Before the raid on Trump lawyer turned defendant turned snitch turned inmate, Michael Cohen, the idea of the feds raiding a law office to rifle through the files would offend the sensibilities of most rational people. But since Cohen was Trump’s lawyer, rational people were hard to find, and since Cohen turned out to be less than the poster boy for legal integrity and copped a plea, cries of impropriety rang hollow.

So now raiding law offices, particularly the law offices of real, actual, criminal defense lawyers is no big thing?

A prominent Baltimore defense lawyer has been accused of helping drug dealers commit and cover up crimes, and a second has been accused of obstructing justice on behalf of the first, who is a client, according to documents filed in a federal appeals court.

Neither Ken Ravenell, the first attorney, nor Joshua Treem, the second, has been charged with a crime.

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His application for coach of the Fremont Union High School Junior Varsity Tennis Team reflected an extremely well-qualified candidate.

The district said Persky, who used his legal name, Michael, when he applied, was a highly qualified candidate, having attended several tennis coaching clinics, adding that he holds a high rating from the US Tennis Association. In a statement, the district said he “successfully completed” the necessary hiring requirements and passed a fingerprint background check.

Why wouldn’t he pass a fingerprint background check? He was a judge, for crying out loud. But then they learned he was “that” Persky and the dots that only the unduly passionate can see were connected. Continue reading →

It’s become common for a tragedy to be immediately labeled an act of terrorism, usually based upon the deep reasoning, “how could this not be terrorism?” It’s become a word that expresses a depth of anger, of outrage, based upon motives, usually assumed at the point where the word gets pulled out, of someone committing an atrocity for the purpose of sending a message.

If it were thrown about with reckless abandon merely as a rhetorical ploy, or a catharsis because words like murder just don’t carry the gravitas needed anymore, that would be relatively silly but harmless. The problem is law enforcement has latched on to this phenomenon and now seeks to play the useful idiots for all their worth.

When detectives from the New York Police Department’s intelligence bureau arrested Jose Pimentel on Nov. 20, 2011, he was in a Washington Heights apartment putting the finishing touches on a pipe bomb he was building in an Al Qaeda-inspired plot to attack military and police targets in the city. On March 22, 2017, James Harris Jackson was arrested for the racially motivated sword killing of Timothy Caughman. Mr. Jackson, a white supremacist, said he had planned to kill more people of color in New York, hoping to start a race war. Continue reading →

For anyone who doesn’t know, my office on September 11, 2001, was on the 51st Floor of the Woolworth Building, which was the best possible view of the Twin Towers in New York City. It was from the spot where my desk chair sat that the photograph of The Site was taken for Life Magazine.

I was given a print of the photo, taken with a camera in large format showing exceptional detail. I still have it, squirreled away in a place where I never look. I won’t get rid of it, but I don’t look at it either. I’ve never watched a television show or documentary about 9/11. If it happens to come on, I change the channel. Continue reading →

No doubt Judge Richard Posner left the Seventh Circuit with the best of intentions.

“About six months ago,” Judge Posner said, “I awoke from a slumber of 35 years.” He had suddenly realized, he said, that people without lawyers are mistreated by the legal system, and he wanted to do something about it.

How he managed to sleep through this for 35 years remains something of a mystery, although it might be best explained less as slumber and more as not giving a damn and just being annoyed by the zany antics of pro se litigants, but two things appeared to coincide. First, he realized that there were meritorious issues buried deep in the gibberish of pro se applications, and second, he was bored with his life and wasn’t getting any younger.

His answer, after alienating himself from his colleagues on the circuit, was to form the Posner Center For Justice for Pro Se’s. It sure sounds all justice-y, and the mission tugged at our collective heartstrings. Continue reading →

There are some very popular people on social media, with tens of thousand of followers, gushing about the injustice of the system. Much as their assertions tend to be half-baked, quasi-accurate by including only the details that further their posture and omitting entirely the requisite facts that expose the claims of heartbreak as manipulative hogwash, the audience is non-lawyers.

They twit for the benefit of the unduly passionate, to convince them that the system is horrible and broken, that District Attorneys other than the tiny subset of progressives they adore are evil, that cops are just racist killing machines and that they are the heroes who sacrifice to save society by fighting the good fight, mostly at night arraignments and occasionally in post-conviction exoneration cases.

So what, you might ask? If it’s just petty deception of the useful idiots to create a critical mass for reform, isn’t it worth it? Perhaps, subject to one’s tolerance for lying, but the problem is that it’s not just the unwashed masses, but a lot of law students and baby lawyers (and more than a few lawyers with sufficient experience to know better) seem to have gotten caught up in the fervor. Continue reading →

Even a faux-feminist show pony needs to earn a living, you know. Nobody paid Lisa Bloom to talk to the microphones about the pain and suffering of sad victims, even though that was her brand.

Stop giggling. When Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey included the $895 per hour in their book, “She Said,” it was to inflame the masses with her outrageous fee, even though it’s second tier, teetering on third, for good lawyers. But that was the problem for Lisa Bloom. She was a pseudo-celebrity lawyer, much like her mom, Gloria Allred, but that didn’t pay the bills. Guys like Harvey Weinstein paid the bills. At least that’s what Bloom thought. Continue reading →

Not that Walter Mosley needs anyone’s help to tell a story, but a commenter, Patti Jacobs from San Diego, was too perfect to pass up. Let’s assume she’s female, because in a sane world her name would be a giveaway, and she’s likely white because I assume she would have said she wasn’t if she wasn’t. Regardless, Patti Jacobs put the cherry on top:

The dialogue has already been opened, and the change has already taken place. The n-word is offensive at all times, by all speakers.

Says who? Says Patti Jacobs, the person who gets to tell you, and Walter Mosley, what can and cannot be said. All words. All speakers. It’s unclear what Patti Jacobs’ day job is, but it wouldn’t be surprising to learn she works in HR, keeping the work world safe from discomfort. Continue reading →

Why? Why would a defendant rat out his “accomplice” to the cops or prosecutors? A few general reasons come quickly to mind: First, sometimes it just happens, when a suspect is being interrogated and the name just comes out. Second, there’s misdirected anger, when a defendant gets nailed for something and believes it’s unfair that he has to go down but the other guy is going to get away with it. Why him? Why should he take the fall?

Third, because a defendant comes to the realization that he’s not going to walk and sees opportunity. Whether it’s the chance to snitch and get credit that will serve to reduce his sentence or there’s some hated person, and this is a chance for revenge. It may even serve to accomplish both purposes, a sentence reduction and vengeance. As long as the defendant is going down anyway, why not make the most of it?

There is only one hurdle to making this work, the accomplice corroboration rule, which “requires that accomplice testimony be independently verified to sustain a conviction.” It’s not much. Any independent corroboration will do, no matter how slight. Continue reading →

When my son and I met with the dean of admissions at my alma mater, he could not have been more accommodating. My son didn’t want to go, but I tricked him because they were holding the Cornell Open fencing competition that weekend and it made the perfect lure. He won, despite only being in high school, and they wanted him to fence for Cornell.* Plus, he was a direct legacy.

Of course, my son didn’t care. He didn’t want to go there, no matter how sweet the dean’s endearments. And he didn’t need my legacy bump to get where he wanted to go.

In a 2012 blog post, Chris Peterson, an assistant director in the M.I.T. admissions office, put the issue in stark terms. “I personally would not work for a college which had legacy admission because I am not interested in simply reproducing a multigenerational lineage of educated elite. And if anyone in our office ever advocated for a mediocre applicant on the basis of their ‘excellent pedigree’ they would be kicked out of the committee room. So to be clear: if you got into M.I.T., it’s because you got into M.I.T. Simple as that.”

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