UNDERDOG - Criminal/DWI Attorney for Fairfax/Northern Virginia/Md. & beyond. - Jon's news & views

Criminal defense is not for mere dilettantes, but for true believers and true doers.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

By Jon Katz, a criminal defense lawyer and DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving lawyer advocating in Fairfax County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and beyond for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

Recently, I bumped into a fellow lawyer when both of us were on the way to Maryland criminal court. I mentioned my intention to move to dismiss my case for being improperly charged by citation rather than by a statement of charges. (The case ended up getting dismissed when the prosecutor's witness did not appear.) My colleague had never considered such an idea, at least not for this particular criminal accusation, and kept asking me about this defense rather than simply showing by words or silence that he was going to arrange to read the citation statute, which I had already cited to him. Md. Crim. Proc. Code § 4-101.

Criminal defense is about defending people's lives and liberty, using all the lawyer's skill, experience, persuasive ability, true grit, passion and entire person. Sometimes the work is like panning for gold. It might feel exhilarating to get a criminal defense victory by hearing a resounding jury acquittal, but getting a case fully and finally dismissed well in advance of trial on an novel or obscure argument or piece of evidence wins the defendant's liberty sooner, reduces the defendant's angst, and saves the defendant on his or her litigation budget. The goal is to win, no matter how the lawyer gets to the victory, so long as the lawyer works honestly and within the bounds of law.

Criminal defense is not for mere dilettantes, not when criminal defendants' lives and liberty are on the line; not when persuasion in criminal court requires knowing the case and applicable law backwards and forwards; not when the criminal statutory and caselaw involve so many nuances, opposing lines of caselaw, and counterintuitive and even exasperating rules, tests and results; and not when too many judges too often find ways to avoid giving criminal defendants the relief they are entitled to, under the rubric of harmless error, lack of caselaw supporting relief (even when the applicable statute dictates such relief), waiver of rights, and lack of authority or jurisdiction over the matter when the judge does have such authority and jurisdiction.

Nobody in his or her right mind would go into the boxing ring against the world's heavyweight champion without experience, wits, courage, and daily focused training and exercise. The same goes for criminal defense lawyers. Unfortunately, dollar signs and empty coffers can entice lawyers to foray into criminal defense if they find the clients; foray not for such mere reasons.

Yes, any professional needs to start somewhere. However, the difference between the dilettante and the devoted criminal defense lawyer is the difference between dabbling and taking on each case as if the life and liberty of the lawyer himself or herself -- or the lawyer's closest friend or relative -- depended on it. No area of law -- particularly criminal defense -- should be viewed by the lawyer with dollar signs rather than as a way to serve clients, with money being a fringe benefit. I have had some lawyers tell me, unabashedly, that the practice of law is all about making money. They should not hold their breaths for me to refer cases to them. When I need to refer someone to a lawyer because of a conflict of interest or calendar, geography, or area of law, I want a lawyer who truly cares, is truly capable and is truly attentive. I want a lawyer who is a true believer and true doer.

What about my colleague, then, who kept asking me about my citation-dismissal argument rather than stopping the action by simply resolving to read the applicable statute? He is not necessarily a dilettante. If he did not care about finding expanded ways to succeed for clients, he likely would have paid little attention to what I had told him. He did not, though, engender confidence in me to the level of referring any clients to him, in part because he did not already know this basic area of the law, and did not exhibit that he was just going to read the short applicable statute for himself.

Devoted criminal defense lawyers are always ready to brainstorm with colleagues, and to expose their personal and intellectual weaknesses and fears in the process, out of the goal first and foremost of serving the client. However, adding to the mix of brainstorming is the necessity to fully and repeatedly engage with and do teamwork with the client, and the essential and often painstaking process of the criminal defense lawyer's being alone with his thoughts and ideas. Criminal defense lawyers on the winning path welcome all opportunities to get closer to victory, and do not feel lonely, but totally alive, when alone in thought and preparation for each client's defense, only missing having nobody else in the room to high-five when the lawyer discovers a new breakthrough towards winning his or her case.

Today's blog entry is meant partly to urge lawyers to stay away from criminal defense unless they are going to jump into it full force, with their full true belief, devotion, heart, soul, time and attention, intellect, and experience. This blog entry is also meant to encourage criminal defendants to seek out such lawyers, not the ones who just talk the talk, but who have shown that they are walking the walk. The walk cannot always be easily found, but must be found, including researching and observing the lawyer, paying close attention to how the lawyer talks and pays attention to the potential client, reading some of what the lawyer has written, and asking the lawyer why s/he practices criminal defense.

I am grateful to know many true believers and true doers in the criminal defense practice, with all being great teachers to me by their teachings and example. I thank and deeply bow to them all.

Government abuse of power and truth never started nor ended with Nixon. Now IRS-gate and Benghazi-gate.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 12 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

By Jon Katz, a criminal defense lawyer and DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving lawyer advocating in Fairfax County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and beyond for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

Once the Oval Office secret taping was revealed -- followed by my being convinced that Nixon knew about and kept mum about the Watergate break-in, let alone his involvement with covering up the scandal -- I told myself by age eleven in 1974 that I did not like him. Not helping Nixon on my assessment of him were his looks (not ugly but not photogenic nor kind-looking, either; I had many years of challenges to overcome lookism), the political cartoonists' wild caricatures of him, and my view that he was anything but cool when the counterculture's strong inclusion on the airwaves was still recently strong. Pat Oliphant's image of an isolated and lonely-seeming Nixon awkwardly commandeering the peace symbol into a victory sign (in my view) summed up my not being able to relate to the man.

I later learned that I would have been wiser to have opposed Nixon for some more extensive and overlapping reasons, removing any issues about his looks or demeanor. As I understand it, Nixon saw few boundaries on presidential power, and, thereby dangeroursly threatened individual liberties and the balance of power among the three branches of the federal government. He used smear tactics -- including playing on anti-Communist fears -- to advance. He apparently kept an enemies list. He was very bigoted. He ordered a burglary of the Brookings Institution, a pre-Watergate break-in at that. I learned that I could not dislike him so much for secret oval office tapings -- with the tapes' ultimately strangling Nixon's presidency -- because they started with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and continued with Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.

Nothing, though, is black or white, all good or all evil, or done in a vacuum. Nixon would not have taken and consolidated power absent many people supporting his doing so. Not everything he did was bad; for instance, regardless of his motivations, he placed a diplomatic focus on reducing tensions and nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and paved the way to diplomatic relations with China.

Barack Obama does not come across as a Richard Nixon. He seems to mean well without being obsessed and paranoid over his opponents, and without seeming to wield presidential power for his own image and legacy. I have never been crazy about Obama, and believe that his "no drama Obama" approach goes too far. All shrewd politicians have learned to do their best to avoid what Nixon did to suffer the downfall of his presidency.

Now, regardless of President Obama's involvement or knowledge (and any failure or not to disclose the following scandals), he has two huge scandals on his hands that were reported last week: The IRS's admission that it targeted conservative political groups for audits, and revelation of emails from the State Department seeking to mislead the public about the cause of the Benghazi killings of American diplomats.

I doubt that Obama would have directed nor allowed the IRS to target anyone for political reasons. I have not explored enough how much responsibility Obama did or did not have for misleading initial explanations of the cause of the Benghazi killings. However, Obama by now clearly knows about both scandals. What will he do to explain his role -- or lack therein -- in the scandals, what he will do to fix the situation, and what he will do with the government personnel who caused and perpetuated these scandals?

Abuse of governmental power is not limited to any one political party. We are stuck in a Tweedledee-Tweedledum American two-party political world that is a far cry from a true democracy when considering the stranglehold that the Democratic and Republican parties have on the political landscape. Both parties have consolidated too much power. Huge power breeds greater risk of devastating abuse of that power. The federal executive branch has a hugely powerful bureaucracy that tends more to perpetuate itself than to reform from one presidential party to the next.

As to criminal justice, few politicians are willing to risk their careers by pursuing a massive overhaul of the criminal justice system to criminal defendants' benefit. Law and order tends more often to get politicians elected than campaigns to move away from America's incarcerating more people per capita than any other nation, even China.

So long as the United States government remains so powerful, gross abuses of power will continue.

Recommending Claude AnShin Thomas in Annapolis tonight through Saturday.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Praised be Claude AnShin Thomas, who metamorphosized from killing scores of people during the Vietnam War to being an example of living internal and external peace and compassion, creating a new relationship with our own suffering, and acknowledging and coming to terms with our own internal demons. Thanks also to Brother Claude's spiritual partner and assistant Wiebke KenShin Andersen, who manages his public appearances.

I challenge anyone not to be profoundly changed for the better after experiencing one of Brother Claude's presentations or reading his book At Hell's Gate.

Claude AnShin Thomas will be in Annapolis tonight through Saturday, on the Real Costs of War tonight (open to all) and tomorrow (for veterans only), and the Courage to Change all day this Saturday. I highly recommend experiencing him.

Work as play, and play as work, revisited with my son.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Over four years ago, I blogged about the strength of work as play and play as work. Numerous times I have written about the power of summoning our child within.

I sometimes summon the image of my mentors Steve Rench to my left, Jun Yasuda to my right, and Cheng Man Ch'ing to my rear when in the courthouse. I add to that having my son in front of me. I became a father in my fourth decade. If anyone helps assure that I stay in touch with my humanity, it is my son, now seven. If I even dared to say even one word of legalese to him, he would grab me by the arm and pull me over to play.

My son and I play a lot, and recently we started hiking more often on the Billy Goat trail, which is one of my favorite hiking places, and now my son's as well. Last Thursday, I had my first chance to experience with him Take Your Child to Work Day, after court finished. He handed my legal memorandum to the court clerk, and got a date-stamp back for me. He helped me pick up discovery from the prosecutor's office. At my office, I showed him how to use the copier, fax machine delivery to my efax, and scanner. He has come to my office many times on weekends, but not often duringthe weekdays.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, my son reminded me to incorporate play and the power of my child within into my work. Before going to court, we got a snack around the corner, and played the table's video game together. On arrival at my office, he started off with playing on Nick.com before we got to work on copying, faxing and scanning. I handled meetings and other obligations while he took care of business in an office that was not being occupied that day.

We went to dinner at the end of the day at the restaurant of his choosing, Potbelly. On the way there, my son wanted first to race up and down the inviting wide stairway in the nearby plaza.

This was an afternoon and evening always to remember. Deeply thanking and bowing to my son, and hugging him closely.

Underdog is seven years old. Happy belated 420.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Yesterday, April 20, Underdog turned seven years old. We launched on 4-20-06.with this tribute to 420. Reprinted below is our 4-20-08 anniversary blog entry:

Since our 2006 launching, Underdog has blogged nearly every business day. Our first anniversary blog entry is here.

Why do I blog? Through blogging, I keep a valuable diary that helps keep my written and oral pen sharpened, my self-awareness deepened, and my bully pulpit strong. Also, it can be more important to touch one person in the audience in a valuable way than for thousands to receive the message in a much less profound way. My motivation for blogging goes far beyond having a web presence for our law firm, to a thirst to express critical and undiluted messages about justice, and to increase the number of people who will assert their rights with the police so as never to need our criminal defense services in the first place.. So many civil liberties need to be won and re-won worldwide. One of the most effective ways for a non-full-time writer or television/radio personality to get out the pro-civil liberties message is through blogging.

Imagine, just two decades ago, before Gorbachev took over in the Soviet Union followed by the fall of the Berlin Wall, samizdat dissenting publications in the Soviet Union often got distributed by recipients (risking prosecution) retyping and distributing the publications, when printing presses and photocopiers were scarce, and strictly controlled by the iron-fisted government. Today, except in such places as North Korea, which even bans cellphones, dissenting writings can travel to a much wider audience with lightning speed over the Internet from nearly any country.

Consider the high price that such literary greats as Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Vaclav Havel paid for writing and distributing their writings under severely oppressive regimes. When I first visited Indonesia in 1988, the brutal government apparently only kept Pramoedya Ananta Toer -- probably the nation's most famous writer and its greatest potential engine to advance the national and still rather newborn Bahasa Indonesia language to unite a nation that never had been much united before independence -- out of prison (after being in and out of prisons many times before, under the Suharto and Sukarno regimes and by colonial occupiers before that) and away from government executioners and assassins in order to prevent a foreign aid and trade stoppage had Indonesia done otherwise. His books were banned in Indonesia at the time, although some booksellers clandestinely sold them under risk of imprisonment. Speaking on tour when I met him in 1999, Pramoedya was deeply emotional when he said that the Indonesian government's efforts to ban his books was like trying to cut off his life. By that time, and to this day, Pramoedya's writings were much more freely available in Indonesia than when I first visited.

Pramoedya went to great lengths to keep his written and oral voice going. For instance, he started his Buru tetralogy orally through a chain of his fellow Buru island prisoners, at the times he was denied pen and paper, only to complete the multi-level mosaic story in book form years later. Sometimes he was able to smuggle out notes "'written under adverse conditions".

Subsequent to the Prague Spring, before Gorbachev, Vaclav Havel was repeatedly hounded and oppressed for his writings. Index on Censorship once ran an article on Havel showing him smiling and carrying a sack of beer ingredients weighing down his body -- but not his spirit -- at the brewery where he worked.

Pramoedya and Havel paid high prices to keep their writing voices heard. I pay a small price if any. Perhaps the only price I pay is to alienate potential clients and others both by my plain messages and often very direct words, but sometimes people come around towards some of my ways of thinking, even if years later, and even if my words only have a small influence on the turnabout. While I understand the benefit of speaking in a diplomatic manner to open listeners' ears, I do that enough in court, and tend to be more direct and unvarnished in Underdog, but not as unvarnished as my brother lawyer Marc Randazza.

Just as musicians benefit from playing before live audiences and from their feedback, I benefit from blogging before our Underdog audience and from receiving feedback online and on the street. Please keep your comments and emails coming.

Of Boston/Newtown/911, civil liberties, and near misses.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

I have been to places that experienced murderous violence or attempted murderous violence, but not when the violence happened. I visited the beach in Netanya, Israel, in 1979, and learned that the beach was evacuated the next day when a bomb was found and defused. I worked for a year after college nearly in the shadows of the World Trade Center, which was a bombing target before being destroyed on September 11, 2001. I visited a prosecutor at the Pentagon in 1998 to get discovery, and was around ten miles from there on September 11. In all likelihood, now-convicted snipers John Allen Mohammedand Lee Malvo were at the YMCA while I worked out there that morning, and probably numerous times before that. I grew up just around three towns from Newtown, Connecticut. I went to college outside Boson, and spent scores of times in the blocks where the recent marathon day bombings happened.

I feel deep sadness, at the very least, over all violence, not only mass violence, terroristic violence, nor violence taking place nearby me. Open today's newspapers, and you will see a tidalwave of reports on worldwide violence, including suicide bombing, suicide murders, and mailing deadly poison to a legislator.

Before the Berlin Wall fell, terrorism inside the United States was limited. For instance, many Afghans who allied with the United States against the Soviet domination in Afghanistan are now violently hostile to the United States, no longer having a greater enemy in the Soviet Union to align against.

Terrorism within the United States has also been domestically grown. Witness Timothy McVeigh (trained in violence while in the United States military) and Terry Nichols with the Oklahoma City bombing, where a rush to judgment first had many focusing on non-Americans. Witness the sniper attacks by John Mohammed (also trained in violence while in the United States military) and Lee Malvo, where a mistaken suspicion that the terrorists were driving a white van led to numerous unconstitutional stops and investigations of white vans and their drivers,

Violence begets violence. Violence needs to be a last resort -- if any resort -- in trying to stop violence. It takes more time, resources and effort to get at the roots of violence, but without doing so, we will continue living in a very violent world.

I have no easy answers for reducing and stopping violence. Certainly, achieving a peaceful world will not happen before each of us achieves peace within ourselves. Violence also will be reduced significantly when more people do not feel so powerless, desperate and oppressed that they buy into violence as an answer and violence as a way to heavenly paradise.

Before September 11, the United States already was a very civil liberties-repressed national security police state, despite the beauty of the Bill of Rights and the many judges who courageously uphold it. If not, we would not need the American Civil Liberties Union, for starters. September 11 gave an excuse to pass the PATRIOT Act and to exercise other oppressive government measures that have made the United States government all the more oppressive, thus feeding into the hands of terrorists to upend American society.

Even a man as apparently well meaning as Barack Obama perpetuates the oppressive national security and police state, through such actions as favoring warrantless monitoring of communications between people abroad and those in the United States, through pursuing detention without bond of presumed-innocent criminal defendants, and through advocating crabbed interpretations of the Bill of Rights before the Supreme Court and lower courts. I certainly appreciate Obama's pursuing ending direct U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he continues advocating drone attacks and resorting to the secret FISA court system.

Each time we fly, we see the national security police state at work. The United States incarcerates one quarter of the world's population and has the highest inmate population per capita, which would not be the case if drugs were heavily decriminalized.

The United States remains far from the land of the free, rather than being too much the home of the caged. Each of us, collectively, has the opportunity to reverse the police state that we live in.

Today is Emancipation Day in the land of taxation without representation.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The following blog entry is a reprint from my April 16, 2012, posting:

The District of Columbia remains a colony, at least for having been denied statehood right to this day. If D.C. statehood has not become a reality during the presidential administrations of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, when will it ever become a state?

Hawaii became the last state, fifty-two years ago. How much is race a factor in the denial of statehood to Washington, D.C., which for decades has long had a black majority, although that has fallen to near fifty percent. Other obstacles to D.C. statehood include Republican concern about D.C.' overwhelmingly Democratic voting record, the small size of the city (under 700,000), and possibly its having been carved out of Maryland without a sufficiently influential movement to encourage retrocession of D.C. back to Maryland, except for the federal enclave stretching from the Capitol to the White House and Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.

I lived in Washington for fifteen years, from my second year in law school through the fourth year of my being my own boss. Then I moved to Montgomery County, Maryland, where I still live. Montgomery County feels too much like the People's Republic of Montgomery in terms of its taxation and spending approaches and excessive meddling into people's personal lives, at least when it comes to assuring that all neighborhoods are populated by proverbial white picket fences. However, if I am going to avoid living in the D.C. land of taxation without representation and be near Virginia, where I handle a heavy percentage of cases, Montgomery County is the place to be while living in Maryland.

One hundred fifty yeas ago -- and many months before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation -- President Lincoln ordered slaves in Washington, D.C., freed.

Now, Washington, D.C., has a very Southern feel in its race relations history. Slaves built many of the federal government buildings. Right through the 1950's at the very least, customary segregation led there to be racial segregation in such places as movie theaters, relegating black people to the balconies. For quite some time, apparently right into the 1960's, when buses went from Washington, D.C., into Virginia -- the cradle of the Confederacy -- the bus driver directed African Americans to the back of the bus, sometimes on the Fourteenth Street Bridge before the bus had even left the Washington, D.C. border.

Since 2005, Emancipation Day has been an official city holiday in the District of Columbia.

The April 15 Washington Post has an interesting article addressing the differences among the Emancipation Memorial at Lincoln Park and the African American Civil War Memorial around three miles away, including the controversy surrounding a freed slave kneeling by President Lincoln in a statue -- paid for by freed slaves -- at Lincoln Park, where I previously practiced taijiquan severa times on Saturday mornings before switching to my teacher Julian Chu, for his classes and practice sessions in Rockville, Maryland, and in Carderock Park during the summer.

The emancipation of slaves was a major breakthrough. However, the District of Columbia's continuing taxation without federal legislative representation continues, and must stop.

Happy birthday to César Chávez

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Cesar Chavez: A champion for the empowerment of workers and immigrants.

Reprinting my 2011 tribute to César Chávez.

Happy birthday, César Chávez.

For years, I have seen Mr. Chávez -- a founder of the United Farmworkers -- as a champion of workers and immigrants.

I recently learned about a debate about how open or not Chávez wanted the United States' borders to be to immigrants. University of Denver Religious Studies Professor Luis Leon claims the following to have been the reality with Chávez on immigration:

"Chavez opposed undocumented labor inasmuch as workers were exploited, used to depress wages, and undercut unionization efforts. While he did oppose Mexican guest worker programs he simultaneously campaigned for the legalization of Mexican citizens. But above all, Chavez demanded that the common humanity of Mexican people be recognized and appreciated. He literally gave his life toward this simple goal so one can be fairly certain that he would have protested any immigration policy that dehumanizes Mexicans, such as Arizona’s notorious S.B. 1070."

Chávez provided a great quote about non-violence: "Non-violence really rests on the reservoir that you have to create in yourself of patience, not of being patient with the problems, but being patient with yourself to do the hard work."

Here are some videos about and including Chávez:

- Brief talk by Chávez, including his getting irritated at one of his questioners, despite his above patience quote.

- Excerpts from the The Fight in the Fields documentary.

- A lengthier segment of The Fight in the Fields.

- A short biography of Chávez, and another one here.

César Chávez also was a fellow vegetarian, which is particularly curious when considering that farm work ordinarily includes animal slaughter, unless the United Farm Workers -- which Chávez founded -- only dealt with produce farm work.

Happy birthday, César Chávez, Thank you for the personal sacrifices you made for social justice and to better the lives of those who started with little power and influence.

We are open during Passover. I will leave earlier than usual tonight.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Jon Katz, a criminal defense lawyer and DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving lawyer advocating in Fairfax County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and beyond for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

Tonight begins Passover week. My work schedule will remain unaltered except for tonight, when I will leave earlier than usual for the first seder.

Paricularly important to me about Passover is supporting everyone's human rights always, and eliminating external (caused by others) and internal (caused by our own perceptions) slavery and imprisonment of all types.

The very name "passover" is gruesome for the concept of the angel of death's killing Egyptian male children while sparing Jewish children whose houses are marked with the blood of slaughtered lambs. Whether or not that story is true, I disagree with such violence.

Sadly, slavery continued for millenia around the world after slavery ended in Egypt. The fight for human rights is never ending.

Maryland soon to repeal capital punishment. Abolish the death penalty NOW!

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Jon Katz, a criminal defense/drug defense/marijuana defense attorney, and DWI/DUI/Drunk Driving defense lawyer advocating in Fairfax County/Northern Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and beyond for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com

For years I have been obsessed against the death penalty.

In my law school criminal law class in 1986, with glee I read the 1972 Furman v. Georgia Supreme Court decision that effectively put the brakes on the then-existing death penalty systems in the nation. That glee did not last long, as I immediately thereafter read with deep disappointment the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia Supreme Court decision that okayed Georgia's legislative response to Furman, effectively allowing the state-sponsored murder to resume.

I quickly became endeared to Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan's consistent insistence that the death penalty is unconstitutional. While a first year law student, the Bridgeport [Connecticut] Post -- in my natal city -- printed my letter to the editor insisting that the death penalty was unconstitutional for violating the Eight Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against deprivation of life and liberty without due process. However, right after my letter was a letter to the editor rambling all too generally about how morality was declining in society. A year earlier, I wrote to my then-Connecticut state delegate Christine Niedermeyer opposing the death penalty. In those pre-Internet days, she called back and left me a message through my mother that she was not fully opposed to the death penalty. Recently, Connecticut repealed capital punishment.

Praised be my fellow law school Amnesty International members, who in 1987 collected over eighty signatures of the school's students, decrying the death penalty as a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. At the conclusion of Justice Scalia's lecture, before he went two blocks away to a fancy concluding wine and cheese law school reception -- while the general public in the street suffered from his many wrongly-reached majority votes to curtail Constitutional rights -- I walked up to him, and said: "Justice Scalia, here is a petition signed by over eighty law students that the death penalty is unconstitutional." He would not take it, saying that if I wanted to lobby him, to do so through oral argument (or ,I suppose, by filing an amicus brief); however, the Supreme Court only accepts one to two percent of certiorari petitions for oral argument. I told him I'd send the petition to his secretary in case he changed his mind. He said she would throw it out. Was she somehow a Radar O'Reilly, who knew to look out for my letter before it was ever sent? He said she throws out all correspondence seeking to influence his opinion.

Not long after this interchange with Justice Scalia, I read the Supreme Court's June 1987 decision in Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496 (1987), the later-reversed decision that banned victim-impact statements in capital murder sentencing proceedings. Imagine my head-scratching (a gross understatement), when I read the scathing dissent of this justice who several months thereafter refused my anti-death penalty petition, where he did not even give any citations to his claim that: "Recent years have seen an outpouring of popular concern for what has come to be known as 'victims' rights' -- a phrase that describes what its proponents feel is the failure of courts of justice to take into account in their sentencing decisions not only the factors mitigating the defendant's moral guilt, but also the amount of harm he has caused to innocent members of society." Booth, 482 U.S. at 520.

I do not only differ on the death penalty with those I usually oppose, In Gunning for Justice, my teacher Gerry Spence makes an unconvincing explanation about why he took an appointed prosecution in a capital case because of the gruesomeness of the murder, despite his otherwise being opposed to capital punishment. The death penalty always is unjust.

By now, I could have put my money where my mouth is all the more -- beyond opposing it online -- and for instance by going to the Maryland legislature recently when the legislators were hearing the public's views on repealing the death penalty or not. Instead, I returned to my office after court to serve my current clients and to be home early enough during a week that I had been late at the office thus far. I could have defended capital defendants pro bono at the trial level (where I have heard estimates of it not being unusual to take at least two thousand hours to effectively represent a capital defendant, which is a real financial challenge to a solo law practitioner to handle pro bono) or the appellate or post conviction level. My not having done this work yet is not relate yet to the concept that the death penalty can end -- with awful casualties along the way -- if qualified lawyers simply refuse to legitimize the death penalty machine by refusing to do such defense. The only such work I have done thus far was to have devoted around twenty hours during my second year law school winter break to assist an accomplished lawyer at a high-powered law firm with legal research for his pro bono post conviction work for a Maryland death row inmate. There is no end to the work that can be done against the death penalty.

Today, when many Washington, D.C., courthouses were closed for the snow that petered out other than in more rural areas well outside of the Capital Beltway, Maryland's senate passed legislation repealing the death penalty, apparently after some classic political wheeling and dealing that so often accompanies efforts to pass legislation. The Maryland death penalty repeal legislation is expected to fly through the state's remaining chamber, the House of Delegates, and to be signed by the governor. This wonderful result has been decades in the making.

Across the river in Virginia, the death penalty remains much more entrenched in the law and in prosecutions. At the federal level, we are far from eliminating the death penalty.

As is common throughout the nation, death sentences in Maryland have been overwhelmingly issued where the victim was white, even after adjusting for the higher population of white people in society. The racism of the death penalty is clear.

Fortunately, the number of executions are going down and are becoming more isolated as to the number of states that frequently execute. Every member must act to end the death penalty.

Abolish the death penalty NOW!

Our office is open today, Presidents' Day

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Our office is open today, Presidents' Day, February 18.

I give my staff leave on all federal holidays other than Columbus day and Veterans' Day. I will be working today, and my part-time assistant Nick opted to work today, in the afternoon. I have meeting times available every day this week around my court calendar.

Murray Janus's positive example lives on with his criminal defense colleagues.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 06:00:00 -0500

Murray Janus, from Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Around 1994, Murray Janus --1981-82 president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- stood up to speak for his portion of the NACDL's continuing legal education program in Washington, D.C. He spoke kindly and confidently, with an economy of words, with a southern accent, obtained from birth in his native Virginia in 1938.

Murray was a consummate gentleman who found a way to fight zealously for his clients while maintaining a graceful manner, without sacrificing his clients' interests in the process of his kindness. Murray impressed me for being able to effectively defend his clients without needing a big ego, and while maintaining a t'ai chi calm.

I last saw Murray around two years ago as I arrived at the Chesterfield, Virginia, courthouse as he was going to his car. Murray briefly and colorfully regaled me briefly with his morning's interesting experience in the courtroom, before going on his way.

Yesterday, Murray left his body. The well-deserved criminal defense lawyer listserv plaudits are already coming in. Murray lives on, including his influence on me to continue pursuing the path of calm and compassion while fighting zealously for my clients.

I never asked how Murray felt about growing up and practicing law amidst Virginia's virulent Jim Crow, which continued when he was sworn into the Virginia bar in 1963, and which likely spilled over into bigotry towards Jewish people, and Murray was active in the Jewish community. I figured that he had transcended such artificial human-created barriers, and that he would have pointed out that virulent bigotry and the hope of eradicating it was not bordered at the Mason-Dixon line. Murray was born in Virginia, and apparently stayed there all his life except for his college years in Dartmouth.

The first time I called Murray for his feedback on a Richmond judge at least a decade ago, he could not have been more gracious and generous and on the money with his time and thoughts and kindness.

When I first heard Murray talk, he spoke of a particular chief prosecutor as a class act. The same is what I think about Murray.

Deeply thanking and bowing to Murray Janus.

Deeply thanking Martin Luther King, Jr.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

NOTE: This is a re-print from 2010's Underdog entry on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.

Martin Luther King, Jr., presented his immortal "I Have a Dream" speech when I was just four months old. When he was shot dead on April 4, 1968, I was only five years and three days old, and he was only thirty-nine. He would have been eighty-two years old today.

I have been very positively influenced by the nonviolent path in fighting for social justice from Gandhi and Martin Luther King, How did they take up and stay on the nonviolent path? For both, their deeply-held religious beliefs helped them on that path. For Gandhi -- writes Radhika Rao --he was also influenced by the non-violence of his mother and of Tolstoy, and the civil disobedience message of Rousseau. Martin Luther King, Jr., was heavily influenced by Gandhi's non-violent path, starting with Mordechai Johnson's discussion of Gandhi. Ironically, hanging in King's office was a picture of Gandhi; both were assassinated.

On non-violence, King said:

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate....
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

In overcoming violence, we have a very long way to go. Let us make the first step and the next step today on the non-violent path.

Happy birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr., and thanks many time over.

Revisiting the cradle of the Confederacy on Lee-Jackson day.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com .

In case I really needed to be reminded that I had come to the South to attend law school at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., all I needed to do was to drive along Lee Highway in Arlington, Virginia; go a little furthr south to see the stars and bars proudly displayed on various pickup trucks; or go to Richmond's avenue of statues of Confederate figures, with Arthur Ashe's statue added only later, and much farther down the avenue.

I passed the Mason-Dixon line after crossing into Maryland from Pennsylvania. Maryland has its own recent shameful past with blatant racial segregation. Then again, as we approach Martin Luther King, Jr., Day this Monday, although the world has made major strides towards less virulent and widespread racism, racism remains too virulent and too rampant in the Unitd States and beyond.

I chose to live where I live, and I am not going to avoid remnants of the Confederacy rearing their heads in Virginia and further south, unless I keep my head buried in the ground. Virginia is the place where a confederate soldier statue pointing his rifle greets visitors to the Loudoun County courthouse courtyard, where a skilfully engraved likeness of Robert E. Lee greets visitors to the Culpeper Circuit Court clerk's office, and where a couple named Loving had to go straight to the United States Supreme Court in the 1960's to reverse Virginia's criminal ban on intermarriage between black and white people.

Yesterday I was re-reminded of my geographical location when an amiable courthouse criminal clerk expressed her giddiness over the approaching Lee-Jackson Day, celebrated today, that always gives Virginia's state and local government employees a four-day weekend, when we add Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. I will treat today as a regular day, and will be in Maryland court as the Virginia courts close today and reopen next Tuesday.

Today in Virginia is [Robert E.] Lee-[Stonewall] Jackson Day. Consequently, instead of the four-day weekend being a means of paying penance for Virginia's shameful centuries-long role with slavery and segregation right into the second half of the 1960's, here is the real story:

Until 2000, Virginia set the same date for celebrating Lee-Jackson day and Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, until legislation passed to separate the two holidays with Lee-Jackson Day falling on the Friday before Martin Luther King Day. The Roanoke, Virginia, Times quotes a regional Virginia NAACP leader as follows on this peculiar holiday juxtaposition:

"The Rev. Glenn Orr, president of the Montgomery County-Radford City-Floyd County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said it's not a matter that members dwell on. 'We're really focused on honoring Dr. King rather than trying to tell somebody they can't honor Lee, Jackson,' Orr said. 'We just celebrate our opportunity to remember Dr. King and the values that he helped us to develop.'"

Having visited the Washington, D.C./Virginia area three times before starting law school here in 1986, I knew full well that I was going to the South, at least when crossing the border into Virginia. As with probably many others, I was drawn to Washington, D.C., with the possibility of getting involved in what was going on in the nation's capital. Ultimately, my resulting law practice is only relevant to the federal government for a small part of my law practice other than for my federal criminal defense work.

Like Reverend Orr, this weekend I will do my best to focus on Dr. King, and to transcend my with the close juxtaposition of the Lee-Jackson Day celebration.

Times change. In the 1980's, Virginia elected an African-American governor, Douglas Wilder. Twice, a majority of voting Virginians voted for Barack Obama, our nation's first African-American president. Northern Virginia, for one, is in many ways a greater Washington, D.C., with transplants from all around the country and throughout the world.

What to do with the rest of one's life?

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting tirelessly for the best possible results for his clients. http://katzjustice.com.

Last year, after about two decades I reestablished contact with a lawyer who worked at my first law firm and who started practicing law around seven years before I. We got together for lunch soon after and again a few days ago. Little did I know beforehand how much we had in common about finding meaning in our relatively short lives on this planet. When at that law firm, I did not open up to many colleagues about my personal and political views and yearnings, particularly after hearing a law partner and my supervising senior associate praise Bush I's invasion of Panama months during lunch together -- coupled with praising the "war on drugs" that I have long seen as a war on the Bill of Rights -- after I started there as an associate, and saw yellow ribbons there during Gulf War I without a counterbalance of expressed concern about a war entered much too prematurely by Bush -- and found refuge at lunchtime with the peace demonstrators at the nearby Lafayette Park. I threw up my hands about whether I would get anywhere productive talking politics and social justice with my law firm colleagues -- beyond the fact that I did express my interest in doing pro bono work with the firm.

Consequently, without telling my law firm colleagues, I reveled in attending my first conference of the National Organization of Marijuana Laws in 1990, where I shared my feelings of law firm isolation on such topics with some conference attendees; attended a pot freedom rally in Lafayette Park not long after; joined a friend in demonstrating against the Senate's authorizing Gulf War I; joined the second weekend march against Gulf War I; and took out a subscription to High Times in protest against a federal subpoena for the magazine's advertiser records, writing then-attorney general Dick Thornburgh that I had done so under such protest.

When I left the firm after two years to join the Maryland Public Defender's Office, I was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that I had found the ultimate job where I could feel more comfortable being open with my colleagues about politics and social justice, but found no such enclave there for such discussions. Such like-minded people may have been there, but I did not find them -- maybe in part because I heard few people there speaking of such things that I agreed with, beyond our criminal defense work at hand, so did not seek them out -- although I found many who were truly devoted to providing top-flight service to indigent criminal defendants.

Continue reading "What to do with the rest of one's life?"