Chronicling the nastiness that police do to others leaves me to wonder whether it’s a genetic predisposition, a job that attracts those who can’t find decent work as a criminal or something else.  PsychProf Todd Kashdan offers an alternative explanation, with solution in tow, at HuffPo.

Idle on the side of the road is a lone police officer with a laser gun pointing to an endless parade of cars. Their task is simple. Look at the gun and determine if someone is speeding excessively and also be on the look-out for reckless drivers.

Any rational person would be bored senseless.

It’s not clear that rational person would be the first choice of descriptions, or bored senseless necessarily reactions.  Other choices that come to mind are overtaxed, at the extreme of intellectual capacity, happy to be working off the donut high.  Okay, a bit snarky, but opening with the assumption that we’re dealing with rational people, or that rational can’t refer to reasonable dolts.

Kashdan then suggests:

Negative emotions can influence our behavior in powerful, pernicious ways. When we experience negative emotions our attention narrows such that we are less open to new information, less willing to compromise, and more likely to rigidly adhere to initial reactions and stereotypes. When in a negative mood, we tend to judge people more harshly. When in a negative mood, we are particularly aggressive towards people that are different from us (what we might call our “out-group”) which may be based on age, education, gender, race, political orientation, or religion. Our biases are bigger, badder, and stronger when we are in a funk.

Nobody wants funky cops, but it strikes me that when Kashdan says “different from us,” what he really means is different from them, meaning that the “out-group” is everybody who isn’t a funky cop.  But I digress.

Are police officers aware of how boredom impacts their decisions? Are police officers aware of which citizens fall into their “in-group” and “out-group?” And don’t respond with a statement that they are trained not to show biases. Everyone has biases.

Kashdan faces a fork in the road, and takes the wrong one.  There’s no question that everyone has biases.  But the job of cops is to not act upon bias.  I know, that’s really, really hard to do.  It’s not like we pay them to do the job.  Oh? We do?  Well, still, if they don’t do the job properly, it’s not like they won’t be immediately fired, maybe even imprisoned. Oh? They won’t?  That’s not good.

Upon this backdrop, Kashdan offers a modest solution:

Here is my brief suggestion: allow police officers small personalized strategies to put themselves in a good mood. Let them listen to soothing, melodic sounds of their own choosing (commercials and channel switching on the radio is often more frustrating than pleasurable). Let them spend some time outside of their car where they can physically stretch. Let them stand in the sunlight so that they can increase their serotonin levels while observing their surroundings. When police officers are in a good mood, they are more perceptive, think more clearly, and show greater kindness and compassion.

Despite the fact that everything Kashdan has offered in support of his thesis is, well, simplistic and basically demonstrates a lack of understanding of what police do (they don’t all do highway duty), or the expectation that they really shouldn’t bash in the heads of black people because their donut was stale, his solution has some appeal nonetheless.

Whether described as happier, calmer or more peaceful, these attributes tend to make anyone more likely to be slower to lash out in mindless anger.  While it emits the stench of coddling a well paid bunch of armed folks on the government dole, with a full pension after 20 years and the authority to tell people whose lives are dedicated to developing the cure for disease to hop on one foot, Kashdan asserts that it’s not for their benefit, but ours.

The aim is not to make police officers happy, the aim is to create the optimal environment for them to serve and protect the community. It is far too easy to overlook how our mental content and environment influences our ability to do this.

How nice would it be to have the officer approach the driver’s side of the vehicle with a serene smile on his face?  A warm handshake after the ticket is delivered and a caring admonition, “sorry that I have to do this, and take it a little slower, please.”  Young or old, black or white, wouldn’t we feel better with a happy cop? 

And it doesn’t stop there, as Kashdan points out.

If you think this research on emotions is only relevant to police officers, you are mistaken. How about courtroom judges who feel fatigued after listening to dozens of cases in a row?

Consider how much easier it would be to get those cases adjourned if only the judge was getting a nice foot rub under the bench?

Stress and boredom are the bookends of modern life.  To the extent we manage to avoid them, we are fortunate indeed, but most of us, regardless of our occupations, are constrained to suffer both at various points in our day.  This certainly includes cops, and to a lesser extent, judges.  To the extent we are able to avoid stress and boredom on the job, our spouse and kids are there to pick up the slack.

We could all use some coddling.  We could all use some happy time.  Perhaps cops more than the rest of us, and perhaps Kashdan is right that we would all be safer if cops were saner.  But to follow his advice is to go down a road of no return, where their conduct is contingent not on propriety but feel-good ethos.  It’s hard to disagree with the theory that an environment where police are less inclined to lash out in violence, particularly against those against whom they are biased, would be wonderful.  The question of how to achieve that environment, however, is the issue.

What Kashdan ignores is the culture of being able to indulge their most visceral whim with impunity.  What if his happy cop theory produces police offers who feel badly about beating someone afterward?  Is that good enough?  What if the cop smiles as he tases a pregnant woman or granny?  These aren’t out-group types, but people who are just like those in the cops personal sphere, and yet it happens.  And what of the kids?  Police have kids, yet they don’t seem to show the same empathy when the youngster before them is fathered by someone else.

I’m all for police officers who make smarter, calmer more rational choices in the performance of their duty.  Or more precisely, I’m very much against those who don’t.  But to suggest that they need yet greater concessions to accommodate their personal happiness, even if for our benefit, is naive.  What they need is the knowledge that abuse, misconduct, needless anger and violence, will not be tolerated on the job, and that their fellow officers, their supervisors and the public will not accept it.

Coddling is nice, but getting a beating from a happy cop doesn’t hurt any less.  

H/T Stephanie West Allen at Idealawg  

H. Louis Nichols died last weekend at age 94.  I didn’t give it a great deal of thought until Eric Turkewitz sent me an email asking whether Nichols engaged in improper solicitation.  Turk, as every half-awake lawyer knows, runs the New York Personal Injury Law Blog. 

Nichols was President of the Dallas County Bar Association.  On November 23, 1963, he paid a visit to the jail to meet the man who was arrested the day before for the murder of President John F. Kennedy.

From the Dallas Morning News (the newspaper favored by half-awake lawyers):

By 2 p.m. Saturday, Mr. Nichols began receiving calls from Dallas attorneys concerned that Oswald did not have an attorney. Esteemed law school deans from “back East” were calling to express concern that only a legal backwater would deny an attorney to a murder suspect, Mr. Nichols’ friends told him.

The situation was puzzling. Mr. Nichols was a civil lawyer unfamiliar with criminal law. Oswald, who was indigent, couldn’t pay a lawyer. In 1963, criminal suspects in Texas had no right to a court-appointed lawyer before they were indicted.

Still, Mr. Nichols concluded that even a pariah like Oswald deserved representation. And it was up to him as bar association president to see if the accused killer wanted a lawyer. So, Mr. Nichols cleaned up, got dressed on a Saturday afternoon and drove to the city jail.

Nichols fought the hordes of reporters to get into the Dallas County jail and sit down with Lee Harvey Oswald.  

Nichols described Oswald, who was dressed in a white T-shirt and slacks, as calm and rested. He had a bruise over one eye but appeared to be in good health. He said that police were holding him “incommunicado” and that he did not know what had happened to the president, Mr. Nichols told the Warren Commission.

Oswald said he wanted a New York lawyer named John Abt or a lawyer associated with the American Civil Liberties Unionto represent him. Oswald also wanted a lawyer “who believes as I believe, and believes in my innocence.”

“What I am interested in is knowing right now, do you want me or the Dallas Bar Association to try to get you a lawyer?” Mr. Nichols asked Oswald.

“No, not right now,” he replied.

His need for counsel abated the following day at the hand of Jack Ruby.

It’s interesting to see the same situation through different eyes.  On November 22, 1963, there was no man more hated in the United States of America than Oswald.  Yet a civil lawyer, at risk of becoming a national pariah for an effort that he was ill-prepared to complete, sat down and asked if he wanted help getting a lawyer.  Was it solicitation?  I think not.  It was one of those finest moments the legal profession has to offer. 

There was nothing to gain and everything to lose.  Still he went.

It’s unlikely that H. Louis Nichols was a radical, inasmuch as he was 47 years old and President of the Dallas County Bar Association in 1963.  He likely wore a white shirt and dark suit with lace-up shoes.  He was a lawyer.  When he walked into the jail, he didn’t know whether he would walk out the most hated lawyer in America, but he had to make certain that Lee Harvey Oswald would have a lawyer, and offered his help.

Imagine if the same situation occurred today.  Would he have worried about his Google pagerank?  Would fear of the inability to pay off his student loans have made him hesitate?  Would concern over placing duty above image have dissuaded him from doing the unthinkable, aiding the most despised man in the nation?  And Nichols wasn’t even a criminal defense lawyer.

“But for Video” has been an ongoing theme here, reflecting the new reality that complaints of police misconduct and abuse, dismissed out of hand despite a defendant appearing at arraignment with eyes blackened, nose broken, teeth missing and a charge of attacking an officer’s fist with his face, can no longer be ignored.  Watch it judge.  Watch it voters.  It’s all there in the video.

My mistake.  Even with video, the great wall of blind faith cannot be broken through.  Patrick Pogan, 24, on his 11th day of policing, was acquitted of the Big Shove.

The acquittal on the assault charge was perhaps indicative of the public’s belief that police officers should be given latitude to use force when they perceive a threat, said Philip Karasyk, a defense lawyer who regularly defends police officers.

“When an officer puts on that badge and uniform, he’s not feeling a heightened sense of security — he’s feeling a heightened sense of insecurity and a sense of being on guard,” he said.

To put it more clearly, your fellow citizens say that it’s acceptable for a cop to attack you.  For many of us, myself included, the blame for allowing a culture of separation between the police and the citizenry, where police are entitled to act upon their basest impulse with violence and anger, is levied on police.  But Pogo was right.

Patrick Pogan was convicted of filing a false instrument, for the criminal court complaint alleging that he was knocked down by the bicyclist, Christopher Long.  He said he was confused.

“The important part to remember is, regardless of what’s on these documents, if at the time you filled them out you believe you’re being truthful, then that’s really all that should matter,” [Pogan’s defense lawyer Stuart]. London said. 

[Pogan] said he had confused the initial collision with two later instances in which he went to the ground while trying to handcuff Mr. Long.

Had there been no videotape, my guess is Pogan wouldn’t have described his having gotten the salient details of the assault backward.  My guess is that he would testify with utmost certainty that it happened just the way he described it.  My guess is that it would have been good enough to convict Long of assaulting him.  My guess is the jury would not have hesitated to convict Long of assaulting a police officer.  Long, the pot-smoking miscreant, would not have been given “latitude”.

The case was tried in a Manhattan courtroom.  Unlike the Bronx, with jurors who usually have some experience being on the receiving end of cop-love, Manhattan juries are an unusual mix of people.  From Wall Street brokers to lawyers to television personalities, they reflect the broad mix of people who are able to afford an apartment for $7500 a month.  A few uptowners may mix in there, provided they speak English.  Then there are always a few younger people, often students or young professionals starting their careers. 

This isn’t to suggest that I have any clue as to the jury in this case, as I wasn’t there and haven’t been able to find any information about who actually sat on the jury.  But the point is that these are generally upstanding people, well educated.  They generally have yet to be indicted themselves.  They’re pretty much us.

And they watched the video.  And they saw the Big Shove.  And they shrugged.  And amongst themselves, they decided that it was acceptable for then Police Officer Patrick Pogan to do that.

A huge sigh of relief was heard throughout New York City.  Police anticipate the need to shove again.

Following the discussion  of why people shouldn’t needlessly antagonize cops, comes this opportune video in juxtaposition, via Turley. The setup comes via the Daily Pulp, reportedly from the attorney, Brad Cohen.

“We have several witnesses for the incident prior to the arrest.  The facts are essentially the train was going past the intersection, on SW 2nd Avenue, Fort Lauderdale.  My client, Brennen Hamilton, was waiting with his wife and friends for the train to pass.  My client leaned up against the rear of the police car. 

Officer Overcash approached my client and took him by the arm and said ‘Get your ass off the car. How would you like it if I leaned my ass on your car?’  My client remained silent and rolled his eyes. The Officer said ‘Really tough guy, you have something to say to me?’  My client remained silent.  Officer Overcash then said ‘Yeah, that’s right tough guy, you’ve got nothing to say.’ The train passed and my client and his wife went to his car and called Fort Lauderdale Police, to complain about the treatment he just received.  There wasn’t a Lt. or a Sgt. working at that time, so he left his number.  During the call he was asked for the Officer’s name and badge number.  He did not know that information. 

After getting off the phone he went back to Officer Overcash and asked him if he could please give him his badge number and name. “

Now for the video of what follows.

Unlike those wild, hotheaded kids, Hamilton conducts himself appropriately in all respects.  Note how well he was treated by Police Officer Overcash. who was quite careful to make sure he didn’t snap the cuffs on too tight.  Notice how Hamilton was left standing rather than thrown to the ground?  That’s the benefit of walking toward the police rather than forcing them to come to you. 

Say, what was his shield number again? 

There are two questions that I cannot, despite my constant struggle, answer: Do cops not know that their behavior is being videotaped and will come under scrutiny?  Even though their department will conduct a very thorough investigation before finding their conduct totally proper, they will be forever branded on the internet as falling shy of officer of the year?  Don’t they realize their kids watch these videos?

But Hamilton did not get beaten, so it’s not like being polite was a total waste of time as he was led away in cuffs for booking.

“While he is handcuffed and lying down, you see a black cop run up and kick him in square in the face. They’re punching and hitting him, punching and hitting him.”

The helplessness of a handcuffed man, lying on the ground, as the boot of a police officer coming full speed to his face, is more than I can stomach.  The Houston Chronicle  tells the story of the unnamed man who tried to run.  He was a burglary suspect,  When police stopped his car, he took off.  Some police officers find flight personally offensive.

Nothing happened, of course, until the Pat Lykos was provided a video from nearby Uncle Bob’s Self Storage.  Without the video, which has not yet been released, it was just another instance of police serving and protecting.

From viewing the videotape, Quanell X said it appears the arrested man was beaten by the officers after a chase.

 “You see the young man get out (of his car) and take off running — and you see a (patrol) car hit him,” he said. “When the car hit him, you see him lay all the way down and the cops just pounce on him like a pack of wolves pouncing on raw meat.

 “While he is handcuffed and lying down, you see a black cop run up and kick him in square in the face. They’re punching and hitting him, punching and hitting him.”

The image of a pack of wolves is a good one, but not one that everybody will share.  In a comment to the story, the sentiment that anyone who runs from the cops deserves a beating.  No doubt the cops agree.  It wasn’t just the flight, which forced them to exert themselves, and they might not have had enough time to digest their lunch, but the adrenaline rush that comes to people unused to physical exertion.  With that juice pulsing through your veins, its nearly impossible not to run up to a handcuffed man on the ground at full speed and kick him in the face.  Cops understand, though civilians like me will never get it.

A sergeant and seven officers were suspended (with pay) following disclosure of the videotape.  The District Attorney is investigating.  It takes a lot of investigating to determine whether it’s wrong to kick a handcuffed man in the face.  One can never be too careful when it comes to the lie of video.

The burglary suspect shouldn’t have fled.  But then, he’s the burglary suspect, and sometimes they flee.  Sometimes they flee because they are guilty.  Sometimes they flee because they are innocent.  Sometimes they just flee.  There’s a price to pay for flight, and the law can impose punishment appropriate to the wrong.

There is no law that sentences a person to be handcuffed, lying on the ground and kicked in the face by the boot of a cop.  While the image makes me sick to my stomach, I hear the applause of some locals for the fine work of the Houston Police Department. 

Whether some may be willing to dump another body into the hole of people unworthy of any real thought, I can’t say.  There will always be folks whose view of others, though never themselves or those they care about, is so harsh and simplistic that they feel nothing.  But the sentencing of Michelle Lyn Taylor, 34, isn’t easily ignored.

Her crime was putting the hand of a 13 year old boy on her brasier-covered breast.  Sexual offense involving children fall without my purview for a variety of reasons, and while some will think that this is a 13 year old boy’s fantasy, I’m unimpressed.  That said, let’s not lose any sense of proportionality.  As child molestation goes, this is as small, and harmless, as it gets.  Not right, for sure, but not the rape of a five year old either.

For Taylor, it doesn’t matter.  Nevada has determined, in a fit of one-size-fits-all legislating, that any lewd act with a person under 14 deserves life in prison.  I can hear the demagoguery as lawmakers exhort their saving the children, with a hand out for campaign contributions.  In the minds of voters, they picture the psycho brutally raping the beautiful, innocent little girl, and the only question asked is why not the death penalty.

Here is the other side of the picture, via Mike at Crime & Federalism :

There’s much to consider in this video.  The prosecutor’s effort to take no moral responsibility for the decision to prosecute Taylor for a crime that carried a life sentence.  The decision not to offer an appropriate plea bargain, thus sealing her fate upon conviction. 

The defense lawyer’s heartfelt effort to argue against a law that permitted no flexibility, to the point of breaking down when there was no place left to go.  A question persists why her arguments as to constitutionality, of both the law and sentence, weren’t presented before and after trial in writing, whether to present the argument and law in the most meaningful fashion, or to preserve the issue for appeal.

And then there’s the judge, whose casual demeanor toward his duty was painful to watch.  When he allowed defense counsel to pursue her constitutional argument over the prosecutor’s objection, the outcome became clear.  But his imposition of a life sentence for what, at best, can be describes as a trivial offense, without any indication that he was disturbed at being a grocery clerk for the politicians, was very troubling.  It was so routine, so inconsequential, but for the fact that Taylor was sentenced to life in prison.

We talk of ordinary injustice with much regularity, but are often unable to provide a clear picture into how this happens in courtrooms every day.  The sentence of Michelle Lyn Taylor is as ordinary as it comes.  And just as wrong. 

Via Dr. Sunwolf (who wanders around the internet as @JuryTalk), the Ohio Supreme Court reversed a homicide conviction because the trial judge refused to dismiss a deaf juror from the panel for cause in State v. Speer.

During voir dire (pretrial examination of prospective jurors), prospective juror Linda Leow-Johannsen informed the court that she had a hearing disability that prevented her from understanding  spoken words unless she could read the lips of the speaker, and that she would be able to accurately perceive the questioning and testimony of witnesses if the person who was speaking faced her. Leow-Johannsen also indicated that she would “have a problem” understanding the content of an audio tape. Attorneys for Speer moved that Leow-Johannsen be disqualified from serving on the jury “for cause,” i.e. without using one of Speer’s peremptory challenges, because of her hearing impairment. The judge denied the motion to dismiss for cause and Leow-Johannsen was seated on the jury. During the trial, at the time the  audio tape was played for the other jurors, the court arranged for Leow-Johannsen to move to the court reporter’s table and view a real-time transcript of the call on a monitor as the reporter typed it.

Writing for the majority, Justice O’Donnell pointed out that the Supreme Court of Ohio has been a leader in efforts to improve the accessibility of  courts to persons with disabilities; has adopted specific language in its Rules of Superintendence stating that “[t]he opportunity for jury service should not be denied or limited on the basis of  … disability;” and since 2003 has implemented an aggressive statewide Interpreter Services Program that trains and equips local courts to accommodate the special needs of hearing-impaired litigants, witnesses and jurors.  

Nevertheless, in this case, Justice O’Donnell wrote: “Despite the efforts of the trial court to accommodate Leow-Johannsen, Speer did not receive a fair trial. Regrettably, the accommodation made by the trial court in this instance could not help Leow-Johannsen to effectively perceive or evaluate Speer’s demeanor, detect any slurred speech or the lack of it, or consider the loudness or softness of his voice, the patterns of his speech, his tone – whether excited, calm, or passive – or the inflections of the voices on the 9-1-1 tape.  … Here, both the state and the defense relied on the 9-1-1 tape as evidence relevant to whether Speer committed the charged offenses. The state suggested that Speer’s ‘calm tone’ and his ‘demeanor on the 9-1-1 tape’ provided evidence of his guilt.  Speer’s defense counsel denied the state’s contention that Speer had operated his craft under the influence of alcohol by pointing out that the 9-1-1 tape did not show Speer slurring his speech at the time of the call.” 

That the court recognized that the right of a defendant to a qualified jury trumps the theoretical right of a citizen to sit in judgment of another, is good, in the sense that it could easily have upheld the conviction with a few minor changes in the appearance of trial strategy.  And yet, the court’s need to appear politically correct, by touting its effort to be “a leader in efforts to improve the accessibility of  courts to persons with disabilities” when it comes to seating them as jurors demonstrates how this is a time bomb waiting to explode.

At the outset, let me be clear: I do not accept the premise of reverse Batson.  There is no “right” to be on a jury.  The Constitution is not a two way street, but protects the rights of the individual against the power of government.  The defendant is not the government, and has the right to toss anyone off a jury for any reason.  The defendant is entitled to a jury.  The potential juror is constitutionally entitled to nothing.  If a person lacks the capacity, in any way, shape or form, to serve as a juror, then the person should be dismissed for cause.  Political correctness has no place in the jury room.

During the course of trial, one can never be certain what cognitive “skills” will be required of the jury.  The ability to hear?  To sit still? To speak the language of the witnesses, lawyers, court, fluently?  What about the ability to comprehend rational thought and argument?  At what point during a trial does a cognitive deficit in a juror go from being a personal issue to a deprivation of the defendant’s constitutional rights?

This point hurts the feelings of many advocates, strenuously supporting opportunity for those who are challenged.  I agree with them completely, and fully support the need for accommodation of disabilities.  In almost every aspect of endeavor, except not jury service.  I’ve caught enormous grief for my position, from those who argue that people with disabilities (or challenges, or whatever word is used to characterize the condition) can do anything anyone else can do, and shouldn’t be denied their right to fulfill the same role in society as anyone else.  They similarly point out that everyone has some challenge, and it’s wrong to discriminate against those with more obvious or overt issues. 

I get it.  I really do.  And I agree with you. Except when it comes to jury duty.  And maybe ballet dancing, but this post isn’t about ballet.

The harsh reality is that something has to give.  Either an element of a trial is missed by a juror, to the defendant’s potential detriment, or a juror with a disability (though I note that Deaf people do not necessarily agree that they are disabled) is denied a seat on a jury.  In this case, the juror recognized that she might be unable to serve.  Of course, that may have been used as her ticket off the jury.  Oddly, some people would prefer not to sit as jurors.

Thus, it comes down to which interest prevails.  On the one side is a defendant’s right to a jury capable of performing every task that might be required.  On the other is the desire of an impaired person to be treated like anyone else, even if it requires us to pretend that the disability doesn’t exist. 

In this instance, the defendant’s right to a fair jury must prevail.  Qualifications to sit on a jury cannot take a back seat to any secondary societal concerns, no matter how righteous they may be under other circumstances,  The Ohio Supreme Court’s need to qualify its bona fides as a leader in accommodation reflects a wonderful concern for the rights of the disabled, and disturbing lack of recognition of the rights of defendants.  Both cannot be simultaneously accommodated, no matter how badly we wish it to be otherwise.

There’s a cartoon by Peter Steiner that offers one of the most important lessons for the digital world.

It’s a lesson that bears repeating regularly, as people “find” the internet and embrace it as their window to the world.

One rather shocking example was raised by Mark Bennett, who keeps a sharp eye on one of the most dangerous ideas online, Avvo Answers.

Seen on Avvo :

I am a resident physician in Houston, TX. A charge of indecent exposure has been brought against me by a complaining witness- no other witnesses or evidence involved. I had a warrant for my arrest, for which I went it for booking and was released on bail. Pretrial hearing is set for next month. I don’t know what to expect. My attorney believes I might be offered deferment.

Should I take this? How will having deferment affect my professional licensing?
If not, how can I contact the ADA for plea bargaining? at what stage is plea bargaining done? I would settle for a reduced offer but I don’t know how to go about it.

OR should I just take my chances with a trial by jury?

Thank you for your time.

One can only pray he’s going into proctology.  What’s astounding is the fact that someone with sufficient intelligence to make it through med school can be so unbearably stupid as to ask this question of lawyers who give free advice for the primary purpose of self-promotion.  For the record, any attorney who uses Avvo Answers to promote himself should be tarred and feathered, then run out of town on a rail, then stripped naked and placed on an ant hill covered in honey.  And I have a number of friends who use Avvo Answers.  I also have the honey at the ready.

The culture of free advice from people who bear no responsibility for their answers, and are more likely than not to be incompetent to provide viable answers, is the foremost feature of the internet.  When things work out, hooray, aren’t we wonderful.  When they don’t, tough nuggies.  Bad Avvo Answers is a recurring theme, almost a meme within the profession. 

The lawyers who respond to these questions characterize their efforts as some form of pro bono, a public service, They are liars. There are many opportunities for public service, where they can provide hard contributions to those who can’t afford counsel.  This is base self-promotion, No one, and I mean no one, provides Avvo Answers because they’re a great humanitarian.  The proof is at the bottom of many a lawyer’s response. The disclaimer:

Disclaimer: Please note that this answer does not constitute legal advice, and should not be relied on, since each state has different laws, each situation is fact specific, and it is impossible to evaluate a legal problem without a comprehensive consultation and review of all the facts and documents at issue. This answer does not create an attorney-client relationship.

If further explanation of why this is a joke is needed, than you don’t deserve to be a lawyer.  And if you’re going to try to spin your way out of this cesspool, be prepared for a harsh response. 

On the other side of the internet, a law student is so thrilled with himself that he’s laid out the secret to beating a ticket.  This was picked up by both Volokh Conspiracy  and Above the Law , the sublime to the ridiculous,  Elie Mystal explains:

I talk a lot about what legal education doesn’t prepare you for. You know what it does prepare you for? Any future interaction with police officers. By the time I finished 1L year, I knew the golden rule for dealing with officers of the law: keep your mouth shut. Knowing the law and knowing your rights helps. But whenever you deal with a cop, you should say as little as possible.

You don’t even have to be a practicing lawyer to reap the benefit of these skills. On his blog, Concurrent Sentences (gavel bang Volokh Conspiracy), a Michigan area law student explains how he masterfully handled a recent traffic stop. It’s a skill all lawyers should have…

Masterfully?  Elie, as a black male, would be expected to be a little more circumspect.  This may explain why he’s writing for ATL rather than practicing.  Let’s take a gander at how this law student handled his traffic stop.

APO: Good afternoon
ME: [silent]
APO: Good afternoon sir
ME: [silent]
APO: GOOD AFTERNOON SIR [raising voice]
ME: [silent]
APO: Do you know why I pulled you over?
ME: No
APO: I pulled you over because you have window tint on your front side windows
ME: [Silent]
APO: You ever been pulled over for this before?
ME: No, my car is registered in Colorado.
APO: In Michigan you are not allowed to have window tint on your front side windows.
ME: Officer, I am not trying to argue with you, but I am very familiar with the statute relating to window tint in Michigan and I know that the statute specifically exempts vehicles that are not registered in Michigan.

And if the officer was in a lousy mood, had a fight with his wife, or didn’t like the attitude, at what junctures in the first 30 seconds of the interaction might he have told this kid to step out of his car and given him a darn good tuning up?

There’s no chapter in the Criminal Law hornbook about tuning up.  Interestingly, many of the comments about this masterful handling noted that the law student behaved poorly, that he could have accomplished his goal without being a wiseguy and needlessly antagonizing the officer.  They are absolutely right.  As I suggested  with the far superior Flex Your Rights video, even the well-behaved motorist puts himself at risk by asserting his rights.  The antagonistic motorist is begging for it.  No, that doesn’t make it right, but it’s still brutally real.

Someone will stumble on all of this in their search for answers on the internet, and believe that they can rely on such a “masterful” approach.  Someone will be beaten, arrested, tased or shot for it.  Who should they blame?

It’s not that people try to be inaccurate, though some could care less as long as their name is spelled correctly.  It’s that the medium lends itself to error, mistake and misinterpretation.  If you contribute to this, you are wrong.  It’s bad enough that so many lawyers are willing, no desirous, of putting on hot pants to strut around the internet in search of clients.  Must you also be a mutt on the internet?

Update:  Mike Cernovitch tells the story about his and Norm Pattis’ “flex their rights” moment with a thick necked cop.  Even weathered criminal defense lawyers can appreciate when it’s not a good to give a cop a hard time over nothing.

H/T Dan Markel at PrawfsBlawg