Friday, January 13, 2006

PERSONALS

We received this post, a first of its kind:


SWF, assistant public defender, <30, face="Arial">And three witty readers were moved to post:

kendall coffee here. call me. i don't bite.

funny.. where is the pic

Pity... if you were Sandra Day O'Connor, I'd be interested.

Rumpole Responds: Well this is a first. However, nothing says that our blog cannot contribute to true romance… or just hooking up. Certainly many lawyers have found love, if not lust, within the confines of our little world.

Speaking of marriage… a former Judge was interviewed in the NY Times today on what its like to be incarcerated. Here is an excerpt:


A Fallen Judge Rethinks Crime and Punishment
Until 2001, Mr. Amundson, who is 56, was a highly regarded judge who sat on the Minnesota Court of Appeals, the state's second-highest court. Mentioned in legal circles as a likely nominee to the State Supreme Court…Then he was caught taking $400,000 from a trust fund he oversaw for a woman with the mental capacity of a 3-year-old, money he spent on marble floors and a piano for his house as well as model trains, sculpture and china service for 80, all bought on eBay. The Judge was prosecuted and sentenced to prison.
The former Judge said: "Judges can say they have no idea what's going on in prison," Mr. Amundson said from a worn couch in the halfway house. "But if you know what's going on and you are still callous, God help you. If you are part of the system that does the things the system can do, God help you."


Rumpole Ponders: prison is unfortunately a necessarily evil in any society. There will always be a certain number of people who can never live in society. But in the United States Of America, more people are incarcerated then were incarcerated in the Soviet Gulag of the 1950’s-1970’s. Over two million Americans are now in prison. One in every 142 residents are now in prison. Source:
usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm

Here’s an interesting snapshot: In 2003: "California has a total population of 33 million people and 159,390 inmates. Germany has 82 million people and 56,000 inmates. Indeed, the California DOC employs nearly as many people as Germany imprisoned."Source:innocentinprison.org/information/usa.html

How does an industrialized nation like German have less people incarcerated than the State of California? Something is broken here.

Finally, anonymous weighs in on multiple topics:

Roy Black is one of the finest human beings in our legal community.On another note, Rumpole suggested that defense attorneys (and PDs) are not wannabe prosecutors. NOT TRUE. Any former ASA will tell you that the most vindictive people bringing charges in the courthouse are the PDs that have an opportunity to file for a rule to show cause against some police officer or victim that failed to appear for a depo.

Rumpole sez: Roy is a wonderful person. We presume him innocent, and would be disappointed if any charges were filed.

Some defense attorneys abuse the depo process… and some police officers have a wanton disregard for any subpoena they receive. We think Judges can sniff out the defense attorneys that set unreasonable depositions and the witnesses who don’t give a damn.

See You In Court after the long weekend.

Remember this weekend: over 30 years ago a distinguished American dared to dream of the day when his children were judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Are we there yet?

13 comments:

  1. Many well respected criminal defense lawyers take the position that due dilligence must be taken before they accept legal fees from drug defendants. This might prove to be mistake.
    If you are paid from the defendant or his family, you are immune from federal prosecution if the fee is bonified ie for legal services rendered.

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  2. Are you nuts ! just ask Johnny Elso, Art taylor , Frank Quintero, Paul lazarus, Etc. The feds will go after any lawyer who won't lay down. Fees are an easy way to get you, once they flip your client behind your back. Forget the so -called safe harbour in the 11th . see US v Elso

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  3. It's Neil not Art and you got me with tht one.

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  4. Great lawyer? yes. Innocent? Yes. But wonderfull person? Rumpole do you know Roy personally?

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  5. why are all you kiss asses so nice to ol Roy Boy - did you all forget that the guy has caused riots in black Miami through his representation of a cop who shot a
    young black teen in the back.

    Ofcourse you die hard PC defense
    attorneys will say every defendant
    deserves the best attorney. And that's true, but the bottom line is that verdict perpetuated a system of white is right and too bad if you're black.

    Any wonder why to this day the state will never prosecute any of these bad cop shooting cases.

    That's his real legacy.

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  6. Apologies to both neil , and arthur taylor, I was kinda drunk last night.

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  7. about depos and rules to show cause...

    as a long time defense attorney, i have no sympathy for state witnesses who fail to show up for their depositions and end up facing rules to show cause. boo hoo! when lazy cops skip their depos, defendants rot in jail and are forced to blow their speedies. maybe cops should spend more time showing up for depos and less time fabricating a-forms and stealing money from arrestees. check out this link in case you've been living in a cave.

    http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/13623574.htm

    bad karma finally catches up to some real bad cops! i suppose ofcs. losada and fernandez won't be showing up for depos in the forseeable future! hahahahaha!

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  8. I had a supression hearing last wed in front of Judge Highsmith Losada was the lead . Dumb, Dirty, and Mean ,no way to go through life flounder

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  9. Bad karma? Why player hate? Black is one of the best lawyers in town. Furthermore, investigating/prosecuting atty's for getting paid to defend criminal defendants is facist.

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  10. Bad karma? Why player hate? Black is one of the best lawyers in town. Furthermore, investigating/prosecuting atty's for getting paid to defend criminal defendants is facist.

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  11. I think I know who the PD described in the personal ad might be... This particular PD fits the description, and has the personality of someone who would post this kind of ad for fun or prank. Or maybe she was the inspiration foe the person who posted it. Who knows...

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  12. Boo-hoo for Judge Amundson and other lawyers who go to prison for stealing from their clients' trust funds.

    He obviously hasn't learned much if he thinks he can speaker on the callousness of judges and prosecutors. Frankly, if he got anything less than the maximum for stealing from a mentally impaired person with capacity of a 3 year old, it wasn't enough.

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  13. McGillis also falsely accused Ricky Martin of being raped by a man. Wow!

    http://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/EDICIONESANTERIORES/junio19/ESPECTACULOS/espec5.html

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