When Culpeper Town Police Officer Daniel Harmon-Wright shot and killed Patricia Cook, he claimed he had no choice.  If he hadn’t killer her, she would have killed him. That’s what he said.

Fifty-four-year-old Patricia Cook was shot to death on February 9 just outside a church parking lot in Culpeper, Virginia. The first two rounds, fired at point-blank range, tore into Cook’s face and arm. Another round, fired as Cook was driving away from the shooter, entered her brain. A fourth round severed her spine and veered into her heart, killing her. A telephone pole brought her Jeep Wrangler to a halt.

Patricia Cook had been parked in front of Epiphany Catholic School for a long time and refused to leave. The school called the police. A Culpeper police officer confronted Cook. Cook rolled up the officer’s arm in her window and punched the gas. The officer did what he had to do to stop the vehicle and save his own life.

Cook was a 54-year-old homemaker and Methodist Sunday school teacher who hadn’t received so much as a speeding ticket since the 1970s. She enjoyed quilting and cooking for her congregation at Culpeper United Methodist Church.

Local residents flooded the comment boards of the Star-Exponent*. Under the guise of anonymity, they defended “Pat” Cook, and called for an investigation into the Culpeper Police Department. “Two weeks after the shooting, [the publication] stopped that,” [Former elementary school teacher, 56-year-old James] Jennings says of the message boards. “It deleted all the existing comments and all the existing discussion on that.” The paper relaunched with Facebook commenting, requiring people to identify themselves. At that point, the message boards for the small-town paper went silent. “I think people were afraid to speak up,” Jennings says, adding, “there are a couple of bullies in town.”

So local news was sanitized, and local residents silenced. Even though witnesses disputed the police version of events, they were easily ignored. Who you going to believe, a hero cop or people who back a dead woman?

But Jennings wasn’t done yet.

Jennings created the Facebook page “Justice for Patricia Cook” on April 23. The About section reads, “Please consider joining our community, encouraging justice for the unarmed 54 year old woman who was shot by a Culpeper Police Officer, under questionable circumstances.” Beneath that description are the following questions: “What if it was your wife? What if it was your mother, sister, daughter? Would you be willing to sit quietly and say nothing? What if you pulled the trigger? Wouldn’t you want to see justice?”

Regional media, including the Washington Post, picked up the story, and miraculously, the Fauqier County special prosecutor convened a grand jury.

Yesterday,  one ex-cop’s world crashed :

Former Culpeper Town Police Officer Daniel Harmon-Wright was found guilty Tuesday on three charges — including voluntary manslaughter — in the shooting death of a woman in the parking lot of a Catholic school last year.

Most of the time, both the posts at SJ and the comments are negative, enough so that they might make people feel hopeless.  James Jennings refused to be hopeless, to give up.  He didn’t bomb the police station or scream wild-eyed threats; he persisted in demanding accountability, and rallied other, like-minded locals, to his cause. 

The good people of Culpeper prevailed, and a cop who killed a resident was convicted.  Don’t give up hope, and don’t quit. We may not win much, but if we don’t persist, we will never win.

H/T FritzMuffKnuckle

Following on  his decision in United States v. Dossie, castigating mandatory minimum drug sentences, Eastern District of New York Judge John Gleeson has taken the point a substantial step farther in his latest decision in United States v. Diaz.  Via Doug Berman :

Diaz will be sentenced in a few weeks, and when that happens I will carefully consider all the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) except one — the length of imprisonment recommended by the United States Sentencing Commission’s Guidelines Manual. Though I will not ignore Diaz’s Guidelines range, I will place almost no weight on it because of my fundamental policy disagreement with the offense guideline that produces it. In fairness to the government, I write here to explain my belief that the offense guideline for heroin, cocaine, and crack offenses (“drug trafficking offenses”) is deeply and structurally flawed. As a result, it produces ranges that are excessively severe across a broad range of cases, including this one.

The flaw is simply stated: the Guidelines ranges for drug trafficking offenses are not based on empirical data, Commission expertise, or the actual culpability of defendants. If they were, they would be much less severe, and judges would respect them more. Instead, they are driven by drug type and quantity, which are poor proxies for culpability. (Emphasis added.)

If the Commission wants greater adherence to the Guidelines, as it should, it needs to get better at fixing broken offense guidelines.  The drug trafficking offense guideline was born broken.  Many judges will not respect it because as long as the sentences it produces are linked to the ADAA’s mandatory minimums, they will be too severe.  Indeed, as discussed further below, for almost two decades the nation’s judges have been telling the Commission to de-link the drug trafficking offense guideline from those harsh mandatory minimums and to reduce the sentencing ranges.  The Commission should listen and act.  It should use its resources, knowledge, and expertise to fashion fair sentencing ranges for drug trafficking offenses.  That process will take time.  In the meantime, because real people, families, and communities are harmed by the current ranges, it should immediately lower them by a third….

On June 19, 1986, University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias died of a drug overdose. Congress promptly enacted the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (“ADAA”), which established a two-tiered scheme of mandatory minimum and enhanced maximum sentences that have now become central features of the federal drug sentencing landscape. The ADAA’s five-year mandatory minimum, with a maximum enlarged from 20 to 40 years, was specifically intended for the managers of drug enterprises, while the ten-year mandatory minimum, with a maximum of life, was intended for the organizers and leaders. 

But right from the start Congress made a mistake. The severe sentences it mandated to punish specified roles in drug trafficking offenses were triggered not by role but by drug type and quantity instead. Instead of prescribing a five-year mandatory minimum for a defendant who the government proves to be a manager of a drug enterprise, the ADAA provides that the mandatory minimum is triggered by offenses involving 100 grams of heroin, 500 grams of cocaine, or 28 grams of crack. And instead of hinging the ten-year mandatory minimum on the government’s proof of a defendant’s leadership or “kingpin” status, Congress simply used larger drug quantities: 1 kilogram of heroin, 5 kilograms of cocaine, or 280 grams of crack. So if an offense happens to involve a drug type and quantity that triggers a mandatory minimum, every defendant involved in that crime, whatever his or her actual role, can be treated as a manager or leader at the option of the United States Attorney. 

Two Stanislaus County Sheriff’s deputies were there to effect an eviction. Not exactly the sexiest duty around for the most part, but this one was a bit different.

“(Deputies) knew — and I mean they knew — the house was occupied by someone reported to have a cache of assault rifles, to be militaristic and to be unstable, with surveillance cameras, and nobody let (Engert) in on the secret,” San Francisco attorney Richard Schoenberger said Friday.

The phrases “Be very cautious” and “Is going to have problems” were noted next to the address on an eviction form given to the officers, the document says, and surviving deputy Mike Glinskas later confirmed in a Modesto police interview that the warnings were highlighted in red.

The deputies knew that evicting Jim Richard Ferrario might be difficult, and dangerous, but they had a job to do. That job required the help of a locksmith, and they got 35-year-old Glendon Engert to do the job.  Nobody bothered to tell the locksmith, the guy in front of the door, that there was any chance of danger.

But deputies took no special precautions and essentially “placed (Engert) in a ‘vertical coffin,’ ” the document reads, citing police jargon for doorways, where officers are most vulnerable when clearing a home.

Engert began disabling the lock to a heavy metal security door and paused at sounds inside, telling deputies, “I think someone’s in there,” the lawsuit says. Instead of having him retreat, they directed him to continue drilling the lock, and assault rifle bullets fired from inside pierced the door about 15 seconds after, the lawsuit says.

Deputy Bob Paris was shot in the head. Engert made it a few steps before he went down. Two dead on an eviction call.  While the death of Deputy Paris is a tragedy, it’s one that’s subsumed in the nature of the job, a risk that every cop knowingly undertakes.  More importantly, he knew that this was a dangerous job going in.

Glendon Engert had no clue.  He was a locksmith, not a law enforcement officer. When he went to work in the morning, he wasn’t afraid of not making it home for dinner. The job of locksmith doesn’t carry with it the inherent risk of death. 

Even so, there was a chance to minimize the risk when Engert heard sounds emanating from inside the unit.  Nobody is happy to be evicted, and regardless of whether they have a cache of guns or an unstable disposition, the locksmith isn’t there to argue. He just does locks.

Engert’s widow is suing the Stanislaus Sheriff’s office for his death.

Irina Engert filed a claim against the county in September; it was rejected last week. Her attorney, Schoenberger, said: “We didn’t take the decision (to sue) lightly. This has been a horrific experience for her, and she knows that bringing a lawsuit shines light on her wounds even more. We have done so soberly, with an eye toward doing justice for her.”

As the County rejected the claim, and thus liability for her husband’s death, the case goes to suit.  But it’s not like the County wasn’t paying attention to what happened that day, in the hallway where one deputy and one locksmith died.

The other deputy present, Mike Glinskas, escaped harm. The story told was a bit different.

On April 12, 2012 shortly before 11 a.m., Paris, Glinskas and Engert went to the front door of an apartment at 2141 Chrysler Drive in Modesto to serve an eviction. They knocked on the door and didn’t hear a response when suddenly the resident, Jim Ferrario, fired shots from a high-powered rifle through a security screen door, hitting Paris and Engert.

Glinskas was able to take cover, return fire on the [sic] on Ferrario and radio for help. He was pinned down and unable to get to Engert and Paris, but was able to “broadcast vital and critical information to responding law enforcement personnel.”

So the locksmith was killed and Deputy Glinkas took cover and “broadcast vital and critical information.”  When you see language like that, as if calling in the shooting of his fellow deputy and some locksmith was an act of either brilliant or bravery, the upshot is clear.  Deputy Glinskas was

awarded the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office Medal of Valor for his courage.

Deputy Mike Glinskas received the medal on Tuesday for his efforts during the deadly standoff earlier this year that took the lives of Deputy Robert “Bob” Paris and locksmith Glendon Engert.

It’s not such a terrible thing that the deputy got a medal for surviving. Cops get medals for less, and sometimes for things that would get a citizen imprisoned, so there is no reason to begrudge the deputy a medal of valor.

But this was a killing field waiting to happen, and it appears the deputies had no qualms about putting Engert in the middle of it, without the slightest clue that April 12, 2012 might be his last day on earth.  If they’ve got the time and interest to award medals to heros for doing their job, it hardly seems too much to ask that the County demonstrate a modicum of concern for the widow of the locksmith they put in harm’s way.

And if the County really wants to gain something useful from this tragedy of incompetent policing, that ended in a dead deputy, whose life is no doubt valued far higher than that of the poor, lowly locksmith, then maybe it should focus on training its deputies how not to die rather than giving medals for hiding and calling in the shooting..

H/T FritzMuffKnuckle

Humboldt County, California, Public defender Gregory Elvine-Kreis moved to dismiss the burglary indictment based upon the failure of then Deputy District Attorney Allan Dollison to turn over an interview of the defendant prior to trial.  Judge Marilyn Miles refused. 

Via the Times-Standard :

In opposing the motion to dismiss, [Deputy District Attorney Zachary] Curtis said Dollison had no reason not to disclose that he knew about the police interview.

”It just boggles the mind to think that the prosecutor would deliberately hide this information,” he said. “It just escaped Mr. Dollison entirely.”

Curtis said it amounted to “facts lost to an extremely busy prosecutor in an overloaded office.”

Elvine-Kreis said understaffing wasn’t a justification for the violation of a defendant’s rights.

”Part of the reason this happens is they are overwhelmed,” he said. “If they are overwhelmed, they need to hire.”

So the prosecutor was too busy to remember to turn over statements at trial?  Pretty outrageous, both because it’s a facile excuse and, as Elvine-Kreis argues, it’s not an excuse at all. Too busy is their problem, not the defendants. They are required to turn it over, and there is no exception to that requirement that it only applies if they remember or have the time.

Dismissal of an indictment is an extreme remedy, and the prosecution argued that there were other, lesser, remedies available to address the failure. Indeed, that’s true, such as preclusion of admission of the confession at trial.  While nothing has the impact of dismissal, the punishment of the prosecution also punishes the community for a prosecutor’s screw-up by putting a bad guy back on the street.  While many of us would argue, and believe, that the trade-off is well worth it, judges don’t always see the severity of prosecutorial failure and deprivation of constitutional rights as clearly as we do.

But what happened here isn’t exactly as clear cut as the defense’s motion suggests.  Defense counsel learned about the failure to disclose during opening statements at trial. Not a great time to learn that the defendant confessed.  This is the description of how it came down:

A mistrial was declared in the case on Dec. 13, following opening statements. Judge Marilyn Miles, who was overseeing the trial, granted the defense request when it came out that a police interview had taken place with the defendant outside of the scope agreed upon by her defense attorney at the time, and that the information she gave about her pending case was not turned over to the defense until the trial had started.

Wait a second. Did you catch this detail:

…a police interview had taken place with the defendant outside of the scope agreed upon by her defense attorney at the time…

While I’m having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around the significance of this statement, it suggests that the police wanted to “interview” the defendant, who was represented by counsel, without the lawyer present.  And this was good with the lawyer. And the lawyer and the police had some sort of agreement as to the “scope” of the interview, which the police somehow exceeded in the absence of the lawyer. And the lawyer knew that the police were interviewing the defendant but never learned what happened, what was said. 

And this is okay?

Like Elvine-Kreis, I too see the failure to disclose a statement because the prosecutor was too busy and forgot as utterly inexcusable, and worthy of severe sanction.  But then, I see the defense lawyer allowing a represented defendant to be interrogated by cops without being present as worse.

We expect the police to take advantage of defendants given the chance. That’s their job. They aren’t there to be kind and compassionate to criminals, but to catch them and make them confess their crimes. And the defense lawyer thought that some agreement as to scope of the interrogation would protect the defendant? That’s nuts. That’s incompetence.

Was the lawyer too busy to make it to the interrogation?  Sure, there are plenty of pressures, places to be, things to do. That’s the argument the prosecutor made in forgetting to turn over the statements. If that’s why the defense lawyer failed to be present (and why did the lawyer agree to let the defendant be interviewed by the cops at all?), it doesn’t get more ironic.

Some will follow their bias and forgive the defense lawyer while holding the prosecutor accountable. Indeed, one was just mind-bogglingly incompetent, while the other had a duty to fulfill.  But the defense lawyer had a responsibility as well, to provide zealous representation to the defendant.  Can’t make it to the interrogation? Then set it for a time you can make it. There is no time you can make it because you are so very busy? Then don’t let it happen.

In football, there are off-setting penalties, resulting in the terribly dissatisfying result of a do-over.  And there will be a do-over here, if the case is retried after the mistrial.  This sends a bad message to the prosecution that it’s acceptable to be too busy to fulfill their constitutional duties, and the worst that will happen is that they will be made to do what they should have done in the first place, and then get a second chance. Bad message.

But it’s really hard to work up a head of steam over the prosecution’s failure when the defense attorney failed as well.  The real shame here, which apparently eluded everyone, is that while the lawyers for both sides screwed up, the defendant will be the one to suffer on both accounts.

H/T FritzMuffKnuckle

The incident occurred in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on May, 2011, but it wasn’t until a shaky video appeared on Youtube that any gave a damn. 



The video was posted on January 6, 2013.  A brief article in the  New York Post explained:

The police chief in Connecticut’s largest city has pulled three officers off the streets after a video was posted online showing them kicking and stomping on a man they had already subdued with a stun gun.

In the video, a stun gun is heard being fired and a man falls to the ground at a park. Two officers stand over the motionless man and begin kicking him. A third officer drives up and attacks him. No complaint was filed.

Bridgeport city spokeswoman Elaine Ficarra said today that all three officers are on desk duty while authorities investigate the May 2011 encounter. Elson Morales, Joseph Lawlor and Clive Higgins are 10-year veterans of the police force.

Nearly two years had passed since the cops stomped the downed perp. But then, it never happened until there was video.  GW Lawprof  Jonathan Turley asks why:

Even though courts have consistently ruled that such filming is protected by the Constitution, police and prosecutors continue to charge and prosecute citizens who take such videos — or detain and harass them when spotted. This occurs because of a failure to discipline officers harassing or arresting citizens in such circumstances.

In this case, it is not clear why, once again, YouTube appears the decisive factor. Presumably, none of the officers revealed what had occurred or there would have been some action taken before the YouTube posting.

There remains a huge divergence between what people want to believe about policing on the street and the reality of the streets. It’s surprising to find Turley, as a regular in noting police misconduct, asking the question of why a video “appears to be the decisive factor.”  His presumption, that none of the officers “revealed” that they tap-danced on their perp, is also surprising. 

If I had to guess, the officers most likely did “reveal” what happened, in a way. After they booked their victim, they laughingly told a group of fellow officers how they gave him a “tune up,” or some other police euphemism. The group chuckled knowingly, and then moved on with their day.  There was no concern that anyone would raise an objection or mention it again. All in a day’s work.

Why?  Sometimes it’s because the guy made an out-of-shape, over-weight officer run, or walk fast, rather than conducted himself in the manner most convenient to police officers.  Such insolence. The officer got sweaty, or scuffed his shoe. He was breathing hard and could have had a heart attack. A cop can’t let a perp get away with that, so he has to give a lesson in who’s the boss. With his shoe. Because he can.

One might think that a defendant appearing at arraignment with bruises on his back and maybe a broken bone would be a giveaway to someone, a prosecutor or a judge, that improper force was used.  But this is easily addressed, with a line or two in the write-up about how the perp aggressively resisted arrest and force was used to subdue him. Easy.

When the defense attorney tells the judge about how the defendant was lying on the ground, having submitted to the arrest and being compliant, an officer came to stomp him, the judge listens quietly and offers some noncommittal response. The judge is thinking, “what does he want me to do?” 

There is no magic way to distinguish who is telling the truth and who is lying through his teeth. There never has been. On the one side, you have the police officer, who at some point saved a kitty in a tree and became a hero, and on the other side some perp with a sheet who never got a medal for saving a kitty.  Go with the odds, and the odds have always favored the police. 

What makes a video the decisive factor? Short of a dozen witnesses wearing clerical garb, and even then it’s doubtful, video does the one thing that the defense side, where perps are human beings and not statistics or miscreants to be stomped for fun, has historically never been able to do. Prove it.

Some might get the impression, based upon the number of instances of police misconduct that now come to light because of the decisive factor of video that police used to be kinder and gentler, but have suddenly turned more violent and vicious.  After all, sustained determinations of police misconduct involving the use of excessive force were negligible, essentially non-existent, before the pervasive use of video.  Suddenly, they are everywhere.

It’s like magic. It’s called proof, and it’s what never existed before when defendants’ complaints were simply ignored because the odds were against them.

Given the frequency with which videos have revealed that the police were less than forthright, both in their allegations of criminal conduct and their explanations for violence, one would think that the equation should have shifted. One would think that judges would no longer give the cops the automatic benefit of the doubt, and might take the complaints more seriously and, at the very least, scrutinize the details to determine whether the facts truly support the facile police allegations.

But if a guy who is as familiar with the problems as Turley still asks why the video should be the deciding factor, despite the many videos he’s put up on his own blog, it appears that we are still a very long way from overcoming the presumption that cops tell the truth and cop never use excessive force.  Never, that is, until a video proves otherwise.

My buddy Turk explained himself.

Last weekend a story lit up around the legal blogosphere about a troublemaker named Carlos Miller.

But I held my tongue, or in the case, backed slowly away from the keyboard. The story broke January 21st, and I was picking a jury in a medical malpractice case the next day in an upstate (read: conservative) county.

While it wouldn’t take me long to type up a post on the subject, what would happen if a juror (impermissibly) Googled me and saw the post? What if I had a different opinion about troublemaker Carlos Miller than the juror?

I have the burden of proof at trial and need five out of six jurors to agree with my presentation to return a favorable verdict. And that post would be the very first thing that a juror would see.

The criminal defense bar gets the opportunity to be, well, a bit more colorful if they want. They only need one juror on their side, giving them more leeway.

The first indication that Anonymous made a left turn when it should have made a right was when it picked the United States Sentencing Commission website to show its might. Nobody noticed, because, well, nobody cares about the USSC anymore.

Had this happened a generation ago, it might have meant something. Yesterday, it likely evoked a chuckle and a face palm.  Post Booker and some actual crack reforms, it was a big nothing. They posted the  screen shot of awesomeness together with another needlessly lengthy manifesto.

Anonymous has observed for some time now the trajectory of justice in the United States with growing concern. We have marked the departure of this system from the noble ideals in which it was born and enshrined. We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the “discretion” of prosecutors. We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain.

We have been watching, and waiting.

The time has come to show the United States Department of Justice and its affiliates the true meaning of infiltration. The time has come to give this system a taste of its own medicine. The time has come for them to feel the helplessness and fear that comes with being forced into a game where the odds are stacked against them.

This website was chosen due to the symbolic nature of its purpose — the federal sentencing guidelines which enable prosecutors to cheat citizens of their constitutionally-guaranteed right to a fair trial, by a jury of their peers — the federal sentencing guidelines which are in clear violation of the 8th amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishments. This website was also chosen due to the nature of its visitors. It is far from the only government asset we control, and we have exercised such control for quite some time…

Finally, I wonder if this incident won’t affect the Supreme Court’s approach to cybercrime issues.  As Frank Rizzo once said, a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.  If that’s true, every time Anonymous mugs one of the Justices in cyberspace, it could be making the Court just a little less enthusiastic about limiting the tools the government uses to deter computer crime.

It was huge news when Southern District Judge Shira Scheindlin  enjoined the New York Police Department from engaging in the Trespass Affidavit Program, Not so huge was when Judge Scheindlin stayed her own injunction.

It wasn’t that she had doubts as to the flagrant unconstitutionality of the Clean Halls program that purportedly entitled the police to detain, interrogate and, if the mood struck them, search people at will inside and around buildings that had signed up for the program.  No, it was a unconstitutional. No doubt about it. But it was inconvenient for the police.

For a brief, shining moment, Sen. Patrick Leahy told us he was going to make law enforcement get warrants to obtain our information from the internet. And then, poof, it was gone. Law enforcement patiently explained to the good senator that it would make their lives more difficult, and he said, “Oh no, we can’t have that.”

But there was another way.  A way that few of us considered, and fewer still ever believed could happen.  While the law required nothing more of the government than the mere asking, it didn’t require the recipients of the request to comply. The targets of government subpoenas for our lives weren’t obliged to cooperate.

And someone at Google, maybe the Jolly Good Fellow, decided to just say no. In an article in Wired, via Grits for Breakfast :

The development surfaced as Google publicly announced that more than two-thirds of the user data Google forwards to government agencies across the United States is handed over without a probable-cause warrant.

A Google spokesman told Wired that the media giant demands that government agencies — from the locals to the feds — get a probable-cause warrant for content on its e-mail, Google Drive cloud storage and other platforms — despite the Electronic Communications Privacy Act allowing the government to access such customer data without a warrant if it’s stored on Google’s servers for more than 180 days.

Google demands probable-cause, court-issued warrants to divulge the contents of Gmail and other cloud-stored documents to authorities in the United States — a startling revelation Wednesday that runs counter to federal law that does not always demand warrants.

“Google requires an ECPA search warrant for contents of Gmail and other services based on the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents unreasonable search and seizure,” Chris Gaither, a Google spokesman, said.

It was not immediately known whether other ISPs are traveling Google’s path when it comes to demanding probable-cause warrants for all stored content. But Google can seemingly grant more privacy than the four corners of the law allows because there’s been a string of conflicting court opinions on whether warrants are required for data stored on third-party servers longer than 180 days. The Supreme Court has never weighed in on the topic — and the authorities are seemingly abiding by Google’s rules to avoid a high court showdown.

I stopped by the office of an old friend the other day, a lawyer of a shared “certain age,” and spoke the official secret lawyer greeting.  “Quiet,” he responded. “Dead, actually.”

We talked a bit about it, and then he asked me a question.

I got an email from some website that said they had checked me out and wanted me to be their exclusive litigation guy in New York, that they had all these clients and needed someone here and I was their guy.  You know about this internet stuff. What do you think about it?

I asked him how much he had to pay for the “honor” and he gave me an ungodly number.  I explained to him about co-op advertising, that they didn’t really “check him out,” and probably sent the same email to a thousand lawyers. Whoever agreed to pay the sum first would be “their guy.”  He nodded, and said, “that’s what I thought.”

Then he told me, “but I feel like I’ve got to do something. It seems like everybody is putting some sort of bullshit award on their website, they’re Super Lawyers or Best Lawyers or Million Dollar Lawyers or whatever, but something. I feel like I’m the only lawyer left who doesn’t have some award on my website.”

I asked him who he thought was impressed by it. Did he think anyone got a client because they claimed to some nonsense superstar? Did he think anyone who would retain him otherwise decided not to because he didn’t have an award? 

He shook his head “no.”  Then he said,”I don’t know. No, I don’t think so, but I’ve got to do something.”

For those lawyers who have been engaged in the digital world for a while, all of this is old news.  We’ve seen the scams, the lies, the schemes that promise wealth and success. The only people making any money off the scheme are the schemers. What we aren’t really attuned to is that the bulk of the profession remains on the other side of the digital divide.

Sure, they have email. Yes, they have a computer and know how to google. Maybe they got a static website, probably though an old, reliable company they’ve used for decades. Chances are good they’ve never looked at it since the day they paid the first bill.  They have no blog, read no blogs, There is nothing a guy like me has to write that they are likely to read.  I can explain and warn all day long. They won’t see it.

When business slows down for a while, they do what any normal person would do. They try to come up with a way to do better.  They are ripe pickens for the schemers. When is the last time you took a look at the internet through the eyes of someone who has never really been here before?

“What about Avvo,” he asked. “You used to think Avvo was legit?”

I told him about Arkady Bukh, who had a banner on his website that says he is “Ranked #1 of 842 Criminal Defense Firms in New York City,” according to Avvo. But Avvo does no such ranking. When I asked Josh King, Avvo’s general counsel, why then do they do nothing to shut this down, I got a song and dance. “So it’s all nonsense?” Yes, it’s all nonsense.

He laughed and mused, “so instead of paying one of these jokers for an award, I could just make something up and nobody would know or care.”  Pretty much. We laughed about it, but we both knew it wasn’t funny.

For a long time, it was only us early adopters who were integrally engaged in the internet. Others got websites because they heard that they were supposed to get websites, but that did nothing for them. It was just like the sign on the door, expected but otherwise unhelpful. Some put a lot of money into a nice website, even with a cool logo, which meant they were out that much more money with nothing to show for it. They read some marketer’s pap and followed the rules laid out in ID ten T format, waiting to hear the phone ring. Instead, they heard crickets.

It was just a small percentage of us who became engaged back then. Now, more are coming. Not so much engaging, but trying to the extent they have any grasp of what happens on the internet. And they are bewildered, confused and ripe for every scam we laugh at. They are told that puffery is the rule, everybody is doing it, and if they don’t, they might as well pack up the office and find a rocking chair.

If it was only the latest wave of scammers playing these games, perhaps we could wave it off. But it’s not. It’s our bar associations running CLEs for credit thrown by chief marketing officers, search engine optimizers, representatives of the cottage industry that feeds off the ignorance of the legal profession. The bar association mavens are just as clueless, but they have heard that this is cutting edge, and while they have no idea who they’ve let in the door, they feel some obligation to join in the schemes. I could blow another 1000 words on the inanity of these CLEs, but out of concern for you, I won’t.

For those of you who are reading this, you are the ones who know to delete the emails that introduce us to our long-lost Nigerian prince relatives, internet lottery wins and instantaneous 10,000 twitter followers. I had forgotten, or at least failed to appreciate, just how little most lawyers know about the internet.  They are clueless, like babes in the virtual woods. And marketers are offering them delicious candy, if only they will get in their van and go for a ride. 

Maybe they will throw away a few thousand dollars before realizing they’ve been had. Maybe they will be convinced to put on pink hotpants and strut the boulevard. Maybe they will hear the voices of the thousand leeches trying to suck the life out of them long before they hear my voice. Or yours.

But I will keep trying to save my friends, and through them, the profession, from the race to the bottom. I ask you, as a favor, to do the same. Let the lawyers who aren’t as internet-engaged know the truth. Explain the scams and schemes, and tell them not to get sucked in. The scammers may be loud and persistent, but there are more of us, and if we spread the word, maybe we can save our brethren before the harm is done.

There are millions of lawyers out there who have no clue about the internet. They will make a decision today about whether to hop on the magic internet marketing train or not. Today. Tell them the truth, even if you made the mistake and no one saved you.