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MORAL DEFAULT

ECONOMIC DEFAULT

Read Jay B Gaskill’s Lost Souls Coffee Shop, an allegory for the human condition. More on the Bridge to Being Blog at http://jaygaskill.com/blog2/ .

And read Jay Gaskill’s new thriller, The Stranded Ones. More on the Policy Think Site at http://www.jaygaskill.com/TourTheStrandedOnes.pdf .

Welcome to the Policy Think Site: http://www.jaygaskill.com

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On one level, the current economic crisis is too complex for easy discussion. But on another level, that apparent complexity was the reason this crisis was able to metastasize in the first place.

I am now fully persuaded that the root cause of the ongoing economic collapse in the developed Western economies is a pervasive moral failure in the elite culture.

I'm also convinced that the path to economic recovery necessarily requires a strong measure of moral recovery.

Here is the fundamental operating moral principle:

Comfortable distance enables destructive immoral behavior.

The first time I tumbled to this simple truth was during a study of the Third Reich.

How could so many intelligent, 'cultivated' and superficially decent people been so thoroughly co-opted into a massively evil enterprise? Was it the complete absence of conscience? Or was it the presence of comfortable distance, the moral insulation provided by bureaucratic remove, the fairy tale denials and the recursive rationalizations of modern amoral functionaries? The pattern of toxic insulation went well beyond the janitors at Dachau. It included brilliant scientists, engineers and even physicians.

Albert Speer, the architect who became the Nazi defense minister, was by all accounts a 'cultivated 'man. As he later wrote from his prison cell in Spandau, “Basically, I exploited the phenomenon of the technician’s often blind devotion to his task. Because of what seems to be the moral neutrality of technology, these people were without scruples about their activities.” From Albert Speer's diary, “Inside The Third Reich.”

[A thoughtful essay about Speer's later moral insights is on the web at http://www.translucency.com/frede/speer.html ]

The great financial collapse of 08-09 was the consequence of a massive fraud (selling vapor assets disguised via 'bundling', borrowing on illusory or non-existent promises to repay.

The private sector fraud was fully mirrored in the public sector. [Read the brilliant piece, 'Civilization's lies' by Hoover scholar, Victor Davis Hanson at http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson020610.html.]

The widespread participation in this rampantly catastrophic fraud was enabled by the comfortable distance achieved through obscurantist complexity.

Otherwise reasonable bankers and financiers routinely sold 'packages' and 'products' the actual contents and value of which these men and women were clueless. The difference between their fraud and the blatant thefts of Bernie Madoff was exactly the same kind of comfortable distance that insulated certain physicians and medical researchers from full moral depravity of 'experiments' conducted on prisoners who just happened to be Jews.

This experience tells us that fundamental operating moral principle I stated earlier has two corollaries, one modern, one ancient, to wit:

1. Where finance is concerned, large scale and individual transactions operate inexactly the same moral environment: Trust is the currency. Honesty, full disclosure and accountability are the indispensable ingredients.

2. No algorithm, no matter how sophisticated, can be trusted to operate morally. If the transaction is too complicated to understand, it is too complicated to trust on any level.

The cooperating elites of faux liberal and faux conservative leaders who now uneasily occupy the chairs of power within the Beltway are deeply frightened of the Tea Party political insurgency.

Why fear the people? The angst of the Beltway elites stems not from the claims that this grassroots rebellion is 'uninformed' and 'immoral'. The reality is quite the opposite. They are so deeply frightened because this populist movement is all too well informed and far too moral for their elite tastes....

JBG

Posted by U2RGood at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 

Read Jay B Gaskill’s Lost Souls Coffee Shop, an allegory for the human condition.  More on the Bridge to Being Blog at http://jaygaskill.com/blog2/ .

 

And read Jay Gaskill’s new thriller, The Stranded Ones.  More on the Policy Think Site at   http://www.jaygaskill.com/TourTheStrandedOnes.pdf .

 

 

As Published On

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And

The Policy Think Site: http://www.jaygaskill.com

All contents, unless otherwise indicated are

Copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 by Jay B. Gaskill

Permission to print all or part of this article (except for personal use) is needed. [Permission for use in group discussions is almost always routinely given.]

Please contact Jay B. Gaskill, attorney at law, via e mail at law@jaygaskill.com

PERMISSION TO FORWARD LINKS TO THIS BLOG OR INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES IS HEREBY GIVEN

 

Link: http://jaygaskill.com/FreeTheIdahoTen.htm

 

Free the Idaho Ten!

 

By FRANK BAJAK

The Associated Press

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti | Ten U.S. Baptist missionaries were charged Thursday with kidnapping for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti to a hastily arranged refuge.

Their arrests Jan. 30 came just as officials were trying to protect children from predators amid the chaos of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

[The missionaries] began buying used clothing and collecting donations from their Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho. In November, [their organizer] registered the New Life Children’s Refuge Inc., the nonprofit organization coordinating the rescue mission. … When the quake struck, [she] recruited other church members to help kick her plans into high gear. The 10 Americans rushed to Haiti and spent a week gathering children for the project. Most of the children came from the village of Callebas, where residents told The Associated Press that they handed over their children to the Americans because they were unable to feed or clothe them after the quake. They said the missionaries promised to educate the children and let relatives visit.

In Haiti it seems  that some good deeds are worth a show trial.  Think of it this way.  The corruption-riddled government of Haiti is the closest thing to a failed state among all Pac Rim countries.  That government, in the midst in the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory, in the face of heroic efforts by outsiders to restore the shreds of civilized life to its citizens, at a time when the local government was impotent to restrain rioting by its own people, simply decided to assert its authority by prosecuting 10 Christians from a small Idaho town for trying to help some abandoned orphans.  Only a clique of embattled, small minded bureaucrats would seek to enforce the letter of the law over its spirit and larger purpose (to help Haiti’s children) as a belated show of petty authority.

 

It’s one thing to prevent the removal of children to a better place, quite another to criminally prosecute their would-be rescuers.   

 

Our Secretary of State has approached the matter with typical caution:

 

“On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it was ‘unfortunate’ that ‘this group of Americans took matters into their own hands’ by trying to take the children across the border without proper documentation. ‘We are engaged in discussions with the Haitian government and looking for the best way forward on this,’ she added.”

 

http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=378331

 

Sorry, that’s not good enough.  A single phone call from our new president is in order, “Free our citizens. Allow them to return to the USA now,” should do the trick.  Failing that, a second call to US military personnel is in order.

 

The bruised egos of shamefully incompetent, small minded government officials is a secondary consideration.

 

JBG

 

Posted by U2RGood at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DEFEAT 101
Read Jay B Gaskill’s Lost Souls Coffee Shop, an allegory for the human condition.  More on the Bridge to Being Blog at http://jaygaskill.com/blog2/ .

 

And read Jay Gaskill’s new thriller, The Stranded Ones.  More on the Policy Think Site at   http://www.jaygaskill.com/TourTheStrandedOnes.pdf .
As Published On
→ The Out-Lawyer’s Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog1
And
The Policy Think Site: http://www.jaygaskill.com
All contents, unless otherwise indicated are
Copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 by Jay B. Gaskill

 

Defeat 101

 

MORNING [WEEKS] AFTER BLUES

 

Could the democrats lose the Senate this year?  It would take ten victories.  One polling analyst says that - if current trends are extrapolated – such a demo-doomsday scenario is actually possible.

 

LINK: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_larry_j_sabato/senate_2010_more_shocks_on_the_way

 

The real test is of our new President’s inner character.  Who is Obama, really?  A closet radical leftist, now thoroughly exposed?  A closet centrist who was beguiled by the left?  A cynical pragmatist who merely used the left?  A malleable political novice who has been misused by his own party’s overreaching leadership?

 

A number of my centrist friends, disgusted with Bush, had projected all their hopes on this thoughtful, eloquent young Senator from Illinois.  Most of them are suffering buyers’ remorse and a few of them are now worrying that young Obama has been harboring the inner radicalism of his early mentors all along.  Others – David Brooks speaks for them – are still sympathetic to the notion that Mr. Obama has a reasonable mind and authentic bipartisan instincts, but just got off the track for a time. 

 

I want to be fair to our new POTUS, but the darker ideological picture of this administration is gaining traction - think of Glenn Beck’s exposure of the neo-Marxists who were hired to serve as Obama’s staff, consultants and tsars.

 

However that plays out, the zeitgeist of the angry independent voters (who make up a plurality larger than either party) is one of betrayal.  Trust, once breached, is difficult to restore.  This president’s path to political survival and ongoing relevance is bright-line clear:

 

Protect, defend and listen to the authentic Blue Dog Democrats.  Mr. Obama needs more of them.  The most productive conversations often begin with one word: NO.

 

Excesses of public and private lending and borrowing have brought us to the edge.  Pushback from the center-right is a healthy development.  Here’s the Senator to watch: 

 

Diane Feinstein.  She is a closet fiscal conservative.  [Inside baseball, here, just trust me.]  She is strong on national security. [Her behind-the-scenes support for the Patriot Act was pivotal.  The current FBI Head, Robert Mueller, is her pick.] 

 

When Harry Reid is defeated, Mr. Obama needs Senator Feinstein for Majority (or minority) leader.

 

JBG

 

Just say NO. 
Link: http://www.jaygaskill.com/HEALTHCAREIsItReallyTimeToSayNO.htm

 

The Coming Populist Reformation.
Link:
http://jaygaskill.com/newPPP.htm

 

 

 

Posted by U2RGood at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

THE REDEMPTION OF JOHN YOO

 

Want to escape the dismal headlines? Read Jay Gaskill’s new thriller.  More at  http://www.jaygaskill.com/TourTheStrandedOnes.pdf

 

This article is posted in HTM format --- here: http://jaygaskill.com/YooInBerkeley.htm

 

THE REDEMPTION OF JOHN YOO

And Why John Yoo “Speaks For Me”

 

Welcome to the Policy Think Site: http://www.jaygaskill.com    

As Posted On

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→The Human Conspiracy Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog3 

Also check out the “OutLawyerGaskill” channel on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/OutLawyerGaskill ...

 

All contents, unless otherwise indicated are --

Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010 by Jay B. Gaskill

Permission to publish, distribute or print all or part of this article - except for personal use - is needed.

Forwarded links are welcomed.

 

Contact Jay B. Gaskill, attorney at law, via e mail at law@jaygaskill.com

 

 

My old law school, Boalt Hall, is not altogether overrun by leftist ideologues. 

 

Berkeley Professor John Yoo has been the victim of a witch hunt worthy of the late Joseph McCarthy because of legal advice he gave the Bush Administration about the interrogation of terrorists.  Professor Yoo has just written a book about presidential authority,  “Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush.” 

 

He recently appeared on the comedic Jon Stuart Show (http://www.thedailyshow.com/), but Mr. Stuart is not promoting that encounter because Yoo ran over him like a truck, politely to be sure, but lucidly.   Perhaps unfairly, Professor Yoo was aided by a rapier wit and - dare we say it? – he also used an arsenal of facts.  Don’t you just hate it when somebody does that?

 

A reasonable case can be made that Mr. Yoo’s legal opinions have saved thousands of American lives and that the ideologues who are still seeking his disbarment and dismissal are...out to lunch.

 

But that’s just me.

 

I still vividly remember that day when our plane touched down at SFO after an unexpectedly extended stay in Manhattan that included that searingly transformative experience we all now call nine eleven.  Anyone who has followed my writings and reflections post 911 will understand the following. 

 

As I wrote at the time:

 

“Evil is real. It came to this city, near the Manhattan apartment where we are staying, announcing itself in a succession of grotesquely surreal images of a monumental murder.  

 

“Yet Good is real.  The last few days here have recharged my belief in the human capacity for heroism and virtue under duress.  It is an honor to be among the New Yorkers.  I now understand that evil is like a descending night flare on a battlefield, exposing the configuration of forces below.  Its terrible light clarifies the essence of things. In that actinic glare, all our differences melt into insignificance because, after all, they are just different versions of the good.” 

 

Then added a few months later:

 

“Later, when our plane finally roared down the runway at JFK, the images of the window candles, the taped up photos of missing loved ones on the armory, on doorways, windows and poles, the long paper scroll in Union Square, the Ladder Truck 24 shrine, all played out in my mind.  As I looked out the window at the suddenly diminished Manhattan skyline, I realized that - for the moment - we had become a single people, whose disputes and differences were exposed as trivial. Then I imagined concentric circles radiating from ground zero: In the circle close in, people were profoundly changed, then further away people touched, less touched, and finally I imagined (and later met) the detached and disconnected. I entertained the deep hope for a new energy, a drawing in to faith communities sustained by the important truths that bind us.”

 

Within that immediate circle of human beings in the day and the days immediately following, there was a profound, gut wrenching insight that, for the morally receptive minds among us, was permanently transformative.  But as we left that circle, traversing new concentric boundaries of understanding, the nine eleven epiphany became increasingly attenuated, even distorted. 

 

After getting off the place in San Francisco, I was, for a time, profoundly reluctant even to enter Berkeley.  Recall, if you can, that the Berkeley City Council banned the display of the American Flag on fire trucks and that the congresswoman from Berkeley, at the time my congressperson, was Barbara Lee. 

 

Ms. Lee immediately distinguished herself by being the sole member out of 535 elected to House of Representatives who voted on September 14, 2001, OPPOSING the authorization the use of US forces against those responsible for the September 11 attacks, granting the president authority to use all "”necessary and appropriate force” against those terrorists and who harbored or aided them. 

 

Bumper stickers then began appearing in the East Bay, like chocken pox pustules, reading “BARBARA LEE SPEAKS FOR ME.”

 

 

Now contrast Berkeley law professor, John Yoo, whose historically informed review of presidential executive power in a time of crisis, and whose hard nosed, “Jack Baueresque” take on the real world exigencies of terrorist “interviews”, bought him a host of troubles from the reflexively timorous left.  

 

Sadly I’m too old to have taken Professor Yoo’s courses at Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley’s Law School), but not too old to have graduated from the same institution around the time that Ted Olson (the conservative lawyer who has taken the “gay” side in the California proposition eight litigation). 

 

Here’s the irony of the moment: 

 

The so-called partisan right is as benignly tolerant of Mr. Olson’s legal position and the partisan left is rabidly intolerant of Professor Yoo’s post-911 legal memos to the Bush Administration.

 

All this is preamble to today’s article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

 

“Interrogation memo author views executive power”

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/16/MNA51BIQN7.DTL

 

Here is my favorite pull quote:

 

“Yoo said he was equally unperturbed by the uproar that followed his return to Berkeley, including calls for his disbarment.

 

“’I guess it's a very, very tiny price for living in a very sunny place with good weather and exquisite food prepared by ex-1960s hippies,’ Yoo said in a brief interview.

 

“‘I mean, it's Berkeley after all. There's a protest every day in Berkeley about something. If it's not me, it's about trees. If it's not about trees, it's about the Marines recruiting, so it doesn't really bother me.”’

 

Jack Bauer returns on Fox’s durable terrorist-fighting series, “24 Hours” this Sunday.  This is the popular series that once featured a tough-on-terrorists black president, David Palmer, an image that helped pave the way for Mr. Obama’s subsequent career surge.

 

So I hope you will fully appreciate where I am coming from when I say, with all legalistic nuance aside, that:

 

JOHN YOO SPEAKS FOR ME.

 

JBG
 

Please reference my earlier articles and pictures on 911 and its implications for all of us:

 

http://jaygaskill.com/NineEleven08.JPG

 

http://jaygaskill.com/StPaul1.JPG

 

http://jaygaskill.com/BrilliantDream.pdf

 

http://jaygaskill.com/91105d.htm

 

Mr. Gaskill is a California lawyer who served as the Alameda County Public Defender (serving Oakland and Berkeley among other cities) 1989-1999.

Posted by U2RGood at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MURDERS ARE DOWN, ECONOMIC DISTRESS IS UP?

What’s up with that? 

 

Analysis

By

Jay B. Gaskill

 

THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO AVAILABLE IN HTM FORMAT AT THE FOLLOWING LINK: http://jaygaskill.com/MurdersAreDown.htm

 

Welcome to the Policy Think Site: http://www.jaygaskill.com    

As Posted On

→The Out-Lawyer’s Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog1   

→The Human Conspiracy Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog3 

Also check out the “OutLawyerGaskill” channel on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/OutLawyerGaskill ...

All contents, unless otherwise indicated are --

Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 by Jay B. Gaskill

Permission to publish, distribute or print all or part of this article - except for personal use - is needed.

Forwarded links are welcomed.

 

Contact Jay B. Gaskill, attorney at law, via e mail at law@jaygaskill.com

 

 

As we linger in the dark well of the worst recession in recent memory, many urban jurisdictions are now reporting (San Francisco among them) that we are experiencing an inexplicable drop in murders.

 

You may doubt this is actually taking place.  Here are some links:

 

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/tennessee/122909_murder-rate-declines-first-time-in-years [Memphis]

 

http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20091230/NEWS01/912300329/1006/news01 [New Jersey]

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-09-09-crime_x.htm [Steep national decline]

 

http://www.examiner.com/x-24880-Boston-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m9d28-Boston-murder-rate-declines [Boston]

 

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7193070 [San Francisco]

 

Years ago I was invited by the Alameda County Sheriff to address the graduating class of his peace officers; training academy. 

 

My address is posted here: http://www.jaygaskill.com/sheriff.html.htm.

 

Among the points I made was this:  Crime is not caused by or even strongly correlated with economic poverty.  Even in the Great Depression general crime did not go up, Al Capone notwithstanding. 

 

The overall crime rate is sensitive to a number of factors, notably the visible deterrent effect of a welcome police presence and the underlying morality of the non-criminal population (something I’ve called civilization’s ‘moral infrastructure’). 

 

Therefore in the USA, the UK and other cultures and subcultures where the Judeo-Christian ethos (or its moral equivalent) persists whether in its religious or secular forms (think ‘do not steal, lie, murder’ as being generally accepted), then the following principle will tend to govern: Crime operates in an inverse relationship to community.  Put another way, “When community is strengthened, crime is depressed” (assuming the baseline moral infrastructure and the implementing law and justice infrastructures are intact). 

 

In the current recession, more families are at home and more people are looking out for each other....and crime goes down.

 

Francis Fukuyama connected some of these dots in his book, The Great Disruption (1999 – link to Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Great-Disruption-Nature-Reconstitution-Social/dp/068484530X ).  He linked crime increases to the disruptive migration patterns that took apart existing networks of social relationships that had constituted our “social capital” when life patterns were more stable.  The missing piece in his analysis, in my opinion, was the health - or lack thereof - of the underlying moral framework. 

 

The “moral infrastructure” piece was separately disrupted by a bit of cultural insanity that is just now fading away.  This damage to the underlying morality of the non-criminal population was the unintended consequence of an outbreak of postmodern neo-tribal multiculturism.   Suddenly legitimacy was given to the perverse notion that thugs who belong to “oppressed” tribes were to be spared as an act of “social consciousness”, and that the beleaguered gendarmes who answered our 911 calls were to be mistrusted because they “work for the ruling class”. 

 

That nonsense has almost run its course.  My first indication of the healthy counter-trend took place several years ago in Oakland, California when crime victims and witnesses from “the hood” started showing up.  Today, whole neighborhoods of honest, hard working black families in Oakland are demanding more not less police services.   That very passion has a benign side effect:  Thugs are deterred by an energized population.

 

Yes, times are tough.  But there is a silver lining.

 

JBG

 

The author, a well known trial and appellate lawyer, served as the Alameda County (CA) Public Defender from 1989-99, then left his “life of crime” to pursue writing and general trouble making.  His profile is located at: www.jaygaskill.com/Profile.pdf

 

Want to escape the dismal headlines? Read: Jay Gaskill’s new thriller, The Stranded Ones.  Purchase Information and samples:  http://www.jaygaskill.com/TourTheStrandedOnes.pdf

 

Posted by U2RGood at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Want to escape the dismal headlines? Read Jay Gaskill’s new thriller.  More at  http://www.jaygaskill.com/TourTheStrandedOnes.pdf

 

Welcome to the Policy Think Site: http://www.jaygaskill.com    

As Posted On

→The Out-Lawyer’s Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog1   

→The Human Conspiracy Blog: http://www.jaygaskill.com/blog3 

Also check out the “OutLawyerGaskill” channel on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/OutLawyerGaskill ...

 

All contents, unless otherwise indicated are --

Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 by Jay B. Gaskill

Permission to publish, distribute or print all or part of this article - except for personal use - is needed.

Forwarded links are welcomed.

 

Contact Jay B. Gaskill, attorney at law, via e mail at law@jaygaskill.com

 

 

This Article in htm format is posted on The Policy Think Site at this LINK:

http://jaygaskill.com/CourtReasurranceDog.htm 

 

COMFORTING FOUR YEAR OLD CRIME VICTIMS

 

A retriever/lab mix named Vivian comforted a 4 year old boy as he testified against his aunt in an abuse case in Marin County a few weeks ago.  This was the San Francisco Chronicle’s front page story today, with pictures of dog and DA.

 

Pioneered in Seattle in 2003 by Deputy DA Ellen O’Neil-Stephens, the witness comfort program (using cute, nurturing dogs to support child crime victims) gone viral. 

 

Check out these links:

 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003767349_courtdogs29m.html

 

http://www.marinij.com/ci_13991903?source=most_emailed

 

http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_13991903?nclick_check=1

 

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/pets/story/A5EA01DC3751E96486257698001B2007?OpenDocument

 

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2008-06-02/news/0806020002_1_therapy-dogs-carroll-county-victim-witness-assistance

 

In the current state of journalism, no story, however touching, is complete without “balance”, which means:  Find some contrary comment to report, unless of course, you’re talking about global warming, in which case you can skip that part.

 

SO...WHAT DOES THE DEFENSE SAY?

 

The defense has argued (without success) that the comfort dog’s very presence in court sends a signal that something very bad has happened to the child witness.  No kidding.  Any charge of child abuse that gets to trial is generally an indication that something bad has probably happened to a vulnerable, underage witness.  Leave it to my former colleagues to make the obvious sound like rocket science.

 

It might be more accurate to say, that the presence of a comfort dog with a four year old witness portents that something very bad is about to happen to the defense.  I note with interest that that there are reportedly fewer quick deals in cases when comfort dogs are employed to strengthen witness resolve.  That outcome is both good and to be expected.  Many defense plea bargains are reached in order the “spare the victim” the ordeal of a court appearance (translate – sparing the rigors of cross examination).  This sort of plea bargain does avoid a trial but it also reduces the punishment because after all: Why “‘cop a plea’ without getting a ‘reduction’”?  

 

The mythical subset of defendants who graciously plead guilty to spare the victim and to atone for bad conduct by accepting a greater punishment must have been in somebody else’s caseload over the long years of my practice.  I can’t remember one.

 

The quick deal in child abuse cases because of victim reluctance represents a social good only if you take the position (as I do not) that crimes against children in US urban jurisdictions are over-prosecuted and over-punished.  Yes, there is a chance of miscarriage in these cases, admittedly a very small chance.  But the final check and balance, the ultimate way to prevent of a miscarriage of justice, is the classic fair trial, not a plea bargain-under-duress.

 

Another defense objection is that allowing dog comfort support for a child witness is an inducement in the nature of an award for testimony; by implication it is (supposedly) in the nature of a bribe.  This line of argument has traction only if the doggie comfort is an inducement to lie as opposed to a form of moral support for going public with an accusation. 

 

Child witnesses are frightened by their abusers, often confused and disturbed when crime is a breach of trust by a family member or authority figure. Small children are flat out terrified by the prospect of getting into a courtroom surrounded by adult strangers. The risks attendant a miscarriage of justice in child abuse cases, rare as they are, mostly stem from problematic eyewitness identifications of strangers (when identification is at issue) or witness manipulation by angry spouses. 

 

Comfort dogs encourage a safe space for questioning when an otherwise hysterical witness can be barely be made to understand questions let alone provide considered answers.  In my courtroom experience, the task of ferreting out errors and misstatements by kids in a trial stetting requires the defense attorney to be gentle, to earn trust and to have conducted a careful and thorough factual investigation before ever asking the first question.  A reassured child helps, does not hinder the search for the truth.

 

I know...I know...I’ve just used the dreaded “T” word here.  At their most noble, defense lawyers are primarily about eliciting truth, unlocking mercy and checking prosecution overreaching, that never-ending task of keeping the other side honest and fair.  The other image of defense lawyer is more cynical – lawyers for whom the game is about winning or – if not – inflicting such damage that the next encounter will result in a favorable plea bargain.  Both operate in the real world.

 

In my own experience, the task of cross examining a vulnerable child witness is wrenchingly difficult (often requiring therapeutic decompression at a pub), but it remains part of the general assignment, to defend the poor with the same vigor as a hired gun defends the rich.  Just as the Vatican assigns a pre-beatification “Satan’s advocate” to expose the weakness in candidate for sainthood, the defense is tasked to do the same for all prosecution cases whatever the ultimate merits. 

 

Should four year old abuse victims be denied their comfort dogs?  Hell no.  My advice to my former colleagues of the defense:  I know it’s tough.  So apply for your own dog. 

 

Jay B Gaskill

The author is the former Alameda County (CA) Public Defender

Posted by U2RGood at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Senator Nelson appears to have caved. 

What next for Health Care?  Go to

Link -- http://jaygaskill.com/BlueDogsGreedyMonkeys.htm.

 

J

 

Posted by U2RGood at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)