RHDefense: The Law Office of Rick Horowitz
Home of Probable Cause: The Legal Blog with the Really Low Standard of Review
I’ve said it before, but for potential newcomers, I’ll say it again: You don’t have to read this blog very long to know that I hate shackles. I hate shackles on adults, but I particularly hate shackles on minors. It’s safe to say that I believe in treating human beings like human beings.
There are some who disagree.
Apparently, at least one judge Fresno County Juvenile Court is one of those who disagrees. [Read more...]
In days of yore, Shakespeare asked, “What diff does it make what you call them?”
Well, actually what he said was:
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
But, truth is, ’tis not thy name which makes you my enemy, but by the name I assign thee, thou becomest mine enemy. [Read more...]
We open today’s blog post with a quote from George R. R. Martin, affectionately known, I am told by friends who know him, as “GRRM”:
“You esteem this Penrose more than you do my lords bannermen. Why?”
“He keeps faith.”
“A misplaced faith in a dead usurper.”
“Yes,” Davos admitted, “but still, he keeps faith.”
“As those behind us do not?”
Davos had come too far with Stannis to play coy now. “Last year they were Robert’s men. A moon ago they were Renly’s. This morning they are yours. Whose will they be on the morrow?”1
We follow with questions posed by the blogging community with which I identify, noting that this quote contains the grim answer. [Read more...]
I’m not even sure how to write this post. Maybe I should wait. Maybe I should let things “sink in” a bit.
But then I remember, “Silence is Enabling.”
What I’m about to show you is something that should be trumpeted on national — make that international – news. [Read more...]
More people than normal are reading my blog the last few days.
Given that a few weeks ago, after I was confronted by members of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department — more on this later — and wrote about it, I received 5,000 visitors in one day, and though it has dropped off quite a bit since then, even without writing much more my traffic stats are still quite high, that’s saying something.
And why are they coming?
According to the admin page of my blog, they’re searching for things like “what happened to constitutional rights boston” and “boston suspended constitution,” etc. Most of those people are apparently finding last Saturday’s post, “Life in a Post-Constitutional World”; that post alone is still getting well over a hundred reads per day.
All of this occurs against the backdrop of something I didn’t see, and I’m glad for that, because I almost certainly would have vomited: crowds allegedly lining the streets and cheering the police. [Read more...]
As I watched the unfolding of events in Boston this past week, I have several thoughts on my mind. Two have been pre-eminent:
Many years ago, when there was less knowledge in the world, but people were generally smarter, a doctrine developed — an ideal — which was to form the very basis for a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Before going further, let’s dispose of two issues that are of no import to what I’m writing today. First, the use of the term “men” is because I am using the anachronistic quotes — “a government of laws, not of men” and “all men are created equal” — as they were used by the Founders of the United States of America. Second, unless you hold the same heinous position they held, which is that certain “men” were not really “men” — kind of treating entire groups of human beings as a distinct and separate species — then they didn’t really think that “all men are created equal.”
What they meant, though, is the same thing Aristotle said in his Politics, “Law should govern.” No government which was part of the United States of America would be run by despots, oligarchs, or anyone else who could arbitrarily decide when someone should be punished for some perceived slight, or “wrong.”
Today we have evolved as a nation. We recognize that all men, as well as women, have the same “unalienable”1 rights. Today, we would say, “Everyone must be treated the same when it comes to how our laws are applied.”2
But that was how America started. It is not how she is ending. [Read more...]
Earlier Friday it was brought to my attention that a doctor who recommends medical marijuana allegedly told his patient — my client — that “Rick Horowitz does not know medical marijuana law.”
Why a doctor would be practicing medical marijuana law — allegedly telling patients that what I told them is not true, and giving them what he thinks is the “correct” legal advice — is beyond me. Just as it would be illegal (not to mention unethical) for me to practice medicine in the State of California, so is it also illegal for doctors to practice law, unless perhaps the doctor in question also has a law license in addition to his medical license. (And this one doesn’t.)
The irony of the situation is that the client in question was one who knew better, because I obtained for him the exact result that he wanted in his case.1
Dismissals without even going to trial are like that — they frequently result in happy clients who think of me as a lawyer who does, in fact, know medical marijuana law.
And I get a lot of dismissals on medical marijuana cases. I’ve yet to have one actually go all the way to trial. In fact, because I’m “a criminal defense lawyer who knows medical marijuana law,” instead of a “medical marijuana lawyer,” I have even won dismissals in medical marijuana cases without ever mentioning the word “marijuana.”
As one of my medical marijuana clients wrote in an online review concerning my representation of her:
Mr. Horowitz displayed complete knowledge of the laws pertaining to California’s Medical Marijuana laws, as he explained in detail the specific laws and previous cases that pertained to my case.2
That case involving felony possession for sale — among other charges — was another where I obtained a complete dismissal.
Frankly, I’ve been puzzled as to why I don’t have more medical marijuana clients contacting me than I do. But today’s revelation may explain it.
And what of the case about which the good doctor was criticizing my legal knowledge, offering (apparently) to substitute his own? [Read more...]
Yesterday, I received a phone call from a Fresno County Sheriff’s Deputy.
The stated purpose of the call was to follow up on whether or not I am a threat about which the Sheriff’s Department should be concerned. The unstated purpose appeared to be “evidence gathering.”
For what, I don’t know. I would have thought my “Overlords” post would have clarified to anyone who misread the post that started this mess that I am not a threat. At least, it would have clarified it as well as anything I could say during the phone call would.
What concerns me is that, once law enforcement sets their minds to a particular conclusion, nothing — no evidence, no personal statement, no historical data — seems to have much of an impact. What constitutes “investigation” and “follow up” too often is: “I came up with this idea, and then I kept looking for something to prove I was right.”
I want to keep this as short as possible — a man whose judgment I trust more than my own has suggested 500 words or less — so let me get right to the point:
I did not threaten anyone. However much some may wish to interpret my words to mean something different than I meant them when I wrote them, that wish, and your interpretation, does not inform my intent.
Furthermore, I am not currently, nor do I plan to become, a threat to anyone, if by “threat” one means “intending to inflict evil, injury, or damage” in any way that would be illegal in the State of California, or under federal law.
Nor do I intend to encourage anyone else to become a threat to anyone, using that same definition.
No interpretation of the words that I wrote is contrary to what I just said in the block-quote above, unless you add something that I did not include.
If you believe differently, then you are mistaken. One of the unfortunate things about blog-writing is that, to keep things short, you can’t always include all the detailed background to your statements that you might wish. My views on our society, how it does law, who administers the law and how, and whether or not we achieve our stated goals, among other things, are nuanced; they are not black-and-white. I am also a colorful and often deliberately provocative writer. But what I wrote the other day did not say – because I did not intend it to say — that anyone should physically harm any law enforcement officer, or anyone else.
It is perhaps unfortunate that in the same post, I wrote that gang members should stop fighting and killing each other and should fight (but, notably, not “kill”) those who keep them down. It is also unfortunate that English readers no longer understand the use of the subjunctive “if.”
Since my “Overlords” post was apparently not clear enough, I tried to make this clear during yesterday’s phone call.
Hopefully, there was no static on the line.
This post is going to be hard to understand if you are a black-and-white thinker. In fact, it’s so difficult for many who visit this blog to understand that I’m going to start with the disclaimer that I often use when discussing police officers and honesty:
Not all police officers are bad. Not all police officers lie. Not all police officers plant weapons, drugs, or other evidence. Not all police officers ignore the rights of citizens. Not all police officers “bend,” or ignore, our laws. Not all police officers will give someone a tune-up for speaking their mind.
Police officers are human beings. Admittedly, there is a police culture that has shifted in a way that lying and planting drugs and ignoring rights and laws has become common. But because police officers have to be selected from the same species as the rest of humanity, there will always be officers who honestly try to do the best jobs they can possibly do, in the most ethical and law-abiding way.
The problem, of course, is that these days you just can’t tell, by looking at a particular law enforcement officer, whether a particular law enforcement officer is one of those who is being honest, or whether he is one who will lie (especially in court), or plant evidence, or ignore rights, or follow the law.
Therein lies the problem. [Read more...]
The Law Office of Rick Horowitz provides criminal defense services
in Fresno, Tulare, Kings, Kern, Madera and Merced Counties.