A pragmatic approach to criminal law.
“How do you sleep at night putting in toilets for pedophiles?”
-Things nobody ever says to plumbers.
“I could never do what you do… you help drunk drivers save money on taxes so they can buy more beer.”
-Something accountants never hear.
“How does it feel knowing you sell hardware to criminals?”
-Questions the guy at Home Depot doesn’t have to answer at social gatherings.
“What do you think about Making a Murderer?” By the end of December I had to answer that question several times a week. The answer was, of course, “I don’t know.” I hadn’t really planned to watch another criminal trial documentary.
I don’t own the remote, though. I bought the remote. Paid for it with my own money, even. I don’t get to touch it in any substantive way other than passing it over to The Boss, though.
Now I’ve seen the whole series. People are still asking me what I think about it. I still don’t know if he is “really innocent” or guilty. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Continue reading “Making a Murderer: Did Steven Avery Actually Do It?”
I’ve struggled with Windypundit’s possession post. If you’re not keeping pace, last week he brought up an interesting scenario (or two) resulting in people innocently going about their business but somehow obtaining items it’s illegal to possess. I took a stab at giving what I thought would be decent advice based on the scenarios presented (and also tried to explain the reasoning).
It wasn’t particularly easy, but many things in the world of criminal defense aren’t.
The shame of Draughn’s legal problems isn’t really the absurdity of possession crimes, though. While the hypotheticals do a great job highlighting that absurdity, the root of their difficulty is in a couple of much more pervasive aspects of the system. Continue reading “Ponderings on Possession, Part Two.”
Mark Draughn’s “Windypundit” blog is one of my regular reads. He’s somehow found the magic ability to post both frequent and frequently interesting new thoughts. Today he posted an interesting hypothetical regarding possession of contraband:
From a strictly legal standpoint Continue reading “Ponderings on Possession.”
I’ve written a lot of posts that haven’t been published. That’s a problem. It’s a problem of being too reserved, too cautious, or concerned about what I’ve written to offer it up for public consumption.
Early this year- in January- I wrote a post called “10 years.” It spoke to my decade of private criminal defense work since leaving the Office of the Public Defender. I wrote about how much I loved this job, how fun it’s been, and how lucky I’ve been to have an extremely helpful group of talented colleagues.
More importantly, I talked about the stark and grave realization of how grating this profession can be. How depressing it is knowing that, as much as you can fight for that guy standing next to you in front of the judge, the system isn’t designed for change even if the system has it wrong. It will be wrong over and over and over and over Continue reading “I’m Down But Not Out.”
