Today makes the ninetieth anniversary of the start of the Seattle General Strike. If you happen to be in Seattle Saturday (and you don't have a nine-year-old who would rather feed the seagulls at Ivar's), you could celebrate (or commiserate) with the Seattle Labor Chorus and others, from 1PM to 5PM at the Seattle Labor Temple, 2800 1st Ave. Brought to you by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies. It's free.
As if to validate the point of the previously - linked post, here is an adorable goat in a holding cell (a Toggenburg, I believe):
Via West Seattle Blog by way of Slog.
Eastside colleagues (Bellevue and Spokane): Rich Eden of RC Eden Carpet Cleaning will do p.d.'s offices; however...
So this weekend I cleaned the Public Defenders office... Even pictures can't do this office justice...
So the thing I guess to do is take pictures of the p.d.'s private property and share them (password - protected) with your carpet cleaning colleagues. Apparently this does not violate the carpet cleaners' code of professional responsibility. I hope that the p.d. didn't leave any files lying around.
I'm still bummed out about work seven different ways, but today the Public Defender Crisis™ was good for a bitter little laugh. From Nicole Brodeur in the Seattle Times:
Short-order justice is served Among the trims in King County Executive Ron Sims' proposed 2009 budget is a reduction in the number of public defenders — those who fight in court for those who can't
If Sims' cuts go through, each half-time lawyer will be responsible for 725 of the expedited felonies. That's an hour and 20 minutes per client... I've had nail appointments that lasted longer than that.
Via Trial Ad Notes
From the New York Times:
Courts Give Addicts a Chance to Straighten Out
It was not your usual courtroom scene. For one thing, the judge choked up as he described one woman’s struggle with opiate addiction after her arrest for forging prescriptions...
Now she was graduating — along with 23 other addicts who entered drug court instead of prison. Prosecutors and public defenders applauded when she was handed her certificate; a policewoman hugged her, and a child shouted triumphantly, “Yeah, Mamma!”
Seattle writer Kelley Eskridge blogs about voir dire (part one) (part two), then gets fan mail from a criminal defense lawyer. Good stuff.
See also Idaho blogger Rob's jury duty perspective.
From Dominic Holden at Slog:
Tracking Down Those Unicorns
Last week White House appointee John Walters claimed on C-SPAN that finding people in jail for “first-time nonviolent possession of marijuana... is like finding a unicorn... because it doesn’t exist...” (I)t didn’t take me long to find credible people willing to vouch for the existence of first-time, non-violent marijuana offenders — excuse me, unicorns...
Overdue exoneration, and a vignette of a younger Leon Jaworski as an unethical prosecutor, from KING 5 News:
Army apologizes to WWII Fort Lawton soldiers
Sixty-four years after black soldiers were wrongly court-martialed at Seattle's Fort Lawton, the U.S. Army apologized Saturday. Honor was restored for 43 African American soldiers who were unjustly accused and 28 who were unjustly convicted in the largest U.S. Army court martial of World War II...
See also the Seattle Times, Vet wrongly court-martialed dies within hours of Army apology - Samuel Snow, 83, one of "The Fort Lawton 28" who received a belated U.S. Army apology on Saturday for a now-discredited court-martial, died early today
From the P-I:
For teen felons, hardest job is finding honest work - Crimes from the past hurt youths trying to build a new future
Finding jobs for teens with a felony on their record is increasingly difficult, but court officials say it might be the only thing to save them from spiraling further into crime...
We had an 18-year-old brought back to court today who could've been in this article:
"They think all this stuff goes away when they're 18 and out of our system. Well, it doesn't... It haunts them. And it really affects them in the long run..."
An article pretty much siding with one Seattle p.d. office over another, from the Seattle Weekly:
Is This Really the Best Defense? - Nickels' critics wonder if defendants have suffered since the mayor put public-defense contracts out to bid
"I think [the city] took a competent system and trashed it," says Seattle University law professor John Strait. He points, as evidence, to a recent city auditor's report that showed fewer cases going to trial. Traditionally, the overwhelming majority of criminal cases end with a plea. But the "jury trial rate" at muni court has fallen further under the city's new system. For every 100 cases, only 0.98 went to trial in 2006, versus 1.35 in 2004. That's a 27 percent decline.
Janet Ainsworth, also a law professor at Seattle University..., calls the shift "the canary in the coal mine. That's a signal that the system isn't working..."
Remember, though, "trial is not the measure of a public defender, nor is it ever good to push to trial for yourself when it’s not what your client wants..." My style is much more ACA than TDA, but I still go to trial when it's what the client wants. In fact, my client and I just spent the whole day in one.
From the Seattle P-I:
Court throws out DUI breath tests - Other judges not bound to ruling condemning lab
Breath tests can't be used against many King County drunken-driving suspects until the State Patrol's toxicology lab can show that it has fixed ethical problems, scientific errors and carelessness that have called its work into question.
On Wednesday, three District Court judges found so many problems at the lab that they threw out the breath-test readings for eight drunken-driving suspects - a decision that could make it easier for drivers to avoid DUI raps around King County...
One hundred or more other DUI cases in King County District Court had been on hold for Wednesday's ruling. Defense attorneys say the decision could ultimately affect thousands of cases...
Guest editorial by Bob Boruchowitz, in the P-I:
Lawyers for juveniles not automatic
(C)oncerns apply to juvenile cases in which most people assume that lawyers already are appointed. The reality is that in some counties, many children facing criminal charges or truancy contempt of court proceedings have no lawyers...
It's regrettable that many children who have a recognized right to counsel often lose their rights in the same way. According to a state Office of Public Defense report, more than 2,400 juveniles appeared in court without counsel in 2005...
It felt wrong somehow to let the old year pass without linking to one more public defender client rant. From Technomadic Packratt:
I've decided it might be a good idea to step back and look at what the cases I intend to file will be based on. So far, here's what I have: (any legal experts or hobbyists are more than welcomed to comment and/or give me some constructive criticism!)...
Case 5: Action Against Northwest Defenders (Public Defenders Group)
Part 1: Willful negligence on the part of the public defender for divulging information about my case to other individuals without my consent...
Part 2: Willful negligence on the part of the public defender when she continued to insist that I plead guilty...
I'm in Packratt's debt for suggesting a proper name for the sort of self-educated tormentor we encounter on the job: Legal Hobbyist. Perfect.
From the University of Washington School of Law's Public Service Voices:
Conceptions of Justice: An Interview with Jay Stansell, a Seattle Federal Public Defender
I wasn’t aiming to become a public defender, I just fell into it. My original goal was to do political work on human rights violations in Central America. But it’s an illusion to think there’s one right spot to go to work for social justice – it’s where your heart is. I started doing misdemeanor criminal defense and I realized that there was a lot of human rights work that needed to be done here too..
From the Seattle P-I:
No prison for teen who shot stepbrother - After hearing from youth's backers, judge shows leniency
Confounding expectations and ignoring the wishes of prosecutors, a judge Friday spared 16-year-old Jordan Jantoc from prison time in the fatal shooting of his stepbrother and instead sentenced the teen to two years of electronic home-monitoring...
Here is a particularly thoughtful presentation from the Seattle P-I of the shock waves from one juvenile manslaughter case, where the accused and the victim are members of the same family:
One Fatal Shot: A struggle to forgive one son, not forget the other
What Jordan remembers from the night he killed his stepbrother is Michael sitting on the floor in the basement bedroom they had shared since childhood, his back against the futon, reaching for the gun in Jordan's hand. Or maybe Mikey was just reaching forward to stand up -- Jordan isn't sure...
For Jordan Jantoc, the year after that night last September has been a series of jail cells, courtrooms and lawyers' offices, where adults deliberated over how to charge the lumbering, round-faced teenager for a death family members insist was accidental. Three judges have weighed in...
On Friday, when he is finally sentenced, Jordan will face up to 8 1/2 years in state prison in a case that underscores the stunning ease with which children can get guns. Yet the mechanics of King County's legal system look streamlined compared with daily life in Jordan's home...
One of the audio portions of the presentation mentions a standard sentencing range of 78 to 102 months, indicating that Jantoc is being prosecuted as an adult.
<--- Correct.
Incorrect. --->
From the Seattle P-I:
That 'bear sticker' on the window signals, 'Hey, I'm a cop'
Undue Influence: Bear stickers and other cop-outs
One way some police officers get favoritism from other cops is small, round and sticky. P-I reporter Lewis Kamb gives the story behind the story of those bear stickers.
Bear stickers, other cop-outs: Lewis Kamb
The stylized, striding bear is a wink-and-a-nod to other officers, meaning: "This car's owner is a cop..."
And all this time I thought these were parking permits for the local high school, home of the Bears. I can be so dumb.
The whole "Undue Influence" series - "when cops let fellow cops drive drunk" - is here.
From KING 5: 'Pet' project of late King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng celebrated
It was a "pet project" of the late King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng that brought service dogs into the courthouse. Prosecutor's offices in King and Snohomish Counties were the first in the country to use dogs to help victims of crime...
"Do you like my briefcase?" "I do! I do like your briefcase!"
From the Seattle Times:
Cops posing as Federal Way students buy drugs in schools
Via Seattle writer John Moe's Monkey Disaster blog:
Federal Way High School: Too Freaking Stupid to Notice a 33-year-old Narc
From the P-I:
Robert Nickels, 1925-2007: Mayor's father defended juveniles in court
From the Seattle Times:
Mayor's father, 81, was advocate for children
While he is now best known as father of Mayor Greg Nickels, Bob Nickels established himself decades ago as a children's advocate and elder statesman in Seattle's legal community. Robert Charles Nickels, whom all knew as Bob, started the region's first public-defenders' group for low-income children in 1976. He named it SCRAP, both for the Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons, and to dash society's belief that those kids were scrap...
