With the growth of video, it’s become undeniable that police excess, both large and small, is a sadly regular occurrence.  But that doesn’t mean that citizen’s are behaving well either, and indeed, as this video, via Turley , demonstrates, sometimes the person taking the video behaves so poorly that it’s nearly impossible to feel much sympathy.

Now, a video has been released of a Jonesboro, Arkansas man who arrested after filming police conduct a search of a neighbor’s vehicle and body. The video was taken last year.

The man is heard yelling “Nazis” and accusing the police of violating the 4th Amendment.

Police officers then confront the man for calling them Nazis and demand his identification. They then threaten him with a variety of possible charges from disturbing the peace to disorderly conduct to obstruction. Since when is it a crime to swear at officers?

Of course, it’s not a crime to call police officers names, or curse at them, particularly when the loudmouth is doing so from his own front yard.  And yet, it seems abundantly clear that the name-caller was looking for a fight, whether deliberately trying to incite the situation or merely jumping the gun.

This case got worse before it got better and Harden’s lawyer, Donn Mixon, filled me in on the details.

After cops entered Harden’s garage without a warrant; after they demanded ID for a non-crime (criticizing a police officer); after they arguably committed a battery of Harden by grabbing his camera; after they arrested him — then they searched his garage and found a handgun. Harden was charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon. Two problems: 1) He has no felony record (despite Jonesboro police efforts to smear him by saying he’d once been mentioned as a potential suspect in a burglary) 2) he has a permit to carry a weapon.

Harden was held 24 hours before police discovered they’d filed an erroneous charge. But the disorderly conduct charge still pended. Finally, the city attorney’s office said they’d drop the charge, in return for a waiver that Harden not sue over his handling. Harden’s no choirboy. But the law couldn’t be clearer. Shouting at a police officer isn’t a trumped-up crime like disorderly conduct or obstructing government operations, not even if you call a cop a Nazi.

For a guy inclined to call police officers “nazis” for doing their job, he responded with somewhat surprising passivity to the unwarranted charges and detention by agreeing to waive any rights he had in exchange for dropping the criminal charges.  Of course, if there was no basis for his arrest, and he has committed no crime, then dismissal of the charges against Harden provided no consideration for his agreement not to sue.  Kinda cowardly on Harden’s part, in contrast to his big mouth before he was arrested.

One of the hardest things for a cop to do, though they are taught this during their training, and are often called upon to exercise sound discretion, is to not lose their cool when someone says something mean or nasty to them.  It doesn’t make the person calling names any less a moron, but it’s just not a crime. 

Of course, that’s one of the points of many of these videos, that police frequently find it impossible to let things go, to ignore name-calling, to recognize that contempt of cop is not a crime.  Even the biggest jerk among us is allowed to be a jerk without fear of arrest or, as is too often the case, a good beating.

Clearly, the police were wrong to approach and arrest Harden.  Equally clearly, Harden is jackass, and in America, people are allowed to be jackasses.  And that’s how rights are tested.

The folks on Daughtry Street in Madison County, Mississippi were having a party.  As far as Moses Hart knew, everybody was having a good time until the cops showed up.  According to WAPT :

Via Josh Blackmon, it appears that the genius of crowdsource is pushing at  Change.org for, ta da, a new law named after Caylee Anthony.  Because bizarre, outlier events demand a new law?  Nah, because every time a child dies, no matter how bizarre the circumstance, society must prevent it from ever happening again.  Because no new bizarre event will take the life of another child if we pass a law named after the last one.

There are more than 50,000 votes signatures on the petition already in support of this notion:

I’m writing to propose that a new law be put into effect making it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the death of their child, accidental or otherwise, within 1 hour of said death being discovered. This way there will be no more cases like Casey Anthony’s in the courts, and no more innocent children will have to go without justice.

Also, make it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the disappearance of a child within 24 hours, so proper steps can be taken to find that child before it’s too late.

Called “Black Swan” laws, even in cursory form, Josh notes some faults:

1 Hour! And if someone tells the police on the 61st minute, they go to jail. 24 hours! What about a sleepover in the woods?

On a more serious note, if a parent was inclined to murder her child, would fear of a prosecution under this law stop her?  Would the sentence be death plus a year?

This compulsion to avenge a tragedy involving a child by crafting yet another law to deal with a situation already fully covered (as in murder) has produced a basic rule that any law named after a dead child is invariably a bad exercise of legislative fiat.  It’s not the intended consequences I fear, but the unintended ones. And there are always unintended ones. 

Josh calls this the Ted Frank Rule (for which Josh links to himself, something he does an awful lot), because he first heard of it when Ted reiterated the rule that’ the rest of us (Ted included) have discussed for years.  He bolsters his opposition by

express[ing] skepticism of any law named after the victim of a crime–these laws are “poor public policy enacted by legislators who confuse voting against a law with voting against an innocent person.” Who would vote against Caylee?

All good reasons to think this another terribly misguided law, and indeed, it is.  Plenty of room for mischief and little hope of serving any real purpose.  No, this law would not have “saved” Caylee Anthony, no matter what happened to her.

But it can happen. 

This is a huge promotional opportunity for politicians across the country, to grab all those folks feeling disaffected by the verdict and make a run for their hearts, if not their minds.  While Josh makes good, solid, rational points, he misses the mark.  This isn’t about an appeal to reason, but an appeal to emotion. 

Are legislators so stupid as to believe that enactment of this misguided law will accomplish anything?  Well, no doubt some are. There’s no intelligence test required for election to office.  But others will know that this is just pandering, and will do so with gusto.

And the champions of Caylee’s Law will be the heroes of many, and raise vast funds for re-election, even though they will be a shoo-in.  And will go on to higher office.  And will have statues of them erected in the village square.  Because no one could possibly be against Caylee Anthony.

I predict a run on stop watches for parents. You can never be too careful.

H/T Walter Olson

According to an alternate juror, Russell Huekler, the verdict was correct.

Huekler laid out three reasons:

• The prosecution “didn’t present the evidence that would have sustained either a murder charge or a manslaughter charge.”


• They also failed to show a motive. “We and I kept waiting to see what was the motive — “just being a party girl” did not show why she might have killed Caylee, he said.


• And the prosecution was also unable to say “how did Caylee actually pass away.”

Asked whether Huekler thought Anthony, 25, was innocent or if he had reasonable doubt she was guilty, he said: “Definitely reasonable doubt for myself.”

Is this why Casey Anthony was acquitted of the top counts?  It certainly seems reasonable, but I can’t say.  Neither can Huekler, reasonable though his explanation may be.

Before the verdict, everybody had answers, with the loudest voice being Nancy Grace who seized every opportunity to tell the rest of us how much she knew.  After, she was the ugliest person on TV.  Truth is, she was always that ugly, but it didn’t come into focus until her face contorted in disgust.

One of the hardest things to get used to is reaching an end without having answers.  Tolerance for ambiguity, the variety of things it might have been, isn’t the norm in a world where everything is explained in the final five minutes of the show.  We got a verdict, but we have no answers.  Most people can’t stand it.

Did the system work or fail? The pundits were fools before the verdict, and they will still be fools afterward. They have no magic knowledge.  They have no answers.  Neither do I.

It’s never clear what a jury might do. It’s even less clear why.  Sometimes, there is no reason behind it at all, while other times the reason is abundantly sound.  We can’t believe the post-verdict interviews, where they explain their rationale after they’ve had a chance to form one.  The dynamic in the jury room defies normal explanations.  It’s like focus groups, which never seem to do what anyone expects them to do, and often goes flying into weird space that no one could have anticipated.

What of the judge, or Jose Baez, or the parents, or Caylee?  Some will focus on the individuals of choice, the ones that they believe were critical to the outcome.  Are they right?  Maybe. Maybe not. It’s all speculation.

There are few things I hate more than speculation, not because it isn’t fun to do, but because it proves nothing. It’s a waste of time, a game for children.

The system worked, however.  That much I know.  When the jury reached a verdict, that’s what the system is supposed to do.  What that verdict is, on the other hand, isn’t dictated by the system itself, but by the vicissitudes of trial.  Despite the efforts of all involved, the outcome sometimes comes on its own.  And sometimes the right outcome happens.  The reasons for it, well, don’t really matter.  That’s why juries don’t have to explain themselves and justify their verdict.

A word about the much maligned Jose Baez, who was not treated well by much of anybody.  He won this trial. No one can ever take that away from him.  He’s been called a lot of bad things during the course of trial, and he’s had to suffer the criticism of lawyers and pundits who thought they were his better.  But he won, and they didn’t. 

This post offers no answers because I have none.  That’s how trials happen sometimes.  Stercus accidit.  That’s our system. Get used to questions without answers.  Or play with yourself and pretend that you know something when you really don’t.  It doesn’t matter, as it won’t change the verdict.

The  initial report about 17-year-old mentally challenged young man, Jesse Kersey, who rode his bicycle the wrong direction on a Dayton Street came from the complaint filed against the city, They were devastating, but as allegations crafted for the purpose of obtaining money damages, not the most reliable source of information.

Dayton police “mistook” a mentally handicapped teenager’s speech impediment for “disrespect,” so they Tasered, pepper-sprayed and beat him and called for backup from “upward of 20 police officers” after the boy rode his bicycle home to ask his mother for help, the boy’s mom says.

On the way, the mom says, “A neighbor attempted to communicate with Officer Hooper about Jesse’s disabilities and was told to go back into his home, or he would be arrested.”

As Ford opened her front door, she says, Hooper and co-defendant Officer John Howard, “fired their Tasers, striking Jesse in the back with both probes.”

“Once inside the house, defendant Hooper and defendant Howard began to struggle with Jesse, who was standing against the back door with his hands up in front of his face, saying ‘Please quit, please quit.’

When Kersey spotted the police cruiser, he started riding on the sidewalk.

When Hooper yelled for Kersey to stop, the boy took off up St. Paul Avenue, dumping his bike in front of his house.

Finding the front door locked, Kersey turned on Hooper, who had mounted the front porch to issue Kersey a bicycle citation, and began to struggle, according to the police report.

“Kersey started swinging his arms at Officer Hooper and yelling in an unintelligible language,” according to the police report.

An attempt to Tase the struggling boy, who was described as 6-foot-1 and 160 pounds, was unsuccessful.

That’s a big kid, and he could do some damage in a fight with police.  Since the first rule of policing is to make it home for dinner, and Hooper wasn’t dealing with some tiny tot, quasi-lethal force seemed the best, first choice when dealing with someone “yelling in an unintelligible language.”

What never would have dawned on Hooper was that he had another alternative method of dealing with this young man, who he either knew, or was informed, was mentally challenged.  He could have ceased his quest for physical domination and control.  Just stopped.  Waiting calmly. Talked to Jesse’s mother and neighbor, and explained that he was going to wait a bit for everyone to take a breather, himself included, and then calmly deal with the otherwise inconsequential situation.

There are emergent situations that demand immediate action, whether because harm is about to be done to someone or someone who has engaged in a serious offense is attempting to flee.  We understand, though there are time when there is some doubt about how serious a situation needs to be before risking innocent lives in wild car chases or shoot outs.  But we can appreciate that tense, split second, life-or-death decisions have to be made.

Not here.  There was nothing here, nothing, that compelled immediate action or the use of force. Even assuming that Jesse was not nearly as challenged as claimed, and was in fact a serial, unrepentant wrong-way bicyclist, no one’s life was n danger (except Jesse’s) and they knew where he lived and could always find him there later.  There was no emergency.

Chalking this up to contempt of cop, based on Jesse’s failure to heed the command to halt, seems the most likely reason for the testosterone eruption by Hooper.  A kid dissed him and he wasn’t about to let that pass unnoticed.  He was a cop.  No one can diss a cop and get away with it.

Under ordinary circumstances, this would fall into the pigeonhole of normal cop smacking around kid who needed to be taught a lesson.  But Jesse wasn’t the ordinary kid in need of a lesson.  He yelled in am unintelligible language.  So did Hooper, as far as Jesse was concerned.  You can’t teach a lesson when you speak different languages.

This is what separates this case from the usual contempt of cop case, where the perceived disrespect, invariably cause for a good tuning up, may be due to a handicap.  We see it when cops stop deaf drivers, or when cops are called to control autistic children.  As bad, and it is most assuredly bad, it may be for police to use force against people just to teach them a lesson about obedience, it falls to the level of disgust and incomprehensibility when the person against whom the force is used suffers from a physical or mental challenge that precludes their ability to understand the command, even if they were inclined to do so.

Police must be trained to get a grip on their hormones, their machismo that compels them to harm others.  Regardless of what Jesse did, what the true story behind this awful use of force may be, there is no legitimate reason why Hooper needed to act when his best option, assuming his version is accurate, was to de-escalate, to calm the situation down, to take a step back.

There are many people in this country who suffer from various forms of mental and psychological challenges, and they are at severe risk.  Even to those who believe that a kid who knowingly disrespects a cop deserves the beating that follows, no one with half a brain believes that the mentally challenged deserve to be the victim of force for their handicap.  Far too many are at risk to tolerate this conduct.

There is no shame to a cop in not beating every person who doesn’t immediately obey your command.  The same can’t be said for beating a mentally challenged young man like Jesse.  There is no story you can concoct that will make you seem manly and righteous.  There was no need here, none, to use force.  There was no shame in avoiding the use of force. No one would think less of Police Officer Hooper if he hadn’t used force against Jesse Kersey.

When the jury is done deliberating, it will return a verdict.  In advance of the trial, the verdict seems like a foregone conclusion because everyone was saying so.  Now, smart money is still on conviction, but the odds have weakened.

And so what?  When the jury reaches a verdict, we will have an answer.  Casey Anthony will have an answer.  And the case will be appealed, but it won’t have the same sizzle despite the wealth of faux science allowed into evidence to fill the wealth of evidentiary gaps.  In Florida, where my very own altacacca parents await their destiny, I hear everyone is obsessed with the trial. 

My people, not generally inclined toward the murder of their own child (though the thought may have entered their mind once or twice), tell me she didn’t do it, and that Anthony’s parents are liars.  As for Anthony, she’s just another psycho narcissistic kid, but not a murderer.

All of which amounts to nothing.  Like O.J. before her, Casey Anthony’s trial is another demonstration of why cameras in the courtroom, trials as reality TV show, lawyers as free and easy pundits, demean the legal system and render every person who follows the case worse for it.

While I wrote about the case, it was only to address the “smell” evidence and to ridicule the daily television airing of what passes in  Nancy Grace’s head as thought.  My post about the lawyers paying flacks to get them twelve seconds of air time wasn’t about the case, but about  lawyers delving ever lower to be media whores.

One of the ethical obligations to which lawyers swear fealty is to educate the public on the workings of the law.  We pretend that cases like this do something toward that end.  They don’t.  They do just the opposite, as we feed into every prejudice about people and the system, and reinforce every stupid notion about a system that lends itself to simple analysis of anger, hatred, rank speculation.  Bad analogies abound, but the public doesn’t realize it.  Serious evidentiary questions are rampant, but they learn nothing about reliability and confrontation.

And while the jury is out, lawyers will pontificate about what it all means.  Some will pronounce that she will be convicted because she is evil.  Others, maybe one or two, will explain why she will be acquitted.  The most dangerous will spout about why this case matters, capitalizing on public fascination with sordid crimes for their own purposes.

This is a case about a dead child, a terrible thing.  It’s a case about horribly sad people who will forever be remembered as faces on television that everyone and no one knows.  And it is a case that could have been used to educate the public about how the legal system works, and should work, in this country, but didn’t.

And the season finale will end with a verdict, which is the only thing that actually matters at this stage of the proceeding.  The verdict will not take into account Nancy Grace’s persistent insane rants, or Danny Abrams’ ramblings about things he’s never done himself.  The hundreds of lawyers who have been auditioning for a spot as Phil Rizzuto are already forgotten, and will never get a refund on their promotional fees.

And the many member of the public will believe, once again, that it knows something about the legal system because they watched or read about the trial, when the truth is that they learned nothing more than how entertaining a scandalous case can be when it becomes daily fodder.

Why we, lawyers, do this is sadly obvious, because it offers us an opportunity to grab the spotlight for a few minutes.  What this does to our profession doesn’t seem to matter a whit when there’s a chance for self-aggrandizement to be had.

The Casey Anthony trial was ugly in every conceivable way, except for the face of the defendant.  If she had been ugly, the case would never have made it on prime time.  And when the verdict is announced, people will be depressed as they are when a favorite drama ends its run.  That’s what the criminal justice system has become, and we’ve been a laboring oar in reducing it to a worthless public spectacle.

No matter what the verdict, no one is better for having followed or participated in this show.

Update: Not guilty.  How then will the pseudo-punditry possibly explain the inexplicable failure of essentially every lawyer who tried to handicap the case?  A massive failure, an angry citizenry and all the stupider for the exercise.  Never have so many lawyers looked so pathologically stupid.  And to each one who went on TV to pretend they had a clue, it’s well deserved.

How grand would life be if you could enjoy the perks, the glory, the importance and power of being a big shot executive with a major multinational, but got to stay home and play with the kids rather than work?  I know, me too.  So too the six women suing Bayer for sex discrimination.

While there are plenty of other causes of action that suggest they have some very real gripes. this, via the  Evil HR Lady by way of Walter Olson at Overlawyered, is not their strongest point:

The few women who have advanced beyond the director level and into the highest echelon of management have achieved this rank by sacrificing their personal lives and abandoning work-life balance.  Female Vice President of Global Health Economics and Outcomes Research Kathleen Gondek is unmarried with no children, female Senior Director Susan Herster has no children and female Vice Presidents Shannon Campbell and Leslie North have others who serve as primary care-givers to their children.

Can you imagine the sadness at the loss of work-life balance by these women in the “highest echelon of management?”  How sad. How wrong. They shouldn’t be there are all if they haven’t figured out that anyone elevated to that position is required to sacrifice their personal lives to perform the heavy burdens that come with the heavy paycheck.

Not worth it for you?  That’s cool. Don’t do it.  And don’t get the title, or the car, or the paycheck. But you can’t have it all. No man can. No woman can. No one can. And don’t whine about the choice you made, to go for the career at the price of a family life. 

We all make a choice about the relationship of our work and our non-working life.  And we all pay a price, on one side or the other for our choices.  All of us.  It’s different for women?  Absolutely, but blame nature, not management.

We all want it all.  Who wouldn’t?  But rational people understand that life involves trade-offs.  We can’t be in two places at the same time. We can’t do a day’s work while enjoying a day off.  Not even the magic of the internet can allow us to avoid the strictures of physics, even though there are plenty of people who pretend that’s untrue. 

It would affect a man’s career as well.  It’s just that fewer men are the primary caregivers for their children.

Work-life balance is not a guarantee.  Attacking other women who have made different life choices than you have, and therefore have different consequences, is a cheap shot and an attempt to say, “We’re better mothers/women than you are.”

Really?  Do we need that.

It makes sense that people–male and female–who choose to “abandon work-life balance” in the company’s favor should be rewarded by the company.  If you’re not willing to do that, don’t expect the reward.  Why should you?

But the key is that this isn’t a gender issue, but a human issue.  Whether it’s being in court on trial when junior has a baseball game or Missy has her dance recital, it’s the same for men as women.  We make choices.  Smart people plan as best they can to do as much as reasonably possible, but something will always have to give. 

The women of Bayer enjoy powerful corporate positions.  So they have nannies to raise their children? They decide not to have children at all?  That’s life.  That’s the life they’ve chosen.  Enough pretending that we don’t have to suffer for our decisions, or that it doesn’t affect everyone. Every person lives with the consequences of his or her choices.  We make the best of it, but that’s the best we can do.

There is no entitlement to be able to hold an important position and enjoy the life of Sally Homemaker.  By confusing gender discrimination with reality, the Bayer Six don’t help their cause or their credibility.  Or their gender.

Finding the perfect pair is hard to do, and with the vast resources available on the internet, many hope to meet that person who “completes” them through digital magic.  And, if one is truly fortunate, at the right price. 

Some entrepreneurial types have come up with peculiar ideas of matching lawyers with clients, from the putative bidding for the bottom wars of Shpoonkle to the hot bed law office concept of LawyerUp.  A number of lawyers use a free method, Craigs List, to advertise their wares, while others enjoy the online but low cost option of the PennySaver, particularly Wall Street lawyer types.

What’s unusual, however, is for someone to use a method like Craigs List to seek the perfect lawyer to stand by his side in court.  After all, if the claim has merit, lawyers will flock to a litigant for a piece of the vast wealth coming down the road.  If no lawyer wants to be anywhere near the client, there’s a message to be heard.

Via George Wallace at Declarations and Exclusions, just such an offering was made on Craigs List.

Attorney of Record in NY (Trial Lawyer…MUST READ BELOW)

In your reply, please acknowledge the points listed below. ($200 a month plus $150 per Court Appearance.)

1) This is a Defamation case that was filed only a couple of months ago; it is brand new.  If the case survives the motions to dismiss, I assume it will be 2 or 3 years before it is over. There are many, many defendants and once they learn who the lawyer is who I will hire as the Attorney of Record, they will almost certainly engage in character assassination of that person and attempt to ruin that lawyer’s reputation on the Internet.  I do not know for a fact that this will happen, but I believe that it is a possibility.

2) The lawyer should be EXTREMELY aggressive in the Court room. It is helpful if you have experience in Defamation. Obviously, trial lawyers who intimately know the CPLR will be the strongest candidates.

3) Please, no resumes.  Just briefly tell me about your experience.

4) While I will be responsible for most of the drafting, I will have legal and procedural questions that I could need you to answer.  You will also need to proof read our documents.

5) You must become an expert in my case.  You must know all of the defendants, all of their arguments, etc.  Thank you.

As enticing as this offer might seem at first blush, it reflects a problem.  Could it be possible that the reason that the litigant who found it necessary to solicit a lawyer blind on the internet can’t find a lawyer otherwise?  Lawyers are a dime a dozen, taking on dubious causes all the time if there is even the slightest hint of making a buck somewhere down the road.  Why, then, does the person who has carefully crafted his requirements for his lawyer found it necessary to go to the virtual street and solicit for anyone, anyone at all, willing to take him on?

What if the ad-placer went from lawyer to lawyer, knowing a few who could be asked to fill the shoes he feels are so vital to his cause, and was told that despite their hunger and desperation, their willingness to take on pretty much any case that held any potential to make a buck, they would not take his?  This would seem to be as clear a message that his cause was not just, not right, a horrible loser. 

And so, the individual so needy for counsel offered to pay, and still they turned him down flat.  No reliance on promises of future wealth, but cash on demand, and still no takes?  The message became clearer. 

Yet the person who wrote this add persists.

Another match made in heaven, David Dunning met Justin Kruger at Cornell University.  Together, they developed the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to appreciate their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is.

Kruger and Dunning proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

1. tend to overestimate their own level of skill;


2. fail to recognize genuine skill in others;


3. fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;


4. recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to substantially improve.

It appears that the person who posted the advertisement for a lawyer on Craigs List may suffer from these problems, incapable of learning the lessons taught by a match gone right in trying to find a match destined to go wrong.

When lawyers bid on the opportunity to represent someone, itself an ugly concept but one that at least supports the notion that someone wants the job, or believes that the case has merit,  This may be a message that the client is cheap, or cares little about the quality of his representation, but at least the fact that lawyers desire the work is encouraging.

On the flip side, when no one wants the job, a relatively normal, reasonable person, with intelligence slightly above that of a brick, would recognize a problem.  Not so the person suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect, whose belief in his own virtue and brilliance so clouds his mind that he is incapable of learning any lesson from rejection.

I suspect that whoever place this Craigs List advertisement for counsel suffers from such a malignancy.  I can only hope it’s not terminal, as it seems clear that he will not find love on the internet.

One of the fundamental flaws of the victims rights advocates is that they anoint the victim first and worry about whether there was a crime later, if at all.  After all, victims deserve our sympathy and, more importantly, must be protected from the harsh scrutiny that comes with a legal system that tests their claims before hanging the bad guy.

And then there’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn, vilified for his sexual assault against a hotel maid and, due to his prominence and French accent, released only under the most arduous bail conditions.  But for his extreme wealth, he wouldn’t have been freed at all.  Then again, but for his high-profile, no one would have looked twice at his case.

When it first broke, the story had an odor, as it seemed to change from minute to minute, and his conduct that day didn’t match the allegations.  It appears that the parties will be back in court today to clean up the mess.  From the New York Times :

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials.

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a French politician, and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.

Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Notice the language?  No longer is the maid the victim, but now the “accuser.”  Jim Dwyer’s article turns a corner that few want to admit exists, that there is no victim, but only an accuser, until a case is tried and a defendant convicted. 

At the outset, the prosecution was thrilled to tell the media that its case was compelling, overwhelming.  They nailed a big fish, and they were only too happy to let everyone know.  But then they investigated.  That’s how cases are worked, bust first, smear second, investigate if and when you get a chance. 

Much of the discussion about DSK centered on whether he would plea or go to trial, as a tactical matter.  Few considered the possibility that there was no crime.  After all, the prosecution said there was and they would never lie.  And no one, but no one, questioned whether the victim of a terrible sex attack might not have been a victim at all, but just an accuser. A false accuser.

Given DSK’s prominence, resources and lawyers, the prosecution knew that it faced a fight.  The post arrest investigation wasn’t meant to ascertain whether the crime truly occurred, or whether their witness was really a victim, but to nail down the evidence and make sure they beat DSK into submission. 

As it turned out, the investigation meant to assure a win turned out the other way, showing their victim to be a liar.  Had it been someone substantially less prominent, there would have been minimal investigation, if any at all.  They just would have put the maid on a pedestal and presented her in court as a paragon of virtue.  And that’s what the jury would have seen.

The defense, from the start, said they would destroy the maid’s credibility, and they were fortunate to have the wherewithal to mount an investigation of their own to do so.  Whether they had the good is unknown, and likely will never be known.  But the reality is that few defendants have the ability of a DSK to do the legwork to show that the victim is just an accuser.

So few defendants will enjoy the benefit of DSK’s wealth and prominence, and few will have the prosecution do the legwork necessary to show that their victim is a liar, whether the defense has the capacity to do so or not.  And the sympathetic victim won’t be outed as the false accuser, the liar.  The jury will believe the victim because victims never lie, and they must be protected from our harsh scrutiny.

So you thought the tide was turning when you voted for “change?”  When medical marijuana was legalized? When Barney Frank and Ron Paul introduced a bill to decriminalize pot?  Not so fast.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole has  issued a Memo to clarify that the new boss is the same as the old boss.

Over the last several months some of you have requested the Department’s assistance in responding to inquiries from State and local governments seeking guidance about the Department’s position on enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in jurisdictions that have under consideration, or have implemented, legislation that would sanction and regulate the commercial cultivation and distribution of marijuana purportedly for medical use. Some of these jurisdictions have considered approving the cultivation of large quantities of marijuana, or broadening the regulation and taxation of the substance. You may have seen letters responding to these inquiries by several United States Attorneys. Those letters are entirely consistent with the October 2009 memorandum issued by Deputy Attorney General David Ogden to federal prosecutors in States that have enacted laws authorizing the medical use of marijuana (the “Ogden Memo”).

The Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all States. Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime that provides a significant source of revenue to large scale criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels. The Ogden Memorandum provides guidance to you in deploying your resources to enforce the CSA as part of the exercise of the broad discretion you are given to address federal criminal matters within your districts.

The War on Drugs just turned 40, but it’s still alive and kicking.  And drug are still as evil as ever, as far as the DOJ is concerned. 

Ironically, marijuana is a schedule I drug, meaning that is has no medicinal purpose and is highly subject to abuse.  Cole’s Memo, asserting that “Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug” just ignores the medical part, which is a little hard to reconcile with the whole point of medical marijuana.  The subtext is pot is evil, just as it was the day Reefer Madness made its debut.

Over the years, arguments about the evils and virtues of pot have gone in circles, and not until states began recognizing that it’s not just an alternative high, but an herb with legitimate medicinal purposes, did the rhetoric break free of the old arguments. 

The Obama/Holder DOJ had it within its power to lower the volume, if not give medical marijuana a free pass in the exercise of discretion and allocation of scarce resources.  Instead, it came out with this memo, letter prosecutors, states and the rest of us know that they are still gunning for pot as did their predecessors.

While the government may be pulling troops out of far away lands, there seems to be one war that won’t be ending any time soon.  We’re still a long way off from ending the ill-conceived ar on drugs that’s filled our prisons and empties our coffers, but this is a smack in the face to states and Congress, not to mention to those who voted for the current administration in the belief that our President might be just a little more open than the guy before him to the idea that eradicating drugs isn’t worth the price. 

Clearly, Cole thought this was necessary to say, and DOJ thinks that the eradication of marijuana remains one of our core priorities.  How is that “change” working for you?