There was some justification too the argument that "crack" laws were biased against blacks. This was based on the fact the punishment for an equal amount of crack to an equal amount of cocaine was disproportionately heavier for the crack possessor. Since crack was primarily used by urban black poor and cocaine was used by middle class whites and the addictive/physical damaging properties of both drugs are similar, there likely was a bias.
Reed
Yup, they do exist - the lawyers' equivalent of HTTs. Very expensive and sometimes more voodoo than useful.
Mine was the country boy version - which works in small counties (i.e., Northern Michigan, whose congressional district covers 1/2 of Michigan's landmass). The idea is networking.
If juror 32 is from a small community, you call up your friends there (swear them to absolute secrecy - actually they are more worried about you telling the world what they say) and find out everything they are willing to tell you about juror 32, that person's friends, family, enemies, etc. Basically, a list of pretty standard questions depending on the case.
If the case was in a county where I had no or little network, I'd associate a lawyer there who had a network and knew how to use it. The bottom line is that you end up with a list of Yes, Probably Yes, Don't Know, Probably No, No. You then become better informed when you meet the jurors at the voir dire when the jury is selected.
Let us be clear. A trial lawyer is not looking for a "fair and impartial" jury. E.g., if I represented Gus Hall in the 1950's, I'd want a jury of Communists or as near as I could get to them. If I represented Tom Metzger or David Duke more recently, I would want Stormfronters or as near as I could get to them.
I would get neither because the guy on the other side would be knocking them out by challenges - as would I to "his jurors". So, assuming the jury array (all prospective jurors) is inclusive of the community's demographics, the net result is as close to a "fair and impartial" jury as we can get.
All this is not news to you, Slap, but it may be informative to those here who have not been involved in litigation.
The question to ask before a declaration of racism is, "which drug has lead to more crime being committed?" Are more middle class whites committing crimes to get their coke or are poor urban blacks committing more crime to get their crack? I am always skeptical when I hear the R word being thrown around. Sometimes it is fully justified. Sometimes it is not. When I was going through the Q course there was an editorial being passed around where the author stated that Special Forces was a racist organization because they would not do away with the swim test as an application requirement. To my mind it is more racist to suggest that black people can't learn to swim than it is to have a swim test as an entrance requirement, but what do I know, I'm just a white guy from suburban Pennsylvania.
SFC W
Man who killed Afghan seeks sentencing leniency
He says he was reacting to horrific attack on friend
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
By Bruce Alpert
Washington bureau
Link to article from SWJ Blog thread.
Same defense argument as in Anatomy of a Murder - with similar result. No complaint from this lawyer (see Slap's post #20 & JMM's #35 in this thread).Ex-contractor given probation in slaying of Afghan
By MATTHEW BARAKAT – 2 hours ago
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A former military contractor was sentenced Friday to probation for shooting and killing a handcuffed prisoner in Afghanistan.
...
Loyd's family has been among Ayala's strongest supporters. Loyd's mother, Patricia Ward, noted in a letter to the judge that several of Loyd's friends offered to serve Ayala's time for him.
"His reaction was perfectly normal in my mind," wrote Ward, who said that she likely would have done the same thing.
Ayala's lawyers said his experience, rather than steeling him to keep his emotions in check, left him with latent combat stress that reared up as he dealt with the emotions and adrenaline of the attack on Loyd and the struggle to subdue Salam. At one point in the struggle Salam had grabbed the barrel of a soldier's rifle.
"Without knowing it, Mr. Ayala was vulnerable to errors in judgment under combat conditions" because of the accumulated combat-related stress, wrote federal public defender Michael Nachmanoff.
While I was somewhat surprised by probation, I'll take it.
Buy this judge a beer or whatever for what to me is amazingly straightforward "justice".
Last edited by davidbfpo; 05-09-2009 at 03:34 PM. Reason: Add 'u' to make Buy.
Judge Claude M. Hilton is a US District judge on "senior status" (semi-retired) - something like JMM's status as a "senior lawyer"; except he makes more money than I do.
Seriously, from Judge Hilton's official bio, Wiki1 and Wiki2, a fair inference is that he is center-right to the extent he has any political slant.
Of more importance to this case, is the fact that Judge Hilton was assigned to the FISA court (2000-2007) - so, he knows more about classified stuff re: AQ-Taliban than the average bear. He also knows something about Astan & Pstan - and the AQ-Taliban types there - from the public record:
Since I don't know Judge Hilton, I can't say that he is a part of the beer-drinking crowd of "old-fashioned redneck male types who believe in the protection of women - and in a little old-fashioned populist justice" (see post #41 above) - but, I'd like to think so.Wednesday, December 03, 2008
From Paintball to Mumbai
by Terry Jeffrey
The defiant words a former third-grade teacher spat at a judge in Alexandria, Va., in April are more poignant now that sources in the Indian and U.S. governments are saying they believe Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistan-based terrorist group, was behind the mass murder in Mumbai, India, last week.
"What government was supposed to be intimidated by my actions?" Ali Asad Chandia asked U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton at the April hearing where the judge reconfirmed Chandia's 15-year prison sentence, according to The Associated Press. "Do you think the government of India will feel intimidated by a few boxes of paintballs?"
Chandia taught at an Islamic school in the Maryland suburbs before being convicted in 2006 of "providing material support to terrorists." .... [much more in article]
Last edited by jmm99; 05-09-2009 at 10:39 PM.
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