It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence. The colonies rebelled and cut loose from England because King George III was “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.”
Put another way, there was a time in this nation’s history when jury trials were so important we risked life and limb to secure the right to have one when accused of a crime by the government. That right is now enshrined in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In civil cases, litigants have a more limited right to a jury trial guaranteed by the Seventh...
August 23, 2013
I’ve become preoccupied lately with the education of young doctors. Doctors must be better equipped than lawyers to deal with death and diseases. Nature fails us all in the end; doctors cope with the consequences.
Lawyers also deal with life transforming, and, sometimes, life ending, situations. We paper over these rough places with happy talk about justice. A patient facing a horrible cancer diagnosis wants a miracle. Few patients get them. Doctors counsel about what’s possible in the unforgiving world of cause and effect.
Lawyer’s also...
August 16, 2013
I’ve long thought the most significant criminal justice reform imaginable would be simple to impose: Require all lawmakers and judges to spend some significant period of time, let’s say six months, behind bars as an inmate. Make them taste the product they are dishing out.
After watching the federal sentencing of a client of mine, Donna Bello, I think our Solons should be required to spend not just six months, but a full year, behind bars. A year, they might learn, is a long, long time.
Bello was just sentenced to six years in prison by a federal judge. She was involved...
August 15, 2013
The congratulatory phone calls started to arrive before I made it from the courthouse to my car. My client, a physician, had been found not guilty of rape. One newspaper quickly ran a banner headline announcing the verdict. The Internet broadcast the result immediately.
But I cannot call it a victory. While we beat the top charge in the case, the jury convicted my client of misdemeanor sex assault and tampering with a witness, the latter a felony carrying up to ten years in prison. As if to signal his intentions come sentencing day some eight weeks hence, the judge hammered my client by...
August 8, 2013
August 3, 2013
I write today about the much maligned sidebar. That’s when lawyers huddle in open court, backs turned to everyone, and whisper things they...
July 27, 2013
I’ve been practicing law just long enough to know that I will never make sense of it all. It’s not that I am stupid, although my...
July 27, 2013
One of the abiding convictions of criminal defense lawyers is that no one is the sum of their worst moments. The man or woman on whose side I stand...
July 20, 2013
I suppose it is now official: Detroit has gone bankrupt, or, at the very least, has sought protection from its creditors in a federal bankruptcy...
July 18, 2013
So what do you make of juror B37 in the Zimmerman case? She was released from jury duty late Saturday night. By Monday morning, she had a book deal...
July 15, 2013
George Zimmerman was acquitted of both the crimes of murder and manslaughter in Florida last week. Today, plenty of folks are angry about...