Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘crime and punishment’

Before and After

While I don’t plan to promote my own blog here, because there’s not much to promote, this is a story that I think needs wider circulation.  Police and prosecutorial abuse is a problem that’s gotten more attention in the past year thanks to a certain District Attorney, but it hasn’t gotten enough to suit me.

Suppose we have a jailhouse lawyer, who sues the local sheriff and district attorney for alleged civil rights violations.  Suppose, just after filing that suit, the jailhouse lawyer gets into a fight with deputy sheriff jailers, and comes out on the losing end.  As in, “a trip to the hospital for broken bones” losing end.  Then suppose he’s charged as a felon for assaulting his jailers, and, in the office of the District Attorney who charged him, the same District Attorney he sued, a poster appears with photos of the inmate’s face before and after the trip to the emergency room, along the lines of a certain well known anti-drug commercial involving a frying egg.

Suppose the inmate’s attorney requests the poster as Brady material, but the poster somehow vanishes:  This Is Your Face After Inconveniencing The Stanly County District Attorney. Any Questions?

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Julie Amero case ends

A judge had overturned the conviction of the former Norwich, Ct. substitute teacher (Jul. 15, Mar. 14 and Jun. 10, 2007, etc.) over the episode in which her computer (almost certainly infected with unwanted malware) displayed a stream of dirty popup windows while her students were watching. To the amazement of many, prosecutors refused to drop the charges and moved to hold a second trial. Now Amero has agreed to resolve the episode by pleading down to a single misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, as opposed to the 40 years she could have gotten on the original charges. (Rick Green, “Misdemeanor Plea Ends Norwich P0rnography Case”, Hartford Courant, Nov. 22).

More: “What I’d like to see come of it is a computer forensics innocence project.” (Joe Windish, The Moderate Voice; see also Balko/Reason “Hit and Run”, Bill Jempty @ WizBang, Rick Green @ Courant followup).

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Microblog 2008-11-10

  • Mark Lilla: pick either faux populism or intellectual conservatism, you can’t have both [WSJ] #
  • P.J. O’Rourke on where conservatives went wrong [Weekly Standard] #
  • And how exactly did those mountain goats get up there without wings? [Flickr “Roger 80” h/t @coolpics] #
  • Scotland authorities trawl social networking sites, then slap teen with £200 fine for posing with sword on Bebo [Massie] #
  • “Victims’ rights” sound like lovely idea but can undermine fairness and practicality of criminal justice system [Greenfield] #
  • Bizarre Czech case: driver hits, then tries to murder pedestrian, victim survives only to be sued by car’s owner [Feral Child] #
  • Auto bailout would leave Big 3 in interest-group coils, bankruptcy could cut the knots [Bainbridge h/t @erwiest] #
  • ACORN as the gang that couldn’t intimidate straight [PoL] #
  • “Talked about in CivPro” I hope favorably [@sqfreak] #
  • More public stirrings against traffic cameras [Jeff Nolan] #

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“Scandal in Louisiana’s criminal courts”

“[Jerrold] Peterson said he was instructed to write up and file the denials [of pro se appeals by indigent convicts] without ever showing the appeals to the judges. Peterson handled about 2,400 such cases in the 13 years he was in charge of them.” (Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”, Oct. 28). Under the court’s rules, “every criminal writ application is supposed to be reviewed by three judges”. Peterson committed suicide and his farewell note called attention to the scheme. (James Gill, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Oct. 10).

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“No way for a lawyer to steal”

Reacting to a case from Connecticut, Scott Greenfield deplores the apparent decline of standards among double-dealing criminal defense attorneys: “For God’s sake, man, if you are going to engage in flagrantly unethical behavior, at least avoid being a moron while doing so.” (Oct. 13; Hilda Munoz, “Attorney Found Guilty Of Bribing, Tampering With Witness”, Hartford Courant, Oct. 10).

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Ontario forensic pathologist scandal

“Ontario vowed to overhaul its pediatric forensic pathology system yesterday following a highly critical report citing the ‘woefully inadequate’ training of pathologist Dr. Charles Smith and the inaction of his supervisors in the coroner’s office who ‘actively protected’ him despite ‘warning signs’ about errors he made that led to wrongful prosecutions.” A 1,000-page report by Justice Stephen Goudge found that Smith’s testimony blaming child deaths on family members resulted in numerous wrongful prosecutions and erroneous convictions, including that of William Mullins-Johnson of Sault Ste. Marie, who “spent 12 years in prison after he was convicted of murdering his four-year-old niece. The conviction was quashed last year after the expert evidence was dismissed as unreliable.” (Jordana Huber, “Inquiry blasts Ontario pathologist”, Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 2; CBC; ABA Journal; Goudge inquiry website and report).

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October 2 roundup

  • Cameras in the Neiman Marcus “loss security” (anti-theft operations) room? So unfair when they catch two employees making whoopee [Chicago Tribune via Feral Child]
  • Flipping their wigs: after three centuries judges in British civil and family courts today end tradition of horsehair wigs [Times Online]
  • The right number? $28 million to Boston victim of negligent Big Dig construction [Globe]
  • White collar advice: “Always commit crimes with people more important than you are, so you can turn them in” [Dershowitz, Forbes]
  • Injured while skylarking on freight trains, now want Oz taxpayers to pay for their injuries [The Australian]
  • That’ll spoil the fun: New Jersey high court bars judges from discussing future employment with lawyers who have pending cases before them [NJLJ]
  • Compromise on Capitol Hill lets Pandora survive a little longer to negotiate with music rights owners [ReadWriteWeb; earlier here, here]
  • Rapists with leverage over the adoption of a resultant child? [four years ago on Overlawyered]

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Massachusetts gun control law strikes again

The Bay State’s notoriously draconian laws have tripped up author Peter Manso, a 67-year-old Cape Cod resident. Manso claims the prosecution is retaliation for his writing on highly publicized crimes, but whether or not that premise is borne out, the story is an unnerving one: ten years ago the state changed an earlier provision making firearm identification cards valid for life to one requiring four-year renewals, and since then old holders who failed to get with the program have been getting tripped up, facing the prospect of long prison terms even over their protest that they never had the change called to their attention. (Jonathan Saltzman, “Writer on Cape slaying indicted on gun charges”, Boston Globe, Aug. 23; J.D. Tuccille/Examiner) (via Never Yet Melted).

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Telling 11yo to walk home from McDonalds = felony child abandonment?

Fort Worth Star-Telegram consumer columnist Dave Lieber, 50, had an argument with his son in the restaurant parking lot the morning of Aug. 13, told him to walk home, but doubled back to return minutes later after thinking better of it. Police later arrested him on two felony charges of child abandonment. Watauga, a suburb of Fort Worth, has crime rates well below the national average. (Alex Branch, “S-T Watchdog columnist Dave Lieber arrested”, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Aug. 27; Dave Lieber, “How parents can learn from serious mistakes”, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Aug. 15; Chuck Lindell, “Father’s arrest ignites debate over child abandonment”, Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 28).

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