No amount of money can fix the life of a wrongfully convicted person. But we should pay them all, anyway.

One of the worst aspects of how slowly the wheels of the criminal justice system grind is just how long it takes a wrongfully convicted person to be released. Often, even after the eventually-winning motion has been filed or the critical piece of evidence has been unearthed, it is not even just months but years before release occurs. Most of those successful exoneration motions are not on the original direct appeal, either, so the exoneree has spent a decade, and often much more, in prison before being released.

When they are released, exonerees are sent out into a new world, usually a world quite different from the one they left. They have no assets, no work experience, not much education to tout. In short, they are in desperate need of finding a means of support and yet not the most appealing job candidates, what with criminal records and long incarcerations in their past. Spending long stretches of time in prison is bad for one's health, too, so those who are released will likely have health needs, even if it's just dental work and eye care. (Incarceration can lead to serious increases in near-sightedness. Eyes will lose the ability to focus on distant points if they can't see past a wall 10 feet in front of them.) There's also the psychological damage of incarceration itself, especially for those exonerees who spent significant time in solitary (as a lot of death row inmates do).

We all cheer the stories of each individual exoneree as he or she is released after 10, 20, or 30 years of struggling to prove innocence. I wish more attention would be focused on what their lives look like a year after exoneration. How they can't get landlords to rent them apartments or employers to give them jobs. It might be hard not to feel a little bitter that you can't earn a paycheck (not that you need it to pay rent if you can't find an apartment) while the prosecutor who ruined your life got a big promotion or a judgeship because of your case.

We need to do a better job of helping exonerees after release. As a starting point, it ought to be required that every state (or the federal government, for federal defendants) must provide certain basic benefits. Health care, including eye, dental, and mental health care. Job training or education. Housing (which might require the state providing some kind of incentives for landlords). And then there's just money. Money would take the pressure off the job search, make it not matter much if landlords are leery of renting to ex-cons, regardless of legal "technicalities" like innocence. If exonerees have a nice pile of cash, they can buy homes and get away from nervous landlords. They don't have to convince timid employers to take chances. They don't have to risk homelessness and hopelessness. They don't have to mooch off family members they haven't been around consistently for 20 years.

According to this report by CBS, 29 states (as well as the federal government and DC) have statutes that provide for compensation for the wrongfully convicted. Which means that 21 states do not. In those 21 states, exonerees have to jump through the hoops of filing lawsuits or trying to get special legislation passed through their state's legislature. Filing a lawsuit can be difficult, figuring out who you can name as a defendant who doesn't have immunity. But that's still got to be easier than getting any legislature to pass a bill just for one person. The easiest solution, though, would be for those 21 states to get off their duffs and pass statutes that will cover all exonerees.

As a final matter, any jurisdiction that considers prohibiting compensation to a wrongfully convicted defendant who "contributed" to the wrongful conviction should shove that idea where the sun don't shine. Could that include a scared defendant who is being convinced he will be executed if he goes to a jury trial opting to take a plea deal to a crime he didn't commit? Keep in mind that one of the reasons a lot of prosecutors insist states should keep the death penalty as an option is to coerce encourage defendants to plead out. Because, of course, the prosecutors already know they have the right guy, so they can run roughshod over him to get him to waive his constitutional right to a jury trial. So, sure, it's fair to refuse to compensate a wrongfully convicted defendant who allows himself to be run over like that.

I'm confident that "contribution" exception would include defendants who falsely confess. That would sure save states a lot of money as somewhere between 25 and 30% of wrongful convictions involve false confessions. The interrogation techniques used in most police interview rooms throughout this country are specifically designed to get confessions, after all. Not the truth. Confessions. Because, of course, by the time the cops begin these interrogations, they already know they have the right guy, so all that matters is getting him to say exactly what the cops want to hear. So, sure, it's fair to refuse to compensate a wrongfully convicted defendant who allows himself to be bullied into lying like that.

The system is heavily weighted against suspects and defendants from the beginning. Police are allowed to lie to get defendants to confess, but if a broken suspect gives in and responds with a lie, well that's the suspect's own damn fault. Prosecutors can threaten death, but if a scared defendant gives in to save his life, well then he had that time in prison coming. That's a heartless, cynical attitude that should be removed from the calculus of every compensation statute. And, really, it shouldn't matter one bit why exactly a particular defendant was the victim of a wrongful conviction. 

No matter what specific factors contributed to any particular wrongful conviction, we the people should all contribute to helping right that wrong. After all, every wrongful conviction involves the power of the state being misused to incarcerate an innocent person. We can't give any exoneree those stolen years back, but we ought to do all we can to make sure every exoneree has a shot at making a life with the years he has left. It's criminal that there is any state in this country where that isn't a given.

If the shoe fits, Sean Hannity...

Yes, CNN has rather lost its mind over this missing plane. But so has FOX. For some reason, I can't make myself stop tuning in because it's all become so unhinged and they're all so sure we can speculate and expound and theorize when we basically know nothing.

No one, though, has lost his mind over this all more than Sean Hannity. I mean, this guy has gone full-on Glenn Beck nutso over this. He is convinced the lead pilot is behind it all. Why? Because, and I am not making this up, because that man has been seen wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words "Democracy is Dead." And because that man supports the opposition leader. Based on these facts, and the fact that the pilot allegedly attended at least part of this leader's totally trumped-up trial that only happened so the ruling party could incarcerate this man, Sean Hannity has declared him a "fanatic" utterly unfit to fly a plane at all. He actually said he would feel very uncomfortable being a passenger on a plane with this guy at the helm.

Think about that for a minute. Sean Hannity equates supporting the opposition party with fanaticism. Fanaticism to such a dangerous degree that such a person should not be entrusted in a position of responsibility.

So, hey, Mr. Hannity. Remember that time you wrote, "Obama's rhetorical overtures to democracy, it turned out, were just a decoy to conceal his unwavering determination to govern from the far left.”
― Sean Hannity, Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda

Some might see that as being sorta maybe a little bit akin to a guy who supports the opposition party in a country ruled by an autocratic regime wearing a "Democracy is Dead" t-shirt. Maybe.

I'm also pretty sure that's hardly the only time you've suggested, implied, or even flat-out said that Obama is destroying (or has already destroyed) democracy. You've kind of made a living since 2008 railing against the current administration. I'm also guessing you've spent an awful lot of time watching hearings related to your pet topics, and you would closely follow a trial if you thought the Obama administration was trying some big GOP or Tea Party leader in a clear attempt to silence a political foe.

But as you've made clear this week, you think saying such things and engaging in such activity makes you a fanatic unfit for jobs that involve serious responsibility toward other people. So maybe you shouldn't be entrusted with the responsibility of imparting "news" to the public over television and radio. If the shoe fits...

The Inexplicable Case of Russ Faria

I shouldn't watch Dateline and 48 Hours. The cases featured on those shows all too often feature way too little actual evidence and way too many claims the defendant "just didn't act right." The prosecutors often make outrageous closing arguments that would be considered misconduct in my jurisdiction. Either a detective or prosecutor almost always describes the defendant as pure evil, cold, the most heinous, awful, odious person ever. (They can't all be the most evil killer ever.) More than one episode has involved a trial over a death that probably wasn't even a crime. And yet the defendants are almost always convicted, which just makes me mad. So I really shouldn't watch. But I do.

Friday's episode of Dateline may well have taken the cake in terms of head-spinning, blood-pressure-rising insanity. In Lincoln County, Missouri, Russ Faria was convicted of the murder of his wife even though he had an alibi established by two gas station security cameras, cell phone towers, an Arby's receipt, and four witnesses who were with him all evening.

It all began on a regular old Tuesday evening. Russ went to hang out with his gaming buddies, as he often did on Tuesday nights. He stopped to get gas. Then later, he stopped at a second gas station to buy drinks. Hung out with his friends for a few hours, watching movies instead of playing their usual games. Left around 9, stopped at Arby's, then arrived home around 9:40 pm. That's when he made the frantic 911 call to report that his wife appeared to be dead.

Betsy had been stabbed multiple times, with the final wound being to her neck, where the knife remained. In his panic, Russ told the 911 operator that he thought his wife had killed herself. Naturally, police immediately looked to the husband. The nature and number of her stab wounds suggested the kind of overkill that usually indicates a crime of passion by someone who loved the victim. Then with that odd comment about suicide, it was expected the police would look at Russ.

It didn't hurt that Betsy's closest friend, Pam Hupp (remember that name), was telling them all about the troubled Faria marriage. Including the "game" she says Betsy told her about, where Russ would hold a pillow over Betsy's head and tell her that's what it would feel like when she died. Other friends talked about Russ being immature, a little cringe-worthy at times, but none corroborated Pam's pillow story.

It definitely made sense to look at Russ. They also had some of Betsy's blood on a light switch and on Russ' slippers in the bedroom. Made them sure he must have done it. No other killer, apparently, was capable of touching that light switch or those slippers.

He gave a pretty detailed accounting of his night, so lots for the police to check out. They checked first one gas station and then the next. Sure enough, he was seen on security cameras at both stations, in the (blood-free) clothes he was wearing when emergency responders arrived at the scene of the crime. The game night friends all confirmed Russ was there from around 6 until 9. An Arby's receipt confirmed that purchase, at an Arby's about 30 minutes away from his house. Thus, making the timing of his 911 call entirely appropriate. And throughout it all, Russ' cell phone was pinging off towers right by that friend's house, not by his own.

Now, cell phone tower pings aren't conclusive evidence of a person's phone's location. Cell phones generally connect to the closest available tower unless that one is busy, then they go to the next closest, and the next closest, and etc. Depending on how busy the cell phone towers right by my house are, my text or call can go through a tower farther away from my house without me leaving home. But if for several hours your phone is consistently pinging off that tower right by your friend's house, it's pretty likely that your phone really was close to that tower for that chunk of time.

With an alibi so thoroughly backed up with security cameras, receipts, cell phone towers, and 4 honest, reliable citizens, one might expect the police to think, "Dang, this isn't our guy." Or at least, "If he did it, he hired somebody."

But, no. They doggedly stuck with Russ Faria being their guy. They still said his initial comment about suicide was suspicious. (Did I mention that Betsy had terminal cancer?) They still insisted his hysterical crying on the 911 call and at the station that night was suspicious. (Of course! The "he didn't act right" theory is alive and well.) They still insisted this was a rage-filled, crime of passion that could only have been carried out by someone who loved her and flew into a blind rage. They insisted his alibi was "too" good. Two gas stations? Someone really wanted to be seen! (Or someone needed to buy gas right away and then wanted a cold drink after a 30 minute drive? Or someone has a gas rewards card at one station, but that one doesn't carry his favorite drink? Really, for the purposes of putting yourself 30 minutes away from your house, one gas station security camera is plenty.)

So they went with a completely cockamamie story that defies all logic.

They decided that Russ Faria got gas at the one gas station, bought drinks at the second one, drove to his friend's house, left his cell phone there, got these 4 decent people to lie for him, drove home, stripped naked, had sex with his wife (she had some of her husband's sperm inside her, obviously suspicious), then killed her. Then he showered and re-dressed, somehow getting blood only on his slippers. While one of the friends brought his phone back, carefully stopping at the Arby's drive-thru on the way.

So many problems with this theory, of course. The semen in the victim isn't evidence of anything except that the marriage was, um, functional. It was a relatively small sample, consistent with Russ' story that they'd last had sex on Sunday night. (Semen can survive for 72 hours.) I've never seen any reference to the victim being unclothed in any way, which kinda hurts the sex claim. The sex claim by the prosecution was just silly on every level and totally gratuitous. Gratuitous claims are usually the hallmark of a weak case.

Then there's the spurious (and despicable) accusations against Russ' friends. For this story to be true, all four of them had to be part of a murder conspiracy. They would all four have made themselves at least accessories after the fact. The friend who is supposed to have brought the phone to Russ' house and made the Arby's stop is a downright murderer by legal standards. And a fool, because I wouldn't take the risk of going through a drive-thru. At the very least, you're setting up a witness who might remember the guy who picked up two sandwiches at 9 pm. At worst, though, there could be security cameras on that drive-thru. Don't a lot of drive-thrus have cameras? So the people inside the restaurant can see the cars? Wouldn't one think it likely (or at least quite possible) that the feeds from that are recorded, as security camera footage usually is? So that's taking quite a risk that there won't now be evidence of your car or your face being connected to that Arby's receipt. Not to mention, how many people really have 4 friends who would all as a group stick together and lie to help a person get away with murder? Not one of those friends would crack and turn state's evidence against all the rest of them, out of fear that if he didn't, one of the others would? Let me assure you, it would be the rarest of rare 5 person murder conspiracies to have all 5 people stand firm and not one crack and take a deal.

Of course, it doesn't seem like any deals were necessary because none of those 4 people have ever been charged. Probably because deep down in places the prosecutors don't talk about at parties, they know perfectly well that their conspiracy story is utter bunk.

Oh, and then there's the thing that made the police suspect Russ the husband in the first place. The murder was a crime of passion, they said. It was so overdone, the kind of thing that only happens when someone flies into a blind rage against someone he loves. But this story they've concocted is as premeditated a murder plan as they come. So which is it? Crime of passion? Or complex, premeditated conspiracy? Really, if you were going to give yourself this great alibi, wouldn't you make a little effort to make the murder look like a burglary or something?

At this point, I hope you can all see that the state's case is nuts, logic-defying, and, btw, gravely insulting to 4 innocent, never charged persons who did nothing to deserve having their reputations sullied thusly.

And I haven't even gotten to the best part yet.

Remember Pam Hupp? (I did tell you to.) She's the friend of the victim who oh-so-helpfully told the police all about how awful the Faria marriage was and how Russ played the murder game, etc. and etc. and etc. Funny thing about Pam Hupp. Guess who was the beneficiary of Betsy Faria's life insurance policy? Her husband? Nope. Her minor children? Nah. Mother? Sister? Don't be silly. The beneficiary of Betsy Faria's life insurance policy was: Pam Hupp! To the tune of $150,000.

Apparently, Pam got Betsy to switch over her life insurance just days before she died. Pam swears it was for the kids, because Betsy didn't trust Russ to be responsible with the money. But funny thing, she apparently shouldn't have trusted Pam, either. Just prior to trial, the detective who was going over her trial testimony with Pam told her she really ought to set up a trust for Betsy's kids, as that would look better to the jury. Give credence to Pam's claims that the insurance transfer was legit, meant to protect Betsy's children (who so far hadn't seen a dime). Pam swore she would. But as of the Dateline episode, the family members who now have the children still hadn't heard word one about a trust.

So it would seem Pam might be someone to look at, just based on motive alone. But there's something else you might want to know. Guess who was the last person to see Betsy Faria alive? I'll save you the trouble: it was Pam Hupp. Pam drove Betsy home that evening, well after Russ was at game night. Pam had some trouble remembering whether she came inside or not, whether Betsy walked her to the door or not, etc. She made a call to Betsy that Betsy didn't answer. This call was ostensibly to let Betsy know Pam had gotten home safely. But it went through the cell tower right by Betsy's house... Raising the notion that the phone call was a fake because not calling would make it seem like she already knew Betsy was dead.

Now for the real kicker. The jury didn't get to hear anything about the insurance, meaning Pam's possible motive for killing Betsy. The district court ruled it inadmissible, citing this odd old rule that a defendant can't introduce circumstantial evidence of a third party's motive for committing the crime without having some evidence to tie the third party to the actual crime. Kinda makes it hard for a defendant to create reasonable doubt if the defendant can't point to all the other people who might have had a reason to commit the crime, no?

Missouri is actually not alone in having this prohibition against SODDI evidence. (SODDI = some other dude did it.) Mercifully, Kansas has largely abandoned the prohibition, though. But we already knew Kansas is way better than Missouri. I digress.

Regardless of whether the SODDI prohibition is valid, though, the district court blew it on this one, for two reasons. First, there is direct evidence to connect Pam Hupp to the crime: she was at the crime scene around the time of the murder. She dropped Betsy off sometime around 7, the first missed phone call was around 7:20, and emergency responders arrived after 9:40. They noted signs that Betsy had been dead for some time (as in 2-2 1/2 hours). So Pam was at the crime scene at the right time. I've got a lot of clients in prison who were told that was plenty to connect them to a murder. So even under the SODDI rule, the insurance evidence should have come in.

The thing that has always bugged me the most about this SODDI rule, though, is that circumstantial evidence is more than enough to prosecute someone. If a prosecutor charged Pam, that prosecutor would have no bar at all to introducing all that stuff about Pam.The prosecution can present whatever cockamamie theory they can come up with, then say because this is their theory, the defense can't present this other sensible information.

The insurance evidence should have come in for a separate reason, though. Cross-examination is supposed to be a wide-ranging opportunity to question the credibility of the witness against the defendant. Pam was a pretty key witness for the prosecution. She had a pretty strong bias in not wanting any insurance company sniffing around her big payout. It was definitely in her best interest that Betsy's murder be solved and be solved in a way that absolved her. This would be true even if she had nothing to do with Betsy's murder herself, so pointing this out to the jury isn't technically the same as trying to present her as a SODDI option. The defense should absolutely have been allowed to cross-examine her on this.

It's no secret what the defense thinks happened: Pam killed her and did all she could to make sure Russ took the fall so she'd get the cash. The defense thinks she picked up Russ' slippers and touched them to Betsy's blood, which would explain why nothing else in the closet with the slippers was bloodied. That would make at least as much sense, if not more, than Russ stripping naked, except for his slippers. Why wouldn't he have had the Arby's buying buddy take the bloody slippers?

So from what I've gleaned between watching the Dateline episode (even Keith Morrison doesn't seem to think this conviction is solid) and from reading news articles, this is the case against Russ Faria.

I find it horrifying to learn that the jurors all discounted the 4 alibi witnesses. It's not like these 4 people all had criminal records or told wildly different accounts of the evening or cracked on the stand. Nope, they all 4 just consistently said Russ was with them from around 6 to around 9. For this, they were disbelieved by a jury, by Betsy's mother, and by the prosecution. In fact, they were vilified by the prosecution, made a part of a big murder conspiracy in a closing argument long on imagination and very short on fact. On their behalf, I'm offended. As a defense attorney, I'm also offended by the closing argument, which I would have a lot of fun tearing apart under Kansas's prosecutorial misconduct rules.

I find it horrifying that both the investigators and the prosecutors would so doggedly stick to their first assumption that the husband did it rather than investigate other avenues once it became clear his evening was fully accounted for. I find it horrifying that a person can fully account for his evening and yet still be charged with and convicted of murder. I find it horrifying that police, prosecutors, victim's family members, and jurors would slander good people just trying to tell the truth without one shred of evidence.

I will find it horrifying if this travesty of a conviction isn't overturned on appeal.

Be free, Glenn Ford! (And, hey, bummer about those 30 years you spent on death row... Oops.)

By the time I am writing this, I hope and expect that Glenn Ford will be breathing free air, beholden to no one, and eating something far better than prison food. For 30 years, Ford, now 64, has been incarcerated in Louisiana, at Angola Prison, the most nightmarish prison in the country. In 1984, Ford was sentenced to death. Now in 2014, the prosecution and district court have finally acknowledged what they had been pretending they didn't know for decades: Ford had nothing to do with the murder for which he was sentenced to death.

The linked story is a pretty white-washed, fact-light, feel-good version of the story. The victim's nephew calls this a "positive reflection on the criminal justice system." The prosecution itself filed a motion to vacate Ford's conviction, so look how kindly and justice-focused those nice prosecutors are! And good on the judge who signed off on it. Yay, justice system! It works!

Now let's put that nonsense aside and be honest about what really happened here. Back in November, 1983, when Isadore Rozeman (a white man) was murdered, Glenn Ford was a black man who had been seen at the scene that day. That Ford was at Rozeman's shop because he did yard work for the man hardly mattered. Nor did it matter that Ford went to the police station on his own to see what questions he might be able to help police with or that he cooperated for months. Really, all that mattered was that he was there on the day of the murder and he was acquainted with the chief suspects. The chief suspect's girlfriend told police Ford was with her boyfriend and his brother. But Ford had the gun, she said.

Ford was given two lawyers who knew next to nothing about criminal defense work. He literally got the next two names on the bar list. (At least these days to get a criminal appointment, a lawyer has to request being on the criminal appointment list. In my state, anyway.) The state made up some crazy "expert" testimony (good thing, too, because the girlfriend apparently utterly fell apart on the stand, admitting her testimony was all a lie). The state's experts included a coroner who insisted the killer was left-handed. He must have used a Ouija board, because he didn't actually conduct the autopsy. There was some bad fingerprint claim and a bad gunshot residue claim. Stuff that a modern day defense attorney can see right through, but that maybe doesn't sound crazy to a couple of civil attorneys in 1984. These civil attorneys never thought to find their own expert because they didn't know they could do that.

There were all kinds of other problems, too. The state didn't quite turn over all the exculpatory information it should have, a sadly common theme in wrongful convictions. The state excused all the black prospective jurors from the jury panel, another common theme. Appellate courts rejected complaints about these problems for decades, often doing so even while acknowledging they were real problems. Yes, Mr. Ford, you've raised some troubling concerns about the reliability of the process by which you were convicted and sentenced to death. Now go back to Angola.

For 30 years, the state proceeded with a crap case relying on a completely unreliable witness and junk expert testimony. The state withheld exculpatory evidence. The state engaged in racial profiling at jury selection. The defense attorneys should have been preparing oil and gas paperwork or investigating slip and falls, not standing between a black man in the south and the executioner. And for 30 years, courts overlooked all of those flaws.

So let's be clear about what happened today. While Glenn Ford being released is a great thing, it is most definitely not a "positive reflection on the criminal justice system." For Glenn Ford, the system did not work. Not at all.

If the system had worked as it should, Glenn Ford would have had a jury not entirely composed of white people (who, let's be honest, in Louisiana in 1984 might not have been the fairest judges of a black man accused of murder). The key witness' testimony would have been thrown out entirely when she admitted lying. The state would have turned over all the exculpatory information in its possession. The court would have appointed experienced criminal attorneys to represent Ford. Those defenders would easily have found experts to refute the absurd "forensic" testimony relied on by the prosecution, quite possibly discrediting it so thoroughly before trial that the fake evidence couldn't even be heard by a jury.

If the system had worked as it should, Glenn Ford would never have been convicted of a murder he didn't commit, let alone being sentenced to death. At the very least, the appellate court that expressed serious concerns about the case against Ford would have reversed his convictions. Goodness knows they had sufficient reasons to. Or at the VERY least, the courts who heard the second round of appeals, all focusing on the woefully inept defense attorneys who didn't know they could hire experts or subpoena witnesses from out-of-state, would have acknowledged that the outcome could have been different if he'd had attorneys who knew what the heck they were doing.

For 30 years, the state blindly prosecuted and courts blindly affirmed this innocent man. Glenn Ford even had one execution date set. Fortunately, that was one occasion when a court did not blindly affirm as Ford was obviously not executed. But I would bet dollars to donuts the state opposed the defense motion to stay that death warrant, despite all the reasons everyone had to suspect the validity of Ford's conviction and sentence.  I would bet that the state argued for its right to kill this man, even as it fought to preserve a conviction despite its own racial bias in jury selection, reliance on junk evidence, and refusal to follow its most basic evidentiary obligations.

By this point in the appellate proceedings, Glenn Ford had no recourse left. Any motions his attorneys filed for him could have been rejected summarily as being time-barred. So I guess some people think Glenn Ford should now fall over thanking the nice prosecutors who filed the motion to vacate his conviction and sentence, because they didn't have to. Just think about that for a minute. For decades, the state has known this conviction was based on nonsense but did nothing but defend the conviction. And yet, if the state hadn't finally, mercifully radically altered its position and magnanimously agreed to file a motion on his behalf, Glenn Ford would have probably been executed. This is not what we should consider anywhere within the zone of a properly functioning system.

What happened to Glenn Ford is an absolute travesty that makes the criminal justice system look like a sham. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 

A good omen?

Oh my god, you guys. I am going to cry. Yep, there I go. Crying, just a little.

Remember this, the apocryphal (and yet true) story of when the defender in me sprang to life? My 6th grade teacher was always my favorite, anyway. He would release us each individually at the end of the day after making sure our desks were neat. For the first kid, he would say, "Okay, Mark, you can go." Then it would get a little more casual, "Ok, Alice." And then, "K." For me, he always said, "Que Sera Sera." Of course he could say that to me and know that I knew the reference. (Yes, by the age of 11, I had seen "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and knew the song quite well.)

But the story of "To Kill a Mockingbird" is the real reason I've always remembered him more fondly than any other teacher.

And tonight, I got to tell him that story! Facebook to Facebook! About a year ago, I found an old friend from elementary school. Just about 10 minutes ago, she posted that she just got to chat with her favorite elementary school teacher. So I asked where she found him, and he responded! With a friend request! Yes, that's a lot of exclamation points. I'm pretty excited about this. So sue me.

It has always bugged me somewhere in the back of my brain that someone helped me find my true purpose but had no idea how key a role he'd played. And what teacher doesn't want to hear from the students who still feel that influence even 30 years later? (No, 29!)

The start to this year has been rough, professionally. Public defenders have been taking a lot of crap. I've been feeling beat down, hopeless, defeated, basically all the pessimistic, bad feelings you can think of. I have needed something good. The time change has already helped improve my mood with that extra hour of sunlight after work. (I definitely need the light after work, not in the morning. Sorry for those of you who hate it, but springing forward in March is critical for me.) And now I got to tell my favorite teacher just how amazing he was. That's a pretty good start to a turnaround. I hope.

Now excuse me while I go purge my Facebook of all the things I would hate for my favorite grade school teacher to know about adult Sarah...

 

Starving a child does not feed its soul

Paul Ryan is not a nice man. Let's just be clear about that before we begin.

Today at CPAC, Ryan took on one of the hard right's favorite targets: free lunches for kids. For some reason, providing lunches to poor school kids really sets off some politicians. They famously proclaim that kids should learn that there are no free lunches! With no regard for the fact that for kids, there really should be free lunches. I sure never paid for my own lunch when I was in grade school. Did you? Some conservatives seem to find it really, really offensive that they are paying for poor kids to eat.

So Ryan told this story that he says he heard from a member of Scott Walker's cabinet. (Don't get me started on the quality of the people Scott Walker surrounds himself with.)

“This reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. She serves in the cabinet of my friend Governor Scott Walker. She once met a young boy from a poor family. And every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. But he told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch – one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids’. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him.

 

“That’s what the Left just doesn’t understand.”

There are so many problems to identify in this one tiny story. First, I seriously doubt the origins of the story, because these sorts of anecdotes are always told second or third hand. Second, I doubt the truth of the story, as these sorts of anecdotes that make their way into speeches are almost never really true. Sure enough, Wonkette has uncovered a possible origin for the story. If the story Ryan told actually came from the book Wonkette suggests, boy howdy did either Eloise Anderson or Paul Ryan seriously bastardize the story in a way that utterly missed the point of the original story.

In the alternate story, the boy doesn't have anyone to care for him. A woman who knows the boy offers to take care of his lunches each day. She suggests that she can either buy him a lunch card or take him grocery shopping weekly to pick out foods and then get a packed lunch to him every day. When offered that option, the boy asked if that packed lunch could be in a brown paper bag because in his child mind, he has decided that kids who bring lunch to school in a brown paper bag have someone at home who cares about him/her. This poor boy doesn't have any such person. By asking for his free lunch to be packaged in a brown paper bag, he was asking to have tangible evidence that someone cares about him.

Paul Ryan undoubtedly didn't do any kind of research into the veracity of this story. He probably didn't stop to think about it at all. He probably heard Anderson tell this story over cocktails some evening and it resonated with his pre-set world view. "See?!," he thought, "Kids don't want free lunches! They want parents who will love them enough to pay for their food! So we should stop providing free lunches because it's bad for kids' souls!"

Here's what Paul Ryan doesn't get. No kid who doesn't have regular access to lunch is going to turn down free lunch. Kids would rather be not hungry than hungry. I know that's hard to understand, but if he sat down and thought about it for a while, he'd probably get it. Kids would rather know that adults will care for them, will not let them fall through the cracks, will step in where their own parents are struggling. Any of that would be much better than knowing that society is ok with them going hungry. Yes, they want parents who will love them, but they're not going on hunger strikes until they get that. Oh, and, duh, parents needing help to pay for lunch does not equate to parents not loving their kids. It quite often simply equates to parents working their buts off at low-paying jobs where incomes have not kept pace with cost of living increases. (Seriously, when was the last time Paul Ryan went into a grocery story for anything other than a photo op?)

It boggles the mind that Ryan somehow sees it as bad for kids' souls to provide them food. How is denying them food somehow feeding their souls? What sort of twisted religion does he follow that says it is better for a child's soul to let that child go hungry than to show that child there are compassionate adults in his society who won't let him go hungry?

The truth is that the Paul Ryans of the world don't want to pay for other people. They don't want to help out kids who have nothing because it should be the responsibility of someone else. Deep down in places he doesn't talk about at parties, this Ayn Rand lover probably thinks it's just as well for the world if the people who can't afford to pay their own way die off. And somehow, because he so badly doesn't want to take on responsibility for anyone other than his own, he has convinced himself it's actually a kindness not to do so.

Paul Ryan is wrong. Dead wrong. Only a soulless person would deny food to kids. Feeding their bellies IS feeding their souls.

I didn't know defending a cop killer was incompatible with justice...

 Newsflash: representing someone convicted of murder and sentenced to death does not disqualify one from being appointed to the Department of Justice. Even if that convicted murderer is the "unrepentant cop killer" at the center of Philadelphia's most emotionally-charged, divisive case.

According to some Republicans and a whole host of law enforcement organizations, though, such an attorney is an "offensive choice" to join the DOJ. I trust you can guess what I think about that.

Debo Adegbile used to work with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a leader in the national fight against the death penalty. The LDF doesn't just help train death penalty lawyers or work on national policy, it also represents individuals. One individual the LDF represented is Mumia Abu-Jamal, about as hot-button a death penalty defendant as there is. Mumia was on death row for decades after being convicted of murdering a cop, but his death sentence was abandoned for good in 2011.

Mumia's supporters insist his trial was a racist sham. Many maintain he is innocent, that he was targeted for his subversive speech. Law enforcement hates his guts, thinks he's an unrepentant cop killer. And, apparently, that representing him makes a defense attorney unfit for a job at the DOJ.

The DOJ job in question is in the Civil Rights Division. The nomination of Adegbile has been called a "slap in the face" to law enforcement (Carl Rowan, of the Washington Times) and sends a "message of contempt" to police officers (Seth Williams, Philadelphia DA).

Well, I find those comments to be a slap in the face to the defense bar, sending a message of contempt to the work we do. I'm not going to go down the road of arguing how much or how little Adegbile really did on the case, because that would be giving any credence to the idea that representing a particularly loathed defendant makes one unfit for a job with the Attorney General. It is obscene for prosecutors, Senators, and police to suggest that working on the other side of the adversarial process disqualifies that attorney from a government appointment.

I am so tired of being expected to defend what I do, of being treated like a punching bag, a nuisance, a barrier to justice rather than an essential part of it. It's bad enough to get thoughtless questions at cocktail parties, from people who aren't part of the system and just have never been taught any better. But prosecutors, police officer, and US Senators damn well ought to know better. They're supposed to know how the system works and why it's important. The adversary system doesn't work very well if there's no adversary. And no one should be satisfied with a system where the state's word for it goes without challenge. So if you believe all that, you shouldn't run around disparaging the people who do the challenging. You certainly shouldn't think doing that work is somehow fundamentally incompatible with pursuing justice.

Oh, and for the record, there was a fatal flaw in the way Mumia Abu-Jamal's jury was instructed, so it's a good thing those damn pesky lawyers at the LDF fought so hard for their client.