Probable Cause

Last week, a couple of insightful attorneys wrote posts regarding fees.  Brian Tannebaum, a hard-fighting criminal defense attorney in Miami, Florida, discussed the effect the economy is having on clients trying to get money back from their attorneys — particularly after the attorney has, through his hard work, managed to keep them from being charged with crimes.

Scott Greenfield’s post notes that people believe the economy must be good for criminal defense attorneys, since they believe more people will commit crimes.  Scott not only debunks this myth, but notes the negative impact the Internet generally has had on hard-fighting criminal defense lawyers trying to feed their families.

Today, I was reminded of another perspective on this: the client who believes that since you successfully represented him in the past, he owns you for life.

Read the rest of this entry »

A friend of mine, Joni Mueller, sent me a link yesterday, asking if I’d seen the article.  The title was “Exclusion of MySpace Evidence in Gang Related [sic] Murder Trial.” The article discusses an evidentiary ruling in the unpublished case of People v. Wiliams (2010) 2010 WL 611444, 2010 Cal.App.Unpub. LEXIS 1251.  [Note: Since there are two versions of the unpublished opinion and since I'm feeling lazy today, I personally will not use citations in discussing the case; the only time citations show up are when I'm quoting the original article using them.]

The article’s focus on the evidentiary ruling is puzzling.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is not your typical “legislating morality” post.  At least not typical of those I’ve seen before.  Those posts are about things like prostitution, drug use, and similar allegedly — and in actuality frequently — “victimless crimes.”

That’s not what this post is about.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is a group of lawyers I’ve come to know over the last six months to a year and to whom I look up because most of them have more experience in their pinky fingers — probably most of them have shed more law experience through their pinky fingers — than I yet have on some issues.

Don’t get me wrong.  From what I’m told, I’m a fine lawyer, even if it doesn’t always feel that way to me.  And yesterday, with numerous families surrounding me as I exited a courtroom, all asking for my card and whether or not I could represent their family member, I started to think Year Four as a lawyer might actually be fun.  But these guys are like gods to me.  They are what I aspire to be.

In some ways.

Read the rest of this entry »

You’ll have to forgive my choice of title — or not, I don’t really care — the story that inspired this post makes me angrier than just about anything I’ve heard recently.  If it makes you feel better, pretend the actual title was “Ex Parte, In Parte.”

“Justice” Thomas — you know, the dude who was appointed to the United States Supreme Court notwithstanding allegations of repeated sexual harassment of a young woman who worked for him when he was a mere judge — says that criticizing judges decision-making is a bad thing.

“Justice” Scalia tells us that we’ve come a long way, baby, to get where we got to today, where the people involved in capturing and convicting “criminals” — with the average American committing three felonies per day, that would be most of us under the new regime — are so professional that we don’t need the exclusionary rule anymore.

And Scott Greenfield, a criminal defense attorney in New York, tells us about a case of a judge who was having an extramarital affair with the prosecutor during a murder trial which resulted in — surprise! — a conviction.

Read the rest of this entry »

A judge whom I consider a good man — and who I believe I would be pleased to call my friend if ever that were possible — nevertheless lost his temper with me recently during an off-the-record discussion.  The subject of the discussion and the way the court lost its temper is why I had to write this post.

Two things should be noted before I “get into it.”  First, whether the court or anyone else believes me on this, I’m writing this because a driving force in my life is the Jewish concept of tikkun olam. In other words, I want to work cooperatively to leave the world a better place than it was when I arrived.  If I can’t do it cooperatively, though, I will nevertheless work to do it.

The second thing is the corollary to that desire: I’m not writing this to further anger the judge (though given the court’s refusal to give serious consideration to this issue, that may be a sadly unavoidable side effect of my comments).  Rather, I wish to explain what I was unable to say due to the chilling effect of the court’s reaction to my off-the-record comment — and to the fact that others had started to filter into the courtroom.  I’m hopeful — since I know some judges read my blog — that this post might help explain why it is the right for the court to change its position on this one issue, and why it should be ashamed if it does not.

So what were we talking about?  And what did I say that so enraged one of the few judges I would love to be able to call my friend?

Read the rest of this entry »

During a momentary escape from a brief I’m trying to complete before the end of today, I ran across an article on the Pennsylvania Litigation Blog about a sheriff who has become a hero to some because he won’t conduct auctions on foreclosed homes as the law requires.

The article itself was basically just a reprint of one that was supposed to appear in the Wall Street Journal on June 6, 2008.  It was a user comment that struck me more and inspired this post.

I don’t normally write about non-criminal law issues, but since this involved a sheriff picking and choosing what duties to perform, it seemed an acceptable fit here.

The commenter praised the sheriff because even though what the sheriff did was “against the law,” it was the morally right thing to do.  At least, it was the morally right thing to do in that commenter’s opinion.

I disagree.  At least I think I disagree.  (Keep reading!)

Read the rest of this entry »

When I was young, I remember a version of the Bible which was titled “Good News for Modern Man.”  Given that this post involves the prosecution and subsequent acquittal of a police officer for excessive force in Fresno — arguably in the center of the Bible “Belt” of California — and given Supreme Court “Justice” Scalia’s not too distant comments about the “modern” and “professional” police force, it seems appropriate to play off that for this post’s title. 

First, let me be clear about something, because every time I write about police abusing their authority, it seems the police supporters come crawling out of the woodwork.  In Fresno, as with much of the Central San Joaquin Valley, the police can do no wrong, even when they do.  Having said that, this post is not my own personal pronouncement that the jury screwed up and let a guilty man go free.  I actually don’t know if that’s true. 

I am, however, going to talk about what the newspaper has reported, throw in a few comments from things I’ve heard from attorneys who are more familiar with the facts, and express my opinion.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m “on the road” a lot (albeit usually within the three counties in which I primarily practice criminal defense: Fresno, Tulare and Kings Counties) which makes it hard to keep up the blog sometimes. 

I have installed an interesting application to help - BlogJet. It’s a Windows client for my blog which supposedly allows me to compose posts offline. If it works as advertised, I can write more entries even when there is no Internet connection and upload the posts when I’m able to connect. 

Maybe now I won’t have to go so long between posts!

The website for BlogJet is here: http://blogjet.com

“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” — Albert Einstein

In 1998, Wayne Conley was arrested and trial began after he led a gang rape against an unconscious woman — a fellow soldier — while the others waited to take their turn.  After finishing, he told another man, “go in there and get you a piece.”

In 2009, after Melina Benninghoff was taken to task by blogger Mark Bennett because his articles were showing up on her website under her name, Wayne Conley — who turned out to be the tech guy behind Benninghoff’s website –  decided he was going to get him a piece of Mark Bennett.  Among other things, Conley has falsely labeled him “the worst lawyer in Houston.” Later, he went after Brian Tannebaum (for this post) and Scott Greenfield (who most recently wrote about it here).

As before, Conley does not seem to know when he has tried to get a piece that’s just too much for him.

Read the rest of this entry »