Entries categorized as ‘Personal’
I was helping out on a criminal matter that resulted in a good outcome for the client. What started as a multi-count indictment with gun and drug possession charges and a fairly lengthy sentence, ended in the client’s release for time served. The attorney I was working with even managed to reinstate his probation even though the client had been “revoked” before the criminal case came about. This outcome was largely the product of shoddy police work and the prosecutor, to his credit, knew it; hence, the reduced charges. Client ended up pleading guilty to misdemeanor obstruction.
To the general public this result may seem like familiar examples of the criminal justice system run amok and criminal defense attorneys up to their usual tricks . Even the judge, who accepted the plea but had almost no knowledge of how the police trampled on the client’s constitutional rights in their haste to rid society of another criminal element, was taken aback by the deal the client received from the prosecutor. To hear the incident recounted during the plea proceedings, one would be hard pressed to think otherwise: guns and drug-like substances were recovered, client’s friend fleeing the scene, client slamming the door on the police and then attempting to flee himself. But what was not disclosed and what really turned the case around was how the police violated god knows how many constitutional and statutory provisions against unreasonable searches and seizures when they searched the apartment client was at without a valid warrant, and the one they eventually did get was just as good as no warrant at all when they failed to comply with appropriate procedures.
The unfortunate thing is that the public will, for the most part, never learn of what the police did and, for that matter, didn’t do, in the client’s case. The fortunate thing though is that the client had attorneys who did find out what happened (not always a given) and raised hell with the prosecutor about it as was their duty under the Constitution.
Categories: Criminal Law · Personal · Police Corruption · Social Justice
Tagged: Constitution, Criminal Defense, Effective Assistance of Counsel, Fourth Amendment
As is the tradition on July 4th in Atlanta, runners – some 55,000 of them – gathered early this morning for the running of the annual Peachtree Road Race. My girlfriend and I had a nice view of it from our apartment, and we cheered on the runners as they zoomed toward the finish line. It was inspiring not only to see the cheering masses urging the runners on but also the runners themselves responding to the cheers by quickening their pace and pumping their fists.
Rare is the time when one sees an informally large and diverse group of individuals from the community supporting the same cause, as was the case this morning along the streets of Atlanta. Even in the post-Obama era, we are defined more by our differences with one another than our similarities, whether in terms of political ideology, culture, or religion. That, of course, is not an entirely bad thing; indeed, such diversity is what makes the United States the envy of other nations. Yet if that envy is to be deserved, we, as a community – one that stretches beyond the next county line, but to the limits of the country – must band together and take on the problems that are now plaguing the nation, such as a limitless debt, astronomical health care costs, and mass incarceration. We can start by admitting that America is not the benevolent and seemingly invincible power that it once was, or, has continually proclaimed itself to be, and that what entitlement we have to so-called superpower status is due as much to our exploitation of others and luck as it is to our ingenuity and industriousness. We should seriously question whether our representatives in government truly reflect our values and interests, and if not, why we continue to tolerate such a situation. And do this not in an intellectual but human capacity. Go to an upcoming meeting of the city council and listen to what’s being debated (or not) and what positions your local council member is taking. I did this recently for one of the first times in my life as a member of a local public safety organization and came away from the experience a bit less disillusioned that I had been about the functionality of our political process. Will your concerns always be heard by our many tin-eared government officials? No. But one can almost be sure that the alternative of apathy and delusion will lead to much harsher and dangerous results. (See 9/11, neoliberalism, and our current financial crisis.)
Categories: Atlanta News · Personal · U.S. News
Tagged: Independence Day, Peachtree Road Race
Today marks the first time I am blogging as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney in Georgia.
Although I had set up this blog some time ago, it has taken me a while to come to this point, partly because I have been busy setting up my solo practice, and partly because I needed time to think of a direction for this blog, i.e., what subjects should or should not be discussed in this blog, what ethical concerns arise from being a blogger and attorney, etc. I don’t know if I’ve completely resolved those issues, but, for the moment at least, I am content knowing that there are things worth discussing with respect to criminal law and civil rights not only in Georgia but the United States as a whole. And this blog will provide me with a forum to do so.
The title of my blog is taken from Ralph Ellison’s famed novel of the same name. It begins with the following passage:
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination – indeed, everything and anything except me.
It is perhaps not a stretch to say that Ellison’s description of the “invisible man” is all too familiar for those who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Not because the criminal process itself is often bizarre and incomprehensibly complicated, although that I am sure contributes to one’s feeling and status of “invisibility”, but because criminal activity is the result of one’s sense of “invisibility” in society. That is the perspective from which my discussion of criminal law and civil rights will be framed. And I invite all of my readers to call me out when I stray from that perspective.
- AW
Categories: Personal · Solo Practice News
Tagged: Civil Rights, Criminal Law, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
