Ed. Note: In light of the negative sentiment in numerous high-profile criminal cases in recent history generated by both the public and many members of the legal profession, Fault Lines alumni Mario Machado and Chris Seaton were tasked with debating the following: “Is the presumption of innocence a viable guiding principle or is it just a technical legal rule?” The following is Chris’s argument.

There’s a certain picture I have in my head of attorneys like myself who believe the presumption of innocence is a bedrock principle of the American criminal justice system. It’s Eugene Young from David Kelley’s show, “The Practice,” delivering his “America defense” summation.

If you’ve never seen it, Eugene musters the fire of an evangelical minister at a tent revival as he addresses the jury with something resembling the following: Continue reading →

As Joe Otte made clear, the job of running a public defender’s office in Pennsylvania is fraught with collateral politics. The problem begins with the fact that funding for indigent defense comes from the county directly rather than the state, and so the hiring, firing and funding is more personal, and more directly felt by the local politicians and taxpayers.

Pennsylvania PDs know this, even if we don’t. They are well aware of who’s butt needs kissing if they want to hire more public defenders, or need new computers, or want to start a program for the good of mankind. Or just need to get along. This isn’t a good situation, but it’s what they have, and they know it.

For the chief public defender and second in command in Montgomery County, this became a problem. A huge problem. Continue reading →

If you heard that it was because of “sexual harassment,” then it must have been bad.

In 2016, right before I had to go on his show and talk about sexual-assault allegations against Donald Trump, Matthews looked over at me in the makeup chair next to him and said, “Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?”

When I laughed nervously and said nothing, he followed up to the makeup artist. “Keep putting makeup on her, I’ll fall in love with her.” Continue reading →

One of the more fascinating attempts to buck reality has been the New York Times’ efforts to achieve “gender parity” in its Letters to the Editor. The problem, of course, is that if the Times wants to publish more letters from women, men traditionally being more inclined to write, and to write on newsworthy issues, what’s a letters editor to do?

I spent 18 years as the letters editor at The Calgary Herald. I believe that your obsession with tallying the gender of letter writers to achieve greater parity between men and women is the height of political correctness run amok.

Can the “height” of something “run amok”? But I digress. Continue reading →

It’s not at all surprising that some district attorneys’ offices in New York City have found a way around the law, and that their solution is to use an outside party to do their work. This has become the method of convenience for a while, whether for the turnover of discovery, videos, and now witness information.

Now that New York has adopted the radical notion that an accused should know something about the accusations before the morning of trial, prosecutors have been scrambling to get around the new discovery laws. One of which is that the defense is entitled to “adequate contact information” for the People’s witnesses.

Taking a tip from the MTA, which invites you to “download the free app” to find out there are no trains for the rest of the night, the DA’s have concocted an app called WitCom, a portal that defense lawyers are “required” to use if they want to talk to prosecution witnesses.

Continue reading →

Not too long ago, I went to a birthday party for the father of a dear friend. Harry turned 90, and he’s a great guy. The party was held at 21 Club in Manhattan, and in preparation, I wore a blue suit, white shirt and tie. When I arrived at the party, all but the under-25 crowd of males wore suits. There were only two of us wearing a tie, me and an old friend, Gene. While a few wore sports coats with open collar shirts, most wore suits without ties.

Neckties are silly affectations, but they distinguish more formal dress from less. And, for guys, they’re the only aspect of more formal attire to reflect any personality. Pocket squares make you look like a dandy, trying to be Roger Stone with his desperate whiff of “look at me,” but ties remain within the normal paradigm of things men wear when they’re dressed for business.

But not for long? Continue reading →

Axon? That’s the company formerly known as Taser International, for good reason. As the name Taser got dirtied up some, just because the non-lethal weapon morphed into less-than-lethal and bodies inexplicably piled up due to excited delirium, Taser changed its name and branched out into cameras for cops, and Axon was born.

But what do they have to do with New York’s new Criminal Procedure Law Section 245?

The state of New York recently passed new discovery laws that will take effect on January 1, 2020, impacting the current process of digital evidence disclosure. Article 245, which is part of a state-wide initiative focused on criminal justice reform, will require prosecutors to provide initial discovery within 15 days of arraignment. In turn, law enforcement agencies are required to proactively submit all forms of digital evidence as soon as possible. Proponents of the law hope it will expedite case processing periods and shorten jail stays for defendants detained before trial. Some law enforcement agencies are expressing concern about the article’s impact on their workloads and processes . . ..

Continue reading →

Every New Yorker with a car knows about the Parking Violations Bureau, which is where one goes to get convicted (which is only slightly hyperbolic). The problem is that the judges are employees of the City and, while putatively there to fairly adjudicate parking tickets, the PVB has never been known for its fairness or concern for parkers. They’re not judges.

Neither are immigration judges, despite what anybody wants to believe.

Although immigration judges are employees of the executive branch, they’re judges in the truest sense of the term, presiding over cases that have enormous consequences for asylum seekers or people facing removal from the U.S.

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Prefatory note: My mean-ass editor started the week with a post on a goaded judge, so I thought it would be fun to end the week with my all-time favorite story of a goaded judge and the lawyer who pissed him off. For reasons I’ll keep to myself, I’ll just say the following is a true story, with names and certain facts changed to protect the parties involved—CLS

Harrison “Harry” Blodgette was a trial attorney in Driftwood County, Alabama. Possessed with an over-the-top personality, an outspoken demeanor and a never-ending supply of bravado, Harry’s claim to local legal fame was bankrupting a Wal-Mart franchise over workers’ compensation issues. While that lawsuit lined Blodgette’s pockets and helped him start his own firm, the judgment and its residual effects left a bad taste in the mouth of many who lost jobs and a place to find goods at low prices. Continue reading →

In a weird way, the approach taken by the Iowa Attorney General’s office on behalf of the University of Iowa in its defense against a Title IX suit by a male student expelled for “sexually harassing and assaulting two fellow students and by possessing and consuming alcohol on campus” not only makes sense, but was the natural progression of campus sex tribunals. Yes, consuming alcohol was in there too. Please wipe that shocked look off your face.

After all, campus sex tribunals are, despite the rhetorical denial that they’re anything more than just routine campus discipline mechanisms, no different than plagiarism, are most assuredly quasi-criminal administrative proceedings. While copying off someone’s test isn’t a crime, rape is. Continue reading →