Sat, 11 May 2024 02:11:28 -0700WeeblyMon, 30 Dec 2019 10:04:31 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/demonizing-defense-lawyers-threatens-the-quality-of-american-justicehttps://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2019/12/20/demonizing-defense-lawyers-threatens-the-quality-of-american-justice?fbclid=IwAR2lfnsltMo-lAI7DWbSFJu8chFrkVuu1ZMmsHtJ2A2lIgxmA0Nb4griD4M

By Harvey Silverglate and Monika Greco
December 20, 2019Criminal defense lawyers have long been demonized for representing unpopular clients. But two high-profile sexual assault prosecutions have exacerbated the public’s disdain, to the extent that a widespread misapprehension has emerged—namely, that criminal defense lawyers, in defending those the public has deemed indefensible, somehow become complicit in their clients’ alleged transgressions, or somehow take on whatever moral failings their clients may have.
This sentiment reveals a fundamental confusion about the crucial role of the defense attorney in the criminal justice system, and could very well lead to an erosion of the constitutional rights of criminal defendants. If the most talented and in-demand criminal defense lawyers begin to hesitate before agreeing to represent the most unpopular accused, then those who are in the most trouble—those who need the most vigorous and effective defense—would have to suffer with mediocre representation (and, it must always be remembered, some of them will turn out to be innocent).
The Sixth Amendment to the federal constitution speaks succinctly and with clarity on the subject. In addition to a defendant’s right to be advised of the charges against him (or her, as the case may be), he has the right to be confronted (in court), face-to-face, with his accusers; the right to compel witnesses to appear and give testimony; and, last but hardly least, the right “to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.” This right of the defendant has produced an informal but widely honored professional and moral obligation, within the judicial system and the bar, urging lawyers with the appropriate skills to represent even the most heinous defendants.
The fact that the evidence against a particular defendant might be—or at least seem to be—damning or overwhelming does not dilute the obligation cast upon the criminal defense bar. The fact that there are many who are either ignorant of or unsympathetic to this constitutional right does not alter the fact that lawyers have a special obligation to give vitality to the right. (Those who wish to look further into the history and contours of the right to the effective assistance of counsel and the lawyer’s professional role might want to read the writings of famed criminal defense lawyer Clarence Darrow. )
Back in January, Harvard Law Professor and Faculty Dean Ronald Sullivan joined the legal team of the notorious Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who stands accused of sexually assaulting a number of women. In addition to his teaching duties at the law school, Sullivan and his wife Stephanie Robinson served for ten years as residential deans (formerly called “house masters”) at Winthrop House, one of Harvard’s undergraduate dormitories.
Sullivan’s decision to represent Weinstein did not sit well with many on the Harvard campus. Winthrop House was vandalized with the slogans “Down w Sullivan!” and “Whose Side Are You On?”; student protests erupted across the Harvard campus, featuring students with taped mouths who held signs stating “Down with the Dean” and “Remove Sullivan”; and a petition was circulated that called for the removal of Sullivan as Faculty Dean.
Caving to student and public pressure, Harvard’s administration unceremoniously booted Sullivan and his wife from their Winthrop House deanships. (Sullivan retains his tenured professorship at Harvard Law School. Ironically, he is no longer on Weinstein’s legal team, due to a scheduling conflict between the likely date of Weinstein’s trial and Sullivan’s teaching obligations.)
And more recently, famed criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz has come under heavy criticism for a plea deal he helped secure for the now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein more than a decade ago. Epstein, accused of molesting dozens of women (including underage girls), spent just 13 months in a Florida county jail after his legal team (on which Dershowitz played a major role) secured a plea agreement that has come under intense criticism for its perceived lenience. Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida; in exchange, he was granted immunity by federal prosecutorial officials from federal criminal charges and the accompanying potential life sentence such charges would carry.
Following Epstein’s 2019 arrest on new federal charges of sex trafficking, renewed scrutiny over Epstein’s previous avoidance of federal criminal charges has caused many to excoriate Dershowitz for his involvement in Epstein’s very effective, decade-old legal defense. Indeed, there seems to be a concerted effort to destroy Dershowitz’ reputation and career: in addition to several hit pieces put out by the media, Dershowitz has suffered severe castigation on social media, especially Twitter. Most troubling are the brazen and outrageous conflations of Dershowitz’ legal defense with Epstein’s crimes.
What is common in these two situations is that Sullivan and Dershowitz, acting as criminal defense attorneys for those the public reviles, have been and continue to be demonized because of the clients they have chosen to represent. Sullivan and Dershowitz will almost certainly continue to honor the commands of the Sixth Amendment and their views of their own professional obligations. But these two are unusually tenacious, self-assured and imbued with a sense of professional and constitutional mission. Their difficulties will almost certainly deter the less brave members of the bar from representing the most reviled. This will surely hamper the ability of those who are in serious trouble – including the certain percentage who will undoubtedly be wrongly accused – to prove their innocence.
Harvey Silverglate, WGBH’s “Freedom Watch” columnist, is a criminal defense and civil liberties lawyer and author in Boston. Monika Greco, Silverglate’s legal research assistant, is a recent graduate of the philosophy master’s program at Tufts University.

]]>Sat, 10 Dec 2016 21:14:59 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/house-changes-minor-in-possession-from-misdemeanor-to-civil-infractionKathleen Gray , Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau 1:46 p.m. EST December 6, 2016

A bill intended to give underage drinkers a second chance passed overwhelmingly in the state House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Under the legislation that passed on a 105-1 vote, a first minor in possession of alcohol offense would become a civil infraction, punishable by a $100 fine, instead of the current misdemeanor charge that carries a $100 fine and up to 90 days in jail.
More than 6,000 minors -- many of them in college towns -- got popped for trying to buy or consume alcohol in 2013 and were charged with misdemeanors for their youthful indiscretions, according to the most recent statistics available from the Michigan State Police.
The second offense would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $200 fine. A third offense would carry a sentence of up to 60 days and a $500 fine and possible revocation of the offender’s driver’s license.

Click on this link for rest of story:
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/06/minor-possession-charge-goes-misdemeanor-civil-infraction/95044128/




]]>Sun, 06 Nov 2016 07:00:00 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/college-cramming-a-refresher-course-on-the-electoral-collegeThursday, November 3, 2016

By Joe Carter
The Acton Institute

Whether the Republicans cry “rigged” or the Democrats scream “disenfranchised” we can be certain of one thing: the President won’t be elected next Tuesday. Even if there are no hanging chads or last minute court appeals, the election of the President won’t officially be decided until January 6, 2017.It may seem strange that the presidential results won’t be final until a few days before the inauguration. But that’s the way the Founding Father’s designed the system to work.
Confused? Then it’s probably time for a brief refresher on the Electoral College:
Where did the Electoral College system come from?
Although the term Electoral College is never used in the Constitution (Article 2, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3), the electors that choose the President at each election are traditionally called a College (meaning a group of people organized toward a common goal). The Electoral College was proposed by James Wilson at the Constitutional Convention as a compromise between those who wanted the Congress to choose the President and those who believed the election should be decided by the state legislatures. The Framers were generally in agreement that giving the people the power to directly elect the President was a bad idea.
Who decides how many electoral votes each state receives?
Each state receives an electoral vote for each U.S. Senator (two per state) plus one for each Congressional representative. Since the number of representatives is based on population, the state’s electoral votes are also based on the number of people who reside within a state. Currently, the Electoral College includes 538 electors, 535 for the total number of congressional members, and three who represent Washington, D.C. (for the purposes of the Electoral College, the District of Columbia is treated like a state).
How do these electoral votes decide who becomes president?
On the Monday following the second Wednesday in December (which falls on the 19th this year), the electors of each state meet in their respective state capitals to cast the official votes for President and Vice President. These votes are then sealed and sent to the president of the Senate (the current Vice President, Joe Biden), who will open and read the votes on January 6th in the presence of both houses of Congress. The winner is sworn into office exactly two weeks later, at noon January 20.
Who are these electors?
Since the political parties choose electors, they tend to be partisan political activists. The Constitution doesn’t have any requirements other than specifications for who cannot be an elector: a Representative or Senator, a high-ranking U.S. official in a position of “trust or profit”, or anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.
Do the electors have to vote for the candidate who received the most votes in their state?
Nope. The elector is free to cast his vote for anyone he or she chooses. In fact, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the will of the people—and it’s entirely Constitutional. Anyone who votes against their state’s choice is known as a “faithless elector” and essentially ruins any future they might have had with their political party.
How many electoral votes are need to win?
A Presidential candidate must receive a majority (270 of the 538 eligible) in order to win the election.
What happens if there is a tie?
What would happen if Trump and Clinton both get exactly 269 votes?  Then the House of Representative gets to elect the President. They must choose from the from the three nominees who got the most Electoral votes (Trump, Hillary, and maybe Evan McMullin if he were to win Utah). Each state gets one vote so 26 states are needed to win. And yes, McMullin could win the electoral votes of only one state and the House could still choose him to be President. (This has happened twice in our nation’s history with the House choosing Thomas Jefferson over Aaron Burr and John Quincy Adams being selected over Andrew Jackson.)
The Senate then elects the Vice President from the two Vice Presidential candidates with the most Electoral votes (Mike Pence or Tim Kaine, but not McMullin’s running mate, Mindy Finn). Each Senator gets one vote.
If the House can’t decide on a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect (Kaine or Pence) serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved.
So in theory we could have President Trump and Vice President Kaine, President Clinton and Vice President Pence, or President McMulling and either Vice President Kaine or Pence.
That’s crazy. Wouldn’t relying on the popular vote be a better system?
Not necessarily. The popular vote is subject to types of fraud that don’t apply to the Electoral College system (except perhaps in swing states). Political parties, for instance, have no incentive to “run up the vote” when their candidate is going to take their state anyway, so they are less likely to resort to direct fraud. On the other hand, the Electoral College makes it virtually impossible for a third-party candidate to ever be elected (this election is the closest any will likely ever get). So if you’re a Libertarian or a Green candidate you may have a reason to want to scrap the current system. On the other hand, if you like Evan McMullin, the Electoral College is your last best hope to see your candidate in the White House.

]]>Sun, 15 Nov 2015 12:40:14 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/the-lonely-death-of-george-bellEach year around 50,000 people die in New York,
some alone and unseen. Yet death even in such forlorn
form can cause a surprising amount of activity.
Sometimes, along the way, a life’s secrets are revealed.

Written by N. R. KLEINFIELD; Photographs by JOSH HANEROCT. 17, 2015

They found him in the living room, crumpled up on the mottled carpet. The police did. Sniffing a fetid odor, a neighbor had called 911. The apartment was in north-central Queens, in an unassertive building on 79th Street in Jackson Heights.

The apartment belonged to a George Bell. He lived alone. Thus the presumption was that the corpse also belonged to George Bell. It was a plausible supposition, but it remained just that, for the puffy body on the floor was decomposed and unrecognizable. Clearly the man had not died on July 12, the Saturday last year when he was discovered, nor the day before nor the day before that. He had lain there for a while, nothing to announce his departure to the world, while the hyperkinetic city around him hurried on with its business.

Neighbors had last seen him six days earlier, a Sunday. On Thursday, there was a break in his routine. The car he always kept out front and moved from one side of the street to the other to obey parking rules sat on the wrong side. A ticket was wedged beneath the wiper. The woman next door called Mr. Bell. His phone rang and rang.


FOR FULL NY TIMES story, go to this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/nyregion/dying-alone-in-new-york-city.html?WT.mc_id=2015-NOVEMBER-FB-MC9-AUD_DEV-1101-1130&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK
]]>Sat, 31 Oct 2015 19:08:27 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/patrick-m-clawson-dies-at-60SWARTZ CREEK -- Patrick M. Clawson, 60, Swartz Creek died October 29, 2015. Private funeral services have taken place, provided by Sharp Funeral Homes, Miller Road Chapel, 8138 Miller Rd., Swartz Creek.
"Pat was a long time member of the MCPI and a strong advocate for professional investigators at our state capitol and the nation's capitol," wrote his friend and colleague Peter Psarouthakis. "As many of you know, Pat started his investigative career as a CNN reporter in the Washington, D.C., area. Public corruption, politics and organized crime were his main areas of investigations in those days. He then became a licensed PI in Virginia, where he still practiced occasionally until his passing. He eventually made his way to Michigan where he started a successful process service business."
See more at: http://www.sharpfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Patrick-M.-CLAWSON/Swartz-Creek-MI/1557315#sthash.u8SSnxac.dpuf]]>Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:10:27 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/judge-christopher-easthope-should-not-have-been-presiding-over-lawyer-friends-cases-expert-saysBy John Counts | johncounts@mlive.com
on July 11, 2015 at 5:45 AM

(Editor's note: Profanity has not been edited out of the text messages for this story.)

In a legal expert's opinion, resigning 15th District Court Judge Christopher Easthope should not have been hearing cases being represented by his attorney friend, Nader Nassif.

"These (messages) seem to demonstrate a continuing close personal relationship with a particular lawyer that at times conflicted with the judge's professional duties that should have resulted in the judge recusing himself from all cases involving the attorney," said Larry Dubin, a University of Detroit Mercy law professor. Dubin is referring to a sampling of Easthope and Nassif's nearly 400 pages of text messages recently released to The Ann Arbor News via a Freedom of Information Act request.

The messages reveal Easthope were drinking buddies who smoked pot together once. The texts also suggest Easthope helped Nassif's firm get the contract with the city. The two were texting during the Ann Arbor City Council meeting in June 2013 where Easthope got up before the council and recommended the firm. After a resolution for the $240,000 contract and a $203,000 amendment were approved, Easthope texted Nasiff: "U owe me."

READ REST OF STORY AT:
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2015/07/judge_christopher_easthope_sho.html]]>Sat, 04 Jul 2015 11:07:37 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/judge-post-withdraws-from-case-after-accused-of-leaving-threatening-voicemail-on-defendants-phoneBy Barton Deiters
Mlive/Grand Rapids Press
     HUDSONVILLE, MI – The judge accused of leaving a threatening and inappropriate message for a man who did not show up for a hearing has recused himself from the case. Hudsonville District Court Judge Kenneth Post will not oversee the hearing on drug and traffic charges against 23-year-old Philip Andrew Mallery after defense attorney Joshua Blanchard filed a motion calling for Post to recuse himself.
      Judge Bradley Knoll, chief judge for the 58th District Court, said he will oversee the case in the place of Post, who this week left on a fly-fishing vacation.
Read full story at:
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/06/judge_accused_of_making_threat.html]]>Sat, 04 Jul 2015 10:50:58 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/michigan-settles-vegan-prisoners-lawsuit-for-20000DETROIT (AP) - The state of Michigan has agreed to pay $20,000 to settle a lawsuit by an 80-year-old convicted killer who said his civil rights were violated when he was denied vegan meals for two ...

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268748/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=CKh4PJ1f … …]]>Thu, 18 Jun 2015 11:14:26 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/attorney-files-complaint-against-judge-claims-he-made-threatening-phone-callHudsonville, Mich., District Court Judge Kenneth Post's voicemail to defendant: "...you keep going because if I find you, it will not be pleasant. Have a good day."
http://mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/06/judge_clashes_again_with_attor.html


By Barton Deiters
on June 17, 2015 at 6:11 PM, updated June 17, 2015 at 9:34 PM

HUDSONVILLE, MI – A judge who was suspended from the bench for 30 days in 2013 by the State Supreme Court is being targeted again by the same attorney, who now claims the Hudsonville jurist made a threatening phone call.

Greenville attorney Joshua Blanchard says he has filed a complaint with the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission claiming that Hudsonville District Court Judge Kenneth Post left an inappropriate and threatening voicemail for a client.

Blanchard is representing 23-year-old Philip Andrew Mallery, a well-known person at the Hudsonville court who has had a slew of traffic complaints, misdemeanors and a couple of felony charges.

On Friday, June 12, Mallery failed to appear in court after he was arrested by Ottawa County Sheriff's deputies for allegedly driving an unregistered moped without a license and for possessing less than 25 grams of heroin.

Mallery was caught on the moped around 2 a.m. April 27 near 28th Avenue and Port Sheldon Drive. The drug charge stems from a February investigation, according to court records.

Mallery was supposed to show up at 9 a.m. Friday for arraignment on these charges, but failed to do so.

Mallery then received a message on his voicemail with a timestamp of 9:31 a.m. from a person saying "Mr. Mallery, this is judge Kenneth Post calling."

The message goes on to say that Mallery's then-attorney is in the courtroom and tells him he has missed a court appearance and a court-ordered drug test from the day before. The message states that a bench warrant is being issued for Mallery's arrest.

"My strong suggestion is that you ... when you get this message, you keep going because if I find you, it will not be pleasant," the message says. "Have a good day."

Court records show that the judge issued a $5,000 bond for Mallery, to be in effect whenever he was brought into custody.

Mallery then contacted Blanchard, who filed a motion on Tuesday, June 16, calling for Post to recuse himself from the case.

Mallery turned himself in at the jail that same Tuesday and was released on a personal recognizance bond, with a return court date of July 7.

For rest of story click on this link: http://mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/06/judge_clashes_again_with_attor.html




]]>Sat, 06 Jun 2015 11:01:28 GMThttp://sentinelinvestigations.net/blog/republicans-wield-power-of-the-purse-to-block-obamas-gun-regsBy Tim Devaney
The Hill

06/05/15 06:00 AM EDT

Legislation to fund the Justice Department is chock full of GOP-backed language designed to keep the Obama administration from moving ahead with gun control regulations.

The Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, which cruised through the House this week, contains several provisions directed squarely at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) rule-making authority.

Under the measure, the ATF would be prohibited from banning certain forms of armor-piercing ammunition or blocking the importation of military-style shotguns. Another provision would block federal agents from creating what critics say is a gun registry.

to read full story, click on this link:
http://thehill.com/regulation/legislation/244104-republicans-wield-power-of-the-purse-to-block-obamas-gun-regs]]>