Probable Cause

As usual lately, reading this post on Scott Greenfield’s blog provokes me to a post of my own.  Sure, I could just leave a really long comment over on his blog, but lately I hardly get enough time to write, so aside from not wanting to leave an over-long comment, I wouldn’t get a post up on my blog if I didn’t “respond” here. This post is already going to pre-empt another I was working on regarding the (really high) number of police misconduct stories in the newspaper the other day. 

Also, this is kind of a follow-up to my last post.  Besides, some of what I’m responding to isn’t the post, as much as comments that followed it, including many which I read on Twitter.

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Scott Greenfield’s blog, Simple Justice, is probably the only legal blog where I try never to miss a post.  If I fall behind, it bugs me, and when I get the chance, I’ll catch up by spending an hour or more reading every post I’ve missed.  One of these days, I’m going to continue digging back into the older posts, from before I knew about his blog, and read all those, too.  This is not to say that I agree with everything he says, but everything he says definitely makes me think.  And I agree with enough of it that I wish there was someone like him in my jurisdiction to mentor me.  (Scott’s been practicing a lot longer than I have.)

One of his posts from today — A Blog That Shouldn’t — gives me the chance to talk more about something that matters very much to me.  It concerns the question of defending guilty people.

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