… but you can’t make him think.
Alex the Tired here, and this one not only has me just shaking my head in amazement, it ties in beautifully with the recent discussion about the cost of college.
Today’s sad, sick laugh comes via the New York Times’ article about a Georgetown Law School graduate — I’m going to repeat that: a GEORGETOWN LAW SCHOOL GRADUATE — who is in a whole lot of trouble. Here’s the link. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/business/an-underling-among-the-officials-accused-of-fraud-at-dewey.html?hp&_r=0)
I am NOT a lawyer. Another thing I’m going to repeat — I am NOT a lawyer. But here’s some things to keep in mind.
1. The police can/will/do lie. They do it all the time. If the cops bring you in for questioning, you DO NOT talk to them. You demand a lawyer. And then you stop talking. And by that, I mean you go Tommy: deaf, dumb and blind. If they ask if you’d like water, you say nothing. If they ask if you’d like a blowjob, you say nothing. The only thing you say to a cop other then “I want a lawyer” is the thing you say BEFORE that: “Am I free to go?”
2. Many lawyers are like cops, but more predatory. Whereas a lot of cops are just high school thug-bullies who got older but never grew up (emotionally or intellectually), a whole lot of lawyers, especially prosecutors, grow intellectually (at least in the narrow venue of entrapping people) and shrink emotionally, until they become the person who sits at a desk and calculates how he can get you into prison. He isn’t interested in your personal struggles, he isn’t interested in whether you’re a good person, whether you have children, the morality of the law in question or anything else. He succeeds at his job by getting convictions. You jay walk and the cops slap you with jay walking, resisting arrest, creating a public nuisance, terrorism, and lefthandedness. The prosecutor will smile (just like a shark before it takes off your arm) and magnanimously offer to throw out four of the five charges, as long as you plead guilty to the jay walking without a trial. The Village Voice did an article about this sort of “justice” about a year ago. If you find a compassionate prosecutor, one who DOES evaluate each case, count yourself lucky.
3. Yes, there are good cops AND good lawyers. The time to have them is not AFTER you’ve signed a confession to the Oklahoma City bombings and six murders committed before you were born. More precisely, the time to know what to do if confronted by a cop is BEFORE you’re confronted by a cop. Google it. Lots of good sites out there. But you have to take the time to educate yourself about these things.
And that’s where we come in on the poor unfortunate Georgetown-educated lawyer who didn’t know he was being set up to be nailed to a cross. We have a graduate of one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, and, when asked to come in to answer a few questions, he committed a mistake that any law student should have seen. All that education, and he’s looking at a nice long stretch in the thug jug. Why? Because most education now does not require the student to think. And he got complacent. Oh, the predators will never turn on me. I’m one of them.
Right. Until the food runs low.
In one of my favorite television programs, one of the characters says something about how the radio signal they’re receiving could be a trap. The other character responds that if it is, it isn’t a very good trap, as they’re already suspicious. The first character replies (something like), “The question isn’t whether we’re suspicious. The question is whether we get caught.”
I don’t walk down alleys, I don’t listen to hard-luck stories on deserted streets, I don’t get drunk at bars. I avoid cops because I can never tell when one of them will clock me with a baton, shove a bag of cocaine down my shirt, and tell his partner to back him up on the statement about how I went nuts and attacked him.
Think I’m wrong? Ever been in a speed trap? You think the cops care about fair? Talk to all those people who were arrested at the RNC. The ones where the cops committed perjury. Go on. Name any cop who lost his job over that. I’m wait.
And while I wait, I must, in the utmost discretion, communicate with you on a matter requiring your assistance concerning the release of $$83 millions U.S. dollars, kind sir or kind madam.
5 Comments.
I read a story about a rare case of justice actually prevailing in the 1960’s.
A black man was found not guilty for shooting a sheriff and his deputy.
It seems the lawmen were wearing white KKK robes when caught after breaking his front door down.
It all defines the function of community standards. All the “normal” methods of community taxation in America (and indeed, most of the world) have either fled the country or otherwise been tapped out. As a punitive tax assessor/collector, law-enforcement is the final tactic of an economically frightened bureaucracy, where “normal” citizens are now regularly targeted for assets-confiscation.
Hell, the gangbangers of law enforcement don’t even feel it is necessary to charge the victims of their theft with any crimes … simple suspicion of violating most laws of conduct and ANY regulation of prohibition is enough for the state to lay claim to most any possession worthwhile of punitive-auction, from which a generous proportion of the proceeds are then “allocated” to the primary gang of thieving law enforcers.
It’s a badge-dangling La Cosa Nostra paradigm on nuclear steroids..
America is now an LE dictatorship.
DanD
Things are actually more dire than described. Berghuis v. Thompkins produced the bizarre decision that one must verbally state one’s intention to be silent – simply refusing to speak to police is no longer considered enough. So, saying: “I am remaining silent and am not talking to the police” should join the other essential statements one needs to make upon forced acquaintance with the police. I believe that police and prosecutors are attempting to have eye-rolling, body shaking, dry mouth and other fear indicators accepted by the courts as speech and so admissible as indicators/admissions of guilt.
You are exactly correct – and i can’t think of a time when it wasn’t that way. I can think of a few times when it didn’t go that way; Let go with a speed warning, Let go because I was with a group of young kids and a stern threat followed by a warning was easier for the cop, and let go because the crowd surrounding the situation was rapidly turning on the officer EVEN WORSE – how any times are we shown situations in US TV Series and films where the police absolutely lie or fake evidence because if they don’t, a person who has been shown to be unquestionably guilty will go free? In the last episode of Blue Bloods, the police officer sees evidence that puts a suspect at the scene of a crime, but he instead warns the suspect – who is a friend of his – that he should get rid of the evidence, and that even after having done so, that there is no guarantee that he or another investigating officer may come back to nab him for questioning. At the Blue Blood Family dinner that night, he throws out the “possible scenario” to his family, and everyone there tells him that if he has done this, he has violated his ethics as a police officer. So – aftor this cajoling, he decides to do the right thing and goes back and arrests the man. Still – it turns out that there were extenuating circumstances, and the man/friend goes free. In this way, everyone is happy at the end. Our culture is full of “mixed messages” like this, and one of the most popular genres left is still the “revenge” film, where everything goes out the window in order to punish the “unquestionably guilty”.
Outstanding point of the official lawlessness portrayed in entertainment as necessary to catch bad guys.