**Author's note: The following is a piece I wrote for another place and purpose altogether; however, given the question concerning war and PC-ness, I thought I would post it here. I have not altered it, but have starred out enough letters to mute the profanity somewhat. I know such language is not becoming, but if there's one thing I am, it's honest.******

Dear Mr./Ms. Criminal Defense Lawyer:

I can't help but wonder how you sleep at night. I don't mean literally, because I know all about how hang by your toes upside down in the dark or rest in a coffin; rather, I am wondering how whatever passes for the conscience that God gave every one of us fails to adequately torment you for the evil that you perpetuate on the world every day.

Since you obviously skipped or slept through Political Science 101 in college, I'll give you a small history lesson. When our justice system in America was instituted in the late 1700's, a couple of key things were written in. One, every accused person is innocent until proven guilty; and two, everyone has the right to a defense. These things were instituted to ensure that the poor didn't get screwed over and falsely accused by the rich and powerful, as had been the custom up until that point. The idea of giving everyone accused of a crime a qualified defense attorney was to ensure that the prosecution had all of their ducks in a row, and that the accused was truly guilty. The system worked better than any other in the world, and kept a great many people from being framed by their enemies. Overall, Salem witch trials notwithstanding, it worked pretty well.

However, you have betrayed the trust our Founding Fathers placed in you, and have perverted the system to meet your own ends, which usually seem to be fame and money.

No longer are you about ensuring the innocent are freed and the truly guilty punished. No longer are you striving to ensure the rights of the accused are guarded. No longer are you truly pursuing justice.

Now, you use every trick and loophole you can find to get the guilty off the hook entirely. How many times have you KNOWN that the person before you was guilty as sin, yet exploited the system to get them off entirely? I've heard you bragging about it as I quietly served you your uppity lawyer drinks. I've heard you while I quietly ate my dinner at the booth behind you.

All I can say is that the next time you free a known murderer, rapist, or drug dealer, I hope their next victim is one of YOUR family members, or even you. Then let's sit back and watch as you scream and whine for the same justice you've denied to other victims.

Criminal defense lawyers have gone from being defenders of the innocent and champions of Constitutional rights to being a cancer on the face of the planet. You make me want to puke.

A cop making $35,000 a year puts his on the line every single time he moves. He captures a criminal, and runs him through the system. A prosecuter for the DA making $50,000 a year busts his nuts to ensure that the case he presents is solid as a rock, despite being threatened and intimidated by the criminal friends and family of the accused. A scumbag defense attorney making $125,000 a year sits in the comfort and safety of a plush office and finds the smallest ambiguity and exploits it to get the criminal off, despite knowing he is guilty as hell.

Then, you sit around in your little martini bars and express disdain and disgust for the fact that vigilante justice is on the rise, and you just don't understand why.

You are now part of the problem, undoing the fine work of police officers and DA's everywhere. You are responsible for setting free on the streets the vilest creatures to ever walk the earth.

You don't know d**k about "justice."

You are a blight on society, and if you happen to be a male, you are not a man. A man fights evil, not ignores it. A man will sacrifice to see good triumph, not cash in while rubbing everything good and true into a pile of manure.

Yes, Lady Justice does indeed have the scales of justice in her left hand. However, you have ignored the fact that she also carries a sword in her right.

If you are too greedy or spineless or unethical to be the sword, then don't you dare have the gall to be surprised when I am the sword.

Wow, what an ignorant letter.

Oh OK.

You smear all lawyers for the actions of a few. What happens when you are charged with an offense? Who will you turn to?

Your rant sounds like immature ramblings of someone who's feelings were hurt.

Disclaimer: my wife is a lawyer though she rarely does criminal law.

Here's the funny part: in the other thread you warned others that you might post this letter which the easily offended may not want to read. Looks like you were the easily offended one. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kindj

**Author's note: The following is a piece I wrote for another place and purpose altogether; however, given the question concerning war and PC-ness, I thought I would post it here. I have not altered it, but have starred out enough letters to mute the profanity somewhat. I know such language is not becoming, but if there's one thing I am, it's honest.******

Dear Mr./Ms. Criminal Defense Lawyer:

I can't help but wonder how you sleep at night. I don't mean literally, because I know all about how hang by your toes upside down in the dark or rest in a coffin; rather, I am wondering how whatever passes for the conscience that God gave each and every one of us fails to adequately torment you for the evil that you perpetuate on the world each and every day.

Since you obviously skipped or slept through Political Science 101 in college, I'll give you a small history lesson. When our justice system in America was instituted in the late 1700's, a couple of key things were written in. One, every accused person is innocent until proven guilty; and two, everyone has the right to a defense. These things were instituted to ensure that the poor didn't get screwed over and falsely accused by the rich and powerful, as had been the custom up until that point. The idea of giving everyone accused of a crime a qualified defense attorney was to ensure that the prosecution had all of their ducks in a row, and that the accused was truly guilty. The system worked better than any other in the world, and kept a great many people from being framed by their enemies. Overall, Salem witch trials notwithstanding, it worked pretty well.

However, you have betrayed the trust our Founding Fathers placed in you, and have perverted the system to meet your own ends, which usually seem to be fame and money.

No longer are you about ensuring the innocent are freed and the truly guilty punished. No longer are you striving to ensure the rights of the accused are guarded. No longer are you truly pursuing justice.

Now, you use every trick and loophole you can find to get the guilty off the hook entirely. How many times have you KNOWN that the person before you was guilty as sin, yet exploited the system to get them off entirely? I've heard you bragging about it as I quietly served you your uppity lawyer drinks. I've heard you while I quietly ate my dinner at the booth behind you.

All I can say is that the next time you free a known murderer, rapist, or drug dealer, I hope their next victim is one of YOUR family members, or even you. Then let's sit back and watch as you scream and whine for the same justice you've denied to other victims.

Criminal defense lawyers have gone from being defenders of the innocent and champions of Constitutional rights to being a cancer on the face of the planet. You make me want to puke.

A cop making $35,000 a year puts his on the line every single time he moves. He captures a criminal, and runs him through the system. A prosecuter for the DA making $50,000 a year busts his nuts to ensure that the case he presents is solid as a rock, despite being threatened and intimidated by the criminal friends and family of the accused. A scumbag defense attorney making $125,000 a year sits in the comfort and safety of a plush office and finds the smallest ambiguity and exploits it to get the criminal off, despite knowing he is guilty as hell.

Then, you sit around in your little martini bars and express disdain and disgust for the fact that vigilante justice is on the rise, and you just don't understand why.

You are now part of the problem, undoing the fine work of police officers and DA's everywhere. You are responsible for setting free on the streets the vilest creatures to ever walk the earth.

You don't know d**k about "justice."

You are a blight on society, and if you happen to be a male, you are not a man. A man fights evil, not ignores it. A man will sacrifice to see good triumph, not cash in while rubbing everything good and true into a pile of manure.

Yes, Lady Justice does indeed have the scales of justice in her left hand. However, you have ignored the fact that she also carries a sword in her right.

If you are too greedy or spineless or unethical to be the sword, then don't you dare have the gall to be surprised when I am the sword.

---

Well, I don't trust lawyers, but that is my opinion, as for this dumb letter you have here, you time would be better spent work the change the legal system, rather than trying to pi&& off the attorney, you may have to face one of them in the future.


As, for me I work on showing them how they have fail the system that they have sworn a oath to preserve, not by name calling, but by facts. And by my rights under the constitution.

THAT'S MY OPINION!

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Benjamin Franklin said "… it is better one hundred guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer."

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I understand your anger there buddy and I'm sure there are more than enough cases to justify it. You know as well as I do a defense lawyer's job is to zealously and competently defend his client. However, they must do so ethically and everyone involved must know their roles to see that justice is served. I don't see that justice is served by exploiting every loophole to get the guilty off the hook, but what do you do?

DK

Jeffrey Lichtman was the lawyer for mob boss John Gotti Jr. Gotti's goons first beat the hell out of Curtis Sliwa of Guardian Angels fame with baseball bats. Then they tried to murder him in a taxi cab. He took numerous bullets but survived .The media described the Gotti verdict as an "unbelievable courtroom upset" and Lichtman's work as "brilliant."

But Gotti got off due to Lichtman's efforts. When asked about his role ,he doesn't look at it the same way you do . He said his role was to make sure that the prosecution was on it's game . Bizarre . He knows as well as everyone that Gotti Jr . Ordered the hits. His defense was the unbelievable claim that Gotti had been a mob boss but had retired from the Gambino family before the hit attempts. Lichtman openly wept with joy .

He was President of the NY Trial Lawyers . His big concern a couple of years ago was in opposition to tort reform... limiting jury awards in civil suits... thus limiting his potential pay day. As you can tell ,it's not about justice for people like him or John Edwards ;it's all about the money.

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As you can tell ,it's not about justice

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Bingo.

Are you willing to assume that everyone who is arrested is guilty of a crime? If that were true, we would need neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys. Besides, even those who are guilty deserve an aggressive defense to make sure that police and prosecutors prove their case within the constraints of the rules of evidence and the rights conferred by the Constitution. If courts allowed convictions that trample on those rights to stand, such rights would have no meaning and no ability to protect the innocent from the abuse of police power by the state.

Hello DK:

Our justice system was designed to work when two lawyers fight it out to the best of their ability in the courtroom. I think it works pretty good that way. Apparently, you don't like one side. S'cool. I don't like the other side. I think prosectors are just as slimy as you think criminal lawyers are.

excon

Speaking of Constitutional rights, yesterday's decision by the fourth circuit court of appeals has several comments on the subject that are relevant to this discussion, it seems to me:

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"Put simply, the Constitution does not allow the President to order the military to seize civilians residing within the United States and detain them indefinitely without criminal process, and this is so even if he calls them 'enemy combatants.'...

"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them 'enemy combatants,' would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution -- and the country. For a court to uphold a claim to such extraordinary power would do more than render lifeless the Suspension Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the rights to criminal process in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments; it would effectively undermine all of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. It is that power -- were a court to recognize it -- that could lead all our laws 'to go unexecuted, and the government itself to go to pieces.' We refuse to recognize a claim to power that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic."

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Here's a link to the complete decision in case anyone's interested.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think most folks missed my point. Some people here know me, and so they know that I was given (or developed) a sense of humor that is exceedingly dry, sarcastic, and often has quite a bitter edge to it. Be that as it may...

The point is, I believe that our justice system has some growing problems. It ain't dead yet, but if the country at large doesn't wake up to some degree, it'll be terminal soon enough.

There is a percentage of criminal defense attorneys out there (what percentage it is depends on who you talk to) who care more about legal and illegal than they do about right and wrong. There once was a time when the two almost overlapped. Now, the two barely even nod to one another. THAT'S the point I'm making. Hey, my own lawyer has come in handy on a couple of occasions, even though he doesn't specialize in the kind of law we're talking about. I was in the right the whole time, but I needed someone with the initials "J.D." after their name to say it, for some reason. Apparently, the letters which follow my own name were not good enough, even though I have more sets of them than he does.

I believe that we're heading down a road whose name is not "Justice For All Street," rather, it's changed into "How Much Justice Can You Afford Boulevard." I've been witnesses for cases where it was whispered that if the defendant had more money, he could have hired ol' so-and-so, who was in good with Judge Doofus AND the DA's office, and things would've gone better, and so on and so on. THAT'S the system I have a problem with.

Maybe I should work harder on self-expression with unknown audiences...

Sorry if I pissed anyone off.

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Some people here know me, and so they know that I was given (or developed) a sense of humor that is exceedingly dry, sarcastic, and often has quite a bitter edge to it.

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That and your genuine honesty is what we love about you, Dennis.

I'm sure Ex is happy that one of those slimy prosecutors could be getting his due soon... I know I am. Now if we could just do something about Al Sharpton.

I think maybe you should pop in My Cousin Vinny to see how the justice system is supposed to work :D

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Originally Posted by kindj

"How Much Justice Can You Afford Boulevard."

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As a general rule - Isn't this already the case?

I'm not a lawyer and have limited experience in dealing with them, but it seems to make logical sense that a court appointed or legal aid lawyer would not have the same time and resources to devote to a case as a private lawyer and their firm.

DK

Lawyers are bad enough . But what chance do we have when black robed oligarchs with life time appointments reign from on high; and we have brought into this bs that they are final arbiters ? I'm referring to the latest 4th Circus Court's al-Marri decision .

The undisputed facts [not even contested in the appeal]:

Al-Marri was closely associated with al-Qaeda and trained with that organization at a terrorist camp. In 2001, he met with bin Laden and volunteered for "martyr duty." Bin Laden ordered him to the U.S. (where he had once been a student). He entered on September 10, 2001 for the purpose of operating as a "sleeper agent" to facilitate terrorist activity. His mission also involved figuring out how to disrupt our financial system through computer hacking and obtaining information about poisonous chemicals. His efforts were funded by a known terrorist financier and he communicated with known terrorists by phone and email.

If al-Marri had been dispatched here for these purposes by a country with which we were at war, there is no dispute that he would be an enemy combatant and, as such, could be held without trial. If he had once fought against the U.S. on a formal battlefield, say in Afghanistan, he could also have been detained here when he came to pursue his assigned acts of terrorism. But because neither of these conditions was satisfied, two out of the three judges who heard the case voted in al-Marri's favor.

Under the President's inherent war powers as Commander in Chief ,and by Congressional authorization to use all necessary force against those nations and organizations that authorized, committed, or aided in the 9-ll attacks the al-Marri detention was justified and lawful . But ,evidently the 4th Circus Court now thinks that besides the expanded role the courts have assumed in the role of inventor of rights,that they can also reign as Commander in Chief.

Tom,

How does all that have any relevance to a childish rant about all criminal defense lawyers?

DK wrote about his pet peeve with the judicial system . I added mine. I was considering doing a separate thread with it but time is short today .

Ah I see.

Have a good one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomder55

,evidently the 4th Circus Court now thinks that besides the expanded role the courts have assumed in the role of inventor of rights,that they can also reign as Commander in Chief.

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Hello again, tom:

Yeah, it's true, that here in the United States of America, the president can't pick someone off OUR streets, declare them an enemy combatant and throw them in the brig forever. He just can't. It's UNAMERICAN to do so.

The court is not the Commander in Chief, but the Commander in Chief has no business doing police work.

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, tom:

Yeah, it's true, that here in the United States of America, the president can't pick someone off OUR streets, declare them an enemy combatant and throw them in the brig forever. He just can't. It's UNAMERICAN to do so.

The court is not the Commander in Chief, but the Commander in Chief has no business doing police work.

excon

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If that person is an enemy combattant the President is in his authority . As I mentioned the fact that he was an agent of al-Qaeda on a specific mission assigned by bin-Laden has not been disputed by him or anyone else. You call it police work . I say that al-Qaeda is as much an enemy of the United States as any other nation that had declared war on us .They have declared war on the US and if al-Qaeda was Germany in 1943 this case would not have even been considered .

On June 13,1942, 4 agents were landed from U-584 on Amagansett, Long Island, New York; and on June 17, 1942, 4 agents from U-202 were landed on Ponte Vedra Beach, south of Jacksonville, Florida. Their purpose was to perform acts of sabotage . They were captured .A subsequent military trial of the 8 captured agents resulted in 6 death sentences, one life imprisonment and one 30-year sentence. They were not given access to civilian courts ,judicial review ,discovery ,or any other rights Americans have built into the judicial system.

More on the German case cited

On July 2, 1942 President and Commander in Chief Roosevelt appointed a Military Commission and directed it to try the alleged spies. The President declared :

all persons who are subjects, citizens, or residents of any nation at war with the United States or who give obedience to or act under the direction of any such nation, and who during time of war enter or attempt to enter the United States ... through coastal or boundary defenses, and are charged with committing or attempting or preparing to commit sabotage, espionage, hostile or warlike acts, or violations of the law of war, shall be subject to the law of war and to the jurisdiction of military tribunals.

While the tribunals were ongoing the Supreme Court heard the case . On July 31, the Court held:
1.) That the charges preferred against petitioners on which they are being tried by military commission appointed by order ot the President of July 2, 1942, allege an offense or offenses which the president is authorized to order tried before a military commission.
2.) That the military commission was lawfully constituted.
3.) That petitioners are held in lawful custody for trial before the military commission, and have not shown cause for being discharged for writs of habeas corpus.

The motions for leave to file petitions for writs of habeas corpus were denied.

Chief Justice Harlan Stone subsequently wrote an opinion in which he stressed the fact that the petitioners were agents of a country which had declared war against the United States, and that throughout American history, spies were tried by military commissions beginning with Major John André, Adjutant-General to the British Army, who had crossed enemy lines in disguise to consort with General Benedict Arnold. He was tried as a spy by a ìBoard of General Officersî appointed by General George Washington and was hanged on October 2, 1780.
Justice Stone wrote:
By a long course of practical administrative construction by its military authorities, our Government has likewise recognized that those who during time of war pass surreptitiously from enemy territory into our own, discarding their uniforms upon entry, for the commission of hostile acts involving destruction of life or property, have the status of unlawful combatants punishable as such by military commission...

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Lawyers are bad enough . But what chance do we have when black robed oligarchs with life time appointments reign from on high; and we have brought into this bs that they are final arbiters ?
....

Under the President's inherent war powers as Commander in Chief ,and by Congressional authorization to use all necessary force against those nations and organizations that authorized, committed, or aided in the 9-ll attacks the al-Marri detention was justified and lawful . But ,evidently the 4th Circus Court now thinks that besides the expanded role the courts have assumed in the role of inventor of rights,that they can also reign as Commander in Chief.

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So you want to get rid of the entire judicial system (and the Constitution) and make the President the sole and final arbiter? Man, you are one scary dude. I sure hope no one who thinks like you ever gets to be president. Oh, wait. Somebody who thinks like you is the president. Doh!