PA: evil judge, juvy do-over

From the New York Times:

Clean Slates for Youths Sentenced Fraudulently

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on Thursday ordered the slate cleaned for hundreds of youths who had been sentenced by a corrupt judge.

The young people had been sent to privately run detention centers from 2003 to 2008 as part of a judicial kickback scheme that shocked Pennsylvania and the nation. The judge in the cases, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. of Luzerne County, is one of two who pleaded guilty last month to wire fraud and conspiracy for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks.

The exact number of records to be expunged was not stated in the court’s order (pdf file); a special master is investigating the cases...

The scourge of lawyer advertising

Because if you've been injured, somebody somewhere owes you money:

Unscrupulous? Perhaps.

WA: Grant County - style p.d. work will cost you more than your bar license

Big news from the Spokesman-Review:

$3 million verdict for wrongly accused man

A federal jury in Spokane has awarded more than $3 million to Felipe G. Vargas who spent more than seven months in the Grant County jail, falsely accused of child molestation. The judgment was awarded against the former Grant County public defender, Thomas F. Earl, who provided “ineffective assistance of counsel” to Vargas...

Verdict rebuffs flat-fee defender contracts

A $3 million jury verdict in Spokane is sending a message to Washington counties, ending their practice of flat-fee contracts for public defenders, legal experts said Friday... Three days after (Felipe Vargas') arrest in November 2003, the alleged victim recanted. Police and prosecutors knew that but took no steps to free Vargas from jail. His public defender apparently was too busy with 500 other cases and didn’t adequately represent Vargas.

Grant County, also named defendant in Vargas’ 2006 civil rights suit, settled last month by paying him $250,000, based on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Moses Lake attorneys Garth Dano and George Ahrend filed the civil rights suit... “The importance of this case is it said, ‘Stop lying to the judges and each other, and don’t put your financial interests ahead of your clients,’” Dano said Friday.

John Strait, a legal ethic professor at Seattle University, testified as an expert. Flat-fee contracts, he said, “are all illegal and unethical for any attorney to enter into... “If there really are 17 counties left, and I doubt it, the lawyers who signed those contracts are subject to immediate discipline,” Strait said. “If you can identify any for me, I will file those bar complaints...”

WA: medieval ordeal in Ephrata

Professor Turley pays a visit to my favorite old-timey Washington county:

Grant County in Washington has settled an exceptionally disturbing case involving false allegations of child abuse, allegedly ineffective representation by a public defender (later disbarred), and the holding of an innocent man for seven months after allegations were disproved. The $250,000 with Felipe Vargas seems quite modest given the abuse that he encountered in Grant County, which seems to maintain a criminal justice system on a model from the Thirteenth Century...

Profe hasn't kept up with all the changes; Grant County's in at least the Nineteenth Century by now.

FL: cops and p.d. sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g

Lest we forget Matt Shirk, another Floridian just elected p.d., John Wesley Hall Jr. at Law of Criminal Defense reminds us:

Jax Public Defender has "induction party" thrown by FOP

When the elected Public Defender getting sworn in has a party thrown for him by the Fraternal Order of Police, something is seriously wrong with the Public Defender's Office...

FL: "gimme that meat ax!"

Damage assessment from the Pensacola News Journal:

Public defender cleans house

Layoffs began this morning at the Public Defender’s Office in Pensacola. Thirteen employees, including two attorneys, were laid off by noon...

Assistant Public Defender John Nugent was set to pick a jury... on Monday morning, but the trial was delayed because he was unsure whether he’d have a job today. His instinct was right. “It’s a good thing I asked for a continuance or my poor boy would be sitting up there right now with a jury and no attorney,” Nugent said.

“All you were doing was trying to protect your clients,” (fired p.d. investigator Clint) Merritt said. “And I got the ax,” Nugent said...

Update from the News Journal:

Public defender hires 12, fires 14 employees

Public Defender James Owens fired at least 14 of his 125 employees and hired 12 attorneys on Tuesday, the day he was sworn into office...

FL: Shirk disease spreads to Lower Alabama

More tomfoolery from Florida, land of elected chief public defenders, from the P'cola News Journal:

Owens shaking up office - Incoming public defender sniffing out staff threats

Public Defender-elect James Owens says "credible threats" have been made to his safety, and he will have police dogs search the public defender's Pensacola office when he takes office Tuesday. Owens, who will replace 36-year Public Defender Jack Behr, said Saturday the threats come from employees in anticipation of upcoming layoffs in his office.

He refused to be specific about which employees made the threats, the number of threats or the nature of the threats. But he said he expects law officers to search for weapons and dogs to search for gunpowder...

Owens himself will lead the search for the duplicate key to the p.d. office icebox from which a quart of frozen strawberries was stolen.

At 4:59 p.m. Friday, the more than 100 employees in the Pensacola office received an e-mail with the subject line "IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM MR. OWENS..." The e-mail... instructed the Pensacola employees to remove their personal belongings by 5 p.m. Monday. It further said security key cards that allow employees entry to the office will be deactivated as of 5 p.m. Monday. The employees were instructed not to report to work earlier than 8 a.m. and were told that they will have to enter the courthouse through metal detectors like the general public...

Via Progressive Pensacola, who seems to underplay how bizarre and unprofessional this shake-up is.

Update 01/07/09, from the PNJ: Bizarre beginning

Speaking of t-shirts...

Good news from Legal Profession Blog:

Informal Attire Not Unethical

The alleged misconduct? First, the lawyer visited a police station to interview two officers wearing a t-shirt with "Let the f***ing begin" across the front. His intent was to "communicate to the police officers his general feeling that his client was at a disadvantage in the judicial system by virtue of the police misconduct..."

"P.D. intern, there's an attorney who'd like to speak to you"

Petition for Review ended up having a good day at work:

Public Defender Intern - 1, Private Counsel with a coke problem - 0

Today was insane. I had to push people out of the way to get in and out of the courtroom. While I'm talking with other clients License Boy and his parents somehow start talking to a private attorney. Private attorney (we'll call him Moron) is apparently hungry for clients...

Read on for the surprise ending. The old dog in me says, don't get cocky, kid, but the p.d. in me says, congratulations, new colleague, go get 'em.

A love letter from Martindale-Hubbell®

"You know what a love letter is?":
We recently notified you of an annual $50 administrative fee associated with the maintenance and upkeep of your Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings indicator displayed throughout the Martindale-Hubbell® Legal Network. If this fee is not paid by 11/9/07, your rating will no longer be displayed in our online and print resources. While this may not eliminate your rating, it will exclude it from being seen by over 1 million visitors that reference Martindale-Hubbell when evaluating and selecting a legal resource. You can submit a credit card payment for your 2007 administration fee via www.mhur.com/prradmin or by calling us at 1-800-892-6998. If you have already paid this fee, please disregard this notice.

(This one goes out to my little friend at LexisNexis®, who's been visiting the blog every weekday since I got Martindale-Hubbell®'s previous letter.)

Pay for your Martindale-Hubbell® rating or we'll shoot this dog

I got an urgent (unsolicited) letter today, urging me not to miss the boat on a major legal concern's new business model™ - yesterday's price = free; today's price = $50.00:

Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings™ - 2nd Notice

We recently notified you of an annual $50 administration fee associated with the maintenance and upkeep of your Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings listing displayed throughout the Martindale-Hubbell® Legal Network.

While we assume this nominal fee remains unpaid through an oversight, you should know that if it not paid by 11/01/07, your rating will no longer be displayed in our online and print resources. This would not eliminate your coveted rating; however it would exclude your rating from being seen by over 1 million that reference Martindale-Hubbell® when evaluating and selecting a legal resource...

Let this sad post stand like Ozymandias' statute to show the world that I once attained a coveted BV(T)® rating, and that for a few shining years my glory was known to every and all. Now that most coveted distinction, for which I labored and lobbied so hard, will flit through cyberspace unseen and alone. I weep. Lord knows what a blow it will be to all the teenagers in my county who seek public defender services by first turning to Martindale-Hubbell®.

I'm so grateful I'm not alone.

Update: one reason why Martindale-Hubbell® needs my $50.00: to pay for flying the Martindale Hubbell-Lexis Nexis Legal Advisory Board to Madrid and treating them like royalty.

CA: porn allegation, immediate termination

From the Lake County Record-Bee:

Youth public defender arrested for child porn

Lake County Juvenile Court public defender Robert Wayne Wiley was arrested Thursday for possession of child pornography, a felony under California Penal Code 311.11 (a). "We'll have no comment until the investigation is concluded," said Lake County District Attorney Jon Hopkins Monday...

Wiley's contracts with the county and state for juvenile public defense were both "mutually terminated" on Friday, according to the contract holders. Mary E. Smith, CEO of Lake County Superior Court confirmed that Wiley's contract with the state to provide juvenile dependency services was canceled in a Friday meeting at his Lakeport office...

Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but, oh hell... Thanks for putting us all under a cloud, pendejo.

CA: no, you're not one of us

I'd just like to take this moment to point out that, according to CPDA (pdf file here), Leroy Davies, the purported public defender who wrote (and filed with the court no less) this -

(D)efendant made no move to expand on the statement of kicking lesbian ass by stating when, where or how it was to be kicked... Lesbians are unreasonable as a matter of fact, having violated all tenets of the Bible, common sense, and the biological imperative...

- is a private lawyer who does contract indigent defense work for Del Norte County. We don't claim him.

Link via Daily Kos.

WI: "either really gutsy or really, really mad"

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Clash of lawyers coming to a head

The defense attorney exploded.

"Why don't you just be honest and say: You know what, we don't care, folks. We don't care," (Joseph) Sommers yelled at Dane County Circuit Judge Robert Pekowsky, one of a string of judges who presided over the case. "These people (prosecutors) matter. They're the club. They're powerful. They matter. Adam Raisbeck doesn't count.

"Why don't you be -- why don't you just be honest about it, damn it!"

As bailiffs made their way to the courtroom, the judge told Sommers he needed to get control. "I'll bet you if I took a poll in here everybody would say that you are outrageously rude to me," Pekowsky said.

Sommers shot back: "And I bet if you took a poll in here everybody would say this is a kangaroo court..."

(e-mailed from Lisa in WI - thanks!)

Court? I thought this was Bonnaroo

It's not too often that you get to read a blog by a disbarred p.d.:

Preparing for Battle

This morning I have to go to a local circuit court house to testify in a post-conviction matter involving a former client I represented in 2000/2001 back when I was a public defender. There are a couple of things that make this difficult. One, I used to be a pretty successful criminal defense attorney in our area, but, a little over a year and a half ago, I got federally indicted, after which I got convicted and disbarred. You can read about that in my very first post...

Interesting person, OceanShaman, whose blogroll has something in common with this article from the Tennessean:

Judges lay down law on uncourtly clothes

Fed up with defendants coming to court wearing flip-flops, wife-beater t-shirts, saggy drawers and gangster couture, some Nashville judges are saying, "Enough!..."

Other judges have ordered people to put on smocks or have put them in jail for repeatedly refusing to dress appropriately... The legal question over whether a judge can sanction a person for being dressed improperly is murky. Some judges have argued that inappropriate dress can disrupt a courtroom, just like talking too loud or letting a cell phone ring...

Smocks?! Yes, I have a problem with the urge to humiliate people with some government-issue smock or orange coveralls over the way they dress for court. Me, usually I'm just happy that my clients make it to court at all.

The common thread - Widespread:

A court date is not the same thing as going to watch Widespread Panic...

Remember that (greetings go out to my former co-worker Julia, who introduced me to {southern Georgia accent} Widespread {/southern Georgia accent}).

A very special potential colleague

Let me be the first to embrace Jadesr 's most superior classmate:

There is a guy in my class that I have mad respect for... Anyhow, this guy has an awesome GPA and resume. He has offers from an assload of big firms for money I could only dream of making. BUT he has decided to be a public defender because he is troubled that PDs offices are populated with losers and rejects, such that poor people who have to rely on public defenders never really have a chance in criminal trials... that they would... if all defendants actually got access to good legal council...

Wait, it gets better.

So, he gets this job with the PD in a nearby county BUT, they want him to take a drug test... I would bitch a lot, and then go pee in the damn cup. But, not him, he QUITS. Now, they know that he has mad offers for like, 4 times as much $ as they are paying him, so they were all stoked to get him since he is a rock star so they freak out, and are actually considering asking the county to change the policy. I have such respect for him for taking a stand like that!

Well, I'd change a county-wide policy to get this catch, wouldn't you? Yes, we're slobbering all over ourselves in anticipation of how such a great co-worker will uplift our loser and reject selves. Just imagine how he went over in his job interview! Now, which one of us will get to share a cubicle with P.D. McDreamy?

Kyle Sampson: the executioner's song

Slate calls him "the reluctant executioner." Crooks and Liars has links to video highlights from TPM Muckraker of D. Kyle Sampson's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Such hubris going in, and then:

the culmination of the hearing, where a very, very tired Kyle Sampson admits that if he had it to do all over again, well...

Surely this has been hard on the fired USA's and their families, too, but I'm feeling a twinge of sympathy for the presumptuous little hack, variations of whom I've known from grade school through law school and beyond.

Not all Zoobies are Bushies

Even though Brigham Young University's commencement speaker this year is Dick Cheney (great timing! topical and cringe-inducing!), it's not like everybody from BYU is defending the disgraced Bush administration ward heeler D. Kyle Sampson, or sharing the sort of mind-set that produces headlines such as "BYU Grad Falls Victim to Attorney Purge."

From the BYU NewsNet readers forum:

Questionable Integrity

In "BYU alumni Sampson resigns in controversy" (March 18) on Kyle Sampson's abrupt exit from the Justice Department professor Earl Fry is quoted as saying Sampson is "a good man with a lot of integrity ... a good soldier who has fallen on his sword in order to protect his boss, the attorney general."

I may be missing something here, but it seems to me Sampson is covering for an attorney general who fires U.S. attorneys based on their investigations of his political allies (after he told Congress under oath he would do no such thing), who uses his clout with President Bush to get Bush to deny security clearance to those tasked with investigating his alleged crimes in the illegal wiretap cases, and above all who destroys the sacred Constitution of the United States in the name of fighting terrorism. Covering up for such a man may make Sampson a good soldier, but it most certainly does not make him a man with a lot of integrity.

I hope Fry isn't teaching any ethics classes.

Nate White
Lewisville, Texas

Define Integrity

In the article on the resignation of Kyle Sampson (March 18), political science professor Earl Fry is quoted as a sort of character witness. Professor Fry calls the man who apparently managed the politically motivated firing of several U.S. attorneys and spearheaded the preparation for the ensuing cover-up "a good man with a lot of integrity."

Fry's definition of integrity mystifies me. Sampson advocated deceiving members of Congress about Department of Justice actions and motivations. He recommended claiming potential deceptive stalling actions were all done in "good faith."

I don't know Sampson, but the e-mails he has authored make him look to me less like a man of integrity and more like a devious and deceptive political operative with no discernible principles whatsoever.

It is my hope that BYU, which I attended for one year, will take a look at this product of its education and start to emphasize virtues like honesty and guilelessness over ambition and loyalty-at-any-cost.

Kim McCall
Menlo Park, Calif.

Here's another old article from the Y about Kyle "loyal Bushie" Sampson, this one from 2002:

Y grad advises President Bush

A BYU graduate has made his way into the White House. Kyle Sampson graduated from BYU in 1993 with a degree in American studies. Now, less than 10 years later, he is advising President George W. Bush as associate counsel to the president. "I've been really lucky. I've just been really blessed to have the jobs I've had," Sampson said. "I was just in the right place at the right time..."

After completing his studies at BYU, Sampson attended the University of Chicago Law School... After clerking for a federal judge, working in the appeals department of a Salt Lake law firm and serving as counsel for Senator Hatch, Sampson was appointed to his current position. "It's pretty lucky to get this kind of job. I love it," he said...

Sampson has learned that the beliefs and intentions of politicians are different than people might think. "I think people are cynical about politicians and they think those office holders are just there to serve their own interests," Sampson said. "I don't think that's true. The two politicians that I've worked for, Senator Hatch and President Bush, are both really committed and focused on doing the right thing for the right reasons," he said.

Sampson said every decision Hatch and Bush make is for the betterment of the lives of the people they represent. "I think both of them are really altruistic public servants. It has really been a big honor for me to work for them," Sampson said. Although being on the White House Council has been rewarding for Sampson, it is not without stress. "It's crazy-stuff flying at you all the time," Sampson said. Sampson works on everything related to the president's constitutional power including appointments, picking federal judges, granting presidential pardons and proposing legislations...

Kyle Sampson: sympathy for the hit man

You probably only know D. Kyle Sampson as the ruthless, recently resigned chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales:

By avoiding Senate confirmation, Sampson added, "we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House..." Sampson wrote: "Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias's body to cool)."

But the disgraced consigliere has a kindler, gentler side. Before Sampson and his favorable write-ups disappear down the memory hole, here are some links to happier times:

From LDS.org, July 12, 2002 - Advising the President

Church member Kyle Sampson knows he's landed a dream job. As associate counsel to United States President George W. Bush, he appreciates working for a dedicated Christian. Sampson said President Bush is a committed follower of Christ, which makes him a great boss...

From BYU Magazine Spring 2003 - Presidential Counsel

On his path to the White House, D. Kyle Sampson, ’93 has blazed a trail for BYU graduates to follow. During the past seven years, Sampson has served as a lawyer at the highest levels of all three branches of government: the Congress, the White House, and the Judiciary. As a legal advisor to President George W. Bush, Sampson is playing a key role in the lives of both American citizens and BYU alumni...

"We are blessed with the best system of government in the world," says Sampson. "The founding fathers were truly wise men raised up to establish our Constitution..."

Although he may consider his role to be of small importance, some BYU graduates may not agree. Taylor Oldroyd, a friend of Sampson and member of the Bush Administration, feels he has been instrumental in assisting the Church. "Kyle has played a key role in many of the Administration’s personnel decisions and is the reason so many BYU alumni, including myself, have positions in the Bush Administration."

Working long days for President Bush, he often returns home just in time to read to his children and put them to bed. Sampson appreciates his wife Noelle for supporting him while he serves his country. "There is a small moment in time when I can engage in this sort of public service," says Sampson. "I know it will come to an end, so that makes the long hours worthwhile."

And so it has. Good riddance, button man.

GA: fallen-ness

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Public defender falls from grace - English faces 2 years in prison, likely disbarment

Arthur English's short legal career was punctuated by a quick rise — and a mighty fall.

English was only 28 when the state named him the public defender in the Griffin Judicial Circuit, which takes in four counties, including Fayette. But now, just 21 months after his office opened, English's career is in ruins. He was convicted of having stolen property and probably will be disbarred after being sentenced Friday in Lamar County Superior Court, a block from his house in Barnesville.

English was ordered to spend two years in prison despite testimony from 23 witnesses — most fellow lawyers — that he was a splendid attorney, boss and person... "It was given to me very fast — and it was taken away very fast," English said in an interview earlier in the week. "It's been a humbling and disheartening experience."

His is the story of a life that quickly unraveled. A fatal car wreck, a troubled brother and even a murder-for-hire plot all played a part in English's demise... In Barnesville... townspeople can't seem to agree:

Was English blinded by family bonds? Or did he knowingly help his brother, John "Mac" English, a thief who wanted two wildlife rangers killed? Karen Martin, a lifelong Barnesville resident and attorney, said Arthur English's mistake was he didn't distance himself from his only sibling.

"I begged him not to get involved, but he said, 'He's my brother,' " Martin recalled. "He has a helluva brain. If he had used it he could have done a lot of good. Never will I understand throwing away what he had."

Now, both... will be in prison...