Help Me Howard

This would be funny if it were not true.

It has to do with an FPL bill at my warehouse. I have had this warehouse for over ten years. It is hidden in a commercial and industrial district in Fort Lauderdale. It stores old files, and stuff, lots of stuff on its way to the junkyard, probably. It is a necessary expense.

One thing I do is keep it virtually free of electricity. One neon bulb. An A/C unit I run so rarely that the landlord gets pissed off that I jeopardize its efficiency by not running it often enough. For this past decade, my bill has varied from $11 to 14 a month, sometimes pushing $20 in the summer if I go there to move some files around, or run the generator, or start up Dad's antique 1963 Oldsmobile . No problem. For over ten years, the bill was de minimis.

Last summer, something weird happened. I changed nothing, installed nothing, moved nothing. But the meter went into Zombieland, and the bill jumped to over $200 a month. It was almost humorous. Except for the fact that I had to deal with FPL operatives to put an end to six months of extravagant bills shooting through the roof.

I called up the FPL gurus who stepped in with meter checkers, meter alerts, fraud investigations, and anything they could find out to determine why the costs spiked. They too were intrigued after running my history of the unit. Nothing made sense to them either. The lines were not trespassed, no one was stealing electricity, the meter supposedly worked, and all their extrinsic and intrinsic investigative tools could not figure out how the bill shot through the sky. In fact, arguably, no one ever figured out, even with the new meter. And this went right to its top supervisors.

After a tortured five months, and a bill over $1200, FPL relented, agreed I could not have been wrong or responsible, and reluctantly redacted the bill. Just as I was about to lose it all.

A year has gone by since by horrible experience over the mythical FPL charges no one could figure out or compute. The last guy I dealt with at FPL was so helpful I sent him a thank you letter. Now a year has past. Alas, the story does not have a good ending. I can't find this guy's number or email address or the correspondence (maybe I left it in the warehouse?) and the nightmare is happening again.

I have not been to the warehouse since last Christmas. No one has. Been locked up. In fact, after the last experience, I had the landlord shut down the meter. Don't even think I turned it on. Put a lock on it in fact. Faithfully, the bill has been $14 a month. Until September. Got a bill for $251.89. Have no idea why. This month, another $235.00 Oh boy, here we go again. And I still have not been to the warehouse. I am afraid to run into the ghost of electricity past.

Of course, I am not paying the bill. I told FPL there is a screw up. They are telling me it is my problem this time. Not going to help. "There's a new meter. Leave us alone." So here come the warning notices. Today, the Final Notice. Tomorrow, I lose all sanity. You know what it is. It's the vision of being put on hold, of delayed, waylayed, and postponed, spindled and emotionally mutilated.

I just cannot deal with this again. An electric bill for a place where I am using no electricity. Like on top of everything else in this economic climate, I have to add this. Not to mention that the City of Fort Lauderdale just told me that my water bill tripled this past month, and I probably have a leak somewhere in my 25 year old townhouse. Great.

The time. The stress. The hassle. This is unreal.

This time, I really have to call Howard. Help me Howard, help me.

Patrick Frazier, where are you?

Drunk Lawyer Promises to 'Bend Over' Cops

This guy should not have been a lawyer.

You see, a citizen has a right to curse out a cop and call him names, and is statutorily protected from being charged. Not so if you are lawyers. Lawyers have less free speech rights than citizens they defend, we are learning. We have the Bar.

Don't get me wrong. A citizen who calls cops out in the street will still get his ass kicked, but at least you can't be prosecuted for calling a cop a bad name. As a matter of fact, in Broward, some whippersnapper of a young lawyer named Howard Finkelstein got an ordinance like that overturned in 1981 by a late jurist whose name was John King.

According to the ABA Journal's juicy daily reports, a former New Jersey judge, George Kopita has been suspended from his law practice for three months for an incident in which he allegedly told police officers who had arrested him on a drunken driving charge to “get the Vaseline out and bend over." Kopita had the good sense to quit his judicial post, but then wound up copping out to a charge of "threatening a public servant and drunk driving."

The Disciplinary Review Board had recommended only a reprimand on the ground that Korpita’s actions stemmed from his intoxication, but the New Jersey Supreme Court imposed a three-month suspension. No way of knowing whether this lawyer was hammered for the dui or his fighting words, or even a prior act of misconduct.

However, he made the news with his choice comments to the cops, which included such intoxicated overtures as:
(a) “when the cops beat the shit out of a guy, I do the right thing,”... “I'll never take care of cops again,” and (b) “After tonight, I'm done. … Never again, I'm going to stick it up their asses. Get the Vaseline out and bend over."

Heck, in this county we have had former judges pull people over at gunpoint when they did not approve of the left turn another driver was making. But as a non-drinker, I ask you this: When someone is drunk, and looser with their tongue, are they not in fact letting out how they really feel? Should we not rely more on what people say when they are intoxicated for their true feelings then when they are sober and holding back? I would not mind comments on that. N.K.

Gideon's Ghost: Inmate Without Lawyer Sues Public Defender

Client Without Lawyer Sues Georgia Public Defender

By Norm Kent

Over the past year, we have seen the financial consequences of an overtaxed state criminal justice system face situations that are unparalleled in American history.

The issue has been as simple as cutbacks in pay, and furloughs for paid employees in both the State Attorney’s office as well as the Public Defender. Still, the most shocking announcements have come when public defenders announced they may refuse court appointments to represent indigent clients. These are bold and gutsy moves.

In Miami-Dade County, the former Public Defender, Bennett Brummer, filed suit to claim that right, arguing that his office is too overcrowded to provide effective representation for more clients. Broward’s Public Defender, Howard Finkelstein, has gone to court and effectively argued that it is not his constitutional duty to provide a public defender for individuals arrested on municipal ordinance violations by the various cities with the county.

Both men are not trying to deny services to clients. Each has a goal of insuring that the quality of services delivered will meet the corresponding and demanding need. Each is making an effective legal point that the state or local government has a duty to provide the resources necessary for their offices to provide a quality defense. Each points out they will have to make better judgements on who should be charged and prosecuted.

Similar issues have been raised with the Office of the Capital Collateral Counsel and the Conflict Counsel. Honorable people are concerned whether effective representation on complex cases can ever again be provided by a system straining at its loins. The issue is exploding in legal communities from South Florida to San Diego. The budget crisis is omnipresent. But what about the clients themselves? What do they do if they have no lawyer to represent them, though they have a constitutional right to one?

Fast forward then to Georgia, where an inmate, accused of murder, has just unearthed some new ground on the same argument. In Atlanta, a man charged with killing a woman has been without an attorney for eight months, and he has now filed a suit against the state’s public defender system, claiming it has failed him.

The lawsuit on behalf of Jamie Ryan Weis underscores budget problems at the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council. Two private attorneys assigned to represent Weis were removed because the council didn’t have the money to pay them, and two public defenders objected because they said they had heavy case loads and not enough resources. They withdrew, but though they were ordered back on the case, but nothing has happened.

The suit states that Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Weis, who is charged in a 2006 slaying. The prosecutors say they are ready to go, as soon as the guy has counsel.

The lawyers filing on his behalf are amongst the most prominent in the Atlanta legal community. The suit, not an understatement, reads that “this is surely an unprecedented deprivation of counsel in modern time.” Gideon's Ghost.

This state, our community, needs a global answer to a cosmic crisis that is not getting better, but only getting worse. Start with a criminal justice commission which looks at where we are, where we are going, and where we have been. Maybe those answers will make us realize our litigious and 'modern' society is overincarcerating our own people.

What is certain is the answers go beyond the exigencies of the moment. We need to look past the next case, the extra courtroom, and the backed up dockets. We need permanent solutions and not temporary fixes, or we continue to drown in the sewage of a flood we created. And in Broward County, with a structure that is erupting, that is not just an allegorical metaphor.

Feces Facial Flips SD Public Defender

This from the ABA journal late Tuesday afternoon....

A defendant who wanted his public defender removed from the case will get his wish after smearing feces on his lawyer’s face and flinging the material at jurors.

Weusi McGowan was on trial in San Diego for a home invasion and robbery when he brought in a baggie filled with excrement during a mid-morning break, City Wire reports in a story posted on SanDiego6.com.

McGowan smeared the feces on the face and in the hair of Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin, then flung the material toward the jurors, the story says.

The excrement missed Juror No. 9 but hit his briefcase.

Judge Jeffrey Fraser had denied McGowan’s request to represent himself, the story says. The judge declared a mistrial and said McGowan would have to get a new lawyer. In related news, Howard Finkelstein announced he is taking the day off tomorrow.

So where was the courthouse security when the guy came through the metal detector? I am just thinking how does this make it through, you feel me?

Newer Notes on a Kinder, Gentler Blog

By Norm Kent

Welcome again to the Broward Law Blog.

Here are some news and notes.

First, I have named this blog The Broward Law Blog, and it will be accessible easily at www.browardlawblog.com If you saved the earlier title that I was temporarily using, browardccc.blogspot.com, you can delete it. The url was too complicated.

Second, I am neither in a race with JAABLOG to some artificial destination, nor do I care what they do with their villainous website. My eyes are set upon the stars and I am not going to slow up by looking down at their feet.

Third, the Broward Law Blog is at its inception. It is not a publicity stunt to create a ‘Blog War’, though that was a very creative post from the other team. I loved the picture of me playing baseball ten years ago. I wish I still could. I laughed at the scurrilous homophobic pot shots which followed. That’s fine. I have been in the public eye for a long time, as an attorney, radio host, and publisher. I can handle it. As Howard Finkelstein noted to me, rather incisively, as always, “an anonymous post only has the power you rent it in your head.”

Fourth, I owe the censors at JAABLOG thanks. I have watched too much of the turmoil in this courthouse and county from the sidelines. They took down one of my columns and inspired me to start a legal blog of my own; inspiring me to do something I have otherwise wanted to do for a long time. They say I am a Johnny-come-lately. So was Lou Gehrig when he replaced Wally Pipp.

Fifth, I am looking forward to this new adventure and working cooperatively with lots of good people to spread our message. That means applauding success and admitting failures, being honest though not necessarily hurtful, and being a warrior, not just a witness.

This is the blog’s third day online, and it was not supposed to be our first. As I was planning the design, test formatting the layout and posting initial articles on the blog, the site went ‘hot’ with public notices from other sources. Blogging is not a skill set I learned in law school. I still have lots of design, layout, and content work to do, so give me some time, and enjoy the diversity and breadth of this site, as it emerges. I hope I can create something the legal community will turn to for information and ideas.

Once the blog is up and running, I will enhance it by asking supportive members to join with me in the Broward County Courthouse Coalition, a non profit organization with new officers, including experienced attorneys and youthful law students. Together, as the group grows, we can become an advocacy group serving the public good. Whether our role in the courthouse is as a deputy in charge of security, a clerk commanding files, or a lawyer advocating a case, we are all partners. We are a coalition of professionals trying to make our lives more dignified.

All I can tell you about this new Broward Law Blog is that I am going to try to have fun, make it entertaining, aesthetic, and meaningful. I hope the voices you hear are respectable and have content worthy of your consideration and inviting of your time.

Thank you

Norm

See also:

http://browardlawblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-blog-for-better-broward.html

BACDL Hosting Membership Meeting

The Broward County Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers invites new and old members to a meeting next week, where Howard Finkelstein, the Broward Public Defender, will be the guest speaker.

All those who practice criminal law in Broward County are invited to join BACDL and can sign up at the meeting.

The meeting is set for High Noon, 12:00 p.m., on THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2009 at the
PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE CONFERENCE ROOM on the third floor of the courthouse.

Pizza will be served, and your advance registration is solicited.
RSVP to Teresawilliams@comcast.net