apublicdefender.com

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Any thoughts on this new theme? I like it - finally one that I’m seriously considering. Any input is welcome.

Here’s a bit of the customization I’ve done:

The nav bar at the top was originally in red - the same red that is the background of the search button on the right. I’ve changed it to the blue that i have on the main blog.

Also, looking at this further, I think it might be time for a new header banner. That might take a while - for me to come up with something acceptable. I might steal the ones on PD Stuff for a bit.

I might change the green for links to some other color - perhaps the same blue. Is it too garish?

Thanks to the long weekend, the Jumpstart will not be ready until later this evening, when it will be called (as usual) the wind-down. My apologies. If you’re itchin’ for some readin’, click on some links on the left.

Dude tries to fake a heart attack. Watch:

Pictures and a brief description of 20 of them

Because this may be the first year since 1999 that this movie isn’t on TV today.

photo credit: Jake Wild!

One day left before the end of the week, so it’s time to dump some links on you:

• ACLU has asked a CT court to vacate its decision to force feed an inmate on hunger strike.
• A Newsweek review of “Ganja Queen”, the story of Schappelle Corby, still stuck in an Indonesian jail.
• Follow this twisted logic: More police misconduct suits = more deaths in Chicago.
• Indigent clients may be more charitable than those with money.
• How much do eyewitnesses really see?
• Child sex assault cases are a zero sum game.
• A blogger points out that 7 jurisdictions, not 6, have the death penalty for child rape, contrary to the majority’s statement in Kennedy. Gideon yawns. Still yawning. Can’t stop yawning.
• NY will now hand out consent forms for suspects to sign prior to searching their vehicle.
• The Confrontation Blog reflects on Giles (he’s not happy).
• Stephen Gustitis is writing an excellent series of posts on the Intoxilyzer 5000. A must read for anyone doing DUI work.
• f/k/a produces a quality post yet again, this time on California’s new hands-free cell phone law (much like CT’s).
• From SCOTUSblog, “victims’ rights plea denied“.
• Is Heller on a collision course with self-defense laws?
• A day in the life of a MN public defender. Via Skelly.

In this latest installment of “Heller goes to…”, in which we follow the zany adventures of Heller v. D.C.*, the lovable Supreme Court case, as he makes his way through the country, Heller decides to go to the airport to see what the fuss is all about.

He decided to take a trip to Atlanta, GA - one of the nation’s busiest airports. After all, he now has a right to be possessed. It’s in the Constitution and what better place to exercise one’s Constitutional rights than an airport!

In addition, the state of GA had just passed a law making it legal to carry a concealed weapon while on public transportation and other fine places where other people congregate, so they can all compare their pieces and be happy.

So off went good old Heller to the airport:

City officials in charge of the airport declared it a “gun-free zone” when a law allowing people to carry guns on public transit and other places took effect Tuesday. Gun rights supporters, including a state legislator who helped pass the law, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the designation.

Rep. Tim Bearden, a Republican from Villa Rica and a former police officer, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Bearden sponsored the state law.

He had told a newspaper he would carry a concealed weapon to the airport Tuesday when he picked up his family. But he told The Associated Press by telephone Tuesday morning, “There will be no reason for any confrontation at the airport.”

The airport authorities were naturally upset, since the country has been in a state of orange alert for the last 7 years and airports lead to planes and well…you know the rest.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said citizens can’t bring guns into the terminal and argued that airports remain attractive targets for terrorism.

Allowing citizens to carry firearms “would create an environment that would endanger millions of people,” she said.

So let me get this straight. I have to endure hours of long lines at airports and invasive and intrusive searches and answer all sorts of ridiculous questions so we can be “safe”, but all of that security takes a back seat to some yahoo who doesn’t feel manly enough without his gun tucked in his shoulder holster (or wherever the kids are carrying it these days) and has to carry it to the damn airport?

It’s also quite an interesting argument to make - that an airplanes are “public transportation”.

Oh you silly Heller, you! Always getting into crazy situations!

*Yes, I realize that this GA law is not a product of Heller. I am using the Heller name as a surrogate for the right to bear arms and any and all state laws designed to make such possession legal

Apparently, it is not a violation of due process in the state of CT if there is not an adequate factual basis for a plea stated on the record. See Paulsen v. Manson, 203 Conn. 484 (1987). Who’da thunk it?

You may have heard, you may not have. A Texas grand jury has decided to “no-bill” Joe Horn (no, not that Joe Horn). Prosecutors sought to indict Horn after Horn killed two men who were fleeing after committing a burglary.

Except it was not his own house. Wouldn’t you know it, such a thing is permitted in Texas. The relevant statutes are here. I’ll pare it down for you:

A person can use deadly force (as in this case) if he believes it is immediately necessary to terminate the trespass/burglary/robbery AND the property being taken cannot be recovered by any other means AND he has a reasonable belief that the third person asked him to protect the property. Actually, upon further reading of the statute, it seems that this last one is not a requirement. So, in Texas, you can kill someone you believe is robbing your neighbor without having the neighbor’s permission to protect his house. Don’t we all feel like men now?

Bennett thinks Horn [update: perhaps] met the requirements of the statute; I disagree. I’ll tell you why.

Let’s take the “immediately necessary” portion of the statute. Here’s why this was not immediately necessary: He was on the phone with police who were on their way to the scene.

“I’ve got a shotgun; you want me to stop him?” Horn asked the dispatcher.

“Nope. Don’t do that,” the dispatcher replied. “Ain’t no property worth shooting somebody over, OK?”

Horn was clearly upset by the dispatcher’s response.

“I’m not gonna let them get away with it,” he said. “I can’t take a chance getting killed over this, OK.”

Despite the dispatcher’s protects, Horn said “I’m gonna shoot! I’m gonna shoot!”

The 911 dispatcher warned Horn to stay inside at least a dozen separate times, telling him, “An officer is coming out there. I don’t want you to go outside that house.”

He did not heed that request. He went outside and shot the two men in the back - firing three shots. Police arrived seconds later.

They weren’t on his property, they weren’t coming to his property. He was in no imminent danger.

Let’s look at the other element of the statute, that he reasonably believe that the neighbors asked him to watch over their property. The statute reads “has requested”, not “would have requested”.

“I really don’t know these neighbors,” Horn said. “I know the neighbors on the other side really well … I can assure you if it had been their house, I’d already have done something.”

Sure, today the neighbors may be glad (or perhaps not), but the question is did they give him permission at the time? Seems not to be so.

Then there’s the unfortunate matter of race. Both victims were illegal aliens of the hispanic persuasion. Horn is white. Harris County is predominantly white. I wonder what the makeup of the grand jury was?

[As an aside - where are you, victims' advocates? Every news story is parading the fact that one of the victims here was a criminal. So if they're criminals their lives aren't worth the same as others'? That's what really, really annoys me about this...]

Others may disagree - and it may seem incongruous coming from a defense attorney - but I don’t care. I don’t like the castle doctrine and I’m even more leery of using deadly force to protect property. I’ve always had trouble with this legal quirk and I always will.

As the police dispatcher said, no property is worth taking someone’s life and certainly not in cold-blood like Horn did.

I wrote and rewrote this last sentence several times as I tried to sympathize with Mr. Horn, just as I do with a majority of my clients. Don’t get me wrong, I would defend him to the best of my ability, but I’m not going to like him or feel bad for him.

Perhaps I’m just blinded by my hatred for this doctrine, but I can’t find it within myself to see his point of view. Maybe some other day, but right now I can’t. If that makes me a bad person or bad lawyer, so be it. What a slap in the face to the justice system and our notions of due process.

A report on California’s death penalty system. H/T and title from CDW.