Criminal Law

Your Attention Please:

Posted on November 28, 2012
Judge Carol Berkman has retired."I have this reputation for being a mean old bitch," Berkman, 70, said just before lunch, after hearing her last case, a gun possession, and stepping down from the bench.

Take Pause, Anonymous

Posted on March 21, 2012
My previous post, The Cops Show You a Picture of Yourself raised a good question from an anonymous commenter, who wrote:Your comment "they don't have to show me the video" makes me take pause. Aren't individuals accused of criminal behavior entitled to be confronted with the evidence? Doesn't the Sixth Amendment entitle them to see the video?Just to clarify before we go any further, I wrote in the original post, "I'm placed under arrest and they don't have to show me the video...

Preach On, Gideon

Posted on March 20, 2012
I had two goals:First, to find some new defense blogs to link to as I clear out some apparently-abandoned blogs.The other was to try to write a meaningful piece on the Dharun Ravi - Rutgers - cyberbullying - "hate crime" - "bias intimidation" - "Tyler Clementi" case...

The Cops Show You a Picture of Yourself

Posted on March 18, 2012
This happens every day, so let's deal with it.The police come to your house or a detective calls you into the police station, and they show you a photo.  It's a photo of you, but you're not doing anything bad, just walking down the street, let's say...

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Prison for Profit

Posted on February 26, 2012
Here's an interesting article:Basically, this corporation, Corrections Corporation of America, has offered to buy states' prisons, in exchange for a 20 year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full...

Drug of Choice

Posted on June 19, 2011
If you were handed a hundred cases that are all serious felony trial cases, some of which need extensive motions or briefs, most of which need legal research and investigation, and they're all on for trial in two weeks, and you were supposed to be on vacation next week, I think there are a two approaches to choose from...

Flirting Longer and Harder

Posted on April 13, 2011
I first met my client a few days ago.  He is kind of homeless-looking and had a long rap sheet full of long prison bids.  He had just been arrested and he was very angry.  He didn't want to talk, he wanted to shout at me.  Among the things he shouted at me was, "I DON'T TRUST COPS, I DON'T TRUST JUDGES, AND I DON'T TRUST LAWYERS!"  It seemed we had a lot in common, if only he'd stop shouting...

Assisting by Being "Ineffective"

Posted on April 10, 2011
This week, the blawg world was abuzz about incompetent and ineffective criminal defense attorneys.I'm not excusing the practices of attorneys like Joseph Rakofsky or Susan Prentice-Sao, but all of this talk of ineffective assistance of counsel has me wondering - Is it always a bad thing to be called "ineffective," if it potentially helps your client?  Or, to put it another way, is it ever a good thing to be ineffective, or at least called "ineffective," for your client's sake?For example, not that long ago, the appellate court overturned a case that an an acquaintance of mine had tried...

A Time To Kill

Posted on April 06, 2011
Not too long ago, I posted about the fear that comes with handling a case more serious than you have handled before.  I reasoned that it is a natural, normal fear, that helps you to appreciate the seriousness of your work.  To not have that fear, I reasoned, doesn't mean you're better, it just means you're cocky...

Don't Call Me Sugar

Posted on February 08, 2011
A few weeks ago, I got really overwhelmed.  I have this case in which my client is facing a lot of prison time, a case that will probably go to trial.  The first plea offer I got in the case is about four times more than I've ever had a client get...

Lunch Lady

Posted on January 22, 2011
I usually eat lunch at my desk, but yesterday I grabbed lunch at a place near the courthouse.  While I ate, two men sat down at the table next to me.  I wasn't trying to listen to their conversation, but, well, our tables were really close together...

One Two Princes Stand Before You

Posted on September 26, 2010
When I was in college, one of my favorite things to do, when I came home to my room drunk, was to blast my stereo (I had a pretty nice stereo) and sing aloud to the radio.  I thought I had a really good voice when I was drunk.  (It never occurred to me that I had the auditory equivalent of "beer goggles," of course...

Yo-Yo Papa

Posted on August 25, 2010
Something WotL wrote pulled me from my writer's block and reminded me of a story from earlier this summer.  I was in the courthouse, late in the day, sitting in the hallway outside of a courtroom, waiting for the prosecutor to come out so we could talk...

Tin Foil Apartment

Posted on July 18, 2010
I had a client once who lived in a Tin Foil Apartment.The foil, of course, helped to keep the Jews from reading his mind. Or so he told me. I kind of figured that if they had mind reading technology, a thin layer of aluminum foil probably wouldn't matter, but what do I know...

Stop Sign

Posted on June 23, 2010
One time, when I was in college, I was driving a friend in my car.  When I stopped at a stop sign, she said, "You stopped?   You didn't have to.  The ones with the white borders are optional."I thought about it for a second. Could she be right? Were there other kinds of stop signs? Wouldn't an optional stop sign be a yield sign?I quickly figured out that she was kidding...

Cooking with Blonde Justice

Posted on April 30, 2010
A friend of a friend is a lawyer with a cooking blog.  I'm jealous.  I mean, I can cook a few things, but I'm more of a throw-together-whatever-is-in-the-fridge kind of cook.   I can't really see myself writing down the ingredients and typing it up and photographing the results...

How to Prepare for Trial: A Note

Posted on April 21, 2010
(An occasional/sporadic series, with Parts One, Two, Three, and Four.)Here's a tip, it's not really a step.  And it's something you already know, but it bears repeating.Start early.  Stop procrastinating.Sometimes you'll hear lawyers say, "Well, we'll get through jury selection and opening arguments today, so I'm ready for that, and tonight I can prepare my cross-examinations for the first few witnesses...

The Non-Existent Appeal

Posted on March 31, 2010
I've mentioned it before, but it doesn't hurt to mention it again.  I love this new blog Public Defender Revolution. This latest post is basically about how all the trial mistakes and regrets don't matter once you get an acquittal.I tried a case about a year ago where anything and everything that could go wrong did...

Reading Random

Posted on March 28, 2010
Last week, I was sitting in court, waiting for my case to be called, when I happened to watch another case that the judge was handling.  From what I could hear from my seat in the audience, the defendant had been arrested for vehicular homicide.  It was unclear to me whether he had been intoxicated or otherwise driving recklessly, but he had apparently hit a young woman, and she had died...

Fantasy Living, the update

Posted on March 03, 2010
Guess what. My realtor never wrote back.  Guess I'm stuck in my "real life" for the time being.  With a bathtub instead of an indoor pool. 

Fantasy Living

Posted on February 20, 2010
I have this town, well, city really, that I imagine I'll move to.  Maybe everyone does this.  But when things get stressful, I like to load up Trulia Real Estate Search and search for the house I'm going to live in, when I move.Maybe it's like when you go on vacation, and of course you think "I could move here...

PD Revolution

Posted on February 16, 2010
Thank you, Sancho, for introducing me to this fantastic (new?) public defender blog:Public Defender Revolution.So good.

Hypothetical No More

Posted on February 12, 2010
Somewhere shortly after, "How do you defend someone if you know that he's guilty?" the conversation with curious friends and strangers sometimes proceeds to, "What if you defended someone, and he got off, and then he killed someone or something?  Wouldn't you feel responsible?"Well, there's no more need to hypothesize...

Checking In

Posted on January 31, 2010
I have a little less to say recently.  I find that as I handle more serious cases, there is less to joke about. I have this funny case, where my client broke into this guy's house and...  See, there's just not that much set up for a joke there...

Hoarders Nightmare

Posted on December 09, 2009
I had a dream, a nightmare really, last night.  In the dream, I was going to sleeping in a dorm room.  As I fell asleep, I realized that the next morning I was supposed to move out and I hadn't packed yet.  So I got up to pack and I realized my dorm room was filled with garbage, like the episode of Hoarders...

Hoarders

Posted on December 06, 2009
Scariest show on TV:  Hoarders on A&E.   It's like Intervention for Hoarders.It is like a nightmare for me.  I just can't imagine anything so terrible.   On this one episode, they found two dead cat skeletons under piles of garbage...

Midterm Madness

Posted on November 10, 2009
When I got to my office this morning (early, I might add), I already had two messages from one client who was scheduled for court today.  I already had her file on my desk, so I was pretty familiar with it, and I was prepared to see her in court...

TV, my great escape

Posted on November 04, 2009
1.  I was thinking of quitting Greek at the end of the season like I quit The Secret Life.  I was disappointed when Jordan moved away.  What happened there?  Rusty & Jordan were so cute together and then she just moves away?  But, after last week's episode...

Can You Hear Me Now?

Posted on November 01, 2009
Ok, people who couldn't get Blonde Justice working before...  Can you see it now? If so, much thanks for my friend windypundit.  If not, well, we're going to have more work to do.

Frustration

Posted on October 18, 2009
Ok, so, Blogger has this whole "new template" thing.   I've tried switching to the new template thing, but I think it looks so crowded and ugly, that it makes me not want to use it.  So, stick with the old template then, right?  But when I do, it can't be viewed in Internet Explorer, apparently...

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