Me and the Cops - Part 5

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Thursday January 29, 2015 · 12:04 PM PST

2015/01/29 · 12:04

Do you have to do what the cops tell you to do? That’s a really interesting question.

Sally was a waitress, like at Dennys. She had just gone through a breakup and found herself looking for a place to live. Her income was low and credit wasn’t that good and she had been turned down at several apartments. She was getting pretty desperate.

She was waiting tables one evening and a nice middle age guy, call him Ken, struck up a casual conversation with her. She mentioned to Ken that she was having a hard time finding an apartment. Ken said that he and his wife had an apartment that was vacant that they could rent to her.

The next morning, Ken showed her the apartment. It was a perfect solution for her. So they settled on the amount of rent, and a couple of days later, they met at the apartment. He had prepared a standard lease. She gave him the first month’s rent and a deposit, signed a 6-month lease, and he signed it on behalf of himself and his wife. The lease required her to pay the rent to Ken’s wife at a specified address. He gave her the keys and turned the place over to her. Over the next two weeks, she got all of her stuff out of storage and settled in. Putting up curtains and decorating. It looked like things were going to be okay.

legalarray

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Wednesday January 07, 2015 · 3:52 PM PST

2015/01/07 · 15:52

I will never understand the authoritarian mind. Here’s one from the mid-nineties. The laws have changed since then, but . . .

My client got into verbal argument with his neighbor in the street of his mobile home park. The neighbor felt offended and called the cops and said my client was crazy and had guns. So the cops came and took him into custody on a “5150” and transported him for an involuntary 48-hour evaluation at the local mental health facility. Of course, they confiscated all of his firearms. The mental health facility observed him for two hours and concluded there was nothing wrong with him and released him. So there was no hint of a legal inference that he was a danger to himself or others, and the incident with his neighbors had nothing to do with guns, so now they have to give him his guns back, right? Not in his county.

legalarray

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Monday January 05, 2015 · 10:57 AM PST

2015/01/05 · 10:57

I’ve bitched about bad cops a lot. So it would be dishonest of me not to mention one of my heroes. It was a long time ago. The 70s. Most of the players are long retired or dead.

My client was a good guy. A nice guy. He owned a little local jewelry store in a little mountain town. But he kept having little “legal” problems, drunk driving, a couple of almost divorces, debt problems. Well, he was an alcoholic. He was young, so he always did real well in rehab programs, and he always came out a new man. But, sooner or later, I’d see him with a beer, but only beer. Then something stronger, but never during working hours. Then during working hours, but never drunk. Then drunk but still in control. Then out of control. That was his life. And I hadn’t yet learned how much of an enabler a bleeding heart lawyer can be.

One morning, he came in to see me. No appointment. Just dropped by casually, as he would. He looked a little tired. Said he wanted to tell me what happened last night.

legalarray

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Thursday January 01, 2015 · 12:38 PM PST

2015/01/01 · 12:38

I have contended that the greatest power a license to practice law confers is the power to compel powerful people to testify under oath. But police have developed a countermeasure. It’s called lying. It’s a powerful device because it’s institutionally protected. Few lawyers can beat them head on. They will always be “believed.” Cops sardonically call it “testilying.” However, there is a workaround. It involves maneuvering them into telling the wrong lies. To do this, you have to exploit a common character flaw - hubris. Cops who lie are generally infected with a compulsion for dominance. They need to let you know they are lying and that you can’t do anything about it. That’s why I love to tell about the missing tape recording.

legalarray

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Monday December 29, 2014 · 9:31 PM PST

2014/12/29 · 21:31

I’ve been a solo general practice lawyer in the Sacramento area for 45 years. I’m old now. I made my meager living helping people deal with abuse of power of all kinds. This is the one about the time the cops framed my client. I love to tell this, but I’ll try to keep to the point.

It was the late 70s. My client, call him Dave, was a young guy who lived on the fringes of the drug culture. He sold some pot but it was just to support his own use. Nothing major. He did grow three or four MJ plants at his apartment. He had a good job. Once, about a year earlier, he did act as a middle man in a drug transaction that went bad; everybody got cold feet so it didn’t happen. Bill still had the drugs, about 200 pills, stuck away in a desk drawer.

legalarray

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Saturday December 06, 2014 · 4:32 PM PST

2014/12/06 · 16:32

It's an old trick used by police everywhere. It is used to justify brutal force in effecting arrest.

Obviously, it's the law that IF you are TOLD you are under arrest, you must submit to that arrest - unconditionally. But telling someone they are under arrest has certain dangers. One in twenty might refuse to be taken, and you have lost the advantage of surprise. So the problem is to find a way to goad or trick the person into appearing to resist arrest without actually warning him.

It's an old Arizona trick; but I... I have seen it used as far north as Montana.
- Support Your Local Sheriff

Now, I've watched the Eric Garner video several times. What I have not seen is the part where they specifically informed Eric Garner that he was under arrest. I saw the officer in front of him suddenly push Garner in the chest and quickly reach for Garner's left hand. I saw Garner reflexively pull his hand away and pull both hands out of the way toward himself.

In my opinion, absent a clear verbal declaration that Garner was under arrest, the first violent act was a battery on Garner by the officer in front of him. The fact that the officer behind him immediately grabbed him with a choke hold tells me that it was a planned maneuver to take him by overwhelming surprise force without warning.

Police officers who claim Garner was "resisting arrest" are full of baloney and they know it.

Unless, of course, somebody knows something I don't know.

Dear Mr. Scarborough:

legalarray

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Tuesday December 02, 2014 · 9:35 AM PST

2014/12/02 · 09:35

I got up early this morning and watched in horror as I saw you lecturing America about Michael Brown's surrender and what is true and what is not true, what is decided and what is not decided, and whose opinions, besides yours, are entitled to respect.

I had a brother, now gone, who I loved very much. He was my younger smaller weaker smarter brother. We played racquetball one time in our middle age. I went for the ball, and he was in the way, so of course I ran him over and he went sprawling. He got up angry. I explained carefully to him, as a big brother would, in the same condescending tone that you addressed the MSNBC audience this morning, that I was just playing by the rules and that he had nothing to complain about. And he said "Yes, I know you're right, but all my life, every time I play with you I get hurt and it's always my fault!" It struck me and I was ashamed. He was my brother. It's not my job to show him why it's his fault; it's my job to make sure he doesn't get hurt.

Mr. Scarborough, it is unnecessary for you to tell us what the truth is. The fact that you, a white male, assumes without self questioning your right to decide what The Truth is, not only makes your opinion uniquely irrelevant to this problem, but in fact is the problem. Be ashamed. Your brother is being hurt.

Who needs a "right" to kill?

legalarray

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Monday February 24, 2014 · 3:32 PM PST

2014/02/24 · 15:32

I am a general practice lawyer in California who has spent over 44 years pondering and arguing the concept of self defense in some pretty high courts and in advising my clients. But this is not a technical treatise. It is a political rant. The recent murder trial in Florida is moving me to just get off my chest what a rational deadly self-defense law has to be in a civilized America.

My simple rule: You can’t kill anybody unless you have no other choice. Oddly, that’s the common law followed in just about every state until recently. Because, why would anybody want it any other way?

First of all, let’s understand one thing: No individual has a “right” to choose to kill anyone. If, under our Constitution, our government cannot deprive anyone of life without due process of law, how can government authorize anyone else to do it? In my view, any law that purports to confer, in advance, an individual right to kill another is unconstitutional.

But what about this “right” to defend yourself? Well, why would anyone call it a “right?” Why not see it for what it is? More fundamental than a right. More “God given” than any right. A simple recognition of necessity. Some things simply can’t be avoided. You have to do what you have to do. Some people will find themselves in a dire emergency where they don’t have time or ability to consider or reflect on the “the law.” They have to act or life will be lost. There ought to be laws that say their actions are justified (not authorized). It should never be permission to kill. It should always only be a defense that you had no choice.

legalarray

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Sunday May 24, 2009 · 8:43 PM PDT

2009/05/24 · 20:43

In the movie Grand Canyon, Danny Glover has been forced to show a gang leader "respect" by asking "permission" to go about his business, prompting the gang leader to ask "Do you respect me, or do you respect my gun?" Glover looks him in the eye and says, "You don't have that gun, there's no way we're having this conversation."

So it is with discussions about the law of "enhanced interrogation techniques" or whether "unlawful combatants" have rights. They are only discussions that take place at the point of a gun. It’s not about law; it’s only about guns.

legalarray

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Monday May 04, 2009 · 2:36 PM PDT

2009/05/04 · 14:36

Best Lawyer in the Land (BLL): You want me to do what, Mr. President?

President: I want you to write a memo that says I can order Agent Igor to torture people.

BLL: Well of course you "can," Mr. President. You’re Commander-in-Chief of the greatest military power in history. Just order him to do it.

President: But Igor won’t do it because he thinks it’s not "legal."

BLL: Well Igor is wrong. It is "legal." I know it’s legal because I’ve studied the law on this for years and – well, -- I’m the Best Lawyer in the Land.

legalarray

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Saturday October 04, 2008 · 2:21 PM PDT

2008/10/04 · 14:21

Years ago, as a lawyer in a lost cause, I found myself forced to make a closing argument that was a sure loser. The evidence was against me. The law was against me. The judge knew it. Opposing counsel knew it. I hadn't been able to negotiate out of it. So I was stuck.

I gave it my best for 10 minutes and then submitted. Opposing counsel wisely declined to respond. The judge promptly ruled against me.

Outside the courtroom, two people rushed up to me and asked me for my card. They thought I was brilliant. Apparently, they liked my presentation and didn't care, or didn't understand, that I was desperately spewing utter bullshit.

I'll bet these same people just love Sarah Palin.

The financial crisis - what my grandfather once said.

legalarray

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Tuesday September 16, 2008 · 12:58 PM PDT

2008/09/16 · 12:58

My grandfather was an old-time Methodist minister. He turned out to be the greatest moral influence in my life. He said something strange to me when I was a teenager: "It is morally wrong to sell something for more than you honestly believe it's worth." Boy, I thought that was whacky at the time.

But let me tell you about my grandfather. He was charitable to a fault. He put the needs of others ahead of his own, sometimes ahead of his wife and five children, including my father. So he was always poor. At his funeral service, the church choir loft was filled with over 70 men and women he brought to God who later became ministers themselves.

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Me and the Cops - Part 5

Me and the Cops - Part 4

Me and the Cops - Part 3

Me and the Cops - Part 2

Me and the Cops - Part 1

Resisting arrest - an old trick

Dear Mr. Scarborough:

Who needs a "right" to kill?

Preventive detention of terrorists? Why not?

You want me to do what, Mr. President?

Substance v. Style

The financial crisis - what my grandfather once said.