Probable Cause

Anyone who looks will notice that my “blog roll,” containing links to the blogs of other attorneys (and some non-attorneys) shows a dearth of prosecutor blogs.  It’s not exactly that I’m not a fan of prosecutors, although I won’t deny there’s some prejudice involved.  My own experiences with — and stories I hear from local attorneys concerning — prosecutors causes a knee jerk reaction in me that automatically makes me suspect them.

But I’m not a fan of knee jerk reactions: I work through it.  There are prosecutors  — admittedly few in number — with whom I’ve had direct contact whom I’ve found to be quite honorable and whom I’d love to count among my short list of close friends, if the opportunity to do so ever arose.

One I have never had direct contact with is prosecutor Mark Pryor of D.A. Confidential. Yet, like criminal defense attorney Jamison Koehler, I am (mostly!) reassured by what I read on Mark’s blog.

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Shut up!  I don’t like what you’re saying!

Increasingly, this is the approach Americans — Americans! — are taking to deal with speech they don’t like.  Whether this involves the hateful speech of would-be dictators, the words of electronic schoolyard bullies, or just folks with whom we disagree on government policy, the New American Way is to stop them from talking.  Extra points if we can protect our own speech while squelching theirs. 

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Nearly fifty years ago, the United States Supreme Court held that all people — even poor people — are entitled to be defended by competent counsel.  Anyone who watches television knows that “if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you.”

What they don’t tell you on television is that, increasingly, the attorney appointed to represent you will also be representing possibly as many as 200 other people at the same time.

Meanwhile, Fresno County continues to decrease the number of Public Defenders and necessarily therefore increases the caseload of those poor souls remaining.

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Adrianos Facchetti, a California “Internet Defamation Attorney,” writing the California Defamation Law Blog asks, among other things, if governments should regulate the Internet to control defamatory speech — however that might be accomplished.

I could only think of one response….

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