Criminal Law

The Daily Bird

Posted on March 26, 2008
Doesn’t this Woodpecker look as though he has a guilty conscience over something? “Uh, yeah, so I’m eating peanut butter.  With raisins, even.    You got a problem with that?” Picoides pubescens.  Downy Woodpecker.  Male.  There’s a red spot on the back of his head/nape of his neck, although he would not oblige the lens and display it [...

Hearing both sides.

Posted on March 26, 2008
In staffing this morning for tomorrow’s drug court cases, we discussed at some length a particular client, “Gregory”.  His probation officer brought him to the team’s attention not because he had committed any violations (yet), but to warn us of a problem with what she felt was criminal thinking and manipulative behavior...

Kestrel Sighting

Posted on March 25, 2008
On my way to one of the innumerable, never-ending medical appointments I currently have scheduled, I caught sight of a bird on a wire across the street from the local middle school.  It was about the size of a pigeon, and from the vantage of the driver’s seat of a car traveling at 45 MPH, [...

Wild Turkeys

Posted on March 24, 2008
Oy. Major internet problems.  I hate this. Anyway, while I can still stay commected, take a look at what I saw the other day,  Wild Turkeys!  A whole flock of them! And a fantastic shot of my friend, the backyard robin again.  Posed to his best advantage on a tree branch in the woods across the back yard...

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Thanks to Science, the existence of the Squirrel Mafia has been proven? in potential at least

Posted on March 22, 2008
from cori1047.vodpod.com posted with vodpod We?ve all known it for a long time, empirically.  Now there?s proof.  Squirrels do in fact conspire with one another and form ?cliques? if not ?gangs?. The squirrel mafia is real

Atonement

Posted on March 22, 2008
Now here’s a rare thing; a neo-conservative re-evaluating his attitude and convictions, and admitting a serious lapse of judgement regarding the Bush regime. Quoting Andrew Sullivan in “What I got wrong about Iraq“: “Misreading Bush“ “Yes, the incompetence and arrogance were beyond anything I imagined...

First Amendment Rights; Assembly Clause

Posted on March 21, 2008
And lest I forget, here are those classics of urban Americana, city pigeons, properly known as rock doves.  I can’t really imagine them as doves.  They’re pigeons.  Rats with feathers.  I wish we had some memorial statue of some Civil War era colonel sitting atop a horse and preparing to lead the troops out, so [...

First Day of Spring

Posted on March 21, 2008
When I was a kid, I firmly believed that when the first robins arrived back from their winter migration, that was a sure sign that spring was really here.  Well they made it right on time.  Yesterday was the official spring equinox, and look who was visiting my lawn!  Along with about a dozen of [...

Heroin

Posted on March 18, 2008
Heroin is a bastard of a drug.  And the local rehab center has no clue how to handle heroin addicts.  Not a single clue. A client was recently in detox for 5 days.  We were hoping the treatment center would be able to transition him immediately into an inpatient bed, preferably long-term...

Nerd Meme

Posted on March 18, 2008
What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You [...

Stupid Questions Deserve?

Posted on March 17, 2008
Conversations overheard in holding today: CONVERSATION NO. 1 PD  “The state is willing to settle your felony probation violation if you agree to spend 30 more days in jail.  Then you just go back to reporting to your PO for the rest of the term” Client:  “But what if I bond out?” PD:  “You’re not getting it...

Spam

Posted on March 17, 2008
Some things in the cyber world are absolutely amazing.  Like, why would a blog that is primarily concerned with indigent criminal defense law, bird-watching, photography, and my personal medical saga attract the attention of “commenters” who leave “messages” about online porn, prescription drug sales, casino gambling and real-estate schemes / other “get rich quick” scams? Beats [...

Squirrels, Hawks, and small chirpies

Posted on March 16, 2008
I got a bit of vicarious vengeance back this morning.  As one of the pestilential rodents was attempting to raid the feeder yet again, Madame Accipiter came zipping through the woods intent on the hunt and literally scared the squirrel into temporary paralysis...

Friday afternoon Lineup

Posted on March 14, 2008
This afternoon’s load of files seems to consist of nothing but drug cases.  Let’s see: # 86373:  Cops served a search warrant on my client’s residence and find 5.18 g. of weed and 1.47 g. of rock cocaine.  Client admits it’s hers...

Vengeance shall be mine!

Posted on March 14, 2008
Give Me A Pellet Gun!  I’ve Had It!  Those dratted tree rats have pulled their last stunt on me!  It’s time to go Rambo-ing!My squirrel-resistant bird-feeder hung on a solid wrought iron hook from a substantial branch in a mature tree in my back yard...

Outcomes

Posted on March 14, 2008
It was a long and productive afternoon.  Here’s some of what was done. # 86373:  Not so clean as it seemed in the police account.  Per my client, she never admitted anything to the cops, and they had no warrant to search her car, nor did she consent thereto...

The Scavenger

Posted on March 13, 2008
Here’s the latest on the bird-watch.  We have a crow - an absolutely monstrous huge crow - collecting something from the side of the road, and flying off with it.  The question is, is it edible, or is it some curiosity to hide in its nest for later contemplation and/or use...

Squirrel bait

Posted on March 12, 2008
I have resorted to paying protection to the Squirrel Mafia. Dried corn on the cob seems to be the preferred rodential snack.  You can get it for about 6 dollars per 10 pound sack, I think it was I paid.  Throwing out a cob or two in a corner of the yard away from the bird [...

Scheduling grief

Posted on March 12, 2008
In the next three weeks, I get to: See an ophthalmologist for some special testing Visit with my counselor, J.C. - who, luckily as it turns out for me, not only deals with PTSD and such issues, but also is familiar with auto-immune disorders, having a sister with RA, a sister with MS, and a case of [...

Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money??

Posted on March 12, 2008
Array

Anyone want to take the conflicts post?

Posted on March 11, 2008
The contract for conflicts counsel for the PD’s office has been posted publically for any takers.  Deadline for application is in about 3 weeks. How many applicants do you think that’s going to get, when the reason for the vacancy is that the last contract holder was murdered? No one’s been officially charged yet...

P.D. Monday

Posted on March 11, 2008
Well, “Diane” managed to make the rant at her probation officer an irrelevant and moot issue.  She turned up back in custody on Monday, not on an illegally obtained bench warrant, but on a new Forgery case.  She still hadn’t had her drug evaluation - I guess she was too busy using and figuring out [...

Autoimmunity and Attitude

Posted on March 11, 2008
I’m not sure if the worst of this auto-immune business is the unpredictability of it all on a day to day basis, or the damned constant fatigue.  Sunday, I slept 16 hours.  Going to the grocery store and throwing together some burgers and fried for dinner was enough to wipe me out...

The dungeon master passes

Posted on March 07, 2008
Oh, dear, I just got hit with a blast from my past.  A legend of my escapist, geeky past has passed on.  Gary Gygax, the original Dungeon-master, is dead. Unlike most of the junior-high-school nerds who now are the majority of role-playing gamers, those of us who got into Dungeons and Dragons on the ground floor, so [...

Spirit Bird

Posted on March 06, 2008
For some reason, I love the way this turned out, blurry and unfocused as it seems.  It feels like an image out of a dream or the Vision that one goes questing for.  My hawk was about again, obviously; on the hunt and soaring.  And I happened to be in place again...

Cat Day

Posted on March 05, 2008
There are things about auto-immune disorders that really suck swamp-reed. Beyond all the obvious things, there is the fact that you occasionally spend a day or two with what feels like a cat’s metabolism.  Find something or someplace warm and padded, and curl up into oblivion...

AWOL

Posted on March 04, 2008
We just had another one. “Missy” sat up in jail for two months, doing the in-house treatment program, and waiting for a bed to open up in a long term program.  60 days is much more than most people do “inside”, whether inside a short-term inpatient program, or in jail waiting for placement...

At last, a positive change.

Posted on March 01, 2008
Our tax dollars are finally at work for something rehabilitative, not just punitive!  The County is pleased to announce the opening of a new, integrated, in-house rehabilitative services center, housed in the old work-release unit and women’s jail, and providing , among other things: Educational programs, including English as a Second Language, GED prep and testing, [...

Beyond ?You can?t Do That!?

Posted on February 28, 2008
So often, you hear law-enforcement-related professionals complain about how defense attorneys in general and public defenders in particular supposedly walk on the shady side of ethics, sandbagging their white-hatted opponents and using so-called “technicalities” to get guilty people “off”...

Autoimmunity, anyone?

Posted on February 23, 2008
It’s a weird feeling to find yourself rejoicing after being told that you most likely have a rare and incurable dysfunction of the immune system.  Quite counter-intuitive.  But from a medical standpoint, it’s progress toward the ultimate goal - finding an appropriate treatment for the intractable and annoying aches and pains I’ve been dealing with [...

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