Wednesday, October 8. 2008When indigent criminal defense funding dries up, shrink the criminal justice system.
Two weeks before I was born, the United States Supreme Court mandated that the states provide lawyers to indigent criminal defendants. Gideon V. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). (Listen to the later-to-be, short-lived Justice Abe Fortas -- when he was a name partner at one of Washington's still most highly-regarded huge corporate law firms -- arguing for inmate Clarence Gideon who beat all odds by obtaining the rare right to Supreme Court review after having filed a pro se petition for writ of certiorari. It is remarkable to hear the justices barely interrupt Mr. Fortas for a very long time, while still handing him a unanimous victory.)
The National Legal Aid and Defender Association asserts that: "The right to counsel is the most fundamental procedural safeguard to assure a fair trial in which the government and the accused stand equal before the law. Unfortunately, there is pervasive evidence that Gideon's constitutional promise is not being fulfilled in many states and counties around the country. Some fail to provide adequate funds, standards, training and staffing for public defender offices. Other areas do not have public defender offices and instead contract with the lowest bidder to provide representation for defendants who cannot afford lawyers. There are even jurisdictions where some defendants are not provided with lawyers, even though the Constitution requires it."
Two weeks ago, Maryland Public Defender Nancy Forster announced that her office will no longer provide funding for private lawyers to represent indigent defendants whom the Public Defender's Office cannot represent due to conflicts of interest arising from the office's representation of their co-defendants. This move follows a request from the state's budget office for the Public Defender's Office to find a way to cut $1.3 million from its already underfunded budget. (Of course, the legal system should insulate public defender offices from such pressure from the same executive branch that is involved in prosecuting public defender clients. Moreover, I am dumbfounded why the Maryland Public Defender's Office (and others around the country) have letterheads and, with Maryland, a website that prominently list the governor, no differently than any state agency. Of course, there is an entirely different issue about jurisdictions where chief public defenders run for their office (campaigning under the slogan "Vote for me, and I will save taxpayer money by underfunding my office"?)).
Beforehand in Maryland, all indigent defense funding flowed through the Public Defender's Office, where I worked from 1991 to 1996. I understand that one or more previous chief Maryland Public Defenders took the same approach of ceasing funding for private conflict attorneys due to underfunding, only to have the state government cough up more money, which is not to say that the new funding was always sufficient to effectively defend Maryland's indigent criminal defendants. I have previously handled a few such conflict cases, not for the money (which is low even at the now-increased $50 hourly rate, ordinarily with a low maximum fee cap), but because of the deep importance of continuing to help level the playing field for indigent criminal defendants versus those who can afford lawyers (but still leaving plenty of criminal defendants who do not qualify under the public defender guidelines but who are too poor to hire qualified private counsel.)
Last Friday, Robert M. Bell, who is the chief judge of Maryland's highest court, expressed his concern about this indigent funding crisis, in this letter to Maryland's governor and the heads of both chambers of its legislature.
Judge Bell and everyone else, I have an additional proposal for solving this indigent defense funding crisis: As I have said again and again, we will have a much less expensive and higher quality criminal justice system -- including on the indigent and non-indigent criminal defense side -- once we radically shrink and reform the criminal justice system into one that legalizes marijuana, prostitution, and gambling; that heavily decriminalizes all other drugs; and that sharpens the teeth of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Until such radical reform takes place, we will continue to have a criminal justice system that is grossly unjust, antithetical to a free and democratic society, broken down, overly expensive, and overly socialistic. Jon Katz.Tuesday, October 7. 2008Max Hardcore sentenced for obscenity conviction.
Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.).
What is obscenity? Nobody knows until the jury rules, because obscenity cannot be sufficiently defined. A jury across the courthouse hallway might even reach an opposite conclusion. Therefore, the Supreme Court's obligatory Miller obscenity test gives little First Amendment protection.
The Miller doctrine requires that, inter alia, the jury determine "whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, and (3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). If one self-censors to avoid the personal and financial cost of defending against an obscenity prosecution, the First Amendment is dishonored and battered. If one does not self-censor and is prosecuted for obscenity, the First Amendment also is dishonored and battered.
Do not think for a moment that obscenity prosecutions will be limited only to such over-the-edge videos as those from Extreme Associates and Max Hardcore, both having branded themselves for rough and often degrading sex. Prosecutors focus on such extreme sexual material to avoid acquittals from jurors seeing images found on hotel pay-per-view, and to fly under the radar of a larger public outcry against such prosecutions, as prosecutors move closer and closer to prosecute films that depict sex that is little different than the activities of millions of married couples.
Last week, Paul Little, who uses the stage name Max Hardcore, was sentenced to forty-six months in prison -- the bottom of the advisory federal sentencing guidelines (disclaimer: the links in this paragraph go to Adult Video News, which includes photos of suggestively-clad women) -- for his obscenity conviction after a jury trial last June 2008. I previously blogged about the case here (scroll down below the entry for today's blogpost). As defense team lawyer and class act Louis Sirkin told AVN, Max's previous drunk driving conviction bumped him from a level one criminal history to a level two criminal history, and thus increased his sentencing guidelines. This is among the reasons I warn my clients against jumping too quickly at pleading guilty to any crime.
Here are some documents related to Max Hardcore's conviction and sentencing: Continue reading "Max Hardcore sentenced for obscenity conviction."Monday, October 6. 2008Mu: The power of nothingness. The Chinese script for the character "mu," which means nothing. Why are so many intricate brush strokes needed to convey nothing? (The copyright was relinquished by this animated symbol's creator. The symbol also is available here.)
At first blush -- at least from a traditional Western perspective -- irony would be apparent in the concept that nothingness can be powerful.
However, I already know about the t'ai chi power of emptying one's mind, emptying one's leg as if a person is only standing on the remaining substantial leg, and not chasing the opponent's strength and energy. I also know about the power of being in trial with no baggage and to handle what is immediately at hand, in the now -- in the zone as my brother lawyer Mark Bennett calls it -- and being at once relaxed and powerful to take on any opportunity, apparent threat, or otherwise stressful situation. Furthermore, I know the power of overcoming fear by redefining life as being here now, with no coming nor going, no chasing nor being chased, no increase nor decrease, with a goal towards no fear even of injury and death, but instead being here now.
Around fifteen years ago in the video store, my attention was drawn to Wim Wenders' Tokyo-ga. Seven years earlier, I spent two weeks in Tokyo on business, at once fascinated by the Buddhist and Shinto aspects of the culture and at the same time very clueless about the two. I focused instead on arriving early each morning at the bank I was auditing with my small team from Wall Street's Irving Trust Company that owned the bank, and spending some evening and weekend free time taking in the sights and sounds of the country. Nine years ago, I returned to Japan, this time on vacation, having started grooving on Nichiren Buddhism, and finding a Nipponzan Myohoji Nichiren temple in Osaka only after making several inquiries and finally being driven there by a man from the small market where I had bought some grapefruits for the temple, after having stayed for two days in Tokyo with a very kind and interesting family that follows the Nipponzan Myohoji path.
Tokyo-ga is Wenders' tribute to, search for, and immersion in giant filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu (see one of his clips.) How curious that as I unsuccessfully did a YouTube search for the Wenders film that includes a botched-from-the-beginning store robbery by a man who has just been forced out of his home, I instead found a scene from Tokyo-ga that visits Ozu's gravesite. Instead of saying Ozu's name, his headstone has the above-displayed symbol "mu" (see this photo of his headstone, too), which I understand can be defined -- perhaps very imperfectly defined -- as "nothing". Here are clips from Tokyo-ga, in serial order: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten.
What did Ozu mean by having his headstone say "mu"? Was this how he viewed the afterlife? As nothing? Was it a stunt to keep people thinking even after he departed this world? Was he a Buddhist, seeing that at least the Lotus Sutra -- which is particularly followed by Nichiren Buddhists -- focuses heavily on nothingness, including no attachment to one's body or ego, and no attachment to the suffering inherent with birth, sickness, old age and death? (See this essay on one of the people who was apparently instrumental in driving the foregoing updated 1971 translation of the threefold Lotus Sutra.)
The senses of cinema webpage says: "Whilst in China during his war service, Ozu asked a Chinese monk to paint the character 'mu' for him (an abstract concept loosely meaning 'void' or 'nothingness'). Ozu died painfully on his sixtieth birthday in 1963 of cancer and his tombstone in the temple of Engaku in Kita-Kamakura bears the inscription 'mu' from the monk's painting that he had kept all his life."
Using "mu" on the Western side is Douglas Hofstadter, in Gödel, Escher, Bach. What to do with all this mu? We can learn much from it. Jon Katz Sunday, October 5. 2008Rock Lobster
At the Trial Lawyers College, singing was encouraged and was everywhere, some of it good, some of it mediocre at best, and some of it drowning out the rest of the conversation too much. A good point was made that by doing more singing, we are better at getting our words and arguments not only past our lips, but in a full voice that carries the message where it needs to go. The passion of singing needs to translate into the passion of speaking in court.
One of my favorite songs is the B-52s "Rock Lobster". The song's words do not seem to have much of a meaning. However, the song very much captures the time period, the type of music that was emerging and continuing for several years, and a way of dancing that took little else than hopping around. It was a late Seventies remake of the late Fifties' "Shout" by the Isley Brothers, at least with the parallels to everyone getting down to the ground at the respective commands of "A little bit softer now" and "Down, down, down" followed by "A little bit louder now" and, with "Rock Lobster" an increase in the music volume. Each song moves very much ahead, rather than meandering about. Unlike most of the top music hits, I never got tired of "Rock Lobster".
"Rock Lobster" now is over thirty years old. For better or worse, the band went from a much more gritty and somewhat off-key early version (the off-key part possibly was intentional, considering that this was just a month before releasing their first album) followed by much tighter versions. Here are some video links to the song's performance: 1978 in Atlanta (where Fred Schneider reminds the crowd that servers work for tips); another early version; this polished version that looks made for MTV; and this version two decades after the first performance. Jon Katz Friday, October 3. 2008Poll the jury. Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.).
Before going to trial with or without a jury, it is critical to have a good trial checklist. For jury trials, a critical part of that checklist is to have the jury polled in the event of an adverse jury verdict. Every criminal defendant has the right to require that s/he not be convicted unless his or her request is fulfilled to have each juror asked if the foreperson's verdict is the individual juror's verdict. See, e.g., Maloney v. Maryland, 17 Md. App. 609, 304 A.2d 260 (1973).
Last year, fellow Trial Lawyers College attendee Mark Bennett wrote of a mistrial that would have been missed without a polled jury: "This morning the Houston Chronicle had an article about a health care fraud jury trial in federal court in which, when the jury came back with a guilty verdict, defense lawyer Joel Androphy ... asked that the jury be polled. Judge Werlein polled the jury, and one woman said, 'That’s not my verdict.' Joel moved for a mistrial, which was granted. The accused will get another trial — not right away, probably, but, as Percy Foreman used to say, a continuance is as good as an acquittal, for as long as it lasts."
Commenting on Mark's posting, another fellow Trial Lawyers College attendee, David Tarrell, added this mini-victory from a jury polling: "[T]he lawyer asked for it, a juror hesitated and then said 'No, that’s not my verdict.' The defendant, who was obviously not cuffed during the trial, was now in handcuffs awaiting the verdict. The judge then sent the jury back and when they came back out, their verdict was unanimous to convict. The defense lawyer’s motion for a mistrial was overruled by the judge, but it was a 'slam dunk' on appeal, given the juror’s hesitation and the fact that she changed her mind only upon seeing the man cuffed between 2 deputies. It’s a lesson I’ll never forget, but I don’t think it’s requested often enough."
Why would a lawyer not have a jury polled in a criminal case? Yesterday, Maryland's intermediate appellate court affirmed a conviction where the defendant alleged inconsistent jury verdicts (the Court of Special Appeals found no inconsistency) where he was convicted of child abuse but acquitted on assault and fourth degree sex offense counts. At least from the way the appellate court recounts the entry of the jury verdict, no jury polling was requested (although the Deputy Clerk continued the practice of inserting archaic language into the proceeding: "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, harken to your verdict as the Court hath recordeth it. Your Foreman sayeth..".): Continue reading "Poll the jury."Thursday, October 2. 2008"I want to refer to non-Latino Spanish-speaking lawyers."
Reality so often is more pathetic than fiction.
Yesterday, I was talking with a woman on the way down the courthouse elevator. She works in the courthouse, and we spoke in Spanish, her native tongue; I do not have as much of a throughout-the-day chance to speak Spanish now that I am no longer with my former law partner, whose Spanish is impeccable and whose practice heavily involves the language.
This woman said she was happy to meet an additional Spanish-speaking lawyer (my Spanish is intermediate, bolstered by a quarter century of practice), because some people sometimes ask her for names of such lawyers. Then came the often uncomfortable question: 'Where are you from?" Some just want to know where I grew up. Others actually want to know my ethnic and/or religious background. Once when asked that question, the follow-up was: "Are you American or Jewish?" as if the two are mutually exclusive. The questioner had sold me a bottle of water at a New Orleans airport newsstand, pre-Katrina, and I stormed out labeling her out load "Stupid! Stupid!", which was hardly in sync with my goal of a t'ai chi life twenty-four hours a day.
To this woman on the elevator, I answered "Connecticut, and now in the Washington area a long time." She replied: "So, you are not born abroad?" JK: "That's right." She responded: "Good. I don't want to refer people to lawyers from Latin America [yet she was born a Spanish speaker]. They take advantage of their own." JK: "I've heard enough. Your words make no sense. Have a nice day." (Moreover, who can speak Spanish better than a native-born Spanish speaker?)
Sadly, bigotry remains alive and thriving among too many people, even sometimes by people against their own ethnic group. Perhaps more sadly, too many people do not stand up to such attitudes.
What to do about it? When many years ago I complained to a very selfless and capable public interest lawyer/leader/giant about ongoing rampant bigotry, he replied: "That is why we pursue housing discrimination and employment discrimination lawsuits." However, successful discrimination lawsuits alone will not solve the problem. People who express bigoted attitudes need to be addressed one-by-one, if they have the capacity to listen to reasoning.
Addressing bigots can make waves. Make waves if that is the only way to address them. Do not just sit safely in the middle of a boat hoping it does not rock, only to hit a huge rock that tears apart your boat and sinks it anyway.
How do you handle such situations? Jon Katz. Wednesday, October 1. 2008The dragnet of drug arrests. DEA image in the public domain.
In college, on-campus drug use -- and sometimes drug sales, apparently -- ran rampant. I would sometimes be right in the room or in the dorm hallway as others smoked pot or, in one instance, snorted cocaine. If I did not want to be a hermit, it was hard to avoid being with people who smoked pot; this was the early Eighties, and both pot and beer were very popular (and also unlawful for those under twenty-one to purchase). This also having been the Eighties, for small quantities of drugs, drug enforcement, criminal penalties, and collateral consequences were less harsh.
Welcome to 2008, where few politicians and prosecutors have enough backbone to support legalizing marijuana, heavily decriminalizing all other drugs, and reducing the penalties for drugs, except that I credit those lawmakers and prosecutors who are at least willing to put some first-time drug cases (I only know of marijuana cases) into diversion to give a chance to avoid convictions, and to enable no convictions or less serious convictions for people who use marijuana for medical necessity.
Back to my college experience being around people smoking marijuana, By merely being next to these people -- not even touching nor ingesting the substances -- I was risking arrest, prosecution, and possible conviction, because a drug possession conviction requires nothing more than proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant possessed (defined as knowledge, dominion and control over the drugs) drugs (the prosecutor has the burden to prove the substance was the alleged controlled dangerous substance, ordinarily by bringing in the chemist if any drugs are left and seized). I could have testified until I was blue in the face that I had nothing to do with the drugs, but if I was not believed by the judge or jury, I would have been convicted.
Fortunately, neither I nor the others around me were busted for drug possession. So-called controlled dangerous substances remain illegal, often with harsh penalties and tough collateral consequences for convictions, including risks to student financial aid, government security clearances, and risks to immigration status. If anyone needs a reminder about the risks of being a bystander when drugs are possessed, used or sold, just read this September 9, 2008, opinion from Virginia's Court of Appeals finding sufficient evidence to convict a woman for possessing methamphetamines and marijuana with the intent to distribute by having been present in the house where her fiance sold the items. Dunn v. Virginia, __ Va. App. _ (Sept. 9, 2008). The evidence may have been sufficient to prosecute Ms. Dunn for simple possession of the substances -- including where a small amount of methamphetamines was found in her jewelry or personal bag -- but the concept of allowing a conviction for intent to distribute just because she knows her fiance is distributing should be a sobering wake-up call to otherwise innocent people who hang around with people possessing or distributing drugs. Curiously, after a three-judge Virginia Court of Appeals panel ruled in Ms. Dunn's favor (by as little as a 2-1 vote), only one judge dissented in this en banc opinion. Query: What made the remaining judge(s) in Ms. Dunn's favor change their minds?
It will be a boring world if people choose to avoid arrests by only associating with people as bland as Neil Sedaka, Lawrence Welk, and Pat Sajak hosting Wheel of Fortune. That may be enough of a good reason for legalizing marijuana and heavily decriminalizing all other drugs. Jon Katz. Tuesday, September 30. 2008We are closed today, for the Jewish New Year.
Today is the Jewish New Year/Rosh Hashanah 5769, which I celebrate every year. Therefore, our law firm will be closed today, and will reopen on October 1, 2008, to serve you.
L'shana tova/happy new year. Jon Katz. Monday, September 29. 2008Herman Lee Taylor, Jr.: Meet Kumar Barve and Davis Ruark. Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.).
The nation's drunk driving laws became out of whack by the time the states succumbed many years ago to federal legislation requiring drunk driving convictions for driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 or higher, under the penalty of losing valuable federal state highway funding. For one thing, such a per se guilty rule makes a mockery of the criminal law by failing to recognize that plenty of people can drive just fine at that blood alcohol level, and that plenty of people will not even recognize that they are over such a limit, because it is too low. For another thing, breath tests for blood alcohol content -- which tend to be cops' preferred testing methods because they are quicker, cheaper and less cumbersome than drawing blood, at least at the front end for cops -- are fraught with error based on such problems as machinery problems, errors by the people administering the tests, and fluctuations in the mouth temperature of the testing subjects, which temperature is often not measured by the people administering the tests.
Moreover, the drunk driving laws -- at least in the jurisdictions where I practice law -- are draconian for those who assert what I consider to be their Constitutional right to refuse breath or blood tests. (See here, too.). Continuing the injustice of the nation's drunk driving prosecution regime, without breath or blood test results, prosecutors rely heavily on the junk science of field sobriety tests.
Enough is enough. Let us go beyond Howard Beale (who advises to shout out your window "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore") and insist directly to our federal and state legislators and executives that they overturn the 0,08 drunk driving per se rule, eliminate the draconian penalties for refusing breath and blood tests in suspected drunk and drugged driving cases, and strengthen evidentiary rules against unreliable breath test, blood test, and field sobriety testing evidence. Let us also insist directly to our prosecutors to stop supporting such a draconian drunk driving regime.
In the meantime, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If otherwise law-abiding people are going to get unfairly dragnetted into the drunk driving laws, let government officials responsible for passing and administering such laws get a taste of their own unjust medicine. Without that, we may see no positive reform of such laws.
In that regard, last May 2008, Maryland Delegate Herman L. Taylor, Jr., was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, and goes to trial on October 24, 2008, in Montgomery County, Maryland, District Court. (Thanks to Nobody's Business for blogging on this case.) According to the Washington Post, the police report in the case claims Mr. Taylor was found sleeping in his car with the engine running, that the "officer smelled alcohol and noted that Taylor was confused and disoriented and that his eyes 'were very red and watery.'" The police report also claims that Mr. Taylor displayed poor performance with field sobriety testing, which he ultimately refused to continue (which is his right). The Washington Post also reports that the police report says that after Mr. Taylor agreed to take a breath test for alcohol, he provided an insufficient breath sample which the police deemed a refusal, when in reality numerous innocent factors can cause someone to provide an insufficient breath sample, including the fatigue that Mr. Taylor's lawyer claims he was experiencing.
Ironically, or fittingly, Mr. Taylor is getting a taste of his own medicine, having sponsored a bill in 2006 to require a scarlet letter license plate emblazoned with "DUI" for those with over two drunk driving convictions. To my knowledge, the bill did not become law.
Mr. Taylor's drunk driving prosecution follows on the heels of this year's drunk driving prosecution, guilty plea and probation before judgment of Wicomico County, Maryland, chief prosecutor Davis Ruark and last July's drunk driving guilty plea and probation before judgment of Maryland house majority leader Kumar P. Barve in Montgomery County. As I said about Davis Ruark's case, hopefully Mr. Taylor's and Mr. Barve's ordeals with the police and in the criminal court system will make them more empathetic to the plight of everyone else facing such ordeals. Jon Katz Sunday, September 28. 2008David Wasserman leaves the planet
Sadly, David Wasserman died last Thursday.
Nine years ago, I was further exploring how to get paying, versus only pro bono, clients for First Amendment defense both for criminal and civil cases. This goal fit squarely with my obsession over and passionate work on free speech issues with Amnesty International in college and law school, and my service on the board of the local American Civil Liberties Union a few years before. I recognized that adult entertainment and libel defense were the key avenues to such paying clients.
On the adult entertainment front, I joined and became very active with the Free Speech Coalition, soon thereafter attended a conference of the Association of Club Executives, and later the same year spoke in favor of robust First Amendment protection before a federally-created committee that should never have existed, concerning obscenity laws.
Through the foregoing activities, I met fellow First Amendment lawyer David Wasserman. David believed, as I believe, in helping others rise as we rise. Already a very accomplished First Amendment advocate, David sponsored my application for membership in the First Amendment Lawyers Association. One year after meeting me, David took the time to co-counsel with and teach me in drafting and filing an amicus brief whose contents were referenced extensively in the Maryland Court of Appeals' overturning of Howard County's adult zoning ordinance. Pack Shack v. Howard County, Maryland, 377 Md. 55, 832 A.2d 170 (2003).
In the same year that Howard County's adult zoning ordinance was overturned, David was arrested for growing marijuana at his home, when marijuana should be legalized in the first place. In 2004, with his law license suspended in relation to his marijuana conviction, David turned his attention to such pursuits as opening an adult video and lingerie store, and later running and owing an adult cabaret/strip club.
In late 2007 -- while embroiled in conflict with the local government and his landlord over keeping his cabaret operating -- David was shot in the chest as he returned home with the night's cabaret receipts. Last month, David filed a federal lawsuit against the local government, which describes the shooting as follows: David Wasserman "was robbed and then shot in the chest at point-blank range as he returned home late at night on or about December 9, 2007. He was hospitalized for some time and then convalesced at home for a short time after that. The robber asked for deposits for the club and when Plaintiff’s president said he would cooperate if the robber didn’t hurt him, the robber told him it didn’t matter because he was going to kill him. The robber immediately shot Plaintiff’s president; the bullet grazed his heart, aorta and esophagus and exited his body through his liver."
As Adult Video News online recounts, David said the bullet "'grazed my heart, it grazed my aorta, it grazed my liver and it grazed my esophagus, and it came out and didn't do any damage at all.'" David said that the shooter "'stepped out of the shadows, put a 9mm to my chest, pulled the trigger and said, "I'm gonna kill you." I continued to struggle with him, and he asked where the deposits were, so I knew it was not just a robbery; it was a set-up from the club. I told him the deposits were in the trunk and let me bend over and press the button so he can get in, and he did, and as soon as he walked around to the trunk, I laid on the horn and having just had a gunshot fired and the horn honking, I'm sure he got worried about the noise and stuff, and he took off running without the deposits.'" (As an aside, in recounting the incident, David mentioned the race of his killer; doing so served no purpose, and I disagree with his having done so.) Last April, David talked with Adult Video News online about a then-recent police raid on his club.
Pictured here, David practiced shaolin kung fu. Whether or not this helped him the night he was shot, that was quick thinking to find a way to divert the shooter's attention and to blast his car's horn to get the shooter to run away.
Ironically, after saving his own life last December, last Thursday, David took his own life. As the Orlando Sentinel tells it, David was battling depression for a long time, and previously told of having attempted to kill himself. Adult Video News online provides further details on David's passing.
My brother lawyer Marc Randazza knew David, and gives his own take on David's life and passing here, including Marc's ultimately avoiding David in the interest of associating with happy and fortunate people. As explained below, the thought of avoiding David would not have crossed my mind, particularly when considering how much David helped me. Just as a lawyer needs not be sucked into his or her clients' deep problems, a person does not need to be sucked into a colleague's problems even when lending a helping hand when one is needed.
It goes without saying that I will miss David. The sad story of the ending of his life is a critical reminder to reach out to those around us who are depressed or in other psychological distress, when the help is wanted. Many sister and brother criminal defense lawyers, among many others, struggle with depression. Some people may be reluctant to reach out in order later to avoid feeling like a failure if the person still commits suicide. However, there is no reason to feel like a failure if the reaching out is to lend an empathetic ear and tongue.
Thanks, David, for you. Jon Katz. |
VISIT OUR HOMEPAGE. 301-495-7755. Silver Spring, Montgomery County, Maryland, http://www.katzjustice.com, jon[at]katzjustice[dot]com. ONE MILE FROM THE NATION'S CAPITAL.. UNDERDOG BLOG IS PRESENTED BY CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER JON KATZ.
Jon Katz is AV-Rated / Washingtonian Top 800 Lawyers-listed /Maryland and DC Super Lawyers-listed. Since 1991, criminal defense/ drug/ drunk driving lawyer Jon Katz has fought for victory for criminal defendants and drunk driving/ driving while intoxicated/ DUI/ DWI defendants in felony prosecutions, misdemeanors, and criminal traffic cases. He defends clients in all Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia state and federal courts, including Montgomery County (Rockville and Silver Spring), Fairfax County, Northern Virginia, Arlington County, Alexandria City, Prince George's County (Upper Marlboro, Hyattsville, Greenbelt & Andrews Air Force Base), Howard County (Ellicott City), Frederick County, Anne Arundel County (Annapolis, Glen Burnie & Ft. Meade), Baltimore City, Baltimore County (Towson, Catonsville & Essex), Washington County (Hagerstown), Prince William County (Manassas), and Loudoun County (Leesburg).  QuicksearchGoogle the Site
Support FlexYourRights, (Jon Katz serves on its Board of Advisors.) Recent EntriesWhen indigent criminal defense funding dries up, shrink the criminal justice system.
Wednesday, October 8 2008 Max Hardcore sentenced for obscenity conviction. Tuesday, October 7 2008 Mu: The power of nothingness. Monday, October 6 2008 Rock Lobster Sunday, October 5 2008 Poll the jury. Friday, October 3 2008 "I want to refer to non-Latino Spanish-speaking lawyers." Thursday, October 2 2008 The dragnet of drug arrests. Wednesday, October 1 2008 We are closed today, for the Jewish New Year. Tuesday, September 30 2008 Herman Lee Taylor, Jr.: Meet Kumar Barve and Davis Ruark. Monday, September 29 2008 David Wasserman leaves the planet Sunday, September 28 2008 Comments welcomed.Your comments are encouraged. Our comment software only works by accepting cookies, and possibly only by using Internet Explorer. Here's why we moderate comments, which are usually approved in less than one business day. |
