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People v. Monsters

September 11, 2012 by 3 Comments
monster-shadow


One of the things that differentiates criminal defense lawyers from others is our ability to see people where others see only monsters. It is an ability I wish more people had.

Every person — even every person who has ever committed a crime — started life as an innocent baby, came to life full of potential similar to that of other babies for a bright and happy future. Not all of us, though, have had similar opportunities to bring that potential into actuality.

And I have heard it said somewhere that all of us are “sinners.”

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Or so it has been said.  [Read more...]

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Tikkun Olam

December 27, 2010 by 2 Comments


I am not a religious person. I am not, however, opposed to the lessons of religion. Unlike the majority of Americans, I frequently read the Bible. (JPS version, if you must know, although I’ve read a number of other versions and even studied Koiné Greek for two years so I could translate the so-called “New Testament” for myself. I translated five books before I quit.)

One religious concept which means enough to me that I still think of it daily is tikkun olam which, in Hebrew, means “repairing the world.”

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Prisons, Rehabilitation & American Values

June 3, 2010 by 1 Comment


Without ever having served any time in one, I cannot call myself an expert on prisons.  But I suspect I know something more about them than the average person.  I’ve visited more than a few throughout California in my work as a criminal defense attorney.  I know that prisons are considered by inmates to be better than jails.  I know this because I’m currently representing a prisoner in a habeas case, which has required him to be transported from the prison in Coalinga to Fresno and he has made it clear he would much rather be in the prison.

From what I’ve seen, while prisons are better than jails, prisons suck.

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Disposition

May 15, 2010 by 3 Comments


Yesterday  morning I had a juvenile hearing.  We call it a “Disposition.”  The term shares a relationship, via Latin, with “dispose,” as in “dispose of.”

It is nevertheless appropriate, given what usually happens.  [Read more...]

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Rant: There Are Days

April 16, 2010 by 3 Comments


There are days when I feel like tossing in the towel.  The system we’ve built — the one I work in, the one we’ve arbitrarily decided to call the “justice” system — is so utterly destructive of our society that it almost feels criminal to do anything at all that allows it to continue to exist.  It does not feel fixable.  It feels very much like the only real option is to either move on in the realization that I will never recover from law school, that the money spent on that “education” is gone, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Will it matter when I’m gone that I fought a case to a pointless and unfair conviction?  I don’t know.

Certainly, I’m not the only attorney out there doing what I do.  At least, I don’t think I am.  But sometimes I wonder.

[Read more...]

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Our Children, Our Future?

October 26, 2008 by Leave a Comment



The worst thing you can have is power and lack of knowledge. — psychologist Habsi Kaba.

Last Friday, I was privileged to attend the (Juvenile) Behavioral Health Court Quarterly Meeting in my county.  I was a little surprised to learn that I was the only private practice criminal defense lawyer to take advantage of this opportunity, but that’s a story for another blog article, another time.  Believing this to be a better alternative for some of my juvenile clients than repeated episodes of pointless incarceration which merely exacerbates their conditions, I wanted to learn more about how the behavioral court worked.

One of the first, saddest, and most difficult things I learned of concerns the struggle the Behavioral Health Court has just to survive.

[Read more...]

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