In the scheme of impossible demands, the sex offender registry concept has more than its share. Much as there may be empathy for certain crimes and criminals, sex offenders remain pariahs as an incident to rape culture and believing women. While there’s empathy for murders, there’s nothing but hatred and damnation for anyone who’s saddled with the “sex offender” characterization, whether deserved or not. So in 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland decided to add another impossibility to the mix, because who doesn’t hate sex offenders?

The lead plaintiff, identified as John Doe in court documents, enlisted in the Marines at 17. Six years later, according to the original complaint, he had “a consensual but inappropriate encounter” with a 16-year-old girl that “did not involve sexual intercourse.” Because the teenager was two years younger than California’s age of consent, that encounter resulted in criminal charges. Doe pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of sexual battery, which required him to register as a sex offender. He was sentenced to three years of probation. Continue reading →

Before my son graduated from college, we talked about his job search. I, font of wisdom that I am, told him about what it was like when I was young. He, more attuned to the current world, told me that those days died with the horse an buggy. No longer did people knock on doors, send letters directly to the head of Human Resources or the CEO, and lay out why they wanted, and were qualified for, a job in their enterprise. Those days were gone, indeed.

He showed me the online job sites and the problem he was looking at. He came onto the job market with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. Not too shabby, right? Wrong. Job after entry level job, they wanted candidates with master’s degrees to do work that barely required a degree at all. Continue reading →

As there always are, there will be apologists who will try to explain away a murder. They didn’t mean to kill him, but only beat him to a pulp to show him who’s boss? He should have complied harder and then they wouldn’t have killed him? Don’t lie to yourself.

Tyre Nichols ran because his options were try to survive or die. When that’s the only option given a person, he has every right to try to survive. No one is going to willingly sacrifice his life to you whatever sick compulsion you have to use your force for whatever twisted needs of power you suffer. Continue reading →

A crowd gathered at Garage 16 on a cold January night in Mud Lick.

The air was thick with the smell of booze and cigarettes, a change from the normal odors of oil and machinery. The crowd surrounded the shop floor and all but four men stayed out of a ring drawn around the floor.

Inside the white circle was a barrel. Atop the barrel sat a small flip chart capable of displaying the numbers 00-99. “Warming up” in their own unique ways in the circle were Stan and George Cocke, the Cocke Boys. Continue reading →

Years ago, I came to the realization that calling my client “the defendant” rather than by his name fed into his dehumanization. He wasn’t a person, but a defendant. Similarly, I never called the prosecution “the People,” as was stylized in the caption in New York state courts. They were “the government,” or perhaps “the district attorney” or “the prosecution,” because the jury was “the people.” I have no clue whether it actually changed anything, but I believed it to be the right thing to do, so I did it.

Since then, it’s spiraled out to others, to everyone, under the name “person-first” language. Except it wasn’t what I sought to do, replace a characterization with a name, but replace a description with a longer description that started with the word “person” and ended with whatever the point of the phraseology would be. Someone wasn’t homeless, but a person experiencing homelessness, and thereafter houselessness which became the new homelessness as if people were confused by the former. Continue reading →

As Judge Peter Kubota ordered the shackles removed from Ian Schweitzer, who served 23 years for a murder and sexual assault DNA evidence showed he likely didn’t commit, perhaps the foremost reason this was possible is because Schweitzer wasn’t put to death. Sure, the Innocence Project, DNA, the cooling of mindless passion and lessons learned about jailhouse snitches, all helped. But if he was dead, then so what?

Despite involving, as seems obvious in retrospect, every failed trope of bad evidence and prejudice, he was doomed from the start because it was a high profile murder and someone needed to pay. That “someone” was Schweitzer and two others, and everybody was certain of his guilt, so certain that the evidence didn’t matter. He was guilty. Everybody knew it. Except maybe he wasn’t. Continue reading →

The question posed to the original three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit was whether the state of Washington could prohibit a licensed therapist, Brian Tingley, from advising his patient under the age of 18 to undergo “conversion therapy,” defined by statute as a “regime that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” The law prohibited such advice and deemed it professional misconduct.

For most of us, the answer is easy, dictated by the fact that conversion therapy doesn’t work and is potentially harmful to the patient. Perhaps more to the point, if one is of the view that there is nothing wrong with being gay, then it’s not a problem to be cured and there is no justification for conversion therapy. But after the panel ruled in favor of the state, plaintiff sought en banc review, which was denied with an opinion by Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain that raises some troubling concerns. Continue reading →

When the NCAA was compelled to allow college athletes to enjoy million dollar sponsorships for their name, image and endorsement, many applauded that the students would finally be allowed to partake of the bounty that had previously gone only to their colleges. Yay? Well, kinda, but for the fact that the bounty wouldn’t be distributed equitably.

To most of us, this was so obvious that it was accepted as a given. Star athletes would make big bucks. Lesser athletes, less, if anything. Meritocracy would vote with its wallet, as it should. But what of the age-old sport conundrum, that women don’t get the opportunities and benefits that men do? Continue reading →

While I’m sure they exist, I can’t imagine a parent who believes that someone else, someone at school, would make better choices for their child than they would. Yet, parents believe that schools should be empowered to make decisions for other people’s children because they will make the decisions for other people’s children that they believe should be made. Not their children, but other people’s children, when the parents might not make the choices they would make for their own. Continue reading →

When Joshua Browder came up with the idea for DoNotPay, a chatbot to walk defendants through the basic handling of parking tickets, it had its merits. After all, many defendants were unable to afford a lawyer to represent them, and the offenses were infractions, not crimes, so the cost of failure was low. And frankly, most defendants lacked the focus and knowledge to handle their defense adequately, no less competently, so any help that guided people down a reasonably sound path was better than nothing.

Then he got more ambitious. Continue reading →