Vacation

We will be taking our summer break from writing the blog from Memorial Day Weekend until July 4th Weekend.  Thanks for reading.  We'll see you again soon!

You're a lawyer!

By Shannon

"Jim's kinda hot.  Why don't you go for him?"  The text message from a fellow prosecutor read.  She was at a conference with Jim and they'd known each other for years.  It was night, so I knew they would be where all good cops and prosecutors are at night during a conference - a bar.  "Are you drunk?  He's married," I replied.  She sent a few more to me and I suddenly recognized the game.  I had a feeling he was sitting next to her and feeling me out to see if I'd be willing to embark on an affair.  My hunch was confirmed when she wrote, "You're awesome!  We're just messing with you."  Typical answer when you discover someone is not interested in you.  I wrote back and said, "Ask Jim why he hasn't helped me find a non-slutty single man."  Jim responded:  "Guys are intimidated by your job, but a real man wouldn't be.  A real man would appreciate you, but I don't know any who are single."  Isn't that always the case?  I actually had a secretary tell me that if my friends and I wanted men, we shouldn't have become lawyers.

Ann and I have bemoaned on this blog the lack of men interested in female lawyers.  The majority (like 90%) of my female lawyer friends and colleagues are single.  Men say they want smart girls and they may, but they don't want lawyers.  The men who do ask us out pick fights and argue with us on the first date (and second if we have a lapse in judgment and agree to another one).  They seem to think fighting turns us on or shows us that they're as smart as we are.  In truth it usually shows us how ignorant they are.  In reality most female lawyers HATE fighting.  The bit we do for a living is more than enough.  Other men won't fight, but they will harp on our title as in: 

"Well of course you would say that - you're a lawyer!" 

OR 

"Of course you like that movie - you're a lawyer!" 

OR 

"Of course you like to eat bottom-feeding scavengers - you're a lawyer!" 

If only we'd known what it would do to our social life, would we have still chosen law school?

Yet as Ann and I recently talked about the situation, we had an epiphany.  As Ann recounted all the fun and travel she'd had in her 20s in lieu of settling down, I thought of all the fun I'd had too.  Originally it started as a comparison of the frivolous things we'd wasted time doing instead of doing "important" things like raising babies and loving a man, but then it changed.  I couldn't help but think that I would not have traded my life, my experiences, or my education for an earlier start on "what really matters."  Life has favored me and many of my female lawyer friends with a kind of trifurcation.  When a family and love comes our way we will have had a fun, immature life in which we got to sow a lot of oats AND we will have had a mature life of fun, travel and cultural experiences on our own dime and on our own terms THEN we will get to participate in "what really matters." 

Though we tend to look with jealousy at those women who "have it all" I wonder: 

Would any of us REALLY have chosen to do it any differently?

Deep Valley

By Shannon

A young woman was driving down a winding country road.  Her windows were down.  Her sunroof was open.  It was a beautiful day - not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was perfect.  As she sang and drummed her steering wheel with the music, she heard a distinctive beep.  She looked at her phone and saw that she'd just gotten a text message from her boyfriend.  They were still in the honeymoon phase where every one of his smiles stopped her heart and every brush of her fingers on his arm gave him goose bumps (though he was too macho to admit to the bumps).  She smiled as she read his message of love on her phone.  He couldn't wait for her to get to his house.  They were planning a hike and then he was hoping to talk her into doing a bit of fishing with him.  She turned the phone horizontally so that both hands could hold it as she began to write back.  She wasn't speeding.  She glanced up often to make sure she was still on the road.  Unfortunately as she rounded a bend a luxury sedan was suddenly in front of her and going much slower than the speed limit.  The older woman driving the sedan was looking for a specific address to take a hot meal to an ill acquaintance.  The younger woman in the sporty car didn't have time to even slow down though she slammed on the breaks as hard as she could.  She crashed into the back end of the older lady.  The older lady died at the scene.  The case landed on my desk and because God has a sense of humor the following conversation ensued:

Officer:  "The victim's name was Deep Valley*."

We could both hear crickets chirping in the silence as I tried to discern the joke.

Officer:  "No joke."

Apparently the officer was a mind-reader too.

Me:  "What?"

Officer:  "She was a retired porn star.  She loved this part of the country and thought it would be a nice place where she could be anonymous."

Me:  "What?"  I asked a bit more incredulously.

Officer:  "The name referred to her breasts.  They were so large she couldn't wear a seat belt." 

The crickets got loud as we got quiet once again.

Officer:  "Seriously."

*Name changed for this post.

Community

By Shannon

While I was at the beach this weekend, I interviewed for a job as a prosecutor.  Part of me REALLY wants it and part of me doesn’t have the energy to even think of moving.  Last night I was thinking of how many times I’ve moved in the last 9 years.  I moved to the east coast, from the east coast, to my first job as a prosecutor, from my first job as a prosecutor, to this job and now I may be looking at yet another move.  I’m getting to an age where I really want to get somewhere and set down some roots.  I want to stay in the same location and in the same house for 10 years.  I want to really get to know my community – enough to love it and hate it at the same time.  I want to be involved enough in a community to know what the current issues and needs are.  I want to be invested enough in that community to step in and try to help meet those needs.  I began to despair of ever having that kind of community, but then I realized my travels have given me a community of my own.  Mine may be spread out, but it is no less valuable.  For example:

I have Ann.  She’s far enough away that we’ve not seen each other in 2 years, but we talk almost every day.  We started out so very opposite from each other and it is only by the grace of God that our friendship grew, strengthened and lasted.  She’s the one I call when I’m so distraught or overwrought that I cannot make my own decisions.  I trust her to make them for me in those moments.

I have J.H.  He’s almost 9 hours away which for a girl who hates to drive might as well be across the ocean.  He’s been going through a difficult time of his own.  We talk weekly.  He’s got a lovely wife and family who embraced our friendship which grew from hours spent in a patrol car together tracking down witnesses in the bad parts of town.  He’s closer to me than a brother ever could be.  He’s even willing to drive hours and hours and hours to help me move from here to there if I get the job on the beach.

I have S.H. - an old girlfriend from high school.  We weren’t close in high school, though we liked each other.  Adulthood brought us together.  We are in different phases of life, but still are so connected.  She’s about 6 hours away and we see each other as often as possible which is never often enough.  When there is a crisis we have each other on speed dial.  Only we can handle each other when our emotions go on overdrive.

I have so many others including my mom, sister, brother-in-law, and his family.  None of them live near me, but on holidays you will not find me with anyone else.

These are the people who are there for me and for whom I am there.  These are the ones I laugh with and sometimes fight with.  These are the ones I run to in crisis and run to support in their times of crisis.  These are the people I love and in whose love I trust.  These are my family – my community.  After all, whoever said community had to live within the same city?

To Breathe or Not to Breathe

By Ann

Confined to a small space, I gasp for breath.   A hot noxious gas sweeps over my shoulders, my neck, and the back of my head.  I grab the closest surface within my reach and hold on for dear life.  My heart feverishly pounds in protest and I pray that the cloud of pure evil will not make its way to my nose and into my lungs.  It starts out slowly enough but begins to gain momentum and before I can even gasp, it is in my nose, my throat, my lungs and my eyes.  I am losing consciousness and falling into a vivid old memory.
It is another time, a lifetime ago, when I lived in the city.  There had been a terrorist attack and people were buying Israeli gas masks in the event that we were subject to biological warfare.  I didn’t buy one at the time but at this moment I understood what a grave mistake that had been.

With blurred vision and shaking hands I try to maintain my lucidity but all I can see is an obnoxious orange and all I can hear is … “Counsel.  Counsel.  COUNSEL!” 

   

The judge impatiently waited for me to respond.  He had been arguing with the prosecutor for what felt like an indeterminable amount of time about an issue that really wasn’t relevant to these proceedings.   They were engaged in a pissing contest and the prosecutor was threatened with being held in contempt.

Nonetheless, my client, a jailed inmate clad in an orange jumpsuit was getting annoyingly excited and anxious.  He was explaining, no whispering, no passionately whispering and hissing his custody agreement to me.  He was doing this and spewing his dirty breath all over me and all I could do was sit there and try not to die.  Before I could respond to the judge, I had to wonder why the jail did not require inmates to brush.  Then I wondered why inmates chose not to brush.  Then I wondered if his breath would stick to my suit.

I’ll never understand why men choose not to brush when they are in prison.  But I do understand one thing.  I understand that no one in the courtroom actually knows what is going on except for the lawyers and the judge.  I had been told this in the past by an older, experienced attorney but I didn’t truly understand it until today.  Today the judge and the prosecutor were going at it about a document that wasn’t relevant.  I knew it.  The prosecutor knew it.  The judge knew it.  But my client did not know it and the argument threw him into a state as a frenzied human dragon with deadly breath with which he used to furiously and viciously whisper and cruelly annunciate.
The officer didn’t know it because he had that deer stuck in headlight expression and the bubble over his head, the one that contains verbal thoughts in comics, that bubble was empty. 

I regained my composure and leaned into my client before I responded to the judge.   “Sometimes, it’s a better strategy to sit back and watch the train wreck and this is one of those times.”  He nodded. 

“I have nothing to add your honor.” 

My client was released right after that hearing. 

A Fresh Canvas By Morning

By Shannon


Criminal attorneys see the worst of society.  Sometimes we're lucky enough to notice the best. 

In the beginning of Moby Dick, the narrator says:  “Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

Well, I strongly agree.  The sea has always provided the best attitude-adjuster for me.  So, this weekend I took a roadtrip alone to a beach several hours away.  I walked the sidewalk above the beach.  I ate seafood.  I shopped in the local gift shops.  When the sun's intensity waned enough to permit my fair skin to enjoy the beach without burning, I walked the water-packed sand, marveled at the pelicans and seagulls, and laughed at a fisherman waving his pole like a sword at the birds that kept diving in and stealing his fish before the fish chomped down on his hook.  I stopped and watched a man dressed in a full wet suit with a boogie board tied around his waist and trailing behind him as he operated a metal detector in waist deep water hoping for hidden treasures.  I tried to count the number of breathing holes in the wet sand left by hermit crabs who lay just under the surface, but there were just too many to count.  I obtained a pinkened nose. 

It was perfect. 

Then I made one last observation.  I had been walking the beach for so long that the sun was 30 minutes from setting.  There were very few people left - a family, a lone woman, another man with a metal detector and me.  Just as I started to step down I glanced down and then I almost fell down trying not to ruin the message written with a child's hand in the sand.  It was a message of love to her parents.  I knew the sea would erase it by morning, but I wasn't going to mess it up.  Then I looked up and saw that in this section of beach every few feet there were more messages written in the sand.  Some were done by adults and some by children, but all included love.  Then I looked closer.  There were 4-wheeler marks here and there and foot prints here and there and holes dug here and there, but none of these messages had been stepped on, written over, or driven over.  Why?  For the same reason I didn't step on them.  They were not my messages to erase or deface.  My perfect night was made more perfect with the realization that people had been courteous to others they may never meet by leaving their messages of love alone for the sea itself to erase.

Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult

I saw this a while back and it was so funny I had to share it as a post.

Ann

Don't Wear Heels in the Express Line

By Ann

My feet are throbbing as I stand in line in heels waiting for the people in the express lane to get on with their lives in an express manner.   This line states that it’s for 7 items or less  with a lighted up sign that rivals the flashy billboards in Vegas.  Nonetheless, I suspect that  the old lady in front of me probably didn’t notice.  I contemplate this as she puts dozens of items on the short conveyor belt in an agonizingly slow manner.  Once she finally makes it to the end, she seizes the opportunity to have a small town chat with the pimply teenager behind the register.  I sigh in my head and pray to any heavenly being who will  listen to please save me from the most dreaded of dreads.  Please don’t let it be that.  That which every debit card owning person dreads from the antiquated numb nuts of the world. 

With bated breath, I watch the older woman’s arthritic hand reach into an oversized purse and pull out (gasp)…. A CHECKBOOK!!!!!!

My prayers were ignored and I watch in horror as the woman tries to write out a check with shaky, unstable hands.  She pauses almost every thirty seconds to ask how to spell the store’s name or to ask how much again, or to talk about her dog who is at the vet overnight due to a bad case of tapeworms.  I learn that a dog can get these worms from eating poop.  I learn a lot of things about this woman while I wait since I cannot even sigh out loud as I would rather get punched in the stomach than to be mean to an older person.  So I do nothing but smile on the outside and scream a carnal and gutteral scream on the inside.   I am not a patient person.  I am not even remotely patient.  In fact, I am above average in the arena of neurosis and anxiety. 
But my experience as a public defender has helped me hide some of my rage. After all, on a daily basis, I am bombarded with insults from the general public, from my clients, from other attorneys, and from the bench.  I counsel the worst of the worst during their lowest of experiences and filter a never-ending stream of bad news to their families.  I talk to people incarcerated in human sized cages and try to negotiate deals with little to no leverage or bargaining power.  I make arguments to a court that recognizes me as little more than a potted plant used for judicial decoration while it administers rulings wholly inconsistent with my arguments.  

I do this and try my best to keep my feelings and thoughts to myself.   In short, my job as a public defender has enabled me to sit through this tortuous grocery line adventure without spontaneously combusting. 

When I am finally released from the line and I have paid for my two cans of dog food, I walk triumphantly throught the automatic doors.  The sun hits my face and the wind blows through my hair as I almost sing out loud that I AM FREE! 

My independence song gets caught in my throat at the sudden realization that I have no idea where I parked my car. 
I did it again.   

Well at least I wore a good pair of shoes.  

Ally and Harry

By Shannon

I’ve been watching Ally McBeal on Netflicks.  I loved that show when it was on from 1997 to 2002.  Last night I watched an episode that aired in the spring of 2000 about the two senior partners’ (Richard and John) vacation to L.A.  Richard got arrested as soon as the plane landed.  He had talked to the first-class passengers about updating their wills before take-off because of the rash of recent plane crashes.  The pilot ordered him not to speak for the duration of the trip.  Richard didn't obey.  When the fat man sitting next to him began passing gas and sweating profusely, Richard started talking again and opened the ceiling compartment and put on the air mask.  This led to his arrest upon landing.  In court John defended him and argued that the airlines already expect us to put up with so many indignities in order to fly – delayed and cancelled flights, being herded like cattle through security, etc – that Richard's behavior was justified.  The judge dismissed the case.

Less than a year and a half later 9/11 happened.

I’ve felt a bit of melancholy as I’ve watched the first few seasons of Ally McBeal - the last few before our world forever changed.  Watching this show I can clearly remember what our “normal” was like before 9/11, Gitmo, Bin Laden, the Patriot Act, Porn Scanners, etc.  Even T.V. still seems less funny ten years after 9/11.  Days after 9/11, when regular programming finally resumed, I remember David Letterman saying something like: “If you live a thousand years will you ever understand what happened?”  No we won’t and our T.V. reflects this darker reality.  It was shortly after 9/11 that Ally was cancelled - as was Sex in the City.  They were frivolous shows, but fun nevertheless.  However, "fun" seemed inappropriate right after 9/11.  Reality TV and serious cop and lawyer and medical shows took over, pushing out our comedies.  30 minute sitcoms were cancelled to make room for one hour dramas.  I remember the days when my family would watch 30 minute comedies in the evenings after dinner.  The majority of shows seemed to be 30 minute sitcoms back then.  The only one hour show I remember my family watching back then was Star Trek:  The Next Generation.  (Yes, we were dorks.)  Now my mother and I enjoy the hour-long dark-drama called Criminal Minds.  Those who were small children or not yet born on 9/11 will never remember laughing with their families in front of the T.V. the way we did before…

We talk about all the ways 9/11 changed us, the nation, and the world.  However, I’ve not heard anyone talk about the way it changed our television.  The creator of Ally McBeal has finally created another funny lawyer show.  It’s called Harry’s Law and I love it.  It has moments of hilarity, but each episode is much more poignant than Ally ever was.  Ally was pre-9/11 and Harry is post-9/11 – the day that changed television forever.

Addiction and the Double Standard of Justice

By Ann

A young woman is jarred awake because there is a man on top of her.  He forcefully thrusts and takes what he wants without her consent.  She screams and pushes him off and goes home.  Unfortunately for this woman, her violation, her victimization has just barely begun and it hasn’t even considered peaking.  She will learn that her rapist carries HIV and she will have to go to the hospital and request a test all by herself.   She will go to the police.  She will plead for justice.   She will be admonished by them and told to go home because this  rape is nothing more than a civil matter rather than criminal. 

Another young woman lays seven minutes away from death completely unresponsive because she has overdosed on heroin.  She lays naked in a drug dealer’s bed.  He has been overdrugging her for weeks.  Every time she would pass out, he would earn a living by allowing anyone to come into the room and do whatever they want with her body.  She wouldn’t realize this happened until the ambulance was called and she would learn that she was naked.  She would never know who violated her or what diseases they had.  She would never really know what happened in that bed.  What she would know is that the justice system has a different set of standards for people like her.  She wouldn’t be tested for STDs at the hospital.   She wouldn’t be afforded a rape kit by any health care professional.  The drug dealer would continue his criminal enterprise.  She wouldn’t be guided by a therapist or a trauma specialist.  She would however, receive a set of criminal charges for possessing drugs.   In the infinite wisdom of the local government, the rationale is that she wouldn’t be near death if she wasn’t using drugs.  Apparently, the use of drugs negates any right to not be raped, kidnapped, or abused.   The system blatantly chooses to ignore her dignity and her right to justice simply because she is addicted to drugs.   A drug addict not only has to struggle with the demons of addiction, but they must also forego any semblance of human rights simply because they are sick.

And I have to sit in my office as each one cries and lets it all out.   They shake and tremble and have no one else to tell.  I will tell the authorities and they will scoff.   The prosecution will assume that the girls are trying to get out of their petty charges which don’t even carry jail sentences.   I will try to explain that the girls aren’t using their trauma as leverage.  Nonetheless, I will be stonewalled  by the authorities and the girls will suffer in silence.  Their attackers will likely abuse them again because the world of addiction and abuse is a vicious cycle.

 I will do everything I can but it will never be enough.  I have no power and we have no leverage.    

And I don’t even get to wear a white hat.  

Thank You

By Shannon

Have you ever tried to thank a soldier who was waiting in an airport or sitting in a restaurant?  They are so polite, but seem almost embarrassed to be thanked for doing their jobs.  I've noticed they are way more comfortable answering questions about what it is like in Afghanistan or Iraq than they are accepting the gratitude of one citizen. 

I saw that same response in New York City in the years after 9/11.  I remember taking my mother to NYC while I was in law school on the east coast.  It was about 16 months after 9/11.  My mother is a true southerner and will strike up a conversation with anyone.  I believe she could get a telephone pole to talk to her if she tried.  We were in a coffee shop in near Ground Zero and I needed to use the restroom.  I got our coffees and sat my mom in a corner at a table.  "Don't talk to anyone, Mom.  I'll be right back," I said before I walked the five steps to the restroom.  It wasn't that NYC is dangerous, it was just clear to anyone who heard us that we were tourists.  Tourists are always targets anywhere, so it's best to be on guard and stay on the DL.  By the way, it was my mother who taught me that (and Ann who reinforced it before my first trip to NYC).  I rushed into the restroom and took care of business as fast as possible.  As I came out, I heard her voice with her very non-NYC accent.  I looked and saw that she was not merely talking to one or two strangers, but my mother – the woman who taught me about "stranger danger" as a child - was surrounded by 6 or 7 New Yorkers wanting to hear her accent.  She was more than happy to oblige.  "Mom, I told you not to talk to strangers," I said as we walked out of the coffee shop.  "They wanted to hear me talk," she responded.  "Mom, for them to even know you had an accent they wanted to hear you had to have talked to a stranger."  I'm laughing now as I chuckled then. 

Wait.  I think I got off-topic there for a minute.  Anyway…

During that trip my Mom was hell-bent on meeting a NYC police officer and getting her picture taken with the officer.  Once we got hopelessly lost in Downtown, we saw two officers casually chatting.  I had not let her talk to officers who seemed on guard at Ground Zero or anywhere else.  Before I could do anything my mother ran to these two officers and thanked them and asked to have her picture taken with one.  The officer who had a distinct Russian-Brooklyn accent kindly and humbly obliged.  I apologized for the interruption in his day and he told us that it was a common one now.  As kind as he was, he seemed embarrassed as he acknowledged our thanks. 

Once I told a judge in front of a Border Patrol Agent that though this Agent had had the opportunity to leave the border, this man had decided to stay at the border and help defend the security of our nation.  The Agent seemed so humbly embarrassed when he heard my description of his job.  I know this man and he is not humble by nature.  Later when the judge thanked him for his service, he actually blushed and looked down as he mumbled, "No problem."

I couldn't really understand all of this humility in the face of gratitude.  Personally I love praise.  When I win a trial and a victim thanks me I get a little embarrassed, but I still have no problem looking them in the face and saying, "You're welcome."  I never understood it until recently.  I ran into a little boutique shop on Friday when I had a minute to kill in between appointments.  The owner struck up a conversation and then she asked me what I did.  I told her without thinking anything of it - after all, I've answered that question a million times.  This woman though, she stopped fussing with bags and receipts and looked me straight in the eye.  With a look of genuine gratitude she said sincerely, "Thank you for all you do for us."  Wow!  I’m not a soldier or Agent.  I don't carry a gun or risk my life.  I’m just a lawyer and I'd done nothing specifically for this particular woman.  I mean she didn't know about the man the cops caught and I'd recently sent to prison who was tied to about 30 home burglaries per month for the better part of a year.  She didn't know that with him gone we've gone down to about 1 burglary each month.  She's never been touched by the drug trafficking or gang violence that I prosecute regularly.  She was simply grateful to me in the abstract and she let her thanks be known.  I was SO humbled.  This time it was my turn to drop my head, blush, and embarrassedly mumble, "Um, no problem, really."

This lawyer is the best! Flip the bird

Sometimes you gotta take the opportunity to spice things up. It is especially sweet when the opposition gets offended and flustered and whines in objection. I suspect that most trial attorneys are in fact the eldest child and get some childish pleasure out of antagonizing the other side. I know I do.

From Ann

The Other Hand

By Shannon

Bin Laden was armed and resisted and was shot after a long firefight.  No, Bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot and no weapons or explosives were found in the house.  No, Bin Laden was within reach of 2 guns.  No no, Bin Laden was reaching for one of the very few weapons found in the house when he was shot.

Porn scanner at airports can see to the bone like an x-ray.  No, porn scanners can only see to the skin.  No, porn scanners can see through clothes EXCEPT (magically) for underwear.  (And we promise we don't accidentally hire perverts.)

Someone at Bin Laden's house used a woman as a human shield and that's why she was killed.  No, she wasn't used as a shield, but she was shooting at us.  No, she wasn't a shield and she wasn't armed, but she was shot in the leg for "rushing" a U.S. Navy Seal.  Oh, by the way, she's not dead... oh, wait, but another woman is dead. 

The border is unsecure and illegals even set traps trying to decapitate Agents on ATVs according to CBP and abcnews.com.  No, according to Napolitano says it's safe because El Paso is safe.  No, the House Oversight Committee says it's still not secure regardless of Napolitano's observations of one city.

There was a long firefight at Bin Laden's house because of fierce resistance.  No, there were no guns in the house.  No, turns out 1 out of the 5 who was killed was armed when he was killed.

I wonder what the magicians in D.C. are doing with their other hand while

we are focused on the stuff this hand is juggling.



Here's a funny article about the Bin Laden confusion:  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-death-obama-story.html

Courtroom Fantasy... The Musical

By Ann

Overseas, a 13 year old girl watched her father be executed in her home and witnessed her young mother get shot in the leg by a team sent by a country that would abhorrently celebrate this death. Here at home, flying would present  innocent travellers with tedious decisions such as, should we walk through a pornographic body scanner or should we get groped and prodded in our most private of parts?  And last night I had to sit through a new show  “The Voice” and watch Blake Shelton and come to terms with the fact that I will never marry him.

In light of these recent world and national events, I have decided to retreat into my work and not think about the hard stuff. 
Unfortunately, I found myself overcome with questions that were hard to answer.  I thought about things like:

Why do people confuse my role as their attorney with the roles of people who actually care about them in their personal lives?  

Why does this man with an inch thick film of what appears to be an endangered species stuck to his teeth keep telling me that he doesn’t have a girlfriend and why does he try to touch my clean hand with his fungus infected fingers when he reaches for my pen?

Why does this woman cry and tell me about her stay at a mental institution and her medications and her  need to drive even though she has been in court no less than seven times for the same thing in the last year and shouldn’t this be routine for her by now?

Why does this woman pull me to the side and tell me that her son, the one who committed a home invasion and sold drugs in front of a cop,is a good boy?

As I counseled the underclass I secretly analyzed their unique behaviors and thought processes.  The only way I could comprehend some of the insanity that I had to endure was by making the whole busy court day into a musical in my head.   Through courtroom versions of Grease, Damn Yankees, Les Miserables, and one fabricated out of my own imagination, I was able to dance and sing and understand things a little better. 
My clients believe that if I am convinced that they are good people, that  I can somehow convince the court and the prosecution to just get rid of the case.   Some even believe that an attorney is not only an advocate in a court of law but is also a mother, a lover, a friend, and a life coach. 

I learned this when in my head I belted out that the drug dealer was a good boy (in a Christina Aguilera fashion) and his parents sang in chorus that he just got mixed in with the wrong crowd.    In the fantasy, the Judge and the Prosecution were so moved that the case went in the garbage and the boy and his family flew through the window even though they didn’t grow any wings.

After the chorus, and while momentarily back in the throes of reality, I had to tell the kid that he is likely going to state prison.  And I had to tell his mom the same thing because unfortunately, the legislature didn’t create a loophole for criminals whose parents think they are good people.

While I now understood their point of view a little better, I also understood how my response to their fantasies could be somewhat anti-climatic.   

RIP Bin Laden, you accomplished your mission.

By Shannon

While my countrymen danced in the streets over the death of Bin Laden, I was struck by a news story that was overshadowed by our military's amazing accomplishment.  It was the story of a former Miss USA who travels a lot, refuses porn scans, and therefore endures "enhanced" pat downs.  She's used to them.  However, she went through Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport recently and ended up in tears because TSA touched her vagina not once... not twice... not three times... but FOUR times.  In her video describing the incident she asks if someone puts a bomb up their rectum one day, will Americans then have to endure a cavity search to get on a plane.  Personally, I fear that if that happened then many Americans would willingly bend over and submit to such a search in the name of "safety."  You may think that's blowing things out of proportion, but in all fairness we seem to be running low on common sense and backbone in this nation (except for the SEALS who showed exceptional courage on Sunday).

I remember when the porn scans were introduced via the media.  I warned my friends not to silently concede to this one.  Lawyers swear to uphold and defend the Constitution.  I begged my friends to write Congress, TSA, the White House - anyone who would listen - and demand that our rights NOT be taken from us.  I was verbally flogged for not caring enough about safety.  I care about safety, but this was too big a violation to sit back and passively accept.  Yet Americans did just that.  Do you really think a porn scan or getting molested at the airport will stop someone intent on destroying us?  Terrorists sit around all day every day thinking up ways around our security.  No matter how many liberties we give up we will NEVER stop them from coming up with new ways to kill us.

By the way, does it make any sense that the scans can see through everything EXCEPT panties???

Think someone might be lying???

"But," you say, "we haven't had another 9/11 since we started giving up our liberties."

First, we should be ashamed that we've willingly given up any liberty.  Second, yes, but 9 years of relative safety have NOT come because of porn scanners and being sexually assaulted by TSA.  Those two things didn't exist until recently and therefore cannot be credited with 9 years of safety.

After TSA molested a 3 year old child, a friend posted on Facebook that if they tried it with his daughter there would be hell to pay.  I immediately sent him a message and warned him that he no longer had the right to object (because we've given up that right too) and that if he did so he would likely find himself in federal custody indefinitely with no right to an attorney.  My friends didn't listen when I warned against the porn scans, I pray this one listens to me now.  We've given the government the right to declare anyone who questions the government in an airport or on a plane the right to declare that person a possible enemy combatant WITHOUT A HEARING before a neutral judge (another right we've given up).  That possible enemy combatant has NO RIGHT to an attorney (because we gave that one up too) during their indefinite stay with the feds.  The height from which America has fallen is staggering!  Sad that it's all due to fear.  Sadder that it's because we are desperate to control our world.  Wanna know a secret?  The only thing you have some control over is yourself and your reactions.  That's it.

If I were in the military I'd be furious that as I valiantly fight for your freedom, you cowardly piss it away.  It makes me angry enough as an attorney.  It's time for attorneys to stand up and fight for the Constitution and for the citizens even if they won't fight for themselves.  Class action lawsuits should be filed against the government, TSA, and individual agents.  You may not like how litigious our nation is, but change only occurs when the status quo costs money.  I'd also love to see District Attorneys convict a few TSA workers for Indecency or Sexual Assault when they grab genitals without some sort of probable cause or reasonable suspicion.  A couple of convictions might help TSA develop some common sense.  Consider the fact that Homeland Security and TSA are adding Agents at such a rapid rate that the odds are a few pervs are applying to work for TSA.  After all, it's the only lawful way to molest 3 year olds or anyone else.  The following video shows TSA throwing a woman to the ground for questioning them when they asked to see her bare breast to examine her nipple ring.  I wonder how long she was detained without a lawyer.  It also features 2 TSA victims:  a 71 year old man who TSA "pants-ed" in public and a 16 year old handicapped girl who was forced to take her pants down in public.  How would you like your grandfather, daughter, or sister treated this way?   

Below is the video of the former Miss USA.  This woman is someone's daughter and someone's significant other.  It could be your loved one next.  Shame on us, America!  Shame on us for letting it get this far!  Go ahead and dance in the street over a dead man - a figurehead - but understand that Bin Laden's real epitaph is this:  Bin Laden wanted to terrify America and thereby change what its citizens stood for and the very foundation upon which America rested.  RIP Bin Laden, you accomplished your mission.  America's been wiping its collective ass with the United States Constitution ever since 9/11.  You won.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Ben Franklin

To sign a petition demanding that Congress do something to stop intrusive pat-downs without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, go to:  http://www.susiecastillo.net/

Old September Wounds

By Ann

To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy. ~ Sun Tzu

On this unusually warm September morning, I sat on the park bench and stared at the water.  I tried to ignore the skyscrapers behind me because I couldn’t estimate how they would fall or if the debris could reach me.  I looked across the river at NJ and prayed that if a piece of shrapnel were to fall that it would fall beside me so I could use it to float.   I was still out of breath from running and I knew two planes had already crashed into the world trade center.   There would likely be more and I assumed the city was going to be bombarded with suicide planes just like Pearl Harbor.

After that day, I would be with  friends  and family as we tried to maintain normalcy in a world that was no longer normal.  Over breakfast, one  friend told me how she watched people jump hundreds of stories to avoid burning to death.  She plainly stated that she just pretended that the people in the building were getting too hot so they would open the window and throw out their clothes.   She didn’t have to tell me that the “clothes” she saw fall were human beings and we simply didn’t say much after that.  I sipped my coffee and thought about how I was just in the towers the week before.  There was a very elegant restaurant where they had big bands and swing dancing and lots of glamour.  You could see the entire city from your table.  I listened to the big band in my head and remembered the faces of the waitstaff that I knew personally and blocked out the thought that none of them existed anymore.

I moved shortly after that.  It wasn’t just that day that got to me.  It wasn’t even the little things the days and weeks afterwards.  It wasn’t  the earthquake from the incident.  It wasn’t the plane that fell out of the sky in Queens.  It wasn’t the empty chairs held for the missing people at work and school.  It wasn’t the smell.  It wasn’t  the hundreds of pictures of missing people plastered to anything that could hold them.  It wasn’t even the anthrax panic that threatened the city and the buildings that I worked in.  

It was the sense of helplessness that got to me.  

After I moved, I watched in horror as an angry mob overseas burned  an American in the street.  They cheered and sang and danced as this man desintegrated in an unnatural pose.   I was perplexed at how animalistic, cruel, and inhumane they were.  How can these people dance on the grave of another, even a hated enemy?  They must be less than human.  They must be.   I was consumed by fear because we were now faced with a war with a people who obviously lacked the capacity to appreciate the value of human life as they were all clearly less than human.

I thought about that mob today.   Osama bin Laden was killed and people celebrated and laughed and danced and chanted in the street.  Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that people  who were victimized by 911 can find some peace in the fact that a mass murderer is no longer alive.  But I am appalled at the hateful glee that has infected the nation. I mourn the fact that we are dancing in the street and celebrating the death of a human being. A death is a death and our collective reaction makes us no better than the mob that celebrated the murder of an American.  If Sun Tzu were alive today, we could tell him that we now know our enemy because we are one and the same. 

To Do Nothing?

By Shannon

“Thank you.  I wanted someone to give him a voice besides me and you did that,” the victim’s daughter told me after the capital murder trial.  When people think of the Mexican border they think of drugs.  It’s true this man was murdered because he failed to pay his drug suppliers (tied to cartels) and his drug runners, but there was so much more to his life than drugs.  Eight children wondered for 15 years if it was possible that their father abandoned them.  Now, 17 years and 3 convictions later, they are finally planning a memorial service so they may say goodbye with the dignity stolen from them so long ago.

Prosecutors along the 2000 mile US-Mexican border give voice to more than murder victims.  We also help victims of human trafficking.  Federal Agents discovered a 13 year old girl with a man previously convicted of raping a child because her mother sold her to him for $20.  Because of a jurisdictional technicality they could not hold him or her.  Because I spent months building a relationship with these Agents, they called me.  I came up with a plan, but it had to be executed by another agency.  The territorial pissing contests among law enforcement agencies are legendary.  I’ve worked for years to overcome those boundaries here.  They may not trust each other, but they trust me.  As a result the second agency executed my plan and a child was saved.

That was domestic trafficking, but here on the border we have international human trafficking – and not just Mexican victims.  I’ve worked the case of a child brought here illegally from the Dominican Republic with entry made illegally through Mexico.  She too was sold by her mother, but this time for a green card.  When the green card was obtained, mom went to New York and left her child as the man’s housekeeper, cook, and sex slave.   That man is in prison now.  We’re looking for mom.  The child is in counseling and living with a family who wants to adopt her.

To get into America, people who come by way of Mexico must pay “Coyotes” who work for cartels to transport them here illegally.  If they by-pass the Coyotes the cartels will kill any family that remains in Mexico and/or will kill them here when they find them.  This deters others from by-passing their system.  Since there are cartel cells in every state, finding those who fail to pay is not hard.  When the Coyote brings them here they retain the victims’ things and they tack on an additional charge not discussed beforehand.  They put them in a house with many other illegal immigrants.  They charge exorbitant rent.  They make the women (who comprise 70% of victims) work off the extra money by prostituting them out or forcing them to make porn.  They make the men work it off with forced homosexual prostitution and/or forced manual labor.  The rent is so high and wages are so low that the victims can never purchase their freedom.  To make them easier to handle, the Coyotes will force feed the immigrants illegal drugs which forces them into more debt as they get hooked.  To control the younger ones they give the child a puppy and when the child won’t do what is demanded, the puppy is beaten or killed in front of the child.  The immigrants’ only hope is that law enforcement discovers them.  Of course they won’t call 911 because that could get their loved ones or themselves killed. 

On Monday I referenced a blog that said that border prosecutors are a waste of money.  It talked about a unit in Texas that was funded for 2 years with  $1 million per year for 18 attorneys (according to information I got via telephone) in 16 jurisdictions that cover 1250 miles of the almost 2000 mile US-Mexico border.   That money pays for salaries, training, and educating officers and the community in how to detect human and drug trafficking.  In 2009, the unit’s funding amounted to 0.0010% of the total budget.  $75.5 BILLION (41.5% of the budget) was spent on education.  Under the proposed 2011 budget the unit would be 0.0012% of the total budget.  $70.5 BILLION (42%) is budgeted for education.  In 2010, the federal government spent $3.72 trillion on US-Mexico border security and it was all slated for additional Agents and soldiers.  Without attorneys in the courtroom, the work started by Agents and Soldiers cannot be finished.

Trafficking victims are not kept at the border.  They are in every state because the cartels are in every state.  What I do here affects your neighborhood and our families.  Texas and other states along with the federal government spend billions annually on domestic welfare.  Why shouldn’t 1 state spend 1 million each year to help train, empower, and pay special prosecutors so they may give voice to these most hopeless victims?  Does the welfare of the invisible not matter?

What about those who say it is a waste of time and money to fight the drug problem in America?  Remember the child sold for $20?  She was sold because her mom needed to buy her drug of choice.  It’s not uncommon for drug-addicted parents to sell their children, no matter the age, to get a hit.  Around 85% of the child rape cases I’ve worked had drugs as an underlying factor.  The other 15% were just sickos.  Almost 100% of home invasions, robberies, and burglaries I’ve worked had drugs as an underlying factor.  According to the FBI 80% of crime in America is perpetrated by gangs.  Gangs’ major source of income is running drugs in America and their ties to the cartels are getting stronger every day.  Will we ever be able to completely win the “war on drugs”?  No, but shouldn’t we still fight?  If YOU were for sale would you want me to keep fighting?

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  ~ Edmund Burke

Cross Examination is Hard!

A lot of people think that a lawyer's job is easy. In fact, many defendants believe they are smarter than their attorney. While this may be true in some cases when it comes to common sense or street smarts, it is not true for the art of cross examination. It is a fact that without experience and training, the art of trial work is not to be taken lightly. This poor thing simply pretended to have a heart attack. He learned two valuable lessons today: 1) He should let a lawyer represent him, and 2) he should never try to be an actor.

To Deport or Not To Deport - That Is The Question

By Shannon

The job description of prosecutors is defined in the criminal statutes of most states.  Each definition includes the word "justice" as in: it is a prosecutor's job "to do justice" - not win or get as many convictions as possible, but TO DO JUSTICE.  As I get older, more experienced and mellow out, I find that I see many shades of grey in between the black-and-white that I saw exclusively in my youth.  Justice is not always clear.  There is a scenario that comes up continually on the border and I'd like to know how you - our readers and fellow citizens - would like it handled.  Understand that no two cases are alike and there are often mitigating and/or aggravating circumstances.  It's hard to design a bright-line rule in matters of law, but there is wisdom in the multitude of counselors, so I'd appreciate your input via your comment on this post.

Very often the crimes I prosecute have illegal immigrants as defendants.  A conviction for most felony crimes will result in deportation.  Though I am sure it varies by jurisdiction, most of the felonies committed by illegal immigrants in my jurisdiction are drunk driving, family violence, and drug possession.  The defense attorneys always want us to reduce the charge to non-violent misdemeanor crimes so that their client may avoid deportation.  This would mean taking a felony family violence case in which someone has real damage to their body and which subjects a defendant to 2-10 years in prison and deportation and reduce it to a minor assault that subjects the defendant to no more than 1 year in the county jail and keeps him near his victim.  It would mean taking someone with 3 or more drunk driving convictions which subject the defendant to 2-10 years in prison and deportation and reducing it to a misdemeanor which subjects the defendant to no more than 1 year in the county jail and keeps him on our roads.  (By the way, illegal immigrants rarely serve a day in prison after a conviction because they are deported almost immediately.)

I'm not always sure what justice requires in these cases.

On the one hand, they are already breaking the law by being here.  When you add a felony offense on top of that, perhaps they deserve to be deported.  Especially when they are putting the lives of citizens - the lives of your parents, spouses, and children - in danger by driving drunk (and to add insult to injury they are also driving without a license or insurance).  There is a right way and a wrong way to enter this country.  One respects our laws and one does not.

On the other hand, with Mexico in the mess it is currently in and with the death toll always climbing it is hard to look someone in the face and send them back.  On top of that they very often have wives and children here who will not be subject to deportation because the only crime they've committed is being here.  I'd have to permanently break up a family.  That is heartwrenching.

The law requires convictions and deportations.  I have to uphold the law, but it is also the law that says my job is to seek JUSTICE.

What does justice require? 

What do you would wish your own public officials would do in these cases?  Please comment.

Fear and Loathing in a Mental Ward

By Ann

After I push through the imposingly heavy door, I have to wait for it to close before I can open the next one because it won’t unlock with another door open. This is to keep "them" out of the rest of the hospital.  The “them”  are the mental health patients who have been committed because they are a danger to themselves or others. Today I have the privilege of representing a patient in a hearing whereby the staff will testify and commit her to the hospital against her will.

 I walk down the hall and see her.  She is a young, tiny, docile woman sitting melancholy in a chair.  I naively assumed the hearing would be your run of the mill type with the doctor stating his opinion that she is suicidal and in need of just a few more weeks of treatment to allow the medicine to accumulate in her system.  

I was wrong!

As soon as I introduce myself to her – everything changes.  Her demeanor and actions erupted in a manner that is so shocking that even though I have never experienced an earthquake, I am confident that I can now identify with victims of any natural disaster.  

She is screaming and yelling and crying and flailing.   She wants a real lawyer.  She wants a paid lawyer.  And she wants to cut me.   The staff cower.  The nurses run for cover and the hospital security is called.  In the meantime, a brave hospital employee ushers us to a room where we can talk privately.   I foolishly allow myself to be led to a room with this tasmanian devil human hybrid.  I use the word room liberally because it was really a cage.  I walk in and look for a chair.  No luck. 

There is just her bed.  It is just a twin sized mattress covered in dirty sheets.  The windows are covered in bars and wire mesh.  I try to find the least offensive corner and rest my bottom half on and half off as I try to appear confident and in control.  

This becomes increasingly hard as she sits right on top of me.  She is yelling and crying and threatening some more. I redirect again and again and assure her that she has done nothing wrong and I hope that she doesn’t have anything in this room to cut me.   I try to explain the hearing to her.  I try to explain the situation and I try to get her position on paper.  I try to do this while tuning out the fact that she is not merely invading my space, but she has completely conquered it and now I can smell her breath.  I try to do this while tuning out the fact that I am sitting on a bed covered in a microcosm of filth, crazy person dander, and that it was the very spot where she was restrained for a period of at least 6-7 hours because she is violent and homicidal.  I am consumed by fear which is why I let myself get into this precarious situation.   I feel the classic signs of fear: heart racing, dry mouth, tunnel vision, and poor judgment (hence the cage room meeting).  Then the spell is broken just as quickly as it came.   She cried on my notepad and her teardrop fell right on the “I” in the word homicidal on the commitment petition.  Time stops as I look at the paper and feel myself in the midst of a rational epiphany.  I realize that everyone in this hospital is crazy.  My client has bona fide organic reasons for her craziness, but the staff are completely bonkers for putting me in this room, on this bed, with a severely agitated and unstable person.  I am no longer afraid.  I am now consumed with impatience and annoyance with the collective imcompetence and lack of judgment exhibited by the “professionals.” With righteous indignation, I stand up and bring her to the next room. I announce to the staff that  this meeting room isn’t working for me and we’re just going to use the room across the hall because it has a table and chairs.  And so we did. 

Border War Zone

By Shannon

A reader sent me this link:  http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2011/04/border-prosecution-pork-so-far-remains.html  It is a blog by a Texas prosecutor talking about why border security in the form of prosecution is wasteful.  He doesn't know what he's talking about.  It is true that El Paso has one of the lowest crime rates for a city of its size, but that doesn't mean thousands of miles of border are safe. 

As someone who lives in a southwestern state on the Mexico border and is a prosecutor I can tell you that the border is something that gets too little media coverage and that you must live here to understand what goes on here.  Just because Janet Napolitano declares it safe doesn't mean the border is secure.  There are giant holes along the border that are unmanned and unfenced and therefore are unsecured.  There are middle eastern terrorist cells smuggling their people into Mexico and through those holes into America.  There are whole sections of desert that Americans are told to stay out of because the cartels use those routes to smuggle drugs and humans and will shoot anyone in those areas.  There are sections of the border that require special equipment to be used by Border Patrol Agents because Mexican criminals come over and set booby traps to frighten law enforcement away.  Some of these traps include wires so thin and stretched so tightly that they will instantly decapitate Agents on ATVs if they fail to wear special equipment.  Law enforcement is routinely stoned from the other side of the border - sometimes fatally.  There are always bounties offered for the assassinations of law enforcement officers.  Sometimes those bounties extend to federal and state judges and prosecutors.  The border looks safe because there are tens of thousands of men and women who stand in the gap for you and say to the criminals, "This far - no further." 

I would like to congratulate all those who stand with me on this side of the border and win the war today even if we may lose a battle tomorrow.  I would also like to encourage Grits and the rest of the nation to educate yourselves because the media won't.  There are cartel cells in EVERY state including Alaska and EVERY major city and even in some non-major cities like Fort Collins, Colorado.  We at the border war NOT against those who sneak in yearning for a better life.  We at the border stand between you and the cartels.  We do that in the field AND in the courtroom.  An Agent's efforts are all for nothing if there's not a lawyer standing by to finish what the Agent started.  Here's an excellent article about the border.  It is a starting point.  Please do your homework on this issue.  http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/22/expert-sylvia-longmire-mexican-drug-cartels-infesting-us-even/

Cartels are here.  Cartel violence is here.  How bad should we let it get before we respond with boots on the ground and shoes in the courtrooms of the American-Mexican border?

Men Have No Idea

By Ann

Men have no idea what women want. 

Today I sat at my desk with a cup of coffee and I opened my file.  And there it was. There on my desk was a picture of a man holding his erect, uncircumcised penis. 

This is not unusual and this is not an isolated case.  Inevitably, when I defend those who are accused of sex crimes, I see evidence of their attempts to woo the objects of their affections online with pictures of their privates. Surprisingly a lot of men do this regardless of age, status, or social class.  Not surprisingly, I have never witnessed a positive outcome to this primitive courting gesture.  

Men just have no idea what women want.  I am not just saying this because I am a woman or that I am a single woman or even that I am a disappointed, chronically single, romantically deprived woman.  While all those things are true, they are not the impetus for my sudden realization that our nation is in desperate need of a real male sex symbol.   One only has to look on Craigslist or any other personals website to see how misled a majority of men are when it comes to my gender’s desires.   Under the men seeking women section you can see that there are men with pictures seeking single women.  Click on those pictures and 9 times out of 10 it is a picture of a hand holding a male organ.  Sometimes there is leg shot, sometimes there is not.  However, there is never a face in the picture.

Why do they do this? 

I have yet to have met an old couple who reminisce about how they met after the woman was won over by a picture of his genitals.   Never. Not once.  And I am confident that I never will.  

I was watching TLC the other night and the topic was the dating lamentation of the worlds “most endowed man.”  Apparently, he has the biggest one in the world.  He is also 35, still lives with his mother, and hasn’t been with another human being in over 10 years.  He is self loathing and is tired of being referred to as a “sex symbol”.

I watched it and wondered… Who is calling THIS guy a sex symbol?  It certainly isn’t women.   

Guilty

By Shannon

Today we finished the capital murder trial I've been writing about.  The jury took a mere 45 minutes to return a verdict of guilty.  That is amazing for such a serious charge.  It means their decision was made before they went to deliberate. 

I always feel a bit sad at the waste of a life.  This verdict means it will be 35 years before the defendant is eligible for parole.  He will be in his late 80s at that time if he lives that long.  What a waste.  It's hard to celebrate that part of the victory.  But then I talk to the family of the murdered man and the friend of the murdered woman.  I talk to them and I feel sad for the lives that were interrupted - lives that this verdict can never give back.  I'm proud of my work.  I feel the verdict was the right verdict under the law.  I'm glad I could help the family find some closure.  They are so greatful.  They kept hugging me and thanking me.  But then I see the defendant's family crying and I watch him hold his tiny granddaughter who he will not be able to hold ever again even if she visits him in prison and I grieve for them. 

Two of his co-defendants are already going to prison because they plead guilty without a trial.  5 lives wasted - and for what?  I want to ask the defendant if it was worth it, but would the answer - either way - bring understanding or peace or healing to anyone involved?