Our legal system is the best there is, but it isn’t perfect. Innocent people get found guilty all the time, and guilty people get found not guilty (which, technically, is not the same thing as being found innocent). I’ve won cases I was sure I’d lose and lost cases I was sure I’d win, and sometimes after a verdict both the DA and I scratch our heads and wonder what the jury was thinking.
That’s why I always advise my clients to take deals when they don’t want to gamble with a trial. That’s also the main reason I’m against the death penalty (I don’t believe there should be a 100% irreversible penalty when our system is not 100% perfect).
The Zimmerman trial is the latest example. The verdict doesn’t make sense to me, but hey, sometimes I just scratch my head. For some reason, those jurors were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Another jury watching the same trial could have found the exact opposite. That’s how the system works.
As people point out, this case was all about self-defense. I won a huge self-defense case last year, but the laws here in Pennsylvania are different. We don’t have a “stand your ground” law which is popular in those “wild west” types of states that want people to be able to do things that only trained police officers do elsewhere.
Self-defense laws in most states hold that you must retreat from the fight if at all possible and if you do fight back, you cannot give more force back than is necessary. Florida’s law, apparently, is “if someone is giving you some bruises, you can kill them. Especially if they’re armed with skittles.”
I’m not even sure exactly how the prosecution and the judge allowed Zimmerman to use the “stand your ground” defense. Zimmerman was the one stalking Martin, right? He’s the one who started the fight and came to it with a loaded gun. If it hadn’t been for Zimmerman’s aggression, there wouldn’t have been a fight and Martin would still be alive. Martin was the one standing his ground.
But, you know, people are murdered every day. The vast majority of these cases never make the news, and I’m sure there have been some miscarriages of justice in these cases too, hidden from the scrutiny of the press.
The bottom line is this: I’m a defense attorney and I can’t figure this verdict out. I mean, it seemed black and white to me.
Hey! Maybe that’s the reason!
When Kathleen Kane was elected Attorney General here in Pennsylvania, I cheered — we haven’t had a Democratic AG in, well, forever it seems. Surely things would change.
I’m happy to report that they have.
The ACLU recently sued Pennsylvania (and some other states) over the gay marriage ban. Our Attorney General has announced that she will not defend a law she believes is unconstitutional. “If there is a law that I feel that does not conform with the Pennsylvania state constitution and the U.S. Constitution, then I ethically cannot do that as a lawyer,” she said.
It’s not like the law won’t be defended; our conservative governor vows to fight this and he has a legal staff to do so. He’s also, based on current polls, the most unpopular governor in the country, and I can only imagine this will hurt him even more in a state that has a majority of the population supporting gay marriage.
Chances are, nothing will happen here in Pennsylvania since we have a Republican-dominated Supreme Court. (One Republican Justice was recently removed — that happens when you get convicted of a felony — but she was replaced by someone almost as bad). So chances are this will move through the courts and get combined with the cases from the other states to later get before the US Supreme Court.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction, and it’s nice to know we have an Attorney General who has ethics.
It is tremendously hard to sue for defamation. And that’s a good thing.
Every once in a while, I’ll get someone calling my office wanting to sue someone because they were called a bad name or something, and I have to explain to them how the laws work in America.
Defamation includes libel (written) and slander (spoken). In order to win a case, I’d have to prove three things:
First, that the statement was false. This is usually the easiest thing to prove, but sometimes the thing being said is merely an opinion. “Joe is a jerk” is not true or false. “Joe is a pedophile” is a lie.
But there’s even more to it than that — you have to show that the person who made the statement knew that it was false. If they said it thinking that it was true, then that’s a defense. (Truth is always a defense against libel and slander).
And if the person who wrote or said this was a reporter, then you also have to show that they knew it was not true and they had “malicious intent” in spreading it.
That’s a tough standard — but even if you meet that, you still have two other burdens to overcome.
So the second thing is to show that other people believed it. If someone calls you a martian, then that’s clearly a lie. But if no one believes them, then what’s the point? The lie has to be believed by others.
And finally, you have to show that you were seriously harmed in some way and not just insulted. You need to show that because of the lie, you lost your job and people are throwing bricks at your house and spitting on you as you walk down the street. You have to prove damage.
So if someone says “Joe is gay” and it’s not true and the person who said it knows that it’s not true, you’ve met the first burden. If everyone believes it, then you’ve met the second burden. But if no one cares and you aren’t harmed in the slightest other than perhaps being upset or embarrassed or insulted, then you have no case.
So the next time someone says they want to sue for defamation and then complain that no lawyer will take the case, you’ll understand why.
During the Bill Clinton campaign, James Carville called Pennsylvania “Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama inbetween.”
Well, it’s changed a bit since that quote was given. The east coast of Pennsylvania (where I live, just a few miles from New Jersey) has become strongly democratic as people from Jersey and New York move away from the city.
Overall, Pennsylvanians always vote for Democrats for President and mostly for Democrats in the state races. In the last election, more people voted for Democrats for the House, but because of gerrymandering, more Republicans got elected.
I bring this up because the ACLU yesterday filed a lawsuit to try to bring Pennsylvania into line with all of the other northeastern states to allow gay marriage. The ACLU acknowledged that it was bringing suit in Pennsylvania because overturning the state’s gay marriage ban in the Republican-controlled legislature is a near-term impossibility. This is despite the fact a recent study found that 54% of Pennsylvania residents are in favor of it.
They are basing this suit primarily on Equal Protection lines apparently (I haven’t read the actual Complaint) and are using Justice Kennedy’s recent opinion in the DOMA cause to argue that discrimination of gay parents harms the children and is thus destructive and so on.
While I would much rather have our elected representatives do the right thing, I don’t expect that to happen any time soon. And while I support this suit, I also don’t expect it to get anywhere with the current Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which has whittled away our basic rights tremendously in the fifteen years or so I’ve lived here.
Oh, no! Look! A Citizen’s Grand Jury has indicted the lead prosecutor in the Zimmerman trial! This is serious, as some people have pointed out on the interwebs. It could throw the whole trial into chaos!
Those “citizen grand juries” are powerful things, you know. Remember the “citizen’s grand jury” that indicted George W. Bush for war crimes? He’s never lived that down. Then there was the “citizen’s grand jury” that concluded that 9/11 was an inside job, and the “citizen’s grand jury” that determined that Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery, and of course, the “citizen’s grand jury” that was formed by a bunch of white supremacists that indicted a bunch of liberals who were keepin’ the white man down.
Yep, those “citizen’s grand juries” are serious things.
Hey! I have an idea! Why don’t we all get together and start our own “citizen’s grand jury” and indict someone! Come on, it’ll be fun!
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