What was that about leaving women behind?

During the primaries, I took a fair amount of grief from my sisters for my unabashed and unreserved support of President Obama. To the point where I actually stopped talking about politics at all for weeks on end.

Over and over and over again I was told that I did not understand why Secretary of State Clinton's candidacy was so important, and I was repeatedly treated as a traitor to my gender, and as a know-nothing neophyte for my choice of candidates.

"I just don't trust him on women's issues."

That's what I was told.

And, frankly, I understood where the hesitancy originated.

That being said, my reasons for supporting President Obama were as tied to my feminism and my identity as a woman as anything else. As an attorney, as a professional woman, and as an attorney, all it took was becoming familiar with the work and character of the First Lady. No man marries and obviously adores such a strong woman unless he actually gets it.

Add in the fact that the President has daughters (and as the mother of a brilliant, beautiful, bull-headed daughter I understand all too well the impact that has), and I felt secure putting some faith in President Obama.

It has been so wonderful to have my faith repaid in kind.

It seemed to be all about Lilly Ledbetter at the White House yesterday -- her name was enshrined in history, affixed to the first piece of legislation signed by President Obama. He presented the former Goodyear plant supervisor with a pen he used at the East Room signing ceremony and said, "This one's for Lilly."

But the day belonged to Michelle Obama, too. She wasn't on the stage with her husband, but she was there watching, and her stamp was on the new fair-pay law that Democrats have pushed since 2007. Its signing represented a concrete example of the first lady's interest in domestic policy, women's advocates say, and signaled her determination to push the concerns of working women and families to the forefront of national debate.

The President does not appear to do anything by accident, and it certainly isn't by accident that the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Act was the first piece of legislation the new President signed into law.

Jill, over at Feministe, perfectly captures the contrast between the two Administrations.

Did I drop that crack on the sidewalk, officer?

Power, of course, corrupts, and absolute power, not surprisingly, corrupts absolutely.

Or so the old saw goes.

So it should, perhaps, not be terribly surprising that those who have power in our society sometimes - okay, more than sometimes - are corrupted by it.

And, yet, we cling to the notion of the inviolability of authority, and the common man and woman continue to stake their everyday existence on the simple article of faith that the police never cut corners, never make assumptions, never outright lie to get from Point A to Point B.

Of course, as a defense attorney, I could be accused of some bias in my reaction to a recent piece in The Wall Street Journal.

It's one of the most common accusations by defendants and defense attorneys -- that police officers don't tell the truth on the witness stand.

Now, I am not a drinker of the "the State is out to get everyone" Kool-Aid, but I do have to acknowledge what experience has taught me.

The accusation has more truth in it than falsity.

Questionable testimony by police comes up most often in firearm- or drug-possession cases in which officers often testify that a defendant had a bulge in his pocket -- which they thought might be a gun -- or dropped drugs in plain sight as they approached him, giving the officers the right to seize the contraband.

I wish I could say that it was some sort of in-bred cynicism that made me look at this and nod as if the author were saying "the sky is blue," but I can't. It's a lesson of hard experience, and the fact that this lesson was learned so very well so early in the game is, in itself, indicative of a larger problem.

None of this, of course, is to imply that the officers involved are generally evil.

Though few officers will confess to lying -- after all, it's a crime -- work by researchers and a 1990s commission appointed to examine police corruption shows there's a tacit agreement among many officers that lying about how evidence is seized keeps criminals off the street.

The ends justify the means.

That, at any rate, appears to be the rationale driving things. A rationale that tells us an awful lot about convenient justifications.

You see, I have had the opportunity to become acquainted with more police officers (and, most especially, more narcotics cops) than I even care to think about, and in my experience the overwhelming majority of them are genuinely good people who desperately want to make a better place of their community.

The problem is that they have a unique position of power, from which they can act to do things that they perceive as making the community better . . . provided they are willing to cut a few corners.

Fortunately, the Founders understood this.

Unfortunately, the current Court does not seem to have quite gotten the Net.

How many words is a picture worth again?

One of the reasons I adore Jill over at Feministe . . .

She has a way of encapsulating things perfectly.

Friday Random Ten - The "I Am Still Mourning the Lack of Awards for BSG" Edition

The Sex Has Made Me Stupid - Robots in Disguise
Guitar Song - The Dead Milkmen
Turning Japanese - The Vapors
Fable (Dream Version) - Robert Miles
Face to Face - Paul Van Dyk
Golden Years - David Bowie
How Far We've Come - Matchbox Twenty
Princess of Light - Robert Miles
Puttin' On the Ritz - Fred Astaire
Only the Good Die Young - Billy Joel

The funniest thing I've seen all month . . .

I swear, sometimes I think that Non-sequiter is the best comic to come along since Bloom County.

Trust me, and go here.

I am the polar opposite of a Federalist, but . . .

. . . I have to admit to being more than a little envious in light of this story.

Dayum! Why couldn't I have had Scalia (or any Supreme Court Justice) as a competition judge back when I was in Moot Court.

My kingdom for a trial . . .

When I first started, one of the partners at my firm warned me that I would prepare for far more trials than I would actually take part in. He warned me that the difference between the prepared for and the actually done would be exponential.

I didn't really buy it at the time. I figured that if things got far enough along for me to be preparing jury instructions and proposed verdict forms there was no way that the thing would settle.

Oh, how very wrong I was.

Now, I get to tell the new guys (me, from my lofty "been doing this a year" veteran's perch) the same thing that my boss told me.

So, why do things work out this way?

Well, I can assure you that it isn't from willingness on the part of defense counsel to get up and battle in front of a jury. Frankly, I look forward to that sort of thing.

No, the difference is a part of the nature of the beast.

If you are defending a case with enough charges, especially if there are enough felony charges, and you are demonstrably willing to go to trial (and, even better, if you've had some success in your motion practice, but not enough to get the State to dismiss its case), the State will eventually get to the point where it offers something too sweet for you to walk away from.

Generally, they get to this point on the day before trial.

I won't lie; it's frustrating. By that point you have prepared and prepared and prepared.

You know the facts of the case better than you know the birthdays of your children. (Sadly, not an exaggeration.) Your opening is sketched out. Your major points of direct and cross-examination are ready to go. All of your subpoenas are out, your exhibits are ready to go, and you have prepared for every evidentiary issue you can even begin to anticipate.

In short, you are READY.

Then the State calls, and this is how the conversation goes:

"Tell you what," the State says, "I know I charged six felonies, but if your client will enter a plea to two of them, I will dismiss the rest, and I will only recommend two years in prison, despite the fact I could ask for ten for those two charges."

"I'll take it to my client," you say, trying to sound noncommital, "and I'll get back to you and let you know the answer."

Of course, you both know what will happen.

You see, there's only one way that the cost-benefit analysis can come out. If your client goes to trial and is convicted of all six felonies, the worst case scenario is thirty-five years in prison. If your client enters a plea to two felonies, the worst case scenario is ten years in prison.

Doesn't take a genius to figure out what you, as a good attorney and guardian of your clients legal well-being, must advise.

For the record, this is how innocent people end up in prison.

Friday Random Ten - the "It's Still Friday Where I Am Gosh Darn it to Heck and Back" Edition

Well, it was Friday when I started this post at any rate . . .

Time Won't Let Me Go - The Bravery
Back to the Rivers of Belief - Enigma
Stuart - The Dead Milkmen
Brown Eyed Girl - Everclear
Orange Crush - R.E.M.
Disappointed - Public Image Ltd.
Never Be Alone (Erol Alkan Bugged Out Mix) - Simian Mobile Disco
Undestructible - Gogol Bordello
Space Oddity - David Bowie
Hustle Rose - Metric

On a completely separate note, does anyone know who actually created the first "Friday Random Ten"?

My kingdom for a television

One of the hazards of the profession is that it is remarkably difficult to ensure that one is free for the important things in this nation's life.

Today, for example, I was due to be in court during the inauguration.

Fortunately, the hearing took less time than expected, and I was able to listen to President Obama take his oath and give his inaugural address while driving back to the office.

Of course, I was tearing up so much that it's a wonder I didn't drive off the road.

Still, it would have been nice to see.

So, as a public service, for anyone else who wasn't in range of a television set (out of the ten people who read this blog) . . .



Damn, but it's nice to have a President who can speak in full sentences and who can actually write his own speeches and do it well.

It's only a matter of time

I'm sitting here, watching Richard Schiff chat with Chris Matthews on Hardball, and I find myself thinking about the course I took back in undergrad about the interaction between politics and the media in the twentieth century.

Which got me thinking . . .

I wonder how long it will take for some PhD student somewhere to decide to write a dissertation on the relationship between the popularity of The West Wing and the election of Barack Obama.

It's a system of laws, not a system of justice

Imagine this for a moment . . .

You're seventeen years old. You've been dating the same person, who will be turning sixteen in about two months, for a year now. After thought, conversation, and some action to make sure prophylactics are handy, the two of you decide that you're going to have sexual intercourse.

The day after the deed is done, there's some chatting on the part of your significant other with your circle of friends, and your school's Liaison Officer (a local cop assigned to the school) hears the chatter and calls both of you into his office.

Neither of you wants to discuss the issue, but he seems a kindly concerned person, and you just want to assure him that nothing terrible happened, so you both admit that the intercourse happened, and you both assure him that it was consensual.

And you figure all is well.

Then, about a month later, you get a summons and complaint in the mail, informing you that you are being charged with Second Degree Sexual Assault of a Child. It's a Class C felony, which means that, if you're convicted, you'll face a maximum forty years imprisonment.

Now, you've done everything right throughout your life. Done well in school. Stayed out of trouble. Even volunteered at the local Red Cross. So, your attorney tells you that you probably won't end up serving any prison time. You'll be on probation for a while . . . likely for a long while, but that's survivable, right?

And, if your attorney actually reads his statute book and exerts at least a minimum of effort, you'll be able to avoid having to register as a sex offender for the rest of your life. Thankfully, you and your significant other are close enough in age for that much.

But, you'll still be a felon.

Now try having the life you'd planned on. Try getting into college. Try getting a good job. Try spending the rest of your life explaining this to everyone you meet and become close to for the rest of your life.

Sound like a nightmare?

Sound like something out of a bad science fiction novel?

Sound like something that couldn't possibly happen?

Unfortunately, it happens a lot here in Wisconsin.

You see, under Section 948.02(2) of the Wisconsin Statutes, it is a class C felony for anyone to have sexual contact or sexual intercourse with anyone under the age of sixteen. And, under Wisconsin law, once you turn seventeen you can be prosecuted as an adult.

Needless to say, I am not looking forward to the teenage years of either of my children.

And, that is to say nothing of the frustration inherent in trying to represent good people who are caught up in the unintended consequences of this particular combination of laws.

Precisely

From the MSNBC story noting the passing of John Mortimer, noted attorney and prolific writer:

His legal career took in everything from divorce cases to murders — and he said he preferred the latter.

“Matrimonial clients hate each other so much and use their children to hurt each other in beastly ways,” he once said. “Murderers have usually killed the one person in the world that was bugging them and they're usually quite peaceful and agreeable.”

On the off chance there was any doubt

There's an odd, squinchy look that people get on their faces when I tell them I am a criminal defense attorney. A look that is generally followed with either some denigrating comment about my character or a sympathetic look and a query about how I manage.

Well, when it comes to the latter reaction, my response is always to the effect of . . .

"It could be worse, I could be doing family law."

And if you doubt for a second that family law is as bad as it gets as far as exasperating clients are concerned, take a look at this little gem from the BBC.

I love it when someone restores my faith in humanity

Okay, I am not a big fan of Eddie Izzard.

Nothing wrong with him; his comedy just isn't my cup of tea.

That being said, I have to note that somebody did something very right in raising that man.