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About Rick

Rick Horowitz is a criminal defense attorney with an extreme dislike of the criminal "justice" system which routinely ignores the Constitution, the Law, and the lives it ruins.

In addition to this blog, Rick also writes at Fresno Criminal Defense.

A New Kind of System

February 20, 2012 By 1 Comment
Angry Officers

Scott Greenfield may not be blogging anymore, but he’s still a good resource for keeping up with things.1

“If you or I did that to somebody on the outside, you’d be sitting in jail talking to (an attorney)” Arcesi said.

But, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, those responsible for enforcing our laws take a different approach when it comes to their own behaviors.  [Read more...]

Endnotes:
  1. Yes, the original tweet came from Radley Balko, who I also follow, but I wouldn’t have seen it without Scott’s tweet. [↩]
Filed Under: Police State Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

When Law ENFORCEMENT Doesn’t Like the Law

February 19, 2012 By 3 Comments
Marijuana

By now it should be no secret that many local government officials — at least in Central California — do not believe that there is any way in which medical marijuana can be legally possessed, used, cultivated, transported, or sold anywhere in the United States. This specifically means that in any city or county in California that decides it shall not happen, it will not happen, regardless of what the law “on the books” states.

Since the law as written does allow medical marijuana to be legally possessed, used, cultivated, transported, or sold in California, the problem for such cities and counties has been how to get around the law. So far, though, that has proven to be a very small problem: the courts also disapprove of the law and have done everything possible to help the cities and counties subvert it, all the while pretending to uphold the utility of the law as to individual patients.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Marijuana Law Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Way SWAT Does Business

February 12, 2012 By 5 Comments
Lenco Bearcat G3

An article on Wikipedia — usually, if not always, a fair source of reliable information — notes:

The establishment of a standing army in Britain in 1685 by King James II and the later assumption of control over the British colonies in America by the British Army were controversial, leading to distrust of peacetime armies too much under the power of the head of state, versus civilian control of the military, resulting in tyranny.

Thomas M. Cooley, a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and the Jay Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, complained in his book, first published in 1868, that for those employed in such armies, “insult and outrage may appear quite in the line of duty.”1

Today, few consider such namby-pamby concerns, fewer still even remember that the concerns were once prevalent amongst Americans, nor why.

[Read more...]

Endnotes:
  1. Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations which rest upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union 309 (7th ed. 1903). [↩]
Filed Under: Police State Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Money-Grubbing Lawyers

February 7, 2012 By 2 Comments
Money Grubber

First thing this morning, my blog received a visit from some unnamed individual who bravely took me to task for “not caring” about doing my job. The basis of the pseudonymous complaint was the thought that instead of “moaning and whining” on my blog, I should “get off [my] butt and away from [my] keyboard and get involved and get it fixed.” The publicity-shy soul further indicated that lawyers like me don’t really care about anyone’s liberty and rights unless it impacts — as in “improves, or at least does not harm” I guess — our wallets.

Clearly, the unnamed individual does not know me, or anything about me. Or most other criminal defense attorneys, for that matter.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: My Practice & Experiences Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Call Somebody Who Cares

February 7, 2012 By 5 Comments
Dimes

When I was in high school, a common taunt when anyone complained about something was, “Here’s a dime: call somebody who cares.”

Thing is, in the 1970s, if you wanted to actually follow that advice, it wasn’t much of a problem. You simply offered to accept the dime — later a quarter — found a phone booth, and dialed the number you’d memorized for those who might actually care.

As Stephen Petrick recently learned, it doesn’t quite work that way anymore.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Political Comments Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Judicial Reality Show

January 29, 2012 By 1 Comment
Jailed baby

A friend — a civil law attorney — contacted me the other day to tell me that she was referring someone over. A more-than-worthy cause, if it checked out, she said. If and when she reads this post, I suspect she’s not going to like it (which is why I’m not going to identify her, or provide any identifying information on the case), but I hope she will not dislike it.

I don’t know what the world of civil law is like: so far, I practice only criminal defense. I have resisted repeated encouragement — you could even class some of the encouragement as entreaties – to give in and practice some form of civil law, because I think if you want to be expert at something, you have to focus on doing that thing. Thus, I have been fairly fanatical about the defense of adults and juveniles accused of having committed crimes. I read enough civil law to ensure that I’m not missing something which would make me a better criminal defense lawyer, but I have no wish to practice it.1

What I do know is that the world of criminal defense does not — neither in my own experience nor in stories I hear from other criminal defense lawyers — function as my friend believes it does.

The world of criminal law has much to do with criminals — both those enrobed and those accused — and not so much to do with law.

[Read more...]

Endnotes:
  1. Maybe this will change one day. It’s becoming harder and harder to make a living in this economy based on doing only criminal defense. Potential clients have less money and, unlike the world of civil law, they have the option of going with a public defender. [↩]
Filed Under: Juvenile Justice, Rule of Law Tagged With: , , , , , ,

SOPA (Temporarily?) Washes Out Blogs

January 17, 2012 By 2 Comments
Download pirate

This is a criminal defense law blog. For a criminal defense  law office. As a criminal defense lawyer, I usually write about things that are of interest to those looking for criminal defense attorneys, or for other criminal defense attorneys, or just people who are interested in criminal defense.

But what someone has — or, rather, a few very rich someones have — been trying to do is a crime.

So today, I’m writing about SOPA/PIPA. Sounds like some kind of disease, doesn’t it? Soh’-pah pih’-pah. Maybe a virus.

And it is, actually. It’s the most powerful Internet virus yet.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: The Internet & The Law Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Out of Sight

January 12, 2012 By 1 Comment
Videotaping Police

The last couple of days, I’ve been pondering something Jeff Gamso wrote, at least partly as a response to a comment I made on his blog. As with a lot of Jeff’s stuff, it’s taking me longer to consider than most things I read. I like that. I like that Jeff makes me think. Too many people in the world don’t seem to spend enough time thinking, or helping others think, these days.

Take these two cops, for instance.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Police Misconduct Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Importance of History for Freedom

January 9, 2012 By 1 Comment
Cave Drawing

Like so many of my posts — I think this is why I sometimes have difficulty settling on what to write — this one is the culmination of an inchoate irritation that’s been growing in me for a long time. But, again like so many of my posts, it is finally birthed because of something specific that causes me to think my thoughts are finally falling into place well enough to begin writing.

Let’s see if that helps me give form to my thoughts in a way that you, dear readers, might begin to develop a similar, hopefully less-inchoate, irritation on the issue. Perhaps we can even arrive at a place at least more solid and substantial than President Obama’s backbone.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Rule of Law, United States Constitution Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Public Pretenders

January 5, 2012 By 2 Comments
Pretenders

At the risk of talking myself out of a job or two, let’s clear something up immediately: Even though it doesn’t apply to me (because as long as I’ve practiced law, I’ve always been a private attorney), I hate the phrase “Public Pretender.”

I hate that people use it; I hate to hear it. It’s pointless, usually slanderous, and in almost all cases — except perhaps in Kings County, California, where it is said contract attorneys will lose their contracts if they upset the prosecutors in their black robes judges  – unwarranted.

I’ve never been a public defender. But when people ask, “Are you an attorney, or a public pretender?” my reaction is “a what?! what’s that?” I know exactly what they mean, of course, but I ask it in a tone that (I hope) communicates that I’m wondering if it’s some street performer, maybe a homeless actor or comedian.

And that I’m quite amused that there’s a name for such persons.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Other Lawyers Tagged With: , , , , ,
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