I owed him engagement. In mine, he was just another person who lacked restraint and reason, yet commanded me to pay attention to him.
He explained to his fans and commenters, Norm and Mirriam, that everybody thinks I have a screw loose. He may be right. I don’t know what everybody thinks. Regardless, I’ve wasted too much time with one new lawyer with peculiar ideas and overdeveloped sense of entitlement, and wasn’t inclined to waste more time or bandwidth. He’s free to speak his mind on his own blog, but I’m disinclined to allow him the opportunity to spew nonsense here, or to be pushed into dealing with his never-ending arguing.
As I don’t let John comment here, it struck me as wrong to direct my argument to him when I won’t allow him to respond.
As Bennett rightly points out, then I should have kept my keyboard quiet if I wasn’t going to name him. Mea culpa.
One additional aspect of Mark’s quote that bears some straightening out is the reference to real criminal defense lawyers, which John attributed to a twit of mine and then conflated with Bennett’s argument, as if we’re a conspiracy against him. I can see John wearing the tin foil hat, but then, he thinks I wear one too.
My twit was in response to a question posed by Mirriam, asking since when was there an “innocent only option” for criminal defense lawyers. Answers without questions aren’t meaningful, and John used it in a disingenuous fashion. Whether Bennett will agree with my thoughts in context I can’t say, but it’s fine that we disagree. The difference is that Mark is an experienced, credible criminal defense lawyer. As much as we may disagree from time to time, it’s in a reasonable and nuanced way.
There are plenty of new lawyers in the blawgosphere, each of whom believes he or she has something of interest and utility to contribute. Oftentimes, they do, but as a foil for discussion. John Kindley has eaten up far too much time and attention, as his peculiar thoughts simply don’t merit continued discussion. That doesn’t mean, however, that it was right of me to address him, even if tangentially, without naming him.
It’s my expectation that I won’t be mentioning John Kindley again. He’s too high maintenance and not worth the effort. But if I do, I will do so by name and be responsible for my statements. If John feels compelled to respond, which is like asking if a human feels compelled to breath, he can do so on his blog to his heart’s content. In the meantime, Norm is already hard at work trying to rehabilitate John, despite his bizarre views and without mention of Bennett. as is required of the Nice Old Man of the Happysphere.
I deserved to be taken to the woodshed. It’s a big woodshed. I wonder who else will join me. There’s plenty of room.
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I do like Kindley’s blog. And I don’t entirely agree that he’s dangerous as a CDL,but only because I don’t believe that people are made up entirely of what they write on their blogs. I also think it’s made for interesting discussion that really does cause us ot think about the nature of what it is we do and why we do it.
And, I don’t ever think about guilt, innocence, justice, etc. I do my job. Because I like sticking it to the man whenever I can.
Defendants are entitled to believe that they will receive a zealous representation from their lawyers, regardless of whether they are guilty or innocent. When a lawyer’s personal philosophy superimposes his own sense of justice on the repesentation, the client can never be assure of the lawyer’s undivided loyalty. Whether it’s the argument left unspoken, or the plea deal recommended, or the objection never uttered, there are a million ways in which the lawyer’s divided loyalty impairs his representation.
Some lawyers screw up because they just aren’t very good. Some lawyers screw up because they don’t have, or put in, the time to do it right. But to assert that there’s a higher duty than to the defendant, a lawyer is a danger to clients.
Few of us give this much thought; we understand that our duty to defend our clients is paramount.
When Bennett dredged up this old discussion, I asked him why. He responded that there were new people in the blawgosphere, and this was a discussion that needed to be raised again. As shown by your comment, he has a point. But then, we should really rehash many of the discussions had in the past again. Personally, I find it difficult to rehash old discussions just because new people join the conversation. It may be interesting to new people, but it’s not as interesting to me since I’ve been through it already.
I’ve rarely read Kindley’s blog, as I find it boring, narcissistic and tedious. Your mileage may very. My views of Kindley stem largely from the comments he’s left here, which are similarly boring, narcissistic and tedious. Kindley, no doubt, thinks he’s fascinating. You are free to find Kindley fascinating as well. It doesn’t change my view of him.
I understand that you’re tired of rehashing the same issues. It’s frustrating to hear the same simple-minded pseudo-philosophy over and over again. But, as you posted the other day, there are bits of hard-earned knowledge..”received wisdom” if you will..that do not change, no matter how many new people come along and try to reinvent the wheel.
The problem is, too many of them are forced to reinvent the wheel because there is nobody available to them to take the role of mentor/teacher and pass on the hard-earned knowledge.
Personally, I feel there is a duty to at least try to pass on to future generations what I’ve learned over the course my life (and not just the lawyer portion of it.) In fact, I think that may be as close as we come to have a “purpose” in life. But that’s MY obligation and I don’t try to impose it on anyone else. But I’m more than happy to sit in the amen pew when they do.
I agree with you, but that’s not the case here. Kindley doesn’t want a mentor. He’s been told, and believes that he’s right and everybody else doesn’t get it.
Much of what happens in the blawgosphere falls under the heading of mentoring, but we can only explain it to them. We can’t understand it for them.
Testing to see if I’m banned too.
Perhaps, then, you can abstain from those discussions you find repetitive and boring. I think though,a discussion on justice and our role in the system is always timely.
Ah crap, hit submit too quickly on that last one.
I’m with Bennett on this – to the extent that precisely because there’s an influx of new lawyers in the OS (that’s original ‘sphere for you n00bs), some ideas need to be reiterated from time to time and some dangerous ones need to be dispatched with the singular wit and brevity that Bennett brings.
Yes, I can abstain. It comes with the “publish” button. But the question isn’t timely, but repetitive. Different issues entirely. Would you write the same posts, over and over, because some reader tells you they find it interesting?
I agree with him as well, though I’m amazed at this going full tilt given that it’s already been around the block a few times. And doesn’t it suck when you’re trying to be funny and goof on us n00bs, and then you hit the button too early?
What can I say? I’m old and my mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be. And you’re not the n00b I was referring to *waves hand*.
Nope. I’m not going there.
Mirriam,
Do you have any thoughts on the use of the passive-aggressive voice (“it is said that [proposition that is to be refuted]. . .”) in blog posts?
Who cares about Kindley. He’s a nobody. But why is Norm Pattis giving blowjobs to every moron in the blogosphere? First he starts writing like a teenybopper with a broken heart, and now he’s kissing up to every flaky kid with a blawg. What happened to him?
I wish I knew. I like and respect Norm, but wish he would find a new analyst.
I believe that the likelihood that some person’s philosophy about why they may practice criminal defense law is unlikely to be changed by discussion.
There is a simple term phrase that sums it up and interested persons should be invited to research the phrase. The phrase is ‘noblesse oblige.’
As far as Bennett rehashing the subject, that can’t hurt. I was informed of the existence of Kohlberg’s sequence of ethical development. I did find that the step 6 descriptors of the attributes of the highest level of ethical reasoning is merely a distillation of those attributes that a person who fully understood the concept of ‘noblesse oblige’ would possess.
I by no means am implying that I possess these attributes.
Finally, I read a couple of pages of Kindley’s blog. Although he seems a little whiny it wasn’t a bad read.
Come on, Scott. Take to task the anonymous snipers, even when they agree with you.
You’re right. If he wants to take a swipe at Kindley or Norm, he should have the balls to use his own name. And, instead of coming to me to ask about Norm, go ask Norm and let Norm tell you what he’s up to. Thanks Lee.
I love that you call it ‘passive-aggressive voice’. I am a stream of consciousness writer so my shit never sounds that polished. It makes my brain hurt to read all of those words. But I don’t know if people really write the way they intend, you know what I mean?
I love that you call it highly-polished shit without saying it.
I don’t know what you mean.
I mean that I think people write stuff because they think it sounds good or pretty or whatever. Or, they are just saying it just to say it. Like idle office gossip (which I don’t miss one bit) or just general blather. In this case, it’s all philosophical banter. Which is fine.
Ahhhh. You know, I chose to be a criminal defense lawyer for a lot of reasons, and one of them is the peer group. For those of us who truly believe in the job we do, there is never a dull moment.
If I were guilty of a crime, I’d hire both Mirriam and Scott to form my team. And, during the recesses, I could just sit back and listen…