PARDONS 2.0

 First some sad news. Word reached us that retired Circuit Judge Martin Khan passed away on Thanksgiving. Martin Khan was a judge for too few years. He was wise, intelligent, and applied common sense with a good dose of humor, He was a judge during a time when judges did things - as he did- like have lasagne competitions and cookie bake-offs with defense and prosecutors participating. He was a fun person to be around and he loved his job and he loved doing justice. He had no discernible political bent on the bench and his eye was fully on the case and now how his decisions would affect his personal ambitions. There were too few like him then, and even fewer now. We will have more to say about him in a future post.

Our guest blogger found President Biden’s pardon of his son repulsive. We find it to be well taken, needed and hopefully will highlight the need for a closer examination of prosecutions and people serving long sentences from the 90s war on drugs. 

As to his son Hunter, the incoming administration has made no secret of its plans to seek revenge on their enemies by prosecuting them. President Biden had every reason to believe the incoming president would direct the DOJ to file more cases against his son as revenge for his multiple indictments. We are approaching a world where our justice system is going to be perverted by angry idiots who have never read the Constitution and have no intention on following it. More on that in January. 

What we hope is that the President turns his attention to the thousands  of people serving long sentences for non-violent drug crimes. Many of them have been in prison for 20,30,40 years and and it is time to set them free with a commutation.  Fair is fair, and these people have not been treated fairly. 

We also hope the President preemptively pardons former military officials, and current members of his administration who the incoming President and his brown-shirt like thugs have threatened. They have threatened to recall retired generals who protected the country and spoke out against the former and President-elects crimes and attempts to use the military against the citizens of this country. They have threatened to prosecute the media  who they call “enemies of the state” and they ascension to power is going to being very dark days indeed to this country. 

But for now, having protected his son, President Biden can commute the sentences of thousands of people serving non-violent drug crime sentences and allow them a chance at a life. 

PARDON MY FRENCH

NOTE for those of you unfamiliar with blogs RUMPOLE did not write this post! Guest blogger Scott Saul did. We have no problem with what President Biden did. And we hope he follows it up with hundreds of more pardons and commutations for people serving long drug related sentences. And to our Swifty fan - try reading before attacking. Less time on Snap and TikTok and more time reading books.

For everyone within the criminal justice system that aspires to simply do a “proper job”, how is it possible to coincide what we all should be aiming for, with the arbitrary favoritism exemplified by the executive pardon of Hunter Biden…or all the other friends and family of presidents, that are rewarded with a get-out-of-jail-for-free card?   

Hunter Biden's past conduct appears to be that of a degenerate that benefited simply by his last name and the connections that comes with it. As a family  man,  I cannot condone his lifestyle yet, at the same time, I have never seen a firearm prosecution like the one he went through.  I have always viewed his conviction with skepticism but, at the same time, being a Monday morning quarterback doesn't equate to being fully knowledgeable about the entire situation. The gun charge seemed to be a farce...but the failure to pay taxes...those are usually cut and dry cases.

However, whatever my personal feeling is about a case, the proper protocol is usually the jury has spoken and an unhappiness with a verdict is supposed to be left to the purview of the appellate system. That regular protocol is fine from a theoretical standpoint, yet this $%^&in’ (remember…my french) pardon system can embody a sickening , disproportionate style of justice that is no different from a blatant caste system.  With laws [theoretically] designed to create consistency with the application of the law, that blindfold upon Lady Justice looks awfully transparent. How can these arbitrary pardons be reconciled with what goes on in any courthouse? While I know it is improper to compare cases, doesn’t the institutionalized disproportion of cases trigger due process concerns for all ?  What happens when a similarly situated defendant remarks, “Why am I being prosecuted when Hunter Biden was able to have his day in court and, despite the verdict, just get a pardon?  

Can you blame a person's dissatisfaction and distrust with authority where there are clearly different standards depending  on your DNA ?  Would it be fair to argue that the government-promoted,  disproportionate treatment of a defendant is an affront to the whole criminal justice system?  I realize that this favoritism has always existed yet the ever increasing technology thrusts this issue into the public’s face more intensively than ever. Can you believe that last night, every network interrupted their regular broadcast for a “special report” on this event? I thought something substantial, like WWIII was going on.    

Look, as a father, I would do anything to protect my children and I do not blame President Biden for doing what he did; however, as a dedicated criminal defense attorney, I am repulsed.  

NFL WEEK 13 THANKFUL EDTION

 As we pass Thanksgiving, like nearly every blogger, we pause a moment to list what we are thankful for: 

Judges we are thankful for in 2024__________; Appellate decisions in 2024 we are thankful for:__________; Prosecutors we are thankful for in 2024: ______________. Get the drift?

Your Miami Dolphins are thankful for locking in a high draft pick in 2025 and not much else. Playoff teams win road games in Green Bay in November. The Fins lost and looked lost and this season, mostly by virtue of Tua's injury, is lost. Like it or not, when he's playing TT is a top ten QB and the Dolphins need him. 

Bills at -6 at home  and thankful for the snowy weather over a 49ers team facing a lost season like the Dolphins. 

Denver -6 at home and thankful for the snowy weather over a Cleveland team that reached its apex ten days ago on Thursday night. 

Philadelphia +3 on the road in Baltimore thankful for getting points for probably the last time in 2024/2025. Eagles are well on their way to an NFC Championship clash with the Lions. 

Don't bet the Christmas budget on these games, but the Seahawks getting a point over the hapless Jets in New Jersey and the Bucs on the road giving a big six over the Panthers. 

 

JUST DON'T SEND THAT EMAIL

 As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday we know that the urge to send the 

"HAPPY THANKSGIVING 🦃" 

email becomes overwhelming to you, dear reader, and several thousands others who also have our email address. 

The result is that on a day we should not be thinking of work, our email inbox becomes flooded with emails from lawyers and law firms we barely remember, parroting all the nice feelings and thoughts about how much we all have to be thankful for. 

But let's be real. 

The real reason Dewey Chetum and Howe sends that HAPPY THANKSGIVING EMAIL with all the pablum about taking a moment to reflect on all we have to be thankful for, is not because they really mean it. What they want is for the recipient to say "wow what a nice bunch of lawyers, I think I'll send them all my PIP accident cases in 2025."

Rest assured, as far as Rumpole goes, NO ONE who sends us a HAPPY THANSGIVING email will ever get a referral from us. In fact, let's start a 

BOYCOTT ALL WHO SEND HOLIDAY EMAILS campaign. 

They do not care about Easter, or Thanksgiving, or Kawanza, or Shavout, or Christmas. It is just a not-so-subtle stupid bit of marketing which, as to us, makes us see RED. 

So stop it. Don't send that stupid email full of nonsense- which we know you didn't send anyway, but corralled some hapless intern in your office and made them send out the email bomb to every address in your firm's email address book. 

Send us offending email and we warn you now that we may publicly call you out on it on our blog and ask you to defend your holiday spam.  

Eat your turkey. Bet against the Giants. And enjoy the day off. And .... and we mean this ...

DO NOT SEND THAT EMAIL 

Happy Thanksgiving, etc. 🦃

THE GOVERNMENT MOVES TO DISMISS

Update: Mr. Markus gave us a shoutout and now we return the favor. He has a fascinating post about a debate between inmates and college students about life in prison without parole that took place in a DC Courtroom. His post is here.  (Or you can always Google "law firm on top of a garage" to find him quickly). 

Words not frequently spoken in federal court are "the government moves to dismiss the charges". Our unofficial survey concludes that it is 9.8 million times more likely that the government files a superseding indictment than dismisses the case. *

However, on Monday Special Counsel Jack Smith moved the district court to dismiss the January 6 government interference charges against the president elect because of the Justice Department's long-standing policy against prosecuting a sitting president. 

The main reason for the president elect having run for office now being over- he can quit right? 

Perambulating through the suddenly and decidedly unfriendly confines of Washington DC this morning, having not gotten a White House invite to the pardoning of two turkeys from Minnesota (which is fine as there have been too many turkeys from Minnesota around the nation lately) we came upon this- which may brighten your day. 

The background is that this is one of the last speeches Frederick Douglass gave. He spoke at the Metropolitan African Episcopal Church in DC in 1894. He was depressed over the state of reconstruction and the violent rise of Jim Crow after Lincoln's death.

It may be of some use in this troubled and turbulent times. The speech was aptly entitled 

The Lessons Of the Hour. 

I have sometimes thought that the American people are too great to be small, too just and magnanimous to oppress the weak, too brave to yield up the right to the strong and too grateful for public services ever to forget them or fail to reward them. I have fondly hoped that this estimate of American character would soon cease to be contradicted or put in doubt. But the favor with which this cowardly proposition of disfranchisement has been received by public men, white and black, by Republicans as well as Democrats, has shaken my faith in the nobility of the nation. I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me. 

Strange things have happened of late and are still happening. Some of these tend to dim the luster of the American name and chill the hopes once entertained for the cause of American liberty. He is a wiser man than I am who can tell how low the moral sentiment of this republic may yet fall. When the moral sense of a nation begins to decline and the wheel of progress to roll backward, there is no telling how low the one will fall or where the other may stop. 

 Time and strength are not equal to the task before me. But could I be heard by this great nation, I would call to mind the sublime and glorious truths with which, at its birth, it saluted a listening world. Its voice then was as the trumpet of an archangel, summoning hoary forms of oppression and time-honored tyranny, to judgment. Crowned heads heard it and shrieked. Toiling millions heard it and clapped their hands for joy. It announced the advent of a nation, based upon human brotherhood and the self-evident truths of liberty and equality. Its mission was the redemption of the world from the bondage of ages.

Apply these sublime and glorious truths to the situation now before you. Put away your race prejudice. Banish the idea that one class must rule over another. Recognize the fact that the rights of the humblest citizen are as worthy of protection as are those of the highest, and your problem will be solved; and, whatever may be in store for it in the future, whether prosperity or adversity, whether it shall have foes without or foes within, whether there shall be peace or war, based upon the eternal principles of truth, justice and humanity and with no class having any cause of complaint or grievance, your Republic will stand and flourish forever. 

* This calculation is entirely unofficial and based on nothing more than writing a number on the spur of the moment. 

LADY JAGUARS

 On this pre-thanksgiving football weekend we want to do something completely different. 

In 2012 reporter John Branch from the NY Times went to Carroll Academy in Tennessee to talk about their basketball team- the Lady Jaguars who were in the middle of an epic losing streak. The team was made up of girls (just becoming young women) who were sent there by a juvenile court judge. One of them had gotten into trouble stealing her mother's pain medicine- and never revealed that she did it at her father's request so he could sell the pills. 

Today- Sunday- is the story from the same reporter went back to see what had happened to the girls he had reported on. Not surprisingly their life has been tough. Drug use. Jail. Prison. In and out of recovery. Working fast-food jobs and living in shelters. 

What strikes us- what saddens us- are the pictures of these girls in school. The sweet promise and optimism of youth. The dreams they had. The desires for a better life; a stable life with a family. And then the things they wanted to do. The things they deserved a chance to try and do. 

They never really had a chance. Oh sure you can come up with one person who beat the odds every now and then. But the reality is these children- these beautiful souls- born into despair - never had a chance. 

You need to read this article. And we need to think about how we let our children down. It's more important than who wins and loses today. 

The article is here. 

We hope the faces and the lives haunt you like they haunt us. 

NOT PROSECUTE TODAY AGREEMENT

 The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Jussie Smollett of filing a false police report. Prior to the successful prosecution that made headlines, the State and Defense had reached an agreement not to prosecute Mr. Smollett. In exchange Mr. Smollett had forfeited a $10,000.00 bond. 

Mr. Smollett had made an allegation that he had been attacked by two masked men who poured bleach on him and put a rope around his neck. The accusations had significant racist overtones. The police investigated and ended up believing that Smollett had manufactured the story- made it up. The Cook County (motto :"One vote per person, dead or alive") State Attorneys Office filed charges and then reached an agreement to drop them. 

Then a retired judge (it is always a judge causing a problem isn't it?) petitioned the court to assign a special prosecutor and Dan K Webb, who had previously been a special counsel in the Iran-Contra contretemps, took over the case, filed charges, and obtained a conviction after a trial. 

The Illinois Supreme Court held that a deal is a deal is a deal: Justice Rochford wrote that it "defies credulity" to believe that Smollett entered into a deal in which he forfeited $10,000.00 under the belief that he could later be charged.  The State argued at oral argument that- and we are not making this up- that Smollett's deal was only for him not to be prosecuted that day of the agreement - or as the lawyer said "a not prosecute today agreement".  Really. And they said it with a straight face. 

 The Illinois Supreme Court didn't buy it. 

Moral of the story- deals matter. A lawyer's word (other than from certain lawyers at the Dade State Attorneys Office) matters. 

Case reversed with directions to discharge the defendant. 

People v. Smollett, 2024 IL 130431 by Anonymous PbHV4H on Scribd