Law/Justice

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES:

http://www.aclu.com http://www.centerforhumanrights.org http://www.getareferral.com (Find a lawyer in your area)

Is there justice anywhere in the world? There's not much here in the U.S.; but occasionally, some sense of justice seeps through, despite the efforts of the current Bush Administration to undermine rights and civil liberties with nonsense like the USA Patriot Act, passed in October, 2001, or detaining people of a "certain look", without charging them with a crime (and denying them legal counsel since they are held incognito), etc. There are many who contend that things are worse elsewhere, but my response is "just barely". Is it "justice" when people of color are given longer, harsher prison sentences than caucasions who have committed similar offenses? I think not. Is there justice when Martha Stewart is indicted for lying to federal investigators about insider trading (as she should have been) and yet Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron, and ultimately responsible for one of the biggest corporate scandals in history, has NOT been indicted; or CEOs of tobacco companies shamefully lied to a Congressional committee that tobacco was not an addidctive drug, nor was it responsible for cance-related deaths. All of those criminals should have been indicted for perjury and sent to jail. It's obvious Martha Stewart should have contributed some big money to George Bush's election campaign. Ken Lay and the tobacco executives know who their friends in government are. Please read on about law and justice here in the U. S. This link will be informative, eye-opening, and, in some cases, humorous.

PAGE CONTENTS:

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Trial by Jury

How to Argue Like a Lawyer

Minor v. Happersett

Eleven Great Puns About the Law

Miscellaneous Tidbits

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferfuson condoned racial segregation throughout the South. For over 50 years, "separate but equal" laws applied to such places as public schools, restaurants, and parks. In the 1950s, Plessy v. Ferguson was finally overruled.
©2008 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.

In 1979, in what has become known as the “Twinkie Defense,” Daniel White said he killed San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk because he ate too much junk food, such as Twinkies, candy bars, and cupcakes, which caused a chemical imbalance in his brain. He was still convicted and, in 1981, Congress outlawed the “Twinkie Defense.”

The ‘v’ in the name of a court case does not stand for‘versus’, but for ‘and’ (in civil proceedings) or‘against’ (in criminal proceedings).

ARE ATTORNEY AND LAWYERS THE SAME THING?
Lawyers graduate from law school. Only they can call themselves lawyers. An attorney, however, is anyone authorized by you to act on your behalf. Your best friend can be your attorney. That's why they call various documents "power of attorney". An attorney-at-law is usually a lawyer who acts on your behalf regarding all legal proceedings.

What if an atheist or an agnostic were an important witness to a crime--how would that person be sworn in?
When a witness refuses to swear to God, the court accepts an "affirmation" instead. In a jury trial, the smart lawyer will arrange for this ahead of time in the judge's chambers, so the witness won't look unduly obstreperous or morally deficient in open court. The judge may then instruct the jury that the funny oath they are about to hear should be considered legally valid.

The Miranda Ruling
In 1963, Ernesto Miranda was accused of kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old, mildly retarded woman. He was brought in for questioning, and confessed to the crime. He was not told that he did not have to speak or that he could have a lawyer present. At trial, Miranda's lawyer tried to get the confession thrown out, but the motion was denied. In 1966, the case came in front of the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the statements made to the police could not be used as evidence, since Miranda had not been advised of his rights. Since then the police have been required to recite the Miranda warning.

Jails are most often run by sheriffs and/or local governments and are designed to hold individuals awaiting trial or a serving short sentences.

Prisons are operated by state governments and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and are designed to hold individuals convicted of crimes.

In 1909, Annette Kellerman, the Australian swimming star, appeared on a Boston beach wearing a figure-fitting jersey bathing suit with sleeves shortened almost to her shoulders and trousers ending two inches above her knees. She was arrested for indecent exposure.

On January 22, 1976, a guerrilla force blasted into the vaults of the British Bank of the Middle East in Bab Idriss, cleaning out the contents of the safe deposit. The boxes of cash and other valuables were estimated by former finance minister Lucien Dahdah at $50 million. It was the single most lucrative bank robbery in history, occurring during the worst civil unrest period ever in Beirut, Lebanon.

On August 12, 1895, Minnie Dean became the first woman to be hanged in New Zealand. Her crime was "baby farming." She would adopt unwanted babies for a certain fee and then dispose of them, a "service" she began in 1889. The police caught on to Minnie after six years and found her to be most certainly guilty when they dug up three bodies of infants in her flower garden.

Railroad conductors and mailmen in the U.S. refused to wear uniforms until after the Civil War. In 1844, policemen in New York City staged a strike against their proposed blue uniforms. The reason for their opposition was that they considered uniforms to be symbols of servitude, as maids and butlers wore them in the old country.

The United States is second in the world in its rate of incarceration, exceeded only by Russia.

93% of prison inmates are male, 7% female.

New York was the first state to require the licensing of motor vehicles. The law was adopted in 1901.

Congress passed a law prohibiting American vessels from supplying slaves to other countries on March 22, 1794.

Congress prohibited dueling in the District of Columbia on February 20, 1839.

Connecticut and Rhode Island never ratified the Eighteenth Amendment: Prohibition.

Contrary to many reports, the Eisenhower Interstate System does NOT require that one mile in every five must be straight in the United States. The claim that these straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies does not exist in any federal legislation. Korea and Sweden DO use some of their roads as military air strips.

Courts of law in the United States devote about half their time to cases involving automobiles.

Dancing to the "Star-Spangled Banner" is against the law in several American states.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

In Britain, the law was changed in 1789 to make the method of execution hanging. Prior to that, burning was the modus operandi. The last female to be executed by burning in England was Christian Bowman. Her crime was making counterfeit coins.

In Canada, if a debt is higher than 25 cents, it is illegal to pay it with pennies.

The U.S. Congress regulates the number of Justices on the Supreme Court. Originally having only six Justices, it had as many as ten at one time. In 1826, Congress voted to set the membership at nine.

When it was first established, the U.S. Supreme Court used juries.

Belgium is the only country that has never imposed censorship laws on adult films.

The US federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to support the Union's Civil War effort. It was eliminated in 1872, revived in 1894 then declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court the following year. In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the US tax system.

The only crime defined in the U.S. Constitution is treason— Article III, Section 3.

FBI agents were first allowed to carry guns in 1934, 26 years after the agency was established.

The first lawyer to practice in New York City, Adriaen van der Donck, arrived in 1653. He had a problem. He was the only lawyer in town. The government of the then New Amsterdam didn't think it was fair to allow him to argue a case in court since the other side could not be similarly represented by counsel.
Source: THE NEW YORK BOOK OF FIRSTS

Americans filed more civil lawsuits per capita in 1830 and in 1850 than they do today. (Source: Ralph Nader/Slate.com/University of Wisconsin Law School)

The United States Supreme Court once ruled Federal income tax unconstitutional. Income tax was first imposed during the Civil War as a temporary revenue-raising measure.

Until the first Divorce Court was established in 1857 it was common practice for British men to trade their unwanted spouses like any other possession? (Source: Useless Trivia)

The first state minimum wage law in the U.S. went into effect in Massachusetts on July 1, 1913. It would be another 25 years before minimum wage law went into effect nationally.

In Atlanta, Georgia, it is illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp.

In Breton, Alabama, there is a law on the town's books against riding down the street in a motorboat.

In Britain, a horseshoe was not thought to be lucky traditionally. It was thought to be a guardian against all evil forces, as inhabitants of the spirit world were supposed to flee from the sight of cold iron.

In Canada, if a debt is higher than 25 cents, it is illegal to pay it with pennies.

The American Library Association (ALA) opposes any use of governmental power to suppress the free and open exchange of knowledge and information or to intimidate individuals exercising free inquiry…ALA considers that sections of the USA PATRIOT ACT are a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users.” - from the American Library Association’s Resolution on the USA Patriot Act.

The “USA PATRIOT” Act expands the federal government’s authority to investigate American citizens. Since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, it is possible that library users’ activities may be monitored by the federal government. FBI agents can obtain court orders that allow them to examine user circulation records and Internet use records. Some court orders even allow agents to monitor email and chat room activities without probable cause.

Privacy is essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association. In a library, the subject of a user’s interests should not be examined or scrutinized by others, especially our government. Provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act seriously undermine our civil rights and liberties guaranteed under the United States Constitution.

Trial By Jury

The heart of the U.S. justice system relies, to a large degree, on the notion of trial by a fair and impartial jury.

In fact, America's founders thought that jury trials were so important that the U.S. Constitution covers them in three places: first in Article III, and again in the Sixth and Seventh Amendments. Here's what that founding documentsays.

Article III, Section 2
"The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury."

The Constitution didn't say much about rights until the Bill of Rights was added in 1791. Yet it did guarantee the right to trial by jury, an idea inherited from British common law. Starting in 1215, the Magna Carta, in particular, protected an English nobleman from being
punished "except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

By colonial times, all "freeborn Englishmen" assumed the right to a jury trial. In 1774, the First Continental Congress declared that British subjects in America were entitled to "the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by peers." Two years later, the Declaration of
Independence condemned the king for "depriving us . . . of the benefits of Trial by Jury."

The Sixth Amendment
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."

The Sixth Amendment demands that juries be impartial and local. Courts strive for impartiality in two ways. First, they draw juries from pools of citizens that must, by law,
accurately represent the community. Second, they select jurors from the pool carefully, through "voir dire" (Anglo-French for "to speak the truth"). During voir dire, attorneys from both sides question prospective jurors to see if they are biased. Those found to be so are generally sent home.

Requiring local juries was partly a response to pre-Revolutionary War cases in which the British shipped colonists off to England to stand trial before unsympathetic jurors. It was also part of common law precedent. In a draft of the Sixth Amendment, James Madison wrote that juries should be made up of "freeholders of the vicinage" (common law parlance for "neighborhood property owners").

The Seventh Amendment
"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

Though we now associate juries more with criminal cases, they were used to try civil cases first. The Seventh Amendment guarantees that their use in such cases will continue--at least as long as people continue to sue each other for sums exceeding $20.

The Seventh Amendment also explicitly preserves a common law tradition in which juries, and not judges, decide cases' facts. Judges answer questions of law. For example, a judge decides which evidence is legally admissible (a question of law), but a jury decides what that evidence actually proves (a question of fact). The judge is the legal expert. But the power to determine guilt or innocence, or civil liability, belongs to the community itself.

--Steve Sampson

How to Argue Like a Lawyer

Civilized debate is healthy--and can be fun. To learn some tricks of the tirade, KnowledgeNews sought out tips from the acknowledged experts on arguing: lawyers. And they gave us three good ways to help you make your point.

1. Analogize and Distinguish
Most courts are strongly influenced by decisions already made in similar cases, which is why lawyers are always looking for these precedents. But the previous cases are rarely identical to the case being argued, which leaves everyone with wiggle room.

Lawyers handle precedents in two ways. If the outcome of the previous case is favorable to your client, you analogize by emphasizing how this precedent is very similar to your case. But, if the outcome of the previous case would encourage a decision against your client, you distinguish by pointing out how the precedent differs. Pointing out all the differences between the precedent and your case tends to blunt the impact of the precedent.

2. Don't Hide Bad News
How many movies have you seen in which a witness reveals some shocking fact on the stand? In real life, lawyers on both sides spend hours poring over documents and interviewing witnesses before going to trial, so there are rarely surprises. Of course, that means your opponent knows the flaws in your case almost as well as you do. Rather than letting the other side pounce on a case's worst flaw and trumpet it, lawyers often will touch lightly on the weakest point during a long presentation (so the listener has lots of other things to remember). They'll add just enough detail to make the weakness seem trivial.

This tactic works best when you know that someone surely will point out any drawbacks to your position--for example, when you are pitching a proposal to your boss in front of those velociraptors from the marketing department. Try adding something like this as you wrap up your oral presentation: "After looking at all the options, I recommend this plan. I know it's more expensive than the other bids, but the quality is better and the contractor is willing to commit to an earlier completion date." Take that, velociraptors.

3. Ask Leading Questions
On TV, attorneys are always objecting to "leading the witness." A leading question is not really a question--it's more like a statement that ends with an invitation to agree. When you want to establish how long someone has been on the job, you are leading the witness if you say: "You've been working on Capitol Hill for three years, right?" The non-leading version ("How long have you worked for the congressman?") might elicit all kinds of information, such as "ever since my parole ended" or "since 2001, but I met him when we were patients at the rehab clinic in the '80s."

Leading questions are effective because they allow the questioner to frame the testimony. The other advantage is that people are likely to agree with a leading question, even if it's not 100 percent correct. In an argument, you can use leading questions to back your rival into a corner: "Chinese food? We've had Chinese three times in the past month, haven't we?" As long as the statement is (basically) truthful, it's hard to disagree.

Colleen Kelly
June 25, 2004

In Missouri in 1872, Virginia Minor tried to register to vote, and she sued when the registrar wouldn't allow her registration. The case went to the Supreme Court, which in 1874 decided that women were citizens but that voting was not a necessary part of being a citizen. Read more about Minor v. Happersett, a key case in the history of women's rights in America.

Minor v. Happersett

A key case in the history of women's rights in America

by Jone Johnson Lewis

On October 15, 1872, Virginia Minor applied to register to vote in Missouri. The registrar, Reese Happersett, turned down the application, because the Missouri state constitution read: "Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote."

Mrs. Minor sued in Missouri state court, claiming her rights were violated on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment.

After Minor lost the suit in that court, she appealed to the state Supreme Court. When the Missouri Supreme Court agreed with the registrar, Minor brought the case to the United States Supreme Court.

The US Supreme Court, in an 1874 unanimous opinion written by the chief justice, found:

women are citizens of the United States, and were even before the Fourteenth Amendment passed
the right of suffrage -- the right to vote -- is not a "necessary privilege and immunity" to which all citizens are entitled
the Fourteenth Amendment did not add the right of suffrage to citizenship privileges
the Fifteenth Amendment was required to be sure voting rights were not "denied or abridged ... on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" -- in other words, the amendment was not necessary if citizenship conferred voting rights
women's suffrage was explicitly excluded in nearly every state either in the constitution or in its legal code; no state had been excluded from joining the Union for lack of women's voting rights, including states re-entering the Union after the Civil War, with newly written constitutions
the US had made no objection when New Jersey explicitly withdrew women's suffrage rights in 1807
arguments about the need for women's suffrage were irrelevant to their decisions

Thus, Minor v. Happersett reaffirmed the exclusion of women from voting rights.

ELEVEN GREAT PUNS ABOUT THE LAW

11) Lawyers wear law suits.

10) Next time you get a lawyer a drink, give him just-ice.

9) A lawyer using a facsimile machine must be sure to get his fax straight.

8) A lawyer for a church did some cross-examining.

7) Does a lawyer representing an angry cow find just cause for sour milk in a dairy case?

6) A detective likes to have a brief case.

5) The detective who went to investigate a burned down post office figured that it must be blackmail.

4) There are many judges who would like to acquit smoking.

3) Old judges never die, they just slur their sentences.

2) A police dog is often the scenter of a drug arrest.

1) If there's one person you don't want to interrupt in the middle of a sentence, it's a judge.

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