11-11 NONSENSE

Don't know about you, but we've had more than enough of this 11/11/11 crapola. Only one more year of having to deal with this nonsense (12/12/12) and then the human race does not have to deal with this again for another 89 years.

Maybe next time around we'll be more mellow in our middle age years.

Mr. Black's final critique of the defense closing in the Dr. Conrad Murray case is worth a read here.

Mr. Black summarizes the defense failures:

When you are speaking on a national stage, it has to be first class. How many opportunities does a lawyer get like this? Why waste it with inanities? I would have walked the jury through a list of the strongest points I had with excerpts of the testimony. Hit them hard and make them unforgettable. Once again missed opportunities.

Clay Kaeiser has this great remembrance of Judge Phil Knight:

I'll never forget a marijuana possession case that I tried in front of Judge Knight in which he called us all sidebar halfway through the trial and told the prosecutor that he was going to grant my motion to suppress. One problem--I had not even filed a motion to suppress. Needless to say, sensing immediate victory, I remedied this problem by making an "oral motion" that was quickly granted. Many months later, in a social setting, Judge Knight explained the incident by telling me "Clay, nobody has ever gone to jail for marijuana in my court." He'd done so many jury trials that he must have sensed a guilty verdict and decided to abort the whole proceeding.

Despite this, Judge Knight was no bleeding heart--god forbid that you had a client convicted of a violent offense in front of him for sentencing--but he did have a very developed theory of punishment that minimized victimless crimes. He was an armed services veteran who had worked his way through law school (as either a librarian or in the post office) and eventually became a partner in one of the big downtown law firms (Fowler White?). Despite his well-documented problems, he was one of the most intellectually gifted and hardest working judges who have ever served in the Justice Building. And he had a great sense of humor. Once, around Christmas time, a young female defendant, represented by Sy Gaer, said to the Judge "you look just like Santa Claus" As Judge Knight smiled (trying to look even more like Santa Claus), Sy said to his client, "but wait until you see what he has as a present for you." The whole courtroom--including Judge Knight--cracked up.

CK

Justice Scalia (DOM's BFF) has little patience for federal habeas claims attacking state court convictions. Greene v. Fisher.

a federal court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner with respect to any claim that has been “adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings” unless the state-court adjudication “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as deter- mined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). We consider whether “clearly estab- lished Federal law” includes decisions of this Court that are announced after the last adjudication of the merits in state court but before the defendant’s conviction becomes final...

We have said that its standard of “contrary to, or involv[ing] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law” is “difficult to meet,” because the purpose of AEDPA is to ensure that federal habeas relief functions as a “ ‘guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,’” and not as a means of error correction...

The retro- activity rules that govern federal habeas review on the merits—which include Teague—are quite separate from the relitigation bar i

mposed by AEDPA; neither abrogates or qualifies the other. If §2254(d)(1) was, indeed, pegged to Teague, it would authorize relief when a state-court merits adjudication “resulted in a decision that became contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, before the conviction became final.” The statute says no such thing, and we see no reason why Teague should alter AEDPA’s plain meaning.

The weather is beautiful. Enjoy your weekend.