Jon's news & views

Greenland dog image available for publc use here. 

' 

Ken Lammers and Scott Greenfield recently commented on the dropping of Underdog from my blog's title line.

I selected the Underdog moniker for this blog's 2006 maiden voyage, to capture the essence not only of me, my clients, and my criminal and Constitutional defense work, but also the immigration law work of my then-law partner Jay Marks. The moniker -- originally inspired by my hero and amazing teacher Steve Rench -- still fits, so I have returned the Underdog title to its rightful place on this blog's masthead.  

As to the title of this blog entry, thanks for the Talking Heads' inspiration for it. Jon Katz. 

Imagine not just reading our Underdog blog, but working at Underdog's central headquarters. I humbly ask Underdog's readers to send the finest candidates our way to fill an additional part-time legal assistant position. Full details about the position are here.

Our office is less than a mile from our nation's capital. It does not get any better than this for those seeking such work. Thanks for those who spread the word of this job opening at our law firm. Jon Katz. 

Even though Maryland courts and government offices apparently are closed for Election Day, we will be open today. Remember to vote early and often. Jon Katz.

Too often, people think that full bilingualism is enough to do sufficient interpreter work. Wrong, especially when it comes to the fast pace and rough-and-tumble of interpreting during a trial.

Next time a judge questions why passing an interpreter certification test is not good enough, show the judge this article, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/13/AR2008101302419.html. Jon Katz.

For many years, I have been defending about as many criminal cases in Virginia as in Maryland. In Virginia, I defend more criminal cases in Fairfax County than anywhere else in the commonwealth.

Most of the counties where I practice in Virginia are a close drive to my office and home. However, many potential and actual Virginia clients would prefer the convenience of my having a Virginia office. Furthermore, some are on pretrial release that confines them to Virginia. Consequently, I researched shared office suite options, and selected a good one with full-time reception service in a nice office building with free parking in Tysons Corner in Fairfax County, Virginia.

My Silver Spring, Maryland, office will continue to be my principal office. Here is the location of my new Virginia office:

Jon Katz, P.C., 1420 Spring Hill Road, Suite 600, Tysons Corner/ McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia 22102, (703) 917-6626.

Speaking of Virginia law practice, I understand that some D.C.-licensed lawyers toy with the idea of obtaining nothing more than a Virginia address in an effort to obtain a Virginia bar license without taking the Virginia bar exam. However, my reading of the governing legal provisions is that such reciprocity is only available to those who will be practicing full-time in Virginia. Therefore, I went to the trouble of preparing for and taking the Virginia bar exam twelve years ago, simultaneously handling a full trial litigation docket. After a long day of litigation work, I would plow through my home study course's audiotapes and workbooks, do practice essays that were evaluated by the course's owner and director, and then go back to work the next day.

I am happy I went to the trouble of taking and passing the Virginia bar the exam. I get many interesting cases and clients there. Unfortunately, Virginia's criminal justice system overall is the most draconian of all three states where I practice. In Virginia, for instance, Jencks material (statements of opposing witnesses) is generally not available in criminal cases; limited discovery is available for criminal cases, particularly in District Court; and a criminal defendant facing no more than one year in jail is forced to pursue a non-jury trial, and, only if convicted may the defendant then appeal for a jury trial de novo after such a conviction and sentencing. Handgun law is one area where Virginia criminal law is more favorable than the law in neighboring Maryland and the District of Columbia; Virginia breathes more life into the Second Amendment than the other two states. Also, Virginia law permits jury voir dire, which is tough to obtain in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Jon Katz.

FYI, our law firm will be open on Columbus Day, October 13.

The only reason thus far that I have identified to justify closing on Columbus Day is to give my staff a well-deserved day off. Other than that, I do not agree with the holiday, particularly when no federal holiday exists to remember the Native Americans who suffered tremendously from the lengthy brutal and unjust treatment that followed over the years and centuries after Columbus's arrival in the Western Hemisphere.  

As I understand it, Columbus was not even the first European explorer to find the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps all that was different about Columbus is that his arrival there led in rapid sequence to land grabs and domination in the hemisphere primarily by Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France. Jon Katz.

Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, when I will continue my three decades-long practice of a completely dry fast from sundown last night to sundown tonight; focusing on harmony with others, nature, and myself; and focusing on continuing to improve daily in treating my fellow humans and other living things justly, caringly, and kindly, including a continuation of my two decades of strict vegetarianism.   

Our law firm will be closed today, and will reopen tomorrow on October 10, to serve you. Jon Katz.

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.

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.

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.