Thank you for sharing your story.

Yeah I guess I am not that concerned about non-violent crime. I mean, it sucks when your identity is stolen, that can fuck up your life, but it’s not the same as having your brains blown out by a murderer, or being raped. Violent criminals pose an actual, rawer, existential danger to the members of society they…

The left has a bit of an incoherent take on the carceral state sometimes.

Good lord. Someone needs to be fired for allowing that photo to be taken.

My now wife made the first move. Sadly, I had to surrender my man card and Jack Bauer came flying in on the back of a bald eagle and cut my nuts off with a ballpoint pen.

He’s always been a sort of “point me at the water and lemme swim fast” kind of athlete.

Nowhere in there does it say that selecting a favourable fact-finder (whether jury or judge, assuming that you too have judge-alone trials) is a breach of that duty to the court.

Of course we have a duty of candor to the court. At least where I practice. Certainly in federal court and the states I practice. I’ll eat my shoe if there’s a jurisdiction in America where this isn’t the case.

Like I said upthread, these two things are not mutually exclusive. Framing it that way is sloppy thinking.

I’m not talking about what a lawyer wants, necessarily, more about what would give the court grounds to dismiss a potential juror for bias.

First bit of good news I’ve heard all week, I think.

That said, while I have many reasons for opposing mandatory minimums in most non-violent crimes, such as because people do a lot of desperate things in order to survive (stealing food, stealing money for food, shelter, etc), I think that if you were sane and knew…

Am I surprised that in light of popular outrage over a lenient sentence, the left and right came together to pass a tough on crime law? Not in the fucking slightest

This is kinda me being a pedant but I do think it’s actually an important point.

Point a.) is that Phelps didn’t “own up” to it, he was caught twice. And if you’re caught with those levels of alcohol in your bloodstream and on tape your option is pretty much to fess up to it and hire the best legal aid you can get. Which he did and got off easy with a suspended sentence and 18 months. And he lost…

Fuck this asshole. My daughter is autistic. She has been autistic since she was born. I knew there was something different long before she got the MMR vaccine. My daughter being autistic is just who she is. She sees and processed the world differently. That’s okay. I wouldn’t change her even if I could. To me it…

I fucking hate that original article so much. IF I HAVE HEADPHONES IN DO NOT TALK TO ME. It’s aggravating enough walking down the street in New York City and being a woman; headphones are basically my only recourse to drowning out weirdos and catcalls. Related: why, in 2016, do we still insist that men have to make…

ETA: Link is now working. That is basically consistent with the rules here. But the duty to the court is to ensure that the court isn’t mislead and is basing their decision on the appropriate law and precedent. Nowhere in there does it say that selecting a favourable fact-finder (whether jury or judge, assuming that…

I hope to god that you are some bullshitting Internet rando claiming to be a lawyer and not an actual one. If you are a real lawyer, you need to find a new line of work. Your job is not to “serve justice” it is to your client. Always. If that requires you to pick a jury composed of brain-dead Trump supporters who will…

I’m also a criminal lawyer who defends whatever client is assigned to me by my firm. I am a survivor of childhood rape, rape as an adult and domestic violence.