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Criminal Law

Public Defender Dude

The rantings of a Public Defender constantly fighting against society's pervasive Police Industrial Complex.

Post Frequency: 1.7/day

Last Entry: September 28, 2014 at 16:26:00

Speculating about Phil Spector

Posted on August 19, 2008
It's that time again. We have another celebrity trial coming up in southern California, and it's time to focus all our attention on this trial. Phil Spector will be on trial again in October, after an appellate court turned down his bid for a continuance...

The Politics of Judging

Posted on August 12, 2008
First, great posts by PD Dude. I slacked off a bit and he came roaring back. His DNA posts were awesome. In keeping with what I wanted to do with re-vitalizing this web, I will now do a short post about something, with the emphasis on short. I want to get SOMETHING down before other stuff in life takes me away...

Hamdan Verdict

Posted on August 10, 2008
WOW!Did I mention how startled I was by the verdict? Some have said that this is an indictment of the whole notion of holding some of the people that they have as enemy combatants. Others have said that this vindicates Bush's tribunal idea. Hmmmm....

A great suggestion from a friend

Posted on August 03, 2008
I am at a baseball game with a friend and his wife tonight. The wife finds out I'm a public defender, and she actually has a great understanding of what we do, and a lot of respect for it as well (ie - no questions like: "how do you deal with those guilty scumbags?")...

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More things DNA

Posted on July 26, 2008
As evidenced by the scintillating discussion about my last post on DNA (none), one can surmise that perhaps DNA is not the most fascinating table conversation in the world. A pity, actually, because it really is so fascinating, and there is actually quite a bit of controversy about it...

Playing games with DNA

Posted on July 21, 2008
This is some complex stuff, DNA, and it gets even more complex when you try to bamboozle juries with what it means - actually, maybe it makes it less complex, but unraveling the bamboozlement gets complex. Here's what I'm talking about.The Los Angeles Times has reported on a phenomena that those of us who have gone through more intensive DNA trainings know about, something called the Arizona Database situation...

Reflections upon the law and Democracy

Posted on July 18, 2008
Neither I nor PD Dude have had many comments about our discussions about initiatives, which is really a shame. His earlier post was awesome, and mine was a riff about Prop. 13. One problem with talking about initiatives is that they are boring. Most voters are normal people, and normal people just don't understand the inner workings of government...

NY Times Article Attempts to Undermine Exclusionary Rule

Posted on July 18, 2008
The exclusionary rule is one that says if the police violate the 4th amendment of the Constitution (against illegal searches and seizures), then the remedy is the exclusion of that evidence. Sounds simple, and drastic, enough.Practically speaking, it almost never happens...

Proposition 13, the Scourge of Propositions (and a little bit about the CCC)

Posted on July 17, 2008
I was going to respond to PD Dude's excellent post, but my response got so long that I had to create a new post instead. I agree with EVERYTHING PD Dude said in his post. But more attention needs to be focused on the big "successful" proposition, Prop...

The Proposition - The Scourge of California

Posted on July 13, 2008
Some of the posts below, and the comments to them, have brought up what I think is California's greatest scourge - the initiative.Originally, this was created by progressives at the start of the 20th Century as a balance to the entrenched conservative interests that ran the state up until then...

I was going to write a response to earlier responses. . .

Posted on July 09, 2008
. . . But it got so long that I have to make it into another post.First, thank you all for the wonderful comments. I apologize for the clerical errors in my other posts, but if I don't catch clerical error immediately after I've written the post, I can only modify it for a short time after I post it...

Three Strikes, The meltdown of California's prisons, and all that jazz

Posted on July 08, 2008
These are two separate events and phenomena, but they have truly coalesced together. California already had a booming prison population before Three Strikes, and that population has continued to increase. Likewise, sentencing law in California had already increased greatly by the time the 1994 Three Strikes campaign began...

Skelly at Arbitrary and Capricious slammed me today.

Posted on July 07, 2008
I'm pretty sure that I had it coming, but it was my first post and all. Check out his blog at http://skellywright.blogspot.com/. He slammed me because of my post a couple of days ago. He didn't like what I said about "old liberals," probably because he considers himself one...

A DA finally gets his comeuppance. Let's hope it's a trend.

Posted on July 07, 2008
Prior to contributing to this blog I wrote a number of replies to what others had said about the criminal justice system. I am a public defender who strongly believes in the adversary system of criminal justice, so long as it is tempered with reality...

What is going on here?

Posted on July 06, 2008
Thank you for the introduction, PDDude. I have always been a fan of this site. I could criticize you for not posting more, but I know what it is like to be working as a public defender. For those who don't, let me tell you a litle bit about what it is like to be a PD...

Has it really been 6 Months?

Posted on July 04, 2008
I have no idea why I don't post for long periods of time, like I have here. It's not that I don't have things to talk about - no one has accused me of being short of things to talk about. I certainly am busy, but not too busy to write about what I'm thinking (it doesn't take that long)...

Hey, I won a Rodney!!!

Posted on January 03, 2008
I just found out from Skelly over at Arbitrary & Capricious that I won a Rodney (talk about a lack of respect, I didn't even know I was nominated!). Hey, I'm psyched. I mean, just because I'm a Public Defender doesn't mean I don't like getting recognized for doing a good job...

NY Times Editorial Says It All

Posted on January 01, 2008
Regulars here know that I've written about our country's shameful human rights record over the last 7 years, as we've raced to the bottom in areas such as torture, privacy, indefinite detentions for people without meaningful rights to be heard, and things of the like...

LA Area DA seeks to elevate DAs, denigrate defense lawyers - by initiative

Posted on December 20, 2007
This is via the Los Angeles Metropolitan News (a legal newspaper), the head of the LA District Attorney's Association, Steve Ipsen, has proposed one of the most pernicious, insidious and unconstitutional state initiatives that I can ever remember seeing...

Why are ex-Public Defenders so often bad judges

Posted on December 15, 2007
I always get excited when someone from my office makes it to the bench (someone good, that is - if the person's a total political tool, then it's not so exciting). It means that finally, someone with our perspective is sitting on the bench. So, I have to ask myself all of the time this question: Why do ex-PDs make such uniformly bad judges...

Remembering why I do this work

Posted on November 22, 2007
Alright, it's been a long time since I've posted. To those online and offline friends who've told me "what's going on?" I can only say, thank you for encouraging me. Work has been very busy of late, and management at our office has really become unhinged in a bad way (it's all relative, I guess...

Spector Jury Hangs

Posted on September 30, 2007
I know I'm late on this one, but it certainly deserves a comment. The Phil Spector jury has hung, which wasn't looking like a huge surprise as the jury's questions became more and more pointed. A few thoughts.First of all, I certainly can understand why Judge Fidler didn't want a hung jury...

Larry Craig and Police Officer Opinion Testimony

Posted on September 04, 2007
One of the areas that has held public fascination in the Larry Craig situation is the vagueness of the charges and allegations against him. Put simply - what did he actually do wrong - tapping a foot and reaching with his hand? He clearly did not break any established and obvious laws by those actions (not unless laws have become so over broad and burdensome that they've even caught me, Public Defender Dude, by surprise)...

The Lewd Conduct of Senator Larry Craig

Posted on August 28, 2007
It takes a juicy arrest like this of a prominent gay bashing Republican to drag me out of my torpor and get me posting again. The arrest and conviction of US Senator Larry Craig, a Republican from conservative South Dakota (didn't they just pass a law criminalizing all abortions?) is one of those crystallizing moments that happens with increasing frequency in society - usually the moments are crystallized by Republicans, because they have gained much of their political power by riding moral crusades and against crime...

It's About Time - A Fair Legal Talk Show Host

Posted on July 25, 2007
Finally, an antidote to the facists out there like Nancy Grace. You should check out Jami Floyd and her show "Best Defense" on Court TV. She's apparently an ex-Public Defender from the Bay Area (although that appears to be a very small sliver of her bio - she still has it in her bones), but not afraid to say that someone's guilty...

Client Blunders

Posted on July 16, 2007
I've been getting hit lately with huge blunders by my clients - that is, blunders my clients make as my clients, not blunders they make that turn them in to my clients. I guess that I'm not down about it, even though it is resulting in much longer sentences for them, which occur on my watch...

PDs Better than Court Appointed Lawyers?

Posted on July 14, 2007
There's a new study out which compared how defendants did in the federal system over a several year period when represented by federal public defenders and by court appointed (or "Panel") lawyers.Now, no disrespect to any of my panel brethren here, but the study reached the conclusion that public defenders are better...

The Libby "Commutation" OUTRAGE

Posted on July 02, 2007
I had vowed that I wasn't going to blog about this one months ago (because I knew it was going to happen as soon as the guilty verdicts came down), and yet, I sit here in such a rage right now about the Libby "commutation" (I write commutation in quotes because if there is a person alive who doesn't believe that this is a precursor to a full pardon after the election, then I have a bridge to sell you - or better yet, a prior promise by the president to let the case "and it's appeals" run it's course)...

I want defend cops - I'll never lose

Posted on June 28, 2007
Maybe if I get tired of representing of losing trials at some point, I'll stop representing the poor people who did not choose to go the police academy when they were 19. It is apparent that it is close to impossible to convict a police officer.Let this be a message to any client I represent in the future who says to me "the cops are lying, I want to go to trial!" that jurors, like the courts, and the rest of the government, tends to give blanket immunity for police misconduct...

Has Libby's sentence created a new group of Right-wing civil libertarians?

Posted on June 17, 2007
I know it grows old, my harping on the right wing's constant attempt to be tougher and tougher on crime, to put as many people in jail as possible, to run campaigns on anger and fear, resulting in a 25 year growth of the prison industrial complex that is unprecedented in our history...

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