randomfoolishness.com

Wrongful Convictions in Dallas

randomfool — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:15:04 +0000

The Supreme Court, who gave itself way too much power very early on in our country’s history, has consistently limited the fourth amendment, which is actually part of the Constitution, while at the same time finding all kinds of other stupid rights that are not actually spelled out in the Constitution without giving citizens the chance to vote to amend the Constitution. As a result, the police and, more importantly, prosecutors have way too much power and our criminal justice system has made it entirely too easy to convict someone of a crime. Just watch any episode of 48 Hours. Most of the time, given the limited evidence that is profiled on the show, I feel like the suspect is guilty but I am almost always uncomfortable about the conviction. People are sent to jail for life or, even worse, executed on evidence that is very limited, circumstantial and emotional. For every O.J. Simpson, there seem to be many more people who cannot afford a dream team defense and are convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Even in the case of O.J., who I am certain committed the crime, was subject to an unreasonable search without a warrant. The bloody glove should have never been admissible because the police searched his house based solely on the half-inch spot on the side of the Bronco. The police definitely suspected O.J. immediately and were just looking for a reason to search his house. The blood spot on the side of the Bronco was not enough for me and most of the circumstantial evidence used in cases profiled on 48 Hours leaves me uncomfortable for the same reason.

Anyway, it has always bothered me even more that, when new evidence or new technology becomes available, district attorneys tend to fight efforts to re-open cases. Prosecutors are not incentivized to be interested in justice and are rather judged on wins and losses, a very dangerous and disturbing system. Prosecutors have enormous power to decide whom to bring charges against (usually based on the publicity that they can get) but they should be responsible, not just to pile up convictions, but for the quality of their convictions and to insure, after the fact, there is no chance that the person who was convicted may actually be innocent. (Quality control in a government enterprise…what a novel concept!)

DNA testing is a great example. If there is a technology that becomes available later and a credible test can be performed, we absolutely owe it to people who have been convicted to test the evidence and release them if it proves conclusively that they are innocent. The new District Attorney in Dallas, Craig Watkins, is doing just that. He is opening up his files to the Texas Innocence Project, a group of law students supervised by experienced defense lawyers, who are reviewing files to determine which cases are appropriate for a DNA test. There are lots of criminal convictions for sexual assault and other violent crimes where the only evidence is the victim’s testimony and where a sample has been preserved. As it turns out, unlike other cities in Texas, Dallas outsources its crime lab work and the private crime labs retain samples whereas in many other cities the evidence is destroyed after the trial. The project recently tested 36 people and 12 of them were set free as a result of the test! That means that one-third of the convictions were incorrect!!!!! And, as disturbing as that may be, the previous D.A. was fighting any attempt to re-open the files! They should send the previous D.A. to jail.

Our criminal justice system is necessarily flawed and will never be perfect. We have to accept that our system will sometimes not convict the guilty (i.e., O.J.) and sometimes will convict the innocent. However, as outrageous as the result in the O.J. case was, I can live with it. Prosecutors need to be reminded every so often that they are not invincible and an occasional public smack in the face is good for them. Besides, O.J. can’t hurt anyone now. Anyone who associates with him cannot claim later that they didn’t know he was dangerous. However, I cannot live with a system that generates an incorrect result thirty-three percent of the time especially when the result of that error involves the taking of someone’s freedom and, in some cases, their life. Maybe a thirty-three percent failure rate is the best we can do given our jury system, but if it is then we absolutely owe it to every convicted person to retain evidence samples indefinitely and to apply new technologies to those samples (at government expense) when they become available and when they might be able to prove innocence.

The Supreme Court has long since abdicated its responsibility to protect citizens from wrongful search and seizure in favor of protecting all kinds of other ridiculous rights never envisioned by the founding fathers (nor voted on by the citizens), but we should not let that stop us from using every available means to check, double-check and check again every conviction using every new technology that becomes available to insure that innocent people do not lose their freedom.

Anna Nicole Overload

randomfool — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:00:31 +0000

The whole Anna Nicole Smith story is sad and embarassing on so many levels. First of all, that poor little baby has lost its mother and has lost the parent lottery given that none of the three choices are much more than opportunists anyway. I hope, for her sake, that someone is able to step up and provide a decent home and upbringing because, in her later years, when she inevitably learns about all of this she is going to need a lot of therapy.

Sadly, for our society, this whole story just once again points out how perverted we are. I was stuck on an airplane that had live television available for five hours the other day and all the available news channels were focused, almost exclusively, on the Anna Nicole story and the “news” of the terms of her will. Iraq, Iran and the 2008 presidential election all were subordinated to the media interest in Anna Nicole’s will. The Los Angeles Times today ran a front page story about it and must feel some institutional shame about the whole thing because even though they attempted to focus on the legal issues they noted that surveys show people lie about not being interested in the story when they really are.

I do not care who the father of the little girl turns out to be. I do not care who gets Anna Nicole’s money. Yet, I suppose I will be forced to learn all about it as the story unfolds while people are dying in Iraq.

Most Likely to Induce Vomiting: Lerach or Hillbillary?

randomfool — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 05:39:20 +0000

So rare is it that I get a few quiet moments to have a bite to eat and read the newspaper. In fact, most days I ignore the printed newspaper because my daily addition to Bloglines renders the information in the newspaper meaningless. I usually already know everything about any interesting subject long before the newspaper arrives. With the kids at dinner with my wife, I took advantage of the unexpected peace and quiet and flipped through the paper. Immediatley an article about the legal troubles of one of the people I like the least in the entire world, Bill Lerach, caught my eye.

Now, normally, any article about Bill Lerach would make me immediately lose my appetite or, even worse, feel as if any previous meal might need to come back up. But this article, as have many recent Lerach articles have been lately. was different. Bill Lerach is one of the lowest life forms on earth: a class action plaintiff lawyer. Lerach has been known for years for filing mostly baseless securities class action lawsuits and shaking down public companies for hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of investors (he was appointed lead counsel for the shareholders of Enron). But Billy hasn’t always played straight and is in some really hot water, along with the law firm that he used to work for, for paying plaintiffs to get involved in these lawsuits. All of this makes me happy. Rarely am I ever pulling for prosecutors who are generally as useless to the general public as Lerach is to shareholders. However, I really, really, really, really want to see Lerach the subject of a perp walk.

So, as I was eating my dinner, reading about Lerach and not throwing up, I wondered who I disliked more, Lerach or Hillbillary. I thought I woudl start off this posting with “the only person I dislike more than Hillbillary is Bill Lerach.” But, I am not sure if that is true. Hillbillary and Lerach are both completely self-absorbed, useless lawyers who are dangerous for what is left of our democracy. Both of them actually think they are doing us all a favor but, in reality, they are just costing us money in order to advance their own ambissions. However, as much as I can stand what Bill Lerach stands for, I really can’t blame him for finding an opportunity and exploting it. Hillbillary, on the other hand, really is just of no use to society whatsoever yet seems to think that she deserves to be the president.

I can’t stand either of these morons but I actually hate Bill Lerach ever so slightly less than Hillbillary.

Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Duke Case

randomfool — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:00:10 +0000

Prosecutors are political animals. They are not interested in seeking justice but, rather, they are interested in seeking headlines in the name of justice. As unfair as the defense side of the equation is sometimes (you clearly can pay for more justice if you have the money), the prosecutorial side is just as much of a hoax as the rest of the legal system. Make no mistake about it, if you are accused of committing a crime that receives media attention you will be subject to a much higher level of legal risk than you would if it were anonymous.
One scene that stands out in recent memory is the “perp walks” of famous business executives after they were arrested. I remember when Ken Lay was arrested and they brought him in for booking and, knowing where the media cameras were placed, parked the car in an empty parking lot as far away from the door and as close to the cameras as possible. The result was video of Lay in handcuffs being lead into the building. Prosecutors are far more interested in delivering “justice” when they can do it in front of TV cameras. Another case that comes to mind is the ruthless legal terrorism that the Santa Barbara District Attorney used against Michael Jackson (I am not defending Jackson but he was not treated fairly).
So, the Duke Lacrosse case presented a particularly juicy opportunity for a misguided prosecutor in need of a boost to his political career. His frothy pursuit of those kids has now landed him in trouble with the state bar for ethics violations. This case, and the recent 60 Minutes story on it, point out the abuse that is so easy to perpetrate by prosecutors who have way too much power in our legal system with insufficient checks and balances on that power and an incentive to abuse it.

Inefficient Education

randomfool — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:00:29 +0000

After spending seven years in state and private higher education followed a few years later by two more years in an Executive MBA program, I could not agree more with a recent Wall Street Journal editorial by Charles Murray, What’s Wrong with Vocational School. I have always felt that our higher education system was inefficient and that we waste valuable resources educating people to levels that are either not appropriate for their level of intelligence or are an inefficient use of resources. I don’t accept the common wisdom (or lack thereof) often promoted by politicians that the best way for us to improve our education system is to simply spend more money on it and make higher education more accessible to more people.
Charles Murray argues that our culture puts a false premium on the college degree which, in turn, causes demand for college education among those that it may not be appropriate to educate at that level. It may be, and probably is, far more efficient to track people early on based on their natural talents to education systems that can provide them with a more appropriate education and prepare them for a job that they will be good a doing and happy to do. Other industrialized countries do just that, tracking kids very early on in the process and spending money far more efficiently.
However, here in the United States, we don’t like the idea of being tested early and assigned to an education path. It seems contrary to the common notion of the American Dream (whatever that is). So, we tell ourselves, or let our opportunistic politicians tell us, that the opportunity should be open to everyone who wants to pursue it whether it makes sense or not.
I noticed this especially in post-graduate professional education. Law school for example, and the law school I went to in particular, mints way too many lawyers than we need with the real opportunities only available to the top percentage of the class (which varies, of course, in times of economic up and down cycles) with the rest of the class serving as a sort of a cash cow for the school. At Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, for example, in the early 90s when I went there they accepted 300 new students each year and that was just in the day program. There just aren’t that many law firms, corporations and government agencies looking for newly minted lawyers…and there are several other major law school programs in Los Angeles plus several more unaccredited or lower tier schools! Moreover, law schools don’t actually bother to teach students how to be lawyers, a function they believe is better left for the law firm to take care of at the expense of clients. Rather, law schools try to teach you to “think like a lawyer” which is really just a sad abdication of their responsibilities as they continue to sell hundreds of seats to new students who have no idea what the situation really is like until they are $100,000 in debt.
Murray argues that our society places a false value on a college education because employers see it as a minimum requirement for certain job opportunities. And, in order to have access to those opportunities, people demand and the government subsidizes more education than we, as a society, really need. So, we overconsume that resource. Murray correctly points out that a college education is really only appropriate for a small minority of young adults but no politician would dare say something like that for fear of being labeled an elitist.

Lawyering: A Franchise in Sheep’s Clothing

randomfool — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:00:09 +0000

As a (kind of) practicing attorney, I have plenty of disdain for my profession and find myself embarassed by it more often than not. The government long ago decided to grant a franchise to attorneys for the purpose of practicing economic terrorism and taking advantage of “non-lawyers”. My Mom gave me a refrigerator magnet a few years ago that says, “A lawyer is a person who protects his client from other members of the profession.” It’s on my fridge. Lawyers, for the most part, do not add any real value to society, they only consume it but there is a reason that we have more lawyer per capita than any other “civilized”, first-world country: we love to be unreasonable and we love to protect our right to be unreasonable. If everyone was fair, reasonable and respectful in their dealings with others we would not need a single lawyer. We only need lawyers because we like to be unreasonable and lawyers just take advantage of that. Lawyers also have a tendency to get elected to positions which allow them to make a lot of laws that are difficult to comply with (oh, and by the way, typically do not apply to the government itself) so that the franchisees can avail themselves of a massive transfer of wealth (to the lawyers) in the name of the law.

In this spirit, I sat down today to complete some of my continuing legal education requirements in order to keep my license in California. Now, I thought the practice of law was a sham but the legal education system is equally ridiculous. I am required to undertake qualifying study including, specifically, minimum amount of study the areas of elimination of bias in the practice of law, substance abuse and ethics. I didn’t realize until I read some of the study materials that there is another reason I so dislike my profession: lawyers are really full of themselves. I now understand where liberal politicians get this idea that they are somehow our parents and know so much better than we do as to find the need to lecture us citizens in the ways of the world while, at the same time, bilking us for all we’re worth (”I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky” [finger wagging at us like we are school children]). Unfortunately for me, I still have to be a lawyer to pay my bills, although I am slowly weaning myself off of that need, and I need to finish my 25 hours of continuing legal education so that the public can be assured of adequate representation. HA!

Go Bears!