First, an excuse. I neglected to read Chuck Klosterman’s Ethicist this Sunday, but it wasn’t my fault.  Dr. SJ glommed up the magazine to do the crossword puzzle before I had a chance to look at it, and by the time she finished the puzzle, I was busy cooking bacon with my son for the ride back to Cambridge.  Priorities, right?

When Judge Kopf posted about a letter from a female law student, gently daring the internets to attack, my omission struck hard.  How?  How did I miss this bit of ethicalismisticity from Chuck Klosterman. Because he’s The Ethicisit. The New York Times says so, even if I haven’t always deferred to his judgment when it comes to legal matters.

But given the nature of the query, and some of the subjects which have prominently appeared at SJ recently, I cannot leave this alone (scroll down to the second letter, entitled “If it pleases the court . . . “).

I am a young, female law student who represents indigent clients in criminal matters. I have learned (both from professionals at my school and from studies on subliminal biases) that female attorneys are more likely to be taken seriously if they have straight hair and wear makeup, skirts and heels. This is not a norm I want to perpetuate. However, I know that I have an ethical responsibility to represent my clients to the best of my ability. But do I have to conform to gender norms I find oppressive if there is a chance it will help my client? NAME WITHHELD

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There is a tacit understanding in the courtroom: Lawyers treat judges with the trappings of respect. Judges don’t abuse the privilege. When a lawyer fails to do so, he gets sanctioned, and no one would hesitate to say that he deserved it. After all, this is the game we play, where we call a guy “your honor” and laugh at his jokes for no better reason than he licked enough stamps in the party leader’s backroom to earn a robe.

But in return, we expect a few things. No, we demand a few things.  We demand that the judge let us do our job, and that he does his.  And we demand that the judge pretend to act with “judicial temperament,” and not fly off the handle like some street thug with a bigger stick than ours.  When this breaks down, all hell breaks loose.

Via Gideon at A Public Defender, Brevard County, Florida, Judge John Murphy broke the contract. Continue reading →

One of the questions asked regularly is why bother with gender politics and the definitions of language relating to sex crimes.  This is why. From Jacob Gershman at the WSJ Law Blog:

A North Carolina judge has stopped Duke University from expelling a male student who was accused of rape by a female freshman.

Following the lacrosse false rape fiasco, Duke has become particularly sensitive to issues and allegations of sexual assault and rape.  As a result, Duke has fallen willingly jumped down the rabbit hole:

Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III on Thursday rejected Duke’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the accused student, Lewis McLeod, a senior who accuses the university of violating his contractual rights. The ruling blocks Duke from expelling him at least for now. Continue reading →

The New York Times Room for Debate seized upon the Isla Vista murders to raise the question of why Elliot Rodger flew under the Santa Barbara sheriff’s radar.  It posed the question:

Once again, senseless slaughter has raised questions not only about how mentally disturbed people can obtain guns, but why authorities can’t intervene to prevent violence.

Do the laws regarding mental health professionals’ duty to warn the authorities of a threat need to be toughened to make them more effective?

The question itself is disturbing, aligned with the sheriff’s excuse for the failure to identify a dangerous mentally ill young man.  Continue reading →

As stories of terror go, it was a flash in the pan.  The likely reason was that it ended promptly, with the death of Miriam Carey, reports explained, who “tried to ram a barricade in front of the White House before speeding off.”  So she was shot to death from behind, as her one-year-old in a car seat survived.

Peculiar story, for sure, but there were a series of explanations for such bizarre behavior. Drugs. Mental illness, which overcame the suburban Connecticut dental hygienist mother. Who knows why someone would ram a barricade at the White House.

The results of the investigation might provide some explanation, except nothing has been publicly released. Same with the video outside the White House. Eight months later and there is nothing. Continue reading →

There is a guy who walks around Tuesday evening Cruise Night handing out flyers for the car show he runs, Cruizin’ For A Cure.  I went to it the first year it was held, and it wasn’t for me.  Mostly American cars, where I’m a British car guy, and the judging of the foreign cars (one class for all) wasn’t very good. So I passed after that.

The problem was that the car show wasn’t just for the sake of having a car show, but as the name suggests, it was charity-focused: he was raising money for prostate cancer.  You see, he was a prostate cancer survivor, and wanted to do something to help. Great cause and I respect his efforts.  But when he asked me if I would come, I told him no. I explained why, but he got angry with me. Didn’t I realize how serious prostate cancer is? Didn’t I want to help with the cure?  Didn’t I appreciate his cause?

Well, in fact I did.  I had nothing against his cause at all. It just wasn’t my cause. I have a charity to which I provide a great deal of support. He doesn’t contribute to my cause, but I understand why. Yet, he couldn’t understand why I didn’t back his cause, because his was so worthy. Continue reading →

It may not have been the best plan of action, but hey, this was Franklin County, Maine and it’s not like they have the volume of warm bodies that Brooklyn would produce on any given day.  So they did the best they could and at least they tried to do something.

From the Morning Sentinel:

Attorney Walter Hanstein, an organizer of the effort to raise pay for court-appointed lawyers, said it was unlikely that attorneys would refuse all court appointments. Hanstein and attorney David Sanders asked lawyers to refuse sexual assault cases, a category that only a small group of attorneys are approved to take as court-appointed counsel in Franklin County.

The effort began two months ago when Hanstein and attorney David Sanders told the Franklin County clerk’s office that they would no longer serve as state-paid attorneys for low-income defendants charged with sexual assault, until the wage is raised from $50 to $70 per hour in all court-appointed cases.

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The 8th Circuit made short shrift of the absurd arrest of Frank Snider for desecrating the flag. No big surprise there, as Snider v. City of Cape Girardeau was a slam dunk.  But then it raises the hoary question of how neither the cop, the prosecutor nor the judge who signed off was aware that the law in the United States of America allowed a guy to use the flag to express himself?  After all, it’s only been the law since 1989, when the Supremes decided Texas v. Johnson.

But the circuit went on to deal with the issue of Police Officer Matthew Peters’ qualified immunity.  After all, it’s not like Peters busted Snider on the spot. Oh no. He followed the procedure that we all hope an officer would follow.

Upon Officer Peters’ returning to the station, another officer informed him of a Missouri statute prohibiting flag desecration. After reviewing the statute, Mo. Rev. Stat. § 578.095, Officer Peters drafted a probable cause statement indicating he believed Snider had committed the criminal offense of desecration of the American flag. He submitted the probable cause statement to Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney H. Morley Swingle. After reviewing the probable cause statement, Swingle submitted a warrant application to the Honorable Gary A. Kamp, Circuit Judge of Cape Girardeau County, who issued the warrant for Snider’s arrest.

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Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell doesn’t know what could have been done differently. Neither, he says, does the GBI.  Sometimes, a flashbang grenade just lands in a crib next to a toddler’s head.  Bad things happen.

The child was burned when narcotics agents, assisted by members of the Habersham Special Response Team, used a distraction device as they entered a home at 182 Lakeview Heights Circle outside Cornelia . . .

“According to the confidential informant, there were no children,” Terrell said. “When they made the buy, they didn’t see any children or any evidence of children there, so we proceeded with our standard operation.”

Because of recent history with the individual involved in the alleged drug sales and knowledge of weapons in the residence, the special agent seeking the search warrant requested a “no-knock” warrant, Terrell said.

But couldn’t they have accomplished their goal without sacrificing the toddler? Continue reading →

The idea likely stemmed from personal injury lawyers, who produced what became known as “a day in the life” videos of their injured clients in order to convey to juries what was lost to a person and their family by the negligence of defendants.  Contemporaneously, criminal defense lawyers began submitting pre-sentence memoranda, detailing a defendant’s personal and medical history, combined with letters from friends and family about the defendant.

Now, the two have been combined:

Video may have killed the radio star, but it’s helping criminal defendants spend less time in prison.

Some private lawyers and investigators are attempting to unlock the potential of video in the sentencing phase of criminal cases, supplementing the memorandum and letters of support that are typically used to plead for leniency.

These “sentencing-mitigation” videos exist in a legal gray area yet are already having an effect, reports WSJ’s Joe Palazzolo.

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