Teddy's Legacy to a '60's Activist

Ted Kennedy's sailboat the "Maya" sailing in Nantucket Sound at Hyannis Port

One of the saddest days of my life was the morning of June 6th, 1968, when I woke up to find out that Robert F. Kennedy had been shot and killed in a Los Angeles hotel after winning the California primary.

Like many young men of my generation, the vision of hope that the Robert Kennedy brought to political forums were inspirational to us. That he could be taken away by a violent act that mirrored his brother’s assassination only five years before was incalculable.

At his funeral, Teddy Kennedy, the youngest brother stood up and gave what I thought was one of the moving and remarkable speeches of my life. I had just spent the past two months at Hofstra University and in the Five Towns Democratic Club as one of its youngest presidents ever, actively organizing Robert Kennedy supporters. I was captured by his magnetism, motivated by his spirit, and enthusiastic about his success. I was devastated by his loss. It was all taken away, so suddenly.

It was about then, in the remarkable year that 1968 would become, I was learning that Life is more chaos than melody, more cacophony than harmony. It was in the searing flames of student activism that I learned that peace does not come peacefully; that rights do not come passively. Robert Kennedy helped inspire that vision. But it was the words of his brother Teddy at the funeral in St. Patrick’s Cathedral which have been etched in my heart and soul for four decades since.

I heard the words on a speaker while standing outside the remarkable church with a half dozen friends from Hofstra. Said Ted:

‘My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:

"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

And so, through smiles and sadness, I have tried to see the world that way.

As I turn 60, having dealt with medical issues that have in all likelihood limited my longevity, diminished my strength, and perhaps even reduced my resolve, I think of this man, at 77, sailing on his boat, legislating in the Senate, and championing still causes that were just and honorable. I realize that no matter how tired we are, how beaten back we have been, that we must still do what we can do, while we are here to do it.

Phil Ochs, the great songwriter of the ‘60’s, who gave so much, and so sadly took his own life because of inner demons that got the better of him, spun one powerful song after another. The one that comes to mind today is ‘When I’m Gone’:

Won't see the golden of the sun when I'm gone

And the evenings and the mornings will be one when I'm gone

Can't be singing louder than the guns when I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't breathe the bracing air when I'm gone

And I can't even worry 'bout my cares when I'm gone

Won't be asked to do my share when I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And since I am not in public office, and not on the radio at the moment, I guess I will just stand my ground here on my own blog, while I can, when I can.

As Ted Kennedy stated a year ago, the dream endures, because even today, while there is much we have done, there is still much to do.

All Americans do not have access to health care, and it is next to insane that for a policy of five in my law office, my costs are three thousand five hundred dollars a month.

Gays and Lesbians are still becoming unwanting martyrs, as pockets of hate still strike out violently for no reason, creating the Matthew Shephards who we must mourn.

Immigrants bring their diversity to America, but are treated as slaves once were on migrant farms.

Minorities still populate the jails, and the jails are still indecent and inhumane, offering incarceration for more years, instead of inspiration for better lives.

Mental health patients lack the care and concern are families want to provide them, and the funding our government should give them.

The list goes on. There is always ways to make things that are good, better; ways to ease the pain, right the wrong, and facilitate a tomorrow that bests whatever we have done today. In Broward County, Florida, a false bastion of liberalism, there is an insane repression that makes our criminal justice system far more criminal than it is just.

Allard Lowenstein taught me that those I disagree with are adversaries to be persuaded, not evil to be defeated. The evil which needs to be defeated still exists, though, does it not?

And can anyone say of a man’s life more enriching words than to simply remark that your legacy is to “be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”

Flaws and failures mark our own lives at different times, but the words Teddy Kennedy once spoke of his brother is now a phrase that marks the glory and the goodness of his own life.

Pavement Picasso Paints Justice Sotomayor

Chalk up another honor for Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The high achiever, who made it to the nation's top court Aug. 6, is now getting a supreme compliment from the Picasso of the pavement.

Street artist Hani Shihada is more than half finished with a pastel portrait of Sotomayor, who's seen standing in front of law books in a black robe.

He chose a spot on Broadway near 97th St. as a curbside canvas because "the area has a lot of ethnic diversity."

Bronx-born Sotomayor, 55, is the first Hispanic to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

Shihada's many sidewalk renderings of celebrities and classical works of art have become sidewalk artwork over the past 20 years.

Last month, he created a tribute to Michael Jackson at 99th St. and Broadway. He expects to wrap his Sotomayor project by Wednesday.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/08/24/2009-08-24_pavement_picasso_salutes_sotomayor.html#ixzz0P6DlUmOu

Jail or Bail: A New Flaw in a Flawed System

FIRST APPEARANCES MAY LEAD TO A SECOND UNWANTED ONE

BY Norm Kent

In the past year, our county has successfully implemented an expedited first appearance process, which speeds up the bonding and release process for citizens charged with crimes. Still, there was a secondary problem.

For decades, one of the most glaring injustices at first appearance allowed for individuals who were charged with any violations of probation to sit in jail without a bond, for ludicrously long periods of time- until the jurists assigned their original cases got around to hearing a first VOP. Sometimes this would take up to ten days, sometimes longer, but in any case, the defendant remained in jail routinely.

The tragedy was, of course that many of those incarcerated were locked up on stupid charges and technical violations for which a judge might have not only granted a bond, they might have never issued a no-bond warrant. The misery festered in apathy, longer than it should have, because a lazy and self-indulgent defense bar failed to act as a cohesive group and demand meaningful change. Compound that with a lethargic judiciary never inspired to advance the rights of detainees, and a rotten situation lingered unconscionably. We should have done better.

Nothing better reflects how entrenched and toxic the process was then by studying the reaction jurists had to Howard Finkelstein when he first became Public Defender and challenged the insidious system of not giving even first time arrestees a meaningful first hearing. Think about it. If persons with no prior record were not getting a meaningful first hearing from jurists, where do you think probationers who had already pled out fit into that process? Very low on the totem pole, that's where.

By asking for meaningful bond hearings, the establishment tried to make Howard out to be a zombie trying to overthrow the judicial system. All he was asking for was that elected judges do their jobs justly so that citizen defendants could have their rights heard and protected. The establishment hated him for doing the right thing, but what is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.

When defense attorneys came to court on VOP hearings, all too often we would review allegations that were insufficient so as to warrant a violation of probation to begin with. It did not matter. With probation, you always had one foot in the jail. And if some vengeful probation officer devised a scurrilous way to lock up one of their charges, they would have no problem employing a devious technique to insure the person they wanted locked up got locked up. Just like a cop with a pen and a pc sheet, it's a one way street. The judge does not read a report with the defendant's side of the arrest. Needless to say, the policing process for probation officers was always lacking to begin with, but that is another article altogether.

Of course, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge many probationers did in fact grievously violate their probation by engaging in unlawful conduct which warranted immediate incarceration. That goes without saying. The system of instant incarceration without a bond provided a mechanism for those transgressions. Probation got their way.

What the system did not do was engage a speedy process which insured that persons who may have been unjustly arrested get a meaningful hearing sooner rather than later. That changed with Jay Hurley and the First Appearance magistrate process. Instead of a race to get out of a docket no judge wanted in the first place, a single jurist was given the discriminating task of scrutinizing the flawed process of detention. And it’s working successfully. But today I address a new flaw I have found in our already flawed system.

It needs IMMEDIATE attention.

Fast forward to Section 948.06, of Florida Statutes. This is a law which provides that an arresting officer may put a no bond-hold on any person who is arrested that is on probation. It is imposed even before the judge supervising the probationer knows of the arrest and has issued a warrant. Let’s see how this is playing out in magistrate court.

An individual on probation for say, possession of cocaine, has completed one of two years successfully. He owns a home. He works a job. He has a family. He has been doing the things he was supposed to be doing to comply with his rehabilitation. He is asking for no favors, but has a minor run in with the law.

Suppose that job he has is in a convenience store and he is a clerk. And underage kids are trying to constantly score beer or cigarettes. He unwittingly sells a six pack to a minor in the presence of a cop. The officer charges him with the second degree misdemeanor, which provides for a $25 dollar bond or a notice to appear. But say the cop does not like the clerk, because he has an underage teenager, and he wants to teach the clerk a lesson. So the cop does not issue an NTA, he promptly arrests the guy on the second degree misdemeanor, and simultaneously books him into the jail on a No Bond hold under Section 948.06. Police discretion at its worst.

Fortunately, the next morning the probationer comes before Judge Hurley, whose disposition, temperament and discretion in applying bonds has been commendable and extraordinary. Judge Hurley has seemingly been the perfect person for the job. He has been instrumental in reducing jail overcrowding, expediting the preliminary hearing process, and seeing through specious probable cause affidavits. All the things we were not doing for years we are now doing properly. With one judge.

Quietly overhauling an antiquated process which routinely denied defendants’ fundamental rights to counsel or fair bond hearings at first appearance has had consequences. By daring to set bonds where other jurists had imposed no bond holds already, Judge Hurley stepped on toes. The DCA has already intervened to rule that if a jurist has ordered a no bond hold, absent an exemption from that judge, it stands, and Judge Hurley can’t change that. All he can do is tell the defendant we will get you before that judge ASAP, and your case won’t linger needlessly. Plus, when you have a VOP, the magistrate clerk will contact a JA to advise you of the date of your first hearing, scheduling it as soon as possible.

But in those cases where defendants are booked on 948.06 holds, the jurist who may be supervising the probation has not yet signed a warrant. Thus, in those instances, many jurists are allowing Judge Hurley the judicial discretion to do the right thing and order a bond where appropriate.

So now let’s go back to our clerk who sold a six pack of beer to a minor. He gets locked up Tuesday nite by this angry cop, but comes to magistrate court on Wednesday morning. Judge Hurley reviews the PC, decides he is a responsible businessman arrested on a minor charge which presents no threat to the community. He releases the defendant on his own recognizance. But wait, the judge who had placed him on probation has not heard the case yet.

So also on Wednesday, the probation officer finds out her charge has been arrested. She could care less that Judge Hurley released him on the 948.06 violation. She may not even know it. Based on the arrest, she immediately prepares a warrant and presents it to the judge who supervises the guy’s probation. That same afternoon, the judge signs the warrant.

The probationer is released from custody on Wednesday afternoon due to Judge Hurley’s ROR. He goes home and sleeps off his nite in jail. He wakes up Thursday morning at 5 a.m. with a BSO deputy and a probation officer at his front door to take him into custody on the VOP signed the day before by the judge who placed him on probation to begin with.

Legally, absolutely nothing had changed. The first jurist heard the facts of the 948.06 hold, and ordered the defendants released ROR. Now the judge supervising his probation has effectively revoked his bond without a hearing.

Sure, you can’t do that you say. So you rush to call the judge’s JA and point out the inequity, and she says the “Court is booked for the day. I will give you a bond hearing next week.” Or she tells you instead “The judge only sets bond hearings after he reads your written motion. Submit it. We will call you; don't call us." But your client was remanded without cause or justification, you say, and we did not come all this way and initiate a brand new magistrate process so defense lawyers have to be hurrying to the 4th DCA because of a fatal flaw in the system.

Can this happen? It is happening routinely and repeatedly every day already, but because the defense bar is still a disorganized lot and Russell is too busy looking for new suits at Macy's, there has not yet been an orchestrated and forceful protest. Practically, Chief Judge Tobin could correct this monstrous flaw summarily by entering a Circuit-wide Order mandating that once the first jurist at magistrate has set a bond under the law, the supervising judge on probation may not revoke it absent a notice, a hearing, and a change in the circumstances of the case. Something we called due process. I think they still allow it in this county, at least in some courtrooms.

In another situation, a young man Judge Hurley wanted to release on a charge of not carrying a license could not get out and spent a week in jail because his supervising judge was on vacation and had told Judge Hurley he could not set bonds on his probation cases.

In another case, a young man held on a trespassing charge early in the week also had a no bond hold under 948.06. He bonded out, only to be remanded later in the week by the jurist supervising his probation. No facts had changed. The judge had. And that judge insisted on a hearing with the arresting officer present. Why is it almost double jeopardy? Because the kid is effectively being arrested twice on the same charge, first by the 948 hold, and then second by the judge’s new VOP warrant. We can’t have this insanity continue.

This is an emergency, and has to be acted on at once, and without delay. So much so I am willing to let this article even be posted on Jaablog, because these kinds of flaws in the system is what Jaablog has been best at exposing.

Students of bond law and practicing attorneys will say, 'whoa, wait': “Unless there is a change in the circumstances of the first bond, no second jurist can override it. Bond is a matter of entitlement and right.” Kevin Kulick has a DCA case on point. That would be true in most instances, if this was not a probation violation case, where the supervising jurist can violate probation if it ‘satisfies the conscience of the court.'; where the State takes the position that the 948 release by Judge Hurley is not binding upon the judge supervising probation. I talked with two ASA’s about this in the Appeals Division and both are intrigued that is a case of first impression. For the defendants, it's a case of second jailing.

But even defense attornys such as Herb Cohen point out and concur that the judge supervising probation has an absolute right to overrule the magistrate's first bond. After all, when I went before the magistrate, there was no warrant and he set a fair bond. Now the supervising court steps in and has signed a warrant. The circumstances have changed. A new bond can be set. So the defendant is remanded legitimately by law, but its impractical in its application. He goes to jail twice in the same week for the same thing.

The main point here is that if the judge supervising probation can take the position that he can and will override whatever the first appearance jurist did, it effectively neuters the first appearance judge. It means your client can go back to jail for the very same thing another judge had just released him for. And if the judge supervising probation finds himself in disagreement with Judge Hurley, he can also issue a blanket order to Judge Hurley saying you have absolutely no right to set any bond on any of my probationers. A group of circuit court judges already have, and that effectively neuters the first appearance system. Of course, Judge Hurley won't be there forever. So we are not neutering him. But we are setting up a system that instead of being innovative will be sterile in its infancy.

If judges wish to retain the absolute power to be the only ones to set their probationers' bonds, then so be it. Let us grudgingly at least provide an immediate and expedited hearing in that court. But let's not arrest a guy twice in the same week for the same charge. It does not compute.

So what do we do? We have a crisis here. We are letting people out of jail on Monday to arrest them on Tuesday. We have a set up a system which provides for Sanity on Wednesday and Insanity on Thursday. We have insured that the DCA will have to get involved somehow someway and render a decision because somewhere an attorney is not going to be able to work this out reasonably with a court.

In one case, last week, I tried to argue that the supervising judge had no authority to remand my client; that he took him into custody illegally, by revoking the bond of a previous jurist without a hearing. "Set a hearing, notice the state, we will argue it," said the court. While my client sits in custody.

Reducing this entire column to one sentence, the constitutional issue procedurally is whether the jurist’s remand of the probationer did not illegally supercede and violate the bond set by the first appearance magistrate. That issue MUST be resolved at once.

If the Chief Judge does not work out a vehicle to deal with this issue at once, the 4th will have to decide it soon, but only after, I dare say, hundreds of probationers went to jail twice on the same charge. That is not an innovation. That is insanity. Of course, we have been comfortable with that for years. But the idea was to eliminate it this time around.

Why do I say this is an emergency?

Why do I say it requires immediate review?

Why do I say this has to be resolved at once?

Because freedom is precious; because going home at nite to sleep on your own bed, in your own home, with your loved ones, that matters. And it is a right we should not take away lightly, for any reason, any time without just cause or due process.

Hopefully, things like that still matter to you.

NORML Pot Poster Stirs Legal Debate on Fair Use

NORML is America’s pro marijuana legalization. I serve on the national Board of Directors. Its theme for this year’s festival is ‘Yes We Cannabis.’

We decided to borrow the theme from President Obama’s successful campaign. To play on his words that it is time to turn a searing eye on an unsuccessful drug war.

What better way to play on it that draw off a 20 year old photograph of a younger Barack looking debonair and suave in a Panama hat while puffing on a cigarette? So we morphed the old photo a bit and a talented artist named Sonia Sanchez designed a popular poster for this year’s September 24-26 festival in San Francisco.

It seemed like we would get the usual suspects and quietly do our thing, fighting the good fight for what is right and just for Americans; that we would again renew our advocacy to end the foolish drug war. And we would do it in virtual anonymity once again, ignored by the national and local press despite the nationwide support for our organization and its cause. 20,000,000 pot arrests means how many million more consumers?

So what does it take to make the national news, Google, Yahoo, AOL, and CNN and Fox? Not the righteousness of our cause, but rather a threatened lawsuit from Getty Images because we inadvertently co-opted a quarter century old image of the President, and have been threatened with a copyright infringement suit we really can’t afford.

Now first of all NORML’s battle is for the legalization of pot, not to expand the fair use doctrine even though we believe this is one. We also believe that the photographer who owns the photo, a Minnesota college professor named Lisa Jack, has rights that we should not trespass on, so we will work at protecting her lawful entitlement. What is sad in a way is that the legal arguments over copyright protections have become more of an issue than the discussion about legalization.

Florida is in the backwoods swamps with this last battle. Medical battles have to be fought in courts with patients’ freedom on the line. Legislators still mine and protect laws which discriminate against minorities, students, the indigent, poor, and young people. With the expansion of forfeiture doctrines, even the middle class are being punished by draconian drug laws that allow forfeitures of your property, deny you driver’s licenses, and can take away your scholarships.

That is the battle NORML has to fight and for which I will be going to San Francisco, where I maintain a dual residence; where I could, if I wanted, to, use my medical identification card to lawfully consume marijuana. We will change our poster but our stance will remain forthright and correct, just and honorable. It will be to live in a world where people can responsibly smoke a joint without facing criminal sanctions.

This is the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock. Richie Havens opened the festival with the song, ‘Freedom,’ sometimes I feel like a motherless child.' When it comes to pot, sometimes I feel like we have had to wage this battle too long; that we all know the truth. We all know better.

We don’t need any more forums or panels or commissions to tell us what the Shafer Commission told us once before in 1972: pot laws must go, as they have for millions of Americans in 14 states and scores of municipalities.

And they will elsewhere as soon as all the adults who hold office remember who they once were and where they are now and that marijuana did not stand in their way. It would be nice if the debate over Obama and pot was not about his 25 year old photo at Occidental College. It would be nice if Obama the President said what Obama the citizen and Obama the candidate did: that pot laws are about as dated as Woodstock and have not been changed in 40 years.

The best way to celebrate the Aquarian Exposition of Love which featured marijuana on every blade of grass at Max Yasgur's farm would be for the President to say, ' Hey, its NORML to use pot. Just do it responsibly.'

Then America could have a debate that mattered.

Installation Luncheon Scheduled for Women Lawyers

The Broward County Women
Lawyers' Association

2009-2010 INSTALLATION LUNCHEON

Friday, August 21, 2009
Riverside Hotel, 620 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Ft Lauderdale - 12:00 p.m.

Administering the Oath of Office,

The Honorable Patricia A. Seitz,

United States District Court Judge, Southern District of Florida

$40 for non-members; $35 BCWLA members; $30 Judiciary
Check-in will begin at 11:30 a.m

Reservations should be made to rsvp@bcwla.com
_____________________________

Sponsorships available:

Bronze Sponsor $100
(2 tickets plus event recognition)

Silver Sponsor $250
(4 tickets plus event recognition)

Gold Sponsor $500
(8 tickets with reserved table plus event recognition)

To sponsor the event, please contact Rene Harrod at rharrod@bergersingerman.com or
see www.bcwla.com for a Sponsorship Form

The Remarkable Hollywood Police DUI Video Case

Oh, you just can't make this stuff up.

A most disgraceful episode for law enforcement in Broward County, orchestrated by cops not paying attention to their oath, forgetting about a dashboard camera, and protecting their own, all things a citizen should fear most. All come in to play in the most egregious act by law enforcement that we have witnessed in years.

Four veteran Hollywood, Fla., police officers falsified a police report to cover up a crash involving a fellow officer.

The crash was caught on the officer's dashboard camera and on the audiotape, Sgt. Dewey Pressley, a 21-year-veteran of the force, is heard allegedly plotting to cover up what happened.

"Well, I don't lie and makes things up ever, because it's wrong," Pressley said. "But if I need to bend it a little to protect a cop, I'm gonna."

On tape, Pressley is also heard directing another officer on how to write the report.

"I will write the narrative out for you. I will tell you exactly how to word it so it can get him off the hook. You see the angle of her car? You see the way it's like this? As far as I'm concerned, I am going to word it she is in the left hand lane. We will do a little Walt Disney to protect the cop, because it wouldn't matter because she was drunk anyway," Pressley said.

Officers Dewey Pressley, Joel Francisco, Andrew Diaz and Community Service Officer Karim Thomas are all being investigated by Internal Affairs.

Meanwhile, the Broward State Attorney's Office has dropped DUI charges against Torrensvilas.

The conduct is disgraceful. Think about it again and again and it is mind boggling. If they would do this here, why not elsewhere? If they have done it now, have they not done it before? Who else are the unknown victims?

A sad day, but is it out of the ordinary or just out and very ordinary?

One wonders in a county that gave us Powertrak. A chief of police came to Hollywood to help clean up the department. I guess now he gets a new chance. Apparently the windows were still very dirty.

Cali Lawyer Suspended Over Blogging While Serving as Juror

I thought the first and best article to post on my return from the illness that has knocked me off line is one where the feature had to do with lawyers and blogging.

A 40-year-old California attorney has had his law license suspended for 45 days over a trial blog he wrote while serving as a juror. Because of a blog post by Frank Russell Wilson, an appeals court reversed and remanded the felony burglary case, reports the California Bar Journal.

Although reportedly warned by the judge not to discuss the case, orally or in writing, Wilson apparently made a lawyerly distinction concerning blogs: “Nowhere do I recall the jury instructions mandating I can’t post comments in my blog about the trial," he writes, before forging on with unflattering descriptions of both the judge and the defendant. He also failed to identify himself as a lawyer to the trial participants, the bar journal notes.

Still, the whole point of blogging and texting and googling comes into play in another court of law, does it not? This is the wave of the future, and I dare say, the tide of the present. Either ride the wave like a surfer on Black's Beach, or get sucked under the powerful waters of the new reality. If you make a fool of yourself in court on a Monday, someone will blog about it on Tuesday.

You can tell jurors not to google and be as effective as telling Iranian protestors not to gather in the street. You can torch a car for insurance and while you think you were alone, a gas station video camera catches you buying the gasoline. You can fly through a red light and some computer mails you a ticket the next day after the snapshot sent an email with your license plate on it to another computer which printed out your name. You think you are alone. You are not. George Orwell is here with you. It is 1984, but it just took till 2009 to get here.

People used to write in diaries, now their unedited fortunes appear on facebook, my space, linked in, and blogs. We use the 'Net to connect with the past and link to the future. What that lawyer did in that trial was ride the wave, but he bucked the court, disobeyed the judge, and paid a price.

Publisher Returning from DL

So it goes. Is that what the Little Prince once wrote?

An unexpected bout with Pulmonary Fibrosis and Pneumonia stripped me of my energy and capacity to devote extracurricular time to a self indulgent but I think worthwhile legal blogging career. From a steadfast withdrawal, I will now orchestrate an orderly but limited return, commenting on those issues I think warranting public review and attention. Hearing today that New Jersey rabbis trafficked in kidneys instead of bagels and lox was one wakeup call.

I would like to start by saying I think it is a disgrace to live in a community where sexual offenders are reduced to living under bridges on public causeways and highways, and if we cannot do better we disgrace ourselves as a society every bit as much as the offenders did in their actions placing themselves in that position in the first place.

It reminds me of two quotes, one the famous one by Anatole France, that "the rich as well as the poor are permitted to live equally in the streets or on under bridges." He was ahead of his time. The second quote I can't remember. It will come to me soon and give me an excuse to blog again.

Your Neighborhood Blogger Returning from Disabled List

Your neighborhood blogger is over a bit of a bout with some medical issues and has been taken off the disabled list, free to blog away, and will be returning shortly.

A Deputy Gone Bad in a World Gone Mad

'It was the deputy's fixation with women's breasts that was his undoing.'

- the first line from the Sun Sentinel piece by Tonya Alanyez, below.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-former-deputy-court-plea-050709,0,3602290.story

Do we have to read much more? It is the real swine flu.

Justice poisoned by a self serving cop operating under the color of law, behind a sheriff's badge.

A cop who was a family man extending his family, like a priest joyriding on some of his altar boys.

Hundreds of prosecutions scorched by his improper touching, wrongful lewdness, and inappropriate behaviour. It happens in city after city, community after community. This time it was our own.

There is no reason for defense attorneys to celebrate, but at least the silence has now been broken. We know why Detective Grady was suspended. I was in court that first day when he was recalled to the stand before a county jurist. The prosecutor had disclosed to the State they had information about the defendant they felt compelled to reveal.

The defense attorney was like a panelist on 'What's My Line?': "You say you work for the Sheriff and you are suspended, sir, can you tell us why?'

"No I cannot,' Grady replied. 'They have not told me why." The defense had their Brady material, the prosecutor felt it met its duty, and the judge routinely moved the case along. Perhaps she should not have done so.

Now we all do know why this deputy was suspended, and how his law enforcement career is in ruins, his life a wreck, and scores of good arrests, along with the bad ones, down the drain. An innocent victim may be freed from an unjust prosecution, but so too may a dangerous driver now prowl the streets drunk at nite because this cop was drunk with lust. No reason any one of us should celebrate.

The woman in the September incident attended the hearing. To protect her identity, the Sun Sentinel did not publish her name.

"I do have a fear that there are more victims out there, but who didn't come forward," she said. The case may be over, but for this women, whenever she is pulled over for as little as a broken tail light, a memory will illuminate that can never be put out.

That light today brightly stains this courthouse, the Sheriff's office, and a justice system that too often looks away from that truth instead of into its glare. No one wins. It just confirms how many times we have already lost.

Fatal Hit and Run Takes A Civil Turn With Suit

The family of one of two British businessmen killed in a Fort Lauderdale hit-and-run crash filed a lawsuit Monday against the owner of the car involved in that accident and a friend of the car's owner.

A Porsche 911 Turbo owned by Ryan LeVin, 34, struck Craig Elford, 39, and Kenneth Watkinson, 48, on Feb. 13 as they walked along State Road A1A to their hotel on Fort Lauderdale beach.Police are investigating to see who was behind the wheel at the time of the accident. Though the lawsuit filed by Elford's family does not mention who was driving the Porsche, it accuses LeVin and his friend Derek Cook, 37, who police say drove the sports car at some point that night, of reckless driving.

Complete coverage: Deadly hit-and-run kills two Britons

"These men represent the ultimate not just in negligence but in cowardice for fleeing the scene," said Seth Miles, one of the attorneys representing Elford's family. "His family is demolished. They just want to see them take some responsibility."

Among the accusations in the lawsuit are two charges the Fort Lauderdale Police Department have not verified: that both men were driving drunk and that one of them was involved in a drag race moments before the crash. Those details were gathered from witnesses, Miles said.The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from both men.

"I'm not surprised they filed the lawsuit. That's what people do when they lose relatives," said David Bogenschutz, one of LeVin's attorneys. "But filing a lawsuit and proving a lawsuit are two different things."

LeVin is behind bars in Illinois for violating the terms of his probation for a 2006 car chase in Chicago. The British tourists are very dead, and no one has yet been formally arrested or charge, though law enforcement seems to know what happened and how and by whom. This investigation has had some tv like turns and quirks that are manifesting into a difficult prosecution. Sad for the victims. Sad for the people of the State of Florida.

From a defense perspective however, we must always remember it is the State's duty to insure that their case is proven beyond a reasonable doubt and the burden to prove what might have happened did indeed occur. Initially, everyone thought the driver was someone other than who it turned out to be. If lynch mobs were still tolerated, the wrong guy would have already been hung.

Please Do Not Have Sex With Your Backyard Picnic Table

Remember the famous line of Florida cases where individuals who had sex inside their first floor condos to close to the community swimming pool were charged with public indecency because they did not close the windows and neighbors could stare in and see them doing the nasty?

Remember the couple that had sex in the motel on top of the left field stands in the Toronto Blue Jays innovatively designed stadium?

Oh, and then there is all that stuff we did as kids in the back of dad's convertible.

Well, my favorite blogger John Mesirow has found a great story out of Ohio where some dude decided to do the hole in the umbrella in his backyard patio table. But his home is near a school, and some kids filmed it, shared it, and now the video is evidence, that well, could stand up in court against him, for the felony of having pubic sex in a public place.

You have heard of change of charge? Well the State may raise it from the misdemeanor of public indecency to felonious conduct because the dude did it more than once in daytime hours near a schoolyard. The guy is married and has kids, but apparently is just not getting enough. Well now maybe he will get the table over his head.

The case has been turned over to the Huron County prosecutor. That office will conduct a full investigation and present the case before a grand jury.

Specific charges will depend on whether the school was in session at the time. Maybe it was a teacher's work day or something. Unreal, huh?

http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=8082496

Gutsy Dade Jurist Rips Flawed Defender System

In unusually harsh words, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Betty Butchko blasted the flaws of the system that defends the indigent accused of third-degree felonies, the Miami Herald reported last week in a story by David Ovalle.

Here is that story, my comments follow.

Angered by a flood of cases and overworked lawyers in her court, a Miami judge on Friday blasted the state's system designed to defend poor people accused of crimes.

''We're not in some Third-World nation where the Constitution means nothing. In this division, the Constitution means something,'' Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Betty Butchko told lawyers Friday.

Her unusually sharp words came during a hearing to assign a new lawyer for an accused car thief whose original assistant public defender, citing a swollen caseload, announced she was unprepared for trial.

Butchko's criticism comes as an appeals court weighs whether the Miami-Dade Public Defender's Office can decline new third-degree felony cases because of its thinned ranks and underfunded budget.

''I do not have the luxury to wait. Justice is not stayed pending a ruling,'' Butchko said Friday of the ongoing appeal.

The public defender's office, with about 183 lawyers, represents poor defendants who can't afford to hire private attorneys. Last June, the office sought to decline all new noncapital felony cases.

In September, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Stanford Blake ruled the office could refuse new third-degree felonies, a move critics say will cost taxpayers more down the road.

The Third District Court of Appeal put Blake's decision on hold while it mulls an appeal by state prosecutors. They say his ruling violates state law and Martinez hasn't proved the indigent get poor legal help.

In January, assistant public defenders began delivering notices to clients saying cases would not be prompt because of the workload.

Also this week, Martinez's office announced 47 private attorneys -- with 1,070 years combined experience -- had agreed to take over one third-degree case each from his office for no pay.

The system, right now, works like this:
An indigent defendant has their case assigned to the public defender's office. If Martinez's lawyers have a conflict -- say, a witness is also represented by the public defenders in another case -- the client is assigned to the state-funded Regional Counsel office.

If that office also has a conflict, private lawyers with state contracts are assigned to the cases.
Friday's drama revolved around Mario Escoto, 27, arrested in January for third-degree grand theft auto.

This week, as his case neared trial, his lawyer, assistant public defender Karen O'Connor, asked for more time to prepare because she was juggling too many clients.

Frustrated, Judge Butchko removed her from Escoto's case, citing ''ineffective counsel.'' She appointed a private attorney, bypassing Regional Counsel -- which the judge also called stretched thin and overburdened. The decision drew immediate criticism.

State officials refused to pay a private attorney because Regional Counsel had not been assigned the case first.

Richard Joyce, the Regional Counsel's chief assistant, blasted Butchko for unfairly assuming his office could not handle a glut of third-degree felonies cases.

He accused the judge of micromanaging his office.

Butchko finally agreed Friday afternoon to assign the case to Regional Counsel, which employs lawyer Annette Gomez to the judge's courtroom for 30 hours a week. ''I'm not micromanaging,'' Butchko said. ``I want to make sure she can handle the cases.''

HERE IS WHAT I THINK ABOUT THE WHOLE DAMN THING

First, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges should issue a joint proclamation that the regional office of conflict counsel has been an abject failure from the outset. It was never intended to advance the rights of defendants, but just to cut the costs of the state. No matter how well intended the lawyers who serve the office, the system was ill-conceived, poorly planned, and woefully underbudgeted. The lobbyists that spend so much time lining their pockets with county funds ought to volunteer their time to convince our dumb legislature that the mechanism we have set up is an administrative nightmare and constitutional abomination. Some groups have to effectively start saying so and loudly.

Second, private lawyers volunteering to handle the overload is noble and laudatory but simultaneously plays into the hands of legislators trying to escape their fiscal and fiduciary responsibilities to provide indigent persons counsel under some case called, oh, I don't know Gideon. Third, any half ass stop gap measures which perpetuate a newly designed system that is already doomed to failure is only surely going to perpetuate injustice, not resolve it. Public Defenders need more public funding and it has to come, pursuant to Article V of our Constitution from the State, and they collectively should sue to get it if they have to.

From the FACDL to the Bar Associations to the judges, a statewide initiative needs to slap the legislature in the face and suggest we cannot have multi county regional offices in Miami representing clients hundreds of miles away, and the system we set up was monetary in purpose, greedy in nature, and fundamentally unfair to the poor, or business as usual for the Florida legislature. At the same time, they need to say if Florida is going to keep on passing more laws to put people away, they are going to have to find funds for more lawyers to represent the accused.

It goes beyond this article above and the lawsuits about who should handle third degree felonies. No the system we had was not perfect, and the wheel did not always turn justly, and judges too often made special appointments a gravy train for their buddies, but like Slattery's People, an old TV show, once said, 'the other systems are a lot worse.' We took a bad situation and made it worse, and now we have to just crawl out of the swamp to get into the mud. But we ought to start, and unfortunately this legislative session is moving to an end with the Office of Conflict Counsel in place, and the only thing it has placed is more conflict in the courts then we ever needed.

With all the judicial review going on over who should pay for what, cases are delayed, justice is denied, victims are rendered impotent, the accused are denied effective counsel, lawyers who should be representing indigents willingly are reluctantly wasting time in court fighting about it, and the entire public is screwed over permanently.

How badly are we screwing over ourselves, our system, and our dignity? How badly do we need a statewide commission to review crimes, sentencing, judges, representation, and the entire system of justice that is so unjust? But let's have another one of the wonderful groups of lawyers that represent the Bar Associations celebrate some more judges at the Tower Club instead of holding weekly seminars exposing the flaws that cripple us daily. What a joke we have become.

Like Anatole France wrote, "The law, in its majestic equality, permits the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges..." Hey, how about making the judges wait on line to get in the courthouse. How about a judicial luncheon under a bridge where sexual offenders sleep? How about a public hearing held by the chief judge allowing citizens to come in and complain about courthouse parking, case delays or how when they get subpoenaed for a traffic ticket they lose a day's pay, the county pays them $6.50 for the summons, and it costs $9 an hour to park in the lot? How about asking why civil judges have 4.000 cases? Do we really need to tour the mental ward of the 9th floor in the Dade County Jail two years after lawsuits were filed to show how shoddy, shabby and shameful the conditions there are?

There is so much to be done, and this is just the legal system.

Supreme Court Limits Warrantless Searches of Vehicles Under Limited Circumstances

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled that police need a warrant to search the vehicle of someone they have arrested if the person is locked up in a patrol cruiser and poses no safety threat to officers.

The court's 5-4 decision puts new limits on the ability of police to search a vehicle immediately after the arrest of a suspect.

Justice John Paul Stevens said in the majority opinion that warrantless searches still may be conducted if a car's passenger compartment is within reach of a suspect who has been removed from the vehicle or there is reason to believe evidence of a crime will be found.

"When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee's vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant," Mr. Stevens said.

Justice Samuel Alito, in dissent, complained that the decision upsets police practice that has developed since the court first authorized warrantless searches immediately following an arrest.
"There are cases in which it is unclear whether an arrestee could retrieve a weapon or evidence," Mr. Alito said.

Even more confusing, he said, is asking police to determine whether the vehicle contains evidence of a crime. "What this rule permits in a variety of situations is entirely unclear," Mr. Alito said.

The decision backs an Arizona high-court ruling in favor of Rodney Joseph Gant, who was handcuffed, seated in the back of a patrol car and under police supervision when Tucson, Ariz., police officers searched his car. They found cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

The trial court said the evidence could be used against Mr. Gant, but Arizona appeals courts overturned the convictions because the officers already had secured the scene and thus faced no threat to their safety or concern about evidence being preserved.

The state and the Bush administration complained that ruling would impose a "dangerous and unworkable test" that would complicate the daily lives of law-enforcement officers.

The justices divided in an unusual fashion. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, David Souter and Clarence Thomas joined the majority opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy were in dissent along with Mr. Alito.

Thanks to John Howes for the 411 on this matter. It seems to protect the rights of defendants from extended searches, but will likely cause consternation for law enforcement officers in its application, which may lead to a series of conflicting rulings. So what else is new?

Plantation Lawyer Roshawn Banks Announces Candidacy for a Broward County Court Seat

Here pictured with State Attorney Mike Satz, Plantation lawyer Roshawn Banks, with almost 11 years experience is the first candidate for the county court seat now held by Judge Steven Shutter, expected to retire next year.

Having just done another blog on the continuing sad lack of ethnic diversity on the Broward County bench, her candidacy should be applauded and seriously scrutinized. We need a judiciary that better reflects our population. We need to stop thinking of minorities as random replacements to fill every thirtieth opening but to recognize our shortages in the past and to make up for it in the future.

Roshawn Banks, who owns The All Law Center, PA in Plantation, filed for the seat April 9.
According to the center’s website Banks founded the practice in 2005. She represents both civil and criminal clients. The website states she has had 30 trials. I hope she brings wisdom and passion to her candidacy and campaign.

Banks was the president of the T J Reddick Bar Association, where she was outspoken against the lack of diversity on the Broward bench. Good for her. She lost a race for an open seat in the state House last year to now-state Rep. Hazelle Rogers. She also teaches at Nova Southeastern Law School.

Here is a piece Broward Beat columnist and blogger Buddy Nevins did on Ms. Banks.
http://www.browardbeat.com/banks-talks-about-her-judicial-race/

I do not know enough about her to endorse her over other candidates who may choose to run. I do know enough about the lack of judicial diversity on our bench to say her candidacy and committment should be applauded and appreciated and allow for others to believe they too can successfully do the same.

The courthouse blogs are vehicles for people to espouse their candidacies, and the newly organized voices of the Bar are becoming forums and vehicles for people to see more and more candidates running for judicial office. This is all a very good thing. The mainstream media would never give it the time or recognition it deserves. Through these blogs we are learning of judicial decisions that would have been ignored, investigations that get covered up, and candidacies that would have remained dormant until the last minute.

The Nation's Most Liberal Court Challenged by Bush's Appointees

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has been resolving disputes for 150 years in a region once prone to settling differences with pistols. Despite today's decorum, ideological gunfights still blaze.

Anyone who has lived on the East Coast has heard about the Ninth, and their forward thinking opinions most find too radical, and higher courts find too shocking. They get reversed a lot. It is the nation's most liberal court and has for the last eight years been a target of Bush judicial appointees.

So here is a thoughtful piece from the L.A. Times that is worthy of your review and consideration. It is a vast judicial circuit with conflicting ideological issues, and has crafted scores of challenging decisions that laid new ground for bold caselaw and gutsy thinking. As I go back and forth to my small northwestern California apartment, I only wish over the past thirty years in Florida a few courts were more like these. Instead, we have made case law here by fighting oppression that never should have been. In Northern California, they look at oppression, as well, oppression, instead of the operative way. Here is the article:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-9th-circuit19-2009apr19,0,6190316.story

Nude Dude Ranch Should Challenge County's Illegal Restrictions

So Norm, you have not blogged in a couple of days, the longest you have ever gone, friends note.

"What did you do, win the lotto," they ask.

"I only wish," I reply, because if I did, then I too could cause a national brouhaha by opening up a nude dude ranch. No, really, it is happening. And in Florida, of course. Right in Brooksville on the West Coast.

A Tim Clements and David Jennings recently opened up their 10-acre horse farm as a dude ranch and started advertising the clothing-optional facility as a bed-and-breakfast with available RV spaces. All those uses require county permission, but the owners got none. Now they’re in trouble with the neighbors and the county. Those damn things called zoning laws.

The dude opening up the dude ranch says he wanted to return to the farm life he grew up in. I can feel for him. I used to love going to dude ranches in the Catskill Mountains when I was a kid growing up in the country before the family settled in more urban environs.

These owners say the farm is secluded enough to be in the buff. And the pictures at their web site show it to be spectacular, beautiful, rural, and inviting. I have a friend from the Florida Gay Rodeo that says it is an awesom retreat. But Hernando County has a nudity ban, and these guys need some good first amendment lawyers to, hmm, brief their case. Clements says they'll try to get the necessary paperwork, but if they can't get approval he'll close the CJ Ranch again to all but friends. I don't know. I expect them to be on Letterman by next week.

Though their Web site says clothing is optional, there is a caveat: Everyone ``must wear pants and boots to ride the horses." After all, they don't want to get sued or anything. There are all sorts of liability issues for going, well, bareback.

Nude Dude Ranch Website www.cjduderanch.com

Full story from Tampa Bay http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/article993289.ece

These guys should argue a legal claim that naturists have legal rights, and a county cannot create an absolute zoning ban barring nudity anywhere and everywhere within its borders. Just as homeless populations have effectively argued in court they have standing, so to do naturists and nudists who have historically established a perfectly legitimate and respectable lifestyle. I remember when I first came to Florida and did my legal radio show, I was invited out to the Seminole Health Club in Davie to judge their annual talent contest. It was the first real legal experience I had with nudists. But then came those early years in the 1980's where we had to fight to protect the rights of naturists on Haulover Beach in Miami. This is a legitimate and legal class of decent and honorable people whose rights should be protected and preserved.

These guys should not run from the law. They should challenge it. They have a viable and lawful claim. They need to understand that if the county has passed a law rendering any nudity illegal they have a legal right to say the ban is unconstitutional and may not stand up in court.

Some Anecdotes on Sex Offender Registrations

Sex offenders will be at least temporarily barred from moving into a neighborhood that has become a haven amid growing living restrictions across South Florida. The county agreed to a 90 day abatement until they could create a task force for long term answers.

John Rodstrom proposed the measure, pointing out that an over concentration of sex offenders in one small community was not just scaring families, but driving property values down, inhibiting people from moving in and was just plain unfair to the community of Broadview Park.

Broadview Park is a small working class neighborhood no larger than a square mile, yet it's home to 5 percent of all sexual offenders in Broward. Under the temporary rules, sex offenders cannot move to a home within 2,500 feet of a school, day care center, park, bus stop or playground in any unincorporated area.

Broward County commissioners agreed to create a task force to look at long-term answers to issue of where sex offenders live. Commissioners Lois Wexler and Ilene Jacobs incisively pointed out that 'distance restrictions' create a false sense of security, because offenders on probation can still get in their cars and go to parks. It is not a real answer, and they were very sophisticated in their approach. They did not just parrot the popular pablum. Applause. The majority of speakers agreed, from sex offenders to sex therapists.

I spoke at the meeting because I don't want to pass laws which lead to us having people wind up sleeping under bridges like Miami. I don't think you can supervise an offender, who needs supervision, when they are living under an overpass. It is hard to have a gps hooked up to a light pole under a bridge.

Two other things come to mind. We should trust our judicial system. The offenders who are released are individuals who either finished their time, or a court and prosecutor agreed were legitimate candidates for probation. They are already inhibited by a vast body of supervisory regulations, from reporting to counseling to ankle bracelets to day monitoring to scarlet letter stamps on drivers' licenses. The penalties for sex offenders are the most severe in the state and yet you get all these studies showing that they could be your grandfather more than an unknown assailant.

So I was just thinking I would rather have state reporting requirements telling me where the known convicted crack addicts and burglars are that are living in my neighborhood. Those are the recidivists whose conduct places my property and home in jeopardy and safety in question. Those are the ones who affect not small populations but large groups and vast neighborhoods. Maybe we have done this ass backwards. Maybe instead of registering sex offenders we should have registered known burglars.

Just a thought.......................here are Michael Mayo's in the Sun Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/sfl-sex-offenders-mayocol-b04190sbapr19,0,4324410.column

Anecdotes on the Passing of Dan Futch

The picture and story are courtey of the Sun Sentinel. But Futch's passing is the passing of a legend in Broward. I suppose most of the commentaries about him will come on the jaab site from those of us who have been here for 25 years or more.

He was never an easy judge, always a tough cookie, but I admired him for his damn decisiveness.

There are two stories I want to share about 'Maximum Dan' and neither had to do with those Friday afternoons all of us in the courthouse used to spend at Il Giardino's on East Las Olas.

The first had to do with one of my first days as the morning drive radio talk show host for WFTL, 1400 AM, early in 1990. My start there required me to replace one of the longest running talk show hosts in the history of Broward County, a soft spoken story telling polite gentleman known as 'Lovable John Lupton.' Instead of turning on the radio and listening to passive anecdotes, the audience was now listening to a heated political show, led by a liberal, aka, me.

I remember I was talking to bondsman Wayne Spath in Judge Arthur Franza's courtroom, and Russell Williams, who was then working for me, just starting out, came to get me. 'Damn, Norm, you better get to Futch; he is screaming about you.'

'Okay, but why, I don't even have a case there...."

So I go to his courtroom and he sees me and stops the proceedings, "You are one son of a bitch, you know that?," he says. And smiles!.

"What did I do," I ask?

"What did you do?", He cries: " For thirty years my wife and I have been waking up to 'Lovable John Lupton' on WFTL and now this morning I turn on the radio, and our favorite host is gone, and you are invading my private bedroom space with your radical commie crap. Get out of my house. Get out of my courtroom!"

There is another story about how I filed an emergency injunction request for an adult bookstore on a Friday morning, and he called me up personally to say, "you know Norm I can hear this right away and deny it this afternoon, and you can take it up right away, but if you want to give your clients some time to think they paid you for something we can wait till next week and I can deny it then...."

But boy, he could be brutal. Show up late and you go to jail. Show up in shorts and you are thrown out of his courtroom. Say you are ready for trial, and just to make sure you don't flee, or get running feet, he would take you into custody.

Now that I think about it here are two more Futch anecdotes. Some kid shows up plastered for sentencing, and Futch says to him, "you just came into my courtroom drunk, didnt you?"

"Yes, judge, I heard you were a real bad ass, and were going to sentence me for a long time, so I figured I would just tie one on last nite."

"Young man, I admire your honesty, so I am going to sentence you to only 30 days- for contempt of court. Come back in a month, and then I will give you your real sentence, and I promise you I won't disappoint."

Of course I remember winning a motion to suppress with him when the young man who was caught with coke outside the Playpen turned to the judge and said, "Your honor I did not leave the coke on the dashboard or on the console like the cop said. Man I knew it was illegal, I knew if I got caught I was going to jail. Yes, I had the dope. I hid it. Hid it under the carpet, under the asbestos flooring, under the front seat, even covered that up. The cop pulled me out of the car, ripped it up and found it . It was not in plain view. I did everything I could to hide and conceal it cause I did not want to get caught."

"So young man you are admitting openly to me that you had the cocaine and were using it."

"Yes sir, judge, I am not going to lie to you. I was."

"Well you know son your honesty is so refreshing, and coming clean and admitting you hid it and owned up to it, and went to so much trouble to conceal it, and you not giving me a sob story of how you lost your job or your father beat you, I am going to find you are telling the truth and that the cop lied. The evidence is thrown out. It's an illegal search. But son you still are going to have to do about 30 more days. We will let you out next month."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-judge-dan-futch-dies-bn041309,0,6498485.story

It's Time for Defense Attorneys to Challenge Forensic Reports In Every Case

The series of articles the Broward Law Blog has done on the decompensating authority of past forensic analysis is summarized in these blogs:

http://browardlawblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Forensics

An article in the weekend NY Times exposes flaws in Alabama so severe that "Alabama authorities plan to review as many as 100 forensic cases by a medical examiner whose botched autopsy of a baby led a judge to throw out a murder charge against the mother."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/us/11brfs-REVIEWOFFORE_BRF.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

The handwriting is on the wall. We have been so reliant on this technology that we have not questioned it thoroughly, challenged it effectively, or overturned it successfully. We have buffaloed and bulldozed by guys in white suits wearing the title of experts and accepting foolishly their representations to courts and jurists.

And now study after study is showing just how supplicant we have been and how wrong they are. If I ran a public defender's office, or managed a state attorney, I would ask them to join together to form an 'Innocence Project' and scrutinize jointly all these outside forensic experts they have been contracting with for years, and demand review and further analysis on all those cases where the purported accuracy of forensics was cause for a verdict. Let's do what is just for anyone and and not just what is expedient for everyone.