Tag: law

John Edwards, George Zimmerman trial prediction

We discover that the Securities and Exchange Commission had staff IN the Lehman offices MONTHS before the disaster, and apparently didn’t recognize what was going on.

John Edwards (D-NC), the 2004 Vice-Presidential nominee on the John Kerry ticket, is on trial for misappropriation of 2008 Presidential campaign contributions in order to support Rielle Hunter, his former lover and mother of his youngest child. This was going on while Edwards’ wife Elizabeth was was dying of cancer; a sordid affair. Edwards was offered a plea bargain that would have given him months of jail time, though he would have lost his law license; he could get 30 years. I suspect he turned down the deal because he thinks he can win in court. The crux of the matter is whether those payments to Hunter were actually campaign contributions.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Executive Director Melanie Sloan notes “Sen. Edwards’ conduct was despicable and deserves society’s condemnation, but that alone does not provide solid grounds for a criminal case. DOJ’s scattershot approach to prosecuting public officials is incomprehensible and undermines the integrity of the criminal justice system.”

The lead prosecution witness is Andrew Young (no, not this Andrew Young), and he has a lot of credibility issues. I believe Edwards will be found “not guilty.” If by some bizarre chance he is convicted, he’ll win on appeal.

George Zimmerman

After the initial procrastination, prosecutors decide to charge George Zimmerman with second-degree murder in the case of Trayvon Martin. They could have charged him with manslaughter or some other lesser charge. Because the Sanford, Florida police understood the law in a particular way on the night of the incident, the jury will never know, for instance, whether George Zimmerman had been drinking or on some other substance. Absent new evidence, I think Zimmerman will be found “not guilty.”

Lehman Brothers

From the Los Angeles Times: “Less than a year before the 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros. plunged the global economy into a terrifying free fall, the Wall Street firm awarded nearly $700 million to 50 of its highest-paid employees… The documents, which were among the millions of pages submitted in Lehman’s bankruptcy, show the list of top earners each were pledged $8 million to $51 million in cash, stock, and other compensation. How much, if any, of the stock was cashed in before the bankruptcy wiped out its value couldn’t be determined. Still, the rich pay packages for so many people raised eyebrows even among compensation experts and provided fresh evidence of the money-driven Wall Street culture that was blamed for triggering the financial crisis.”

Now, why haven’t there been indictments in THIS situation? If you saw the CBS News program 60 Minutes on April 22, you have a pretty good idea. “Steve Kroft talks to the bank examiner whose investigation reveals the how and why of the spectacular financial collapse.” We discover that the Securities and Exchange Commission had staff IN the Lehman offices MONTHS before the disaster and apparently didn’t recognize what was going on. Perhaps this makes the case more difficult to prosecute. Will ANYONE from Lehman Brothers be indicted? Maybe, for show. Will anyone be convicted? I’m not holding my breath.

Mr. Parrot’s & Tom the Mayor’s Moral Dilemma Questions

At every stage, I try to pressure my friend to do the right thing, while keeping to the letter of our agreement.

Shooting Parrots, from across the pond, as they say, decides to try to confound me.

Okay, here is one of those moral dilemma questions for you:

Your closest friend wants to talk to you about something, but you have to promise that it is just between the two of you. They then tell you that they ran someone over with their car last night and drove off without stopping to see how they were.

The following day you read that the person died and their body had been hit by several other cars. One of those drivers has been arrested and charged with causing death by dangerous driving. Worse still, it appears that the driver may have been drunk.

You don’t know whether it was your friend that killed the person or the cars that came later, but at the very least it was your friend who put the person in a situation where they would be killed.

You try to persuade your friend to turn themselves in, but they flatly refuse. Meanwhile, an ‘innocent’ driver may go to jail because of it and carry the guilt of it forever.

You have no idea how good I can be at laying on guilt when there is actual guilt to be laid on. I find out as much as possible about the other driver. Hope he or she has a family, which, I could tell my friend, would be without a father/mother, etc.

If that fails, I tell my friend that I will contact the defense attorney, and, I hope without specifically implicating my friend, and ideally anonymously, point him/her to the possibility of another theory of the crime.

Finally, if the prosecution has rested – the prosecution presents its case first in courts in the United States – I would tell my friend that I will make myself known to the defense, then do so. The defense could call me as a witness, and I’ll tell my friend that. At the end of the day, the defense might call me, and I would, under oath, be willing to testify to what I know. Now, the prosecution might likely object, wishing my testimony to be deemed inadmissible, as hearsay, and the judge might agree. But this would still aid competent defense lawyers and perhaps the police to look elsewhere for a suspect.

Note that, at every stage, I try to pressure my friend to do the right thing, while keeping to the letter of our agreement.

Did I ever tell you that, after I gave up the idea of being a minister, I decided to be a lawyer? Gave up that idea in college, but I was always a sucker for the law shows such as The Defenders (E.G. Marshall, Robert Reed), Judd for the Defense (Carl Betz), and, of course, Perry Mason (Raymond Burr).
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Tom the Mayor says:
How about another Moral question? Would you kill someone to protect your daughter and wife, if their lives were at stake?

I would think so; I’m assuming no other options available. Still, there are factors that make the scenario trickier. For instance, unless he’s already killed or injured, how would I know he was going to kill, rather than just threaten?

And what circumstances would be involved where I would be able to potentially kill someone without endangering my family? Use of a gun? Never fired one, save for my grandfather’s hunting rifle when I was 7. I’d feel even worse if, in trying to save them, I harmed them or a bystander. As the physician says, First do no harm.

The most likely situation I envision would involve hand-to-hand fighting, where taking the would-be assailant out a window or into traffic or off a cliff, even if it meant taking me too. I could better imagine that.

But if I were to kill someone, even in self-defense, or in the defense of others, and survived, I would mourn that loss for the rest of my life.
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Still taking questions.

Musings

I’ve found myself unable to create any Best Of for the year.

I was reading Tegan’s blog a couple of weeks ago. She was telling this really interesting story about some friend of hers who had purchased an e-book for his Kindle or Nook or whatever and wanted to lend the book to his wife. But because of the DRM restriction, he was unable to. Then Tegan found for him a, let’s say, non-standard copy of the book. The act of obtaining the pirated copy may have been – OK, almost certainly was – a legal wrong, but Tegan categorized it as a moral right; I found myself agreeing with her assessment.

I know I’ve done similar things for the greater good. The only example that comes to mind involves the purchase of marijuana for a friend’s uncle who was on chemo. This was – the statute of limitations has run out, I’ll put it that way.

Which always brings me back to Dickens: Sometimes, at least, “The law is a ass.”

I always notice when people put the wrong word in an article, such as it’s for its, or effect for affect. I’m not talking typos, I’m talking errors. I’ll admit that, in the past, I might have thought less of that writer. But in a blog post by a very intelligent friend of mine, he used it’s when he meant it’s several times. I wrote to him about this privately, and he replied, “My dear old grammar died when I was very young so I never learned proper punctuation.” I was charmed enough to let it pass.

I’ve found myself unable to create any Best Of lists for the year, best of the music I bought, or movies I’ve seen, for a couple of reasons. 1) I just didn’t buy that much music or see that many movies, and of those I listen to or see, many predated 2010. But, moreover, 2) I’ve lost that ability to remember what music I even bought this year. I wouldn’t know about the movies if I didn’t blog about them. It appears I’ve lost the ability to think about life in 12-month segments.
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When Governor Cuomo (that’d be Andrew, not his father Mario) was giving his State off the State address earlier this month, I was live Facebooking. It was fun. It could be addictive. I’m not likely to do it again any time soon, for that very reason!

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