Self-help

Occasionally as a criminal defense attorney you have a client who gives every appearance of being a person who can not be helped. In order to have even an interest in helping someone escape prison or jail, that person should show some small inclination in helping themselves. There are those who have very little, if any, socially redeeming value-they merely exist on the planet wandering about without the minutest contribution to anyone's well-being. True, as they do not produce anything, they consume very little-just enough to keep themselves alive. These people actually improve their prospects by being placed in jail or prison. They have food, warmth, and a bed to sleep in. These are items that may or may not be available to them regularly outside of jail. In these cases, their attorney should make little effort to have them released as early as possible contrary to their protestations. After all they have things to do, places to go, and people to see or so they say. Attorneys have ethical rules they must follow. These rules go to the idea that attorneys exist to assist their clients when dealing with legal problems, especially those of a criminal nature. The client comes first. However, clients come along whose reality is significantly different from the common. This can be the result of mental imbalance, stupidity, or simple ignorance. Ignorance can often be cured, but not the other two disabilities mentioned. There is no help for stupidity and little for the mentally deranged. We have a vast array of therapeutic placements for those hovering around the criminal justice system. Unfortunately little distinction is made between a person who is schizophrenic and one who has an IQ of 75 or one who simply doesn't give a rat's ass. We have apparently come to the conclusion, here in the U.S.A., that all can be helped, all can be productive members of society, all can learn to do what they are told. This is nonsense. To rehabilitate implies that a person at one point in his life did not need rehabilitated; the person exemplified the qualities most desired in a citizen. This premise is incorrect. We have a difficult time accepting the fact that there are those who simply can not or will not function as the society would have them function. I suppose we could take them out and shoot them like the Nazis did. We forget that the Nazis were killing their lunatics, schizophrenics, malformed long before they were gassing the Jews and gypsies. Theirs was an attempt to strengthen the race; a replacement for natural selection or a form of it. Since most societies have rejected this method of maintaining themselves, other solutions must be found. One thing we do have in common, however, is that these people should not be allowed to decide for themselves what is best for them. Someone else must do the deciding. It is certain, we will not leave them alone. They are far too obnoxious and annoying to be allowed to roam about at will. It may cost a great deal, but if they are incarcerated they will not bother the general public with their numerous needs; they will no longer be inconvenient and we can safely ignore them if they have been disappeared.

Drug War

Of all places, Bloomberg Radio with Charlie Rose carried an interview of two professors discussing the failed war on drugs. One of these professors has actually written a book detailing the racial component of this war. Now that professors are aware of matters that many of us have known for years, others, not in the profession, may take note, but it would be a stretch that politicians would react positively to the news that the war on drugs is simply oppression by another name. The professors have even come to the view that criminal statutes, those specifically dealing with drugs apparently, are just a matter of cultural control. They have also come to the opinion that people branded as criminals are discriminated against the remainder of their lives. The reason that this professorial enlightenment will fall into the void without action is that these are not unintended consequences. They don't get it. The war on drugs was engineered for the express purpose for which it is used--to control large groups of people found either to be superfluous or suspect; i.e., black people, Mexicans, the poor and destitute. The comment was made in the interview that 7,00,000 U. S. citizens are either in jail, prison, on probation, or on parole. These 7,000,000 are told where they can live, who they can live with, what they can and can not do. For those on probation or parole, we call it supervision with the purported goal of making those on probation or parole law-abiding and productive members of society. It matters not a whit whether they are capable of being law-abiding or productive and matters less whether they have any intention of ever being productive whatever that word may mean to those in charge. Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, someone needs to call up these professors and laud them for their new awareness that people are in prison but at the same time disabuse them of the reason for it.

Pardon the Turkey

A bulletin was released announcing President Obama pardoned the White House turkey. This act of compassion was made to give us the warm and fuzzy feelings required for the holiday. Among the myriad of things we are to be thankful for this holiday weekend, we may add our thanks to the President for allowing the White House turkey to strut another day. It is a symbolic gesture; a gesture to remind us once more that we should be thankful for what we have and not to complain about what we don't have. I suggest to the President that he might direct his compassion elsewhere. He has the power to pardon several million people wasting away in prison; some for life, others for years until they are too old and decrepit to do anything other than sit once they are released. This would be an act of courage for a hue and cry would ensue from the public denouncing such an act of compassion as weakness and morally reprehensible. In the mind of many it is a perfectly reasonable exercise of executive power to release the White House turkey from its death sentence but a man from his cage not so much. The mind of the public is a very fickle thing; it moves like air currents, soft and strong, from one direction to another, all within minutes. The president of the United States is in a position where he can actually effect a change in public opinion. Now that President Obama is not required to stand for reelection and say simply what people want him to say at any given moment, he might actually do something that will change the perception of the public toward this vast incarceration complex that we have built here in this home of the brave and land of the free. Rather than pardon a turkey maybe he should consider pardoning some people. They would be very thankful; their families would be thankful; their children would no longer be required to drive hundreds of mile to visit their fathers or mothers behind stone walls and razor wire. The republic would not disintegrate. If the president of the United States were simply to state that pardoning a person from prison is the thing to do, the right thing to do, and he said it often enough, to many it would indeed become the right thing to do; and, more importantly, we might accomplish something that would actually be compassionate.

Immigration vs. imprisonment

While preparing for the day this morning the thought, or I should say, question occurred to me whether there is a correlation between the people we admit to this country and the people we throw away. You may ask, "What do you mean by the term throw away?" Our federal government throws away thousands of American citizens every year by imprisoning them often for many years. If you sentence a 40 year old man to 20 years in the federal penitentiary, upon release he will remain a tossed-out old man surviving the best he can until he dies. On the other side of this equation we have the federal government setting immigration quotas allowing a certain number of people admission to the United States with the idea they will remain permanently, have children, and multiply. These people are screened for admission. Whether or not the requirements for admission are set in stone or change from time to time, I can not say. But my question is whether or not there is a correlation between the immigration quotas and the number of people we throw away. This would make a good study. I presume there are sufficient statistics to make some sort of analysis. The irony is that the xenophobes that inhabit many sections of the country also constitute the portion of the population most supporting of the imprisonment of vast numbers of their own countrymen. Their position is to get rid of the Mexicans and all those who don't do what they are told, i.e., criminals. The thought process by which this conclusion is reached escapes me. The possible genesis of it may be in the idea that wealth (prosperity) is a fixed sum and the more people there are the less anyone person has. If this is indeed the source of the prevailing attitude, the ignorance it reflects is stupendous. This is most likely the case and is not a mystery. P. T. Barnum not only voiced his opinion of the stupidity of the American public, he proved it.