A reader sent me a link to a thread at JD Underground, which was both disturbing and refreshing at the same time.  The original poster wrote:

I feel like I just bullshit my way through life and somehow convince people I’m
competent when in reality I am a total shithead.

A harsh self-assessment, and likely untrue. Anyone who can engage in such metacognitive recognition isn’t, by definition, a total shithead.  But such self-awareness doesn’t mean they aren’t feigning competence rather than gaining it. Continue reading →

Make a wrong turn? Like to check out the gals on the street at three in the morning? Simply choose to be wherever the hell you want to be in this land of the free?  Not in Sanford, Florida. From the Orlando Sentinel:

Dear John: If you were hoping to have a quick “date” with the woman standing on the street corner in Sanford, you may want to think again.

Starting this week, the Sanford Police Department will send “Dear John” letters to registered owners of vehicles spotted lingering in areas known for prostitution.

Not engaged in a hand to hand (or other body part) transaction, Continue reading →

When Seattle criminal defense lawyer Stephan Illa saw the headline at Doug Keene’s Jury Room, it was a smack upside the head. Keene posted of a new study that showed that women convicted of “white collar crimes” were sentenced more harshly than men. What?

How much longer? 300% longer if you are a White woman and 450% longer if you are a Black woman. Seriously. Wow. A new report has been released comparing the federal white-collar crime sentences of men and women.

Stephan was astounded. After 30 years in the trenches, it defied every experience he’s ever had. Me too. But then, how many times have we learned that “common wisdom” turns out to be total marlarky and reality is just the opposite? So Stephan read through the report. Continue reading →

The dangers of high speed pursuit are very well known. And yet, they happen with surprising frequency.  After all, when an officer turns on his turret lights, you pull over. If you don’t, if instead you hit the gas and try to flee, it’s a smack in the face. So what if the reason for the initial stop was a broken tail light, as innocuous a violation as there can be. Contempt of cop will not go unpunished.

Two incidents recently (and there are many more, but that’s not the point) have given rise to some thought about how a car chase ends in death in a barrage of bullets. Is there something about a car chase?

In the Cleveland killing of Timothy Russell, 42, and Malissa Williams, 30, Continue reading →

By way of explanation for the experiences that mold a judge’s perspective, Judge Richard Kopf* offered this insight as to why he may not be as empathetic toward the defendant standing before him to be sentenced for drug dealing as a criminal defense lawyer might hope:

Sentence an aging crack whore, have her hang herself in the cell adjacent to your courtroom right after you have done so, and then ask yourself how much empathy you feel for the rat bastard who knowingly feed her addiction. Do I have empathy for the self-proclaimed ”gentle” drug dealer I sentenced to life in prison, who directed his crew to sodomize a teenage girl with motor oil ’cause she didn’t pay her drug debt, and who beat others with baseball bats or pipe wrenches when the unfortunates threatened to snitch or failed to pay their bills? No, I don’t.

I won’t dwell on Judge Kopf, Continue reading →

The line between excoriating a person or group and explaining what’s wrong with a line of reasoning and bad attitude so that, just maybe, a bell will go off in their heads, can be very thin.  It varies from person to person. Some get it. Others don’t.

Shortly after I posted about Ladar Levison’s really bad call, the post was picked up by a hacker blog, which noted how smart people often indulge in the grievously mistaken assumption that brilliance in one discipline translates to brilliance in others, including the law.  This brought people here to “inform” us that we were wrong, that no good lawyer would talk to a person unless he plunked $50,000 down for a retainer; Continue reading →

The outrage is palpable, perhaps making a new world record in public resort to Godwin’s Law.  All because of three bullets. From the Buffalo News:

A Town of Lockport man who was a passenger during a traffic stop was charged when he turned over a loaded semiautomatic handgun in a holster from the glove compartment to an officer on Saturday. The gun was legal, but police say the 10 rounds of 9 mm ammunition found in the magazine were not, because they violated the state law that states it is unlawful for any person to knowingly possess a magazine with more than seven rounds.

Lawfully possessed handgun. Not used in an unlawful manner. Continue reading →

1. Indict
2. Seize assets
3. Compel impoverished defendants to defend
4. ?????
5. PROFIT!!!

Or, to tailor a meme more appropriately to the subject, convict.  Having spent some energy trying to explain how asset forfeiture was ignored by pretty much everybody when it was just the drug dealers who suffered, oral argument before the United States Supreme Court in Kaley v. United States revealed the irony when the tactics that were so beloved in Monsanto were applied to white collar defendants.

Soon after the issues raised in Kaley were discussed here, Continue reading →

If you get it, it’s a very funny joke:

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.

The government’s use of contempt to compel Lavabit’s owner, Ladar Levison, to provide a digital copy of the private encryption code generated huge concern and ideas from the tech community; after all, it was seen as a direct attack at one of their primary goals, the maintenance of privacy from prying government eyes. This generated two levels of discussion in the “what to do about it” category, one from the perspective of lawyers and another from the perspective of hackers (well, maybe not hackers, but it’s a more fun word than technology enthusiasts). Continue reading →

Before getting to the beef of this post, I ask that hotter heads cool.  There have been a few posts lately about issues raised by Nebraska federal judge Richard Kopf, and some readers disagree strongly with Judge Kopf’s views and show no reluctance saying so.

There’s nothing wrong with disagreement, and I’m sure Judge Kopf has heard strong language that wasn’t necessarily flattering before. But, and this is a big but, the judge is under no obligation to express himself in a blog or engage in any repartee, witty or otherwise, with me or you.  As much as there may be some fundamental disagreements, the opportunity to learn and engage is something of enormous value. Maybe something said here will change Judge Kopf’s mind. Maybe it will change some other judge’s mind. Continue reading →