Where does all the money go?

Sass is looking for the money

Whenever a defendant gets convicted of a crime in Wisconsin, the judge will soak the defendant with seemingly innumerable fines, costs, fees, and surcharges.  There’s the DNA surcharge (even if the defendant has already given a DNA sample and has already paid the fee in a previous case), a Domestic Violence surcharge in many cases, “victim-witness” fees, of course fines, and a plethora of other financial hits.  These things will appear on the judgment of conviction in acronym form—no one even knows what the acronyms stand for, and few people care because there’s not much we can do about it anyway.  In addition to fines, examples include the imposition of the CCFP, CLD, VW, DNAAS, GT, SFOTH, PEN, and DOMAB costs, fees, and surcharges!

What?!  What the hell are those things?  But, more importantly, where does all of that money go?  Are our criminal courts actually profit centers?  Does that create a conflict of interest?  I don’t know.  But I did just learn where the money goes when Louisiana’s criminal courts impose such financial hits. 

Pseudo-Events

In Daniel Boorstin’s book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, he argues that, given the wealth of news outlets in America, there are an awful lot of pages that reporters have to fill.  Therefore, “[t]he successful reporter is one who can find a story . . . If he cannot find a story, then he must make one . . .”

If the reporter’s digging and imagination both come up dry, then the news that gets reported may be nothing more than a “think piece” or “speculation about startling things to come”—or, worse yet, a rankings puff piece.  In sum, “news” is now “anything that makes a reader say, ‘Gee whiz!’”

In light of his words, I couldn’t help but notice two pieces of pseudo-news recently—Boorstin would call them stories about “pseudo-events.”  These two current examples fall under the heading of “career news”—a category that is now a big business in itself—and involve my former career (accounting) and my current career (law).

Law school sheep and the US News rankings

Countless news stories now litter the web proclaiming that Yale and Harvard, followed by a slew of copycat schools, “withdrew from,” “pulled out of,” or “abandoned” the US News law school rankings.  But as I explained in a previous post, these schools are not withdrawing from, pulling out of, or abandoning the US News rankings at all.  They are just not submitting data.  They are still going to be ranked.  In fact, the new top 14—which consists almost entirely of “protester” schools—has already been released and, putting aside the narcissism of small differences, appears virtually unchanged from last year!  (As explained below, we’re still waiting on rankings for schools #15 on down.)

Withholding data is nothing new or newsworthy; my alma mater Marquette Law did it back in the 90s (see p. 310) long before Yale and Harvard decided the rankings were, for nonsensical reasons, bad.  This entire thing is just a redo, a non-event.  It’s no more newsworthy than Kim Kardashian having a bad morning because she got too much foam on her designer coffee.  It just doesn’t matter.

Instead, law schools are doing this for virtue-signaling purposes—although it’s hard to see how that ploy could be successful with any thinking person, a category of persons that hopefully includes a decent percentage of law school applicants.  For example:

Fact checking the fact checkers: State v. Rittenhouse

I really hate—yes, “hate,” which can be a good thing—how social media platforms will censor a person’s political speech for allegedly being “false” when it is really just the expression of an opinion.  And now this practice has crossed the line separating the political and legal arenas.  As a practicing criminal defense lawyer, this hits close to home for me.  Hitting even closer to home, I’ve actually been cited in support of a fact checker’s decision to double down on his earlier fact check which declared someone’s speech as “false.”  This is somewhat ironic, given my love of free speech and my hatred of “speech codes,” censorship, and the asinine phrase “hate speech” which is bandied about by nasty children and freedom-hating bureaucrats on college campuses.

You can read all about it here.  In a nutshell, someone wrote on facebook that it was “perfectly legal” for Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old boy, to possess the gun he possessed when he shot three white men who separately (1) threatened to kill him and chased him, (2) pointed a gun at him, and (3) struck him with a skateboard, all during the Kenosha riots in 2020.  A fact checker then “fact checked” the claim about “perfectly legal” and determined it was false.  The facebook user was ultimately silenced or censored or deleted or whatever they do on “social media” when someone says something politically unpopular.

Dick Posner Breaks the Judicial Code of Silence

In three of my books and in many of my law review articles (most recently, this one), I explain in plain language how judges routinely disregard the law to reach their predetermined outcomes.  I have also repeatedly demonstrated how these predetermined outcomes nearly always benefit the state, thus making the judge the chief prosecutor (a/k/a the “prosecutor in a robe” or the “prosecutor on the bench”).  But now, dear reader, you don’t have to take my word about the level of disdain many of our almighty judges hold for the law.  Retired judge Dick Posner has broken the judicial code of silence and fessed-up.

Tucker Carlson, Roger Stone, and Judicial Bias

In a recent episode of his evening talk show, Tucker Carlson used the Roger Stone case to shed some light on the inner workings of our criminal justice system.  Tucker’s analysis was very informative; however, his viewers should know that the legal absurdities he identified aren’t limited to Federal judges gunning to take down Trump’s supporters.  Instead, the problems he exposed are ingrained in our state courts as well, and they are ruining the lives of ordinary Americans in run-of-the-mill cases.

The Joe Mixon Video

I just saw the Joe Mixon video on Sports Center, and it’s also available here.  I wish they would have discussed two things.  First, Mixon starts to walk away at which point the victim appears to say something to him, pushes him, and then smacks him in the side of the head — all before he strikes her.  Maybe it’s just the criminal defense lawyer in me, but I’d like to hear a debate about what type of response, if any, would have qualified as reasonably necessary to terminate her unlawful interference with his person.  (As an example of a self-defense statute, Wisconsin’s is here.)  Would a shove have been okay?  What if the shove was forceful enough to put her on the ground but did not cause any injury?  Second, according to Sports Center, Mixon “pleaded guilty to the charge without making an admission of guilt.”  How can a person plead guilty without admitting guilt?  Isn’t that what a no contest plea accomplishes?  (This is either bad reporting or a quirk in Oklahoma law.)  Finally, an observation.  From a purely practical standpoint, there’s a lesson here that should not be overlooked: If you don’t push and smack a person in the head, you will dramatically decrease your odds of getting knocked out.  You know, an ounce of prevention and all that.

Citizenfour

In her Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour, Laura Poitras exposes the extent and impact of our government’s domestic spying operations.  Her documentary focuses on Edward Snowden, and includes many of the things you’d expect to see in great filmmaking.  For example, there is the early congressional testimony of an NSA bureaucrat who repeatedly denied that the government intercepts our emails, phone calls, texts, and google searches.  But later, another NSA bureaucrat testified and tried to spin it: The NSA does not intercept such data “wittingly.”  It does so “inadvertently, perhaps,” but not “wittingly.”  (This type of statement makes the testimony of cigarette company executives — “I believe that nicotine is not addictive” — appear truthful by comparison.)

Lawyers, throw away your computers!

I just read an article that annoyed me more than listening to a podcast where the guest starts every sentence with the word “so.”  Apparently there is a group of “young lawyers” who are trying to “shake up [the] legal profession with mobile apps.”  (I hated the expression “apps” when restaurants were using it, and it’s even more annoying when techies use it.  Aren’t the words “appetizers” and “applications” short enough?)  According to the article, this entrepreneurial group may have developed some new software programs that sound potentially useful for certain legal practice areas — kudos if that is, in fact, the case.  But the gist of the article is that the legal profession’s goal should be “to remove computers from the equation and build complex legal documents through mobile devices.”

French-poetry reading pig seeks employment in large, national law firm

Most law school courses test only two things: a student’s ability to spot legal issues and then apply the relevant law. Granted, the “relevant law” in law school is usually fictional, i.e., an impractical mishmash of case law drawn from numerous states and collected in overpriced casebooks. But at least students are tested on spotting real legal issues and then applying a body of law. And what law schools are really good at is ranking students according to their ability to do this. In addition to a GPA, schools also give out class ranks. And when students apply for law firm jobs this information is placed front and center on the resume. Are you first, second, or third in your class? Are you in the top ten percent? How about the top quarter?

Kaitlyn Hunt 101: Lessons in criminal law

The news is buzzing about 18-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt, who is being prosecuted in Florida for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old female.  Many people are focusing on the same-sex nature of the teens' relationship; however, from a news standpoint, this completely misses the point.  The point is—or at least should be—that this type of prosecution is extremely common throughout our country, and the consequences are devastating.  In fact, if this CNN report is accurate, even the worst-case scenario for Kaitlyn Hunt is far better than what other young defendants are facing.  The situation is so bad that I recently published an entire book on our country’s overreaching, hyper-aggressive, and overly-punitive criminal justice system.  However, the Kaitlyn Hunt story will reach far more readers than my book ever will—so let’s take a closer look for some important lessons in criminal law.    

Legal fees: You get what you pay for?

From a defense lawyer’s standpoint, the simplest cases to defend are non-domestic fights.  You know, the good old-fashioned fisticuffs, often taking place in a bar or related setting, and often involving a self-defense claim.  The reason they’re “simple” cases is that they don’t involve complex pretrial or trial issues.  Normally, you simply have some eyewitnesses who testify as to what happened, and each side cross-examines them about their biases, motives, ability to accurately recount what they saw (or what they think they saw), etc.  Then, each side argues about the strength of the evidence, burden of proof, etc.  Unlike other cases, these self-defense cases usually don’t involve lengthy motions to suppress evidence, or time-consuming preparation for expert witnesses, or witness recantations to muddy-up the waters, or complicated “other acts” motions, or complex hearsay issues that can confuse the judge.  In other words, the classic battery case with a self-defense claim is the ideal case for a second-year law student’s trial advocacy course, or even for the new attorney fresh out of law school.  So how did one attorney get $100,000-plus in fees to defend a client in a four-day battery trial stemming from a simple throw-down at a trendy New York bar?

An alternative to the jury system?

Criticism of the jury system is probably as old as the jury system itself.  But while criticizing is one thing, coming up with a better alternative is another.  And for years, I had thought that the jury system was pretty darn good as it is.  But then I got an idea: Why don’t we just let Nancy Grace decide?

On the media: Milwaukee journalists fail miserably; kudos to Kenosha News

I recently represented Mary Hein, a therapist who was accused of drugging, hypnotizing, and brainwashing a male patient in order to have sex with him and to convince him to murder her husband.  As you might expect, the Milwaukee news force was all over it: FOX6, TMJ4, WISN12, and CBS58 were all here in Kenosha with video camera in hand, running salacious stories on the “bizarre murder-for-hire plot.”  Local residents were interviewed (of course) and said “you don’t expect this close to home”; one was even “shocked something like this could happen.”  One station also went to the trouble of interviewing another psychotherapist about Mary Hein’s “abuse of power”: as a fellow therapist, he found her behavior “pretty offensive.”  Another station threw out a teaser for future stories: “The prosecution says there is more evidence and more witnesses to prove the allegations are true.”