True to its name: The Winning Brief April 9, 2008
Posted by Idta in : MyBooks , add a comment
I posted earlier this week about winning relief for our client recently at the Court of Criminal Appeals.
The book that helped me TREMENDOUSLY in organizing and finishing my brief was
The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts
Why are you here? April 8, 2008
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, MyBooks, Quotes , 2comments One of my co-workers asked me today, “Why are you here?” I told him I want to be a better criminal-defense lawyer.
Tonight I finished reading The Best Defense,
The public sometimes has difficulty distinguishing between the noble [defense attorneys] and the sleazy; the very fact that a defense lawyer represents a guilty client leads some to conclude that the lawyer must be sleazy. Being so regarded is an occupational hazard of all zealous defense attorneys.
The late Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once commented that he knew of no title “more honorable than that of Professor of the Harvard Law School.” I know of none more honorable than defense attorney.
Writing an appeal brief August 31, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, MyBooks , add a comment My client’s freedom is hanging on a brief I’m writing. That’s a lot of pressure. Luckily, we have the law and the facts on our side. Also, my more-experienced colleagues are giving me valuable advice.
Plus, I’ve been reading Bryan Garner’s “The Winning Brief” and am almost 60% of the way through. I just wish I’d read this book years ago. It’s excellent!!!
The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts
It’s worse not to know. August 4, 2007
Posted by Idta in : MyBooks, Quotes , add a comment I finished reading Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time today.
The last sentence of this quote from the book describes how I feel about my upcoming trial:
“[I]t’s best if you know a good thing is going to happen, like an eclipse or getting a microscope for Christmas. And it’s bad if you know a bad thing is going to happen, like having a filling or going to France. But I think it is worst if you don’t know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing which is going to happen.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, at 215 (emphasis added).
P.S. The main character in the book visits a train station in London and sees a sign that made me smile: “Take time out to regret your career choice.”
Bush Spares Libby From Prison Time July 2, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement, MyBooks , 1 comment so far Just like the hypocritical leader in “The Scarlet Letter,” (who benefited from both the crime and its concealment), President Bush has reduced the punishment handed out to his own Hester Prynne. Just before stripping away Scooter Libby’s prison time, Bush said:
“[A] jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. [O]ur entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable.”
Who’d have guessed Scooter Libby would grow up to be Hester Prynne? June 26, 2007
Posted by Idta in : MyBooks , add a comment“Peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that God sees him.”
— The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
When Hester Prynne’s adultery was exposed, she refused to identify her baby’s father (the cowardly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale). Apparently torture was out of the question in those pre-enlightened times, long before Guantanamo.
In order to protect Rev. Dimmesdale, Hester bore the entire punishment alone. For her loyalty, Rev. Dimmesdale helped her receive the colonial-era version of a presidential pardon:
“The penalty [for adultery] is death. But, in their great mercy and tenderness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life, to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom.”
Further demonstrating his cowardly and selfish nature, Rev. Dimmesdale publicly ordered Hester to reveal the name of her accomplice:
“I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner …. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him … to add hypocrisy to sin?”
—–
Like Hester Prynne, Scooter Libby took the blame in the Valerie Plame leak scandal while trying to protect more powerful accomplices. And like a modern-day Reverend Dimmesdale, the Bush Administration publicly pretended to want to expose the wrong-doers.
The Scarlet Letter June 24, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement, MyBooks , add a comment One of the best books I ever read for school was The Scarlet Letter. Although set in colonial times, the public’s angry reaction to the “light” sentence Hester Prynne received (i.e., having to wear a badge of shame for the rest of her life) seems pretty 21st-century.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book, the scarlet “A” stood for adultery. With today’s computerized law-enforcement databases, just being accused of a crime (even if never convicted) permanently brands a person as a potential wrong-doer. That’s why I use a scarlet “A” in the name of this blog.
P.S. Dale C. Carlson wrote a great book on today’s “electronic plantation,” with excellent advice for defense lawyers and their clients:
Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face
