The split was 8-4 when the mistrial was declared in the trial of 29-year-old, three year veteran Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Randall “Wes” Kerrick for shooting 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell to death.  The night went from bad to deadly bad for Ferrell.

The shooting unfolded on Sept. 14, 2013, after Ferrell, who’d once played defensive back for Florida A&M University, crawled from a wrecked car and staggered to a nearby house for help. A woman inside called 911 to report a possible break-in. Kerrick and two other officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department responded to the scene.

And yes, Ferrell was black. Kerrick was white. Ferrell mistakenly thought that being the victim in an auto accident would somehow relieve him of the burden of being black in the gunsight of a cop for at least that moment. He was deathly wrong.

Police dashcam footage showed officers pointing Tasers at Ferrell, who then ran. Kerrick, who’d been an officer for three years, stood in his path. He shouted for Ferrell to get on the ground, then shot Ferrell 10 times. Kerrick said he feared Ferrell was going to hurt him when he opened fire.

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Fault Lines has grown exponentially since its inception less than three months ago, and it’s time to bulk up its writers.  I am looking for five new writers for FL, and rather than just reach out to people I already know, now seems a good time to open the door to new voices.

Do you want to do something that will matter to others?  Do you have insights that will cause other people to think, to consider ideas they may not have considered before?  This is the way to make it happen.

There is one firm criterion: you must speak from authority. I’m looking for lawyers or academics who know what they’re talking about. This isn’t about pontification, but illumination.

Everyone has opinions, and everyone thinks their opinions are worthwhile. This is about bringing a deeper insight into criminal law news. FL is about bringing all perspectives, cop, prosecutor, private defense, public defense, together, even if they are in direct conflict, in a way that enlightens. Continue reading →

Some millennials blame their boomer parents for making them the Slackoisie, because of feeding, housing and clothing them during their formative years. Oh yeah, and ruining the environment, economy and mental stability of their generation.  We’re sorry about that, by the way, but now that you’re almost grown ups, you might do better putting your efforts into fixing things rather than whining about them.

Anyway, as millennials are finally coming to the realization that they will need to do something with the money they saved while living in their parents’ basement, eating their parents food, complaining about how they are micro-aggressed and harassed by all things hurtful to their delicate psyche, they are embarking on a journey into the fabulous world of investing.

And, like most other things in their life, it’s too much work. It’s hard. It requires thought. Somebody needs to do it for them.

Well, aren’t you the lucky ones, as your need is about to be filled.

Remember how Goldman did all that research on Millennials and concluded that they suck and are terrible?

Turns out the annoying beliefs and habits of the next generation are actually already being used against them by some canny young entrepreneurs.

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There are some decent things to be said about St. John’s Law School. My pal, John Q. Barrett, teaches there, and maintains the Jackson List, of which I think very highly. But then, there was its handling of David Powers, which was an unmitigated disgrace.

Note that they didn’t just dismiss him from St. John’s after taking his tuition for three semesters, but rescinded his admission, as if he was never there.  At this moment, it’s likely weighing heavily that they went far beyond the offense of conviction, deep into the crevices of all bad acts he committed during his drug addiction.  And Powers, believing these four deans to be people of good will, likely expected at least understanding, if not some degree of grudging respect for what he accomplished.  And what he accomplished was nothing short of magnificent.

Not only did the school screw David, needlessly and disingenuously, in every way possible, but they fought him hard up to the New York Court of Appeals. They won in a decision that can be summed up succinctly as the court wouldn’t second guess the law school, so if the school decided he was out, out he was. Everything else was fluff. It was not the court’s finest moment.

That David persisted in fighting to finish law school, to become a lawyer, is significant in two ways. First, because he wasn’t going to let the bastards win without every ounce of fight he could muster.  Second, because he knew what it really meant to be a lawyer, and still wanted to be one. That can’t be said about many law students. David Powers was the one guy who should be a lawyer. Continue reading →

The great savior of progressivism, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, hates breasts.  Well, maybe not all breasts, but at least the ones you can see at Times Square. So he’s on a quest to rid this tourist trap of titties.

On Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the formation of a multiagency force “to curb topless individuals” and their costumed counterparts in Times Square.

It is led by Police Commissioner William Bratton and the City Planning Commission chairman, Carl Weisbrod, and includes the Police Department; the Manhattan district attorney’s office; the Transportation Department; the Law Department; the Department of Consumer Affairs; the Department of City Planning; the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice; NYC & Company; and the deputy mayor for housing and economic development, Alicia Glen.

As the New York Times rightly notes, the “size and firepower of this task force are more appropriate for an Ebola outbreak.”  All because the great liberal hope can’t bear the bare.  Even though it’s perfectly lawful for a woman to go shirtless, just like a man, because their mammaries are no more criminal than anyone else’s.  Sucks, right?  (Okay, I went over the line on that one. Sorry.) Continue reading →

Regardless of whether you think jury nullification is a blessing or a curse, or potentially both, there is little doubt that those who want to inform others of its existence have a First Amendment right to do so.  Well, maybe a little doubt, at least by the Chief Judge of Denver’s Second District.

Denver Chief Judge Michael Martinez . . . on Thursday issued an order barring demonstrations, protests, distributing literature, proselytizing and other activities on the courthouse grounds.

Two men were arrested for handing out jury nullification leaflets outside the courthouse on the basis that they were trying to unlawfully influence jurors. They were charged with seven felony counts of jury tampering.

The district attorney’s office says the two arrested men were targeting actual jury pool members. Yet even if that were true, so what? If they were not advocating a specific course of action in a specific trial, how could they be guilty of trying “to influence a juror’s vote,” as Colorado’s law defines tampering? Continue reading →

Via Ken Lammers at CrimLaw, who despite his wayward youth and misguided choice to move from defense to prosecution, likely based on the unfortunate kiln explosion, brings today’s version of “I can’t even.”

Wait, No, That’s Wrong-Right (4th Amendment by the Uninitiated)

Every time I watch something like this I find myself saying “No that’s not right”; “Wait that’s not how that works”; or “That’s right as far as it goes, but . . . “

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When news broke of the Ashley Madison hack, I ignored it. The name sounded like a women’s clothing line made for those cheap mall stores catering to the under-21 crowd, and worn by the over-40 crowd who refuses to accept their fate. I was deeply disinterested.

Of course, I was totally wrong. That I was unaware that it was a site for married people cheating on their spouses was embarrassing. I like to think I have my finger on the pulse of the ugly underbelly of the internet, and this only proved that there is much about which I know nothing.

But then, there are a few things with which I have some familiarity, and the backlash to the disclosure of emails of cheating scum (yes, I am not fond or forgiving of people who cheat on their spouse) served as a platform to raise a hoary lie:  Don’t cheaters have a right to privacy too? Continue reading →

A law school graduate walked into a bar, looking terribly depressed.

“What’s the matter,” asked the bartender?

“I just found out I failed the bar exam,” the grad said.

“Aw, don’t give up,” the bartender responded. “Study hard and I’m sure you will pass next time.”

“What? No free drink?,” the grad replied.

The argument that the bar exam fails to serve as an adequate test of competence to practice law has been around a long time, and for a variety of reasons, has some merit.  It’s been extended in the past few years to why a bar exam is justified for each state, preventing lawyers from moving their practice to new places without being required to re-take the exam. This has been exacerbated by the internet, where a lawyer could theoretically represent people anywhere, as long as they have a computer. And who doesn’t?

While the bar exam may be a mediocre barrier to entry, the absence of a bar exam is an invitation to disaster. It may not test much, but it tests basic knowledge and reasoning necessary to call oneself a lawyer. And as long as states get to enact their own, sometimes peculiar, laws, the justification for their ascertaining whether a person should be entitled to assume responsibility for other people’s lives and fortunes remains intact. Continue reading →

Feeding into the fear and loathing of the unduly emotional with repeated viewings of Stuart Smalley and the tummy rubs of the lean-in group, chanting in unison that it’s not your fault you screwed up, it could happen to anybody who didn’t bother to work hard because there were more fun things to do than prepare, know your law, give a damn about your client, is one answer.  It’s a bad answer. A disgraceful answer, no matter how many teary-eyed whiny voices disagree.

Lawyers are supposed to be peeerrrfeeect. It’s tooo haaarrrrrddd. It makes me unhappy.  Because it’s all about the lawyer being happy, not that poor schmuck who thought you would put his interests first because you were, you know, a lawyer.

The number of new lawyers feeling this fear and loathing has skyrocketed lately, likely due to too many seats in too many law schools being filled by too many asses who have no business there, as well as a shift in culture toward the overwhelming importance of the feelz, so much so that it doesn’t dawn on these anxious lawyers that their unhappiness is nothing compared to the misery their clients endure.

But the phenomenon isn’t new. There have always been lawyers, even good lawyers, who came to the realization that being a lawyer wasn’t for them. Robert Markewitz is one.

I was the envy of my 30-something friends in Palo Alto, Calif. I had my own law office right on California Avenue. People charged with crimes handed me cash, in advance, over a big oak desk. Occasionally, I’d make a couple of grand in an afternoon.

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