Avoid Being Right
It just annoys your friends and family.
So, there was this trial down in Central Florida, standard thing – a bunch of Midwesterners moved to Florida so they could be really weird without bothering people who really mattered.
Any way, for whatever reason, the media decided to obsess about it, giving it 24/7 coverage. One of the media’s “crime pundits” went all out Madame Defarge, knitting nooses on the air every day, and she gathered together a Committee of Vigilance [aka a lynch mob] of like-minded pundits to ensure “justice was done”.
I avoided the entire thing as much as possible, but had to endure several hours of the coverage while in waiting rooms.
People would ask me what I thought about the entire thing, and I made the mistake of giving them my honest opinion based on ten years of experience in the criminal justice system. That just started arguments. But the worse of it was today when the jury did exactly what I told people they would do.
It takes a long time for people to forgive you for being right. That’s probably why all of the talking heads have such long lists of being wrong.
11 comments
I had not even heard of the case until tonight, when Stella mentioned it at dinner, and expressed surprise at my ignorance. But if you don’t watch The Evening News, you don’t get the nationwide daily crime report.
The reaction you encountered was much like the one I “enjoyed” back when I was asked for and expressed my opinion of the O. J. Simpson trial: (1) yes, he probably did the murder, and (2) based on what was presented at trial, “not guilty” was the proper verdict. Oh, people were horrified at what I said, mostly with (2), largely because most of the people I encountered day-to-day back then were white, and opinions on that case mostly ran true to race.
The reason for the failure of both cases is identical, Steve, the prosecutors really sucked, and failed to present good cases.
Juries only get a limited subset of the information available in any case, and the key is selecting the proper subset of the information to prove the elements of the crime to a jury of citizens without a valid reason to be excused.
The defense doesn’t have to prove anything, all that is required is to introduce doubt in the minds of the jurors. It’s very easy to introduce doubt when the prosecution does a bad job.
Ahhh! So, Bryan… you have discovered that the highest crime of mortal man is being correct. 😀 And… the crime punishable by the most horrendous means possible is, being correct, often! 😆 As was stated in HHGTTG, “Nobody likes a smart arse!” 😆
I got so sick and tired of one of my oldest friends saying to me “You were right. I should have listened.” with a resigned expression, that I said to him in complete frank honesty “If you ever say that to me again, I will punch you in the mouth! Either don’t bloody ask my opinion or advice, or you decide whether to follow my advice or not! But it’s totally on your head! In fact, from now on, don’t bother. I won’t ever again give any advice. You always know best. Obviously.” And I left. I have a proven history of being correct more often or not, simply because I won’t give advice (especially to someone I care about) unless I have a pretty good idea about what I am talking about!
Yep! Being correct is a mortal crime apparently. *shrug*
@ Steve. That’s often the case Steve, even here. People seem to easily confuse *Justice* with *Law* and many seem to absolutely REFUSE to understand what that difference is! Of course, part of that confusion stems from calling your *Legal System* the *Justice System*, which in reality it is patently not! It’s a nice concept (justice), but it’s only a concept. The same goes for *moral* or *ethical* and *Legal*! Something may well be unethical, but that does not mean it is illegal, though many believe it is or should be. (There is also the difference between Criminal Law and Civil Law, which many confuse. ) There is little one can do to convince the willfully ignorant, and I suspect that it’s kept as confusing as possible on purpose. After all, one wouldn’t need high-priced lawyers, and the wealthy wouldn’t have such a good chance of escaping the Law etc. if it was all easy to understand by any fool! 😉 😀 *shrug*
As I have been known to say “In the ‘criminal justice system’ there is no system or justice, but it is certainly criminal”.
The oath “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is total garbage. You are never allowed to tell the whole truth – you are only allowed to answer the questions that are asked by the attorney on direct examination, and on cross examination are only allowed to respond to questions that deal with what was asked on direct examination. You are never allowed to just tell the court what you know about the case. The main purpose of the attorneys is to limit what is admitted into evidence.
The US courts sorely try the patience of honest people.
There was a trial in Florida? Thought by now that fabulous Governor of yours would outlaw them.
Sad to say, adversarial trial by jury is rare in the United States. Usually it’s a case of overworked public defenders meeting the defendant three minutes before trial, getting a thumbnail description of the crime, and proceeding to conference with the prosecution to decide what crime the accused is going to plead guilty to. The bare bones fact is that if you’re arrested and brought to trial, 95% of the time you’re going to end up with a criminal record. For the most part it’s a system Stalin would have loved if he’d had some P.T. Barnum in him, most trials are show trials where there is never any actual question of guilt, just a question of how the perp is going to be punished.
Even in high stakes murder trials, usually it’s a couple of buddies who go golfing with each other all the time who are facing off, it’s a small incestuous world, the high-stakes criminal trial world, and everybody follows some unofficial rules of decorum that incidentally tend to result in a guilty verdict. It’s a system that rewards mediocrity and punishes people who are actually, well, adversarial. Which is why the prosecution did such a poor job in this trial (and in the OJ trial for that matter) — they simply aren’t accustomed to going against defense attorneys who don’t just roll over and whine for mercy.
I have no idea whether this person actually did it or not. Probably. Don’t know if it could have been proven, but usually that doesn’t stop people from being convicted by the kabuki system of “justice”, I saw a local man convicted despite the fact the prosecution didn’t even have a body, just a chain of circumstantial evidence that could have been read a number of ways. The fact that a total nobody defense lawyer who did not in any way present a particularly credible defense but did present an aggressive defense could make the prosecution look so lame says things about the quality of both typical defense lawyers and prosecutors that anybody who cares about actual justice can’t feel comfortable knowing.
Hot damn!
Exactly my story. Thanks for following this for those of us who won’t.
And who cares about media circuses anyway?
I never watch them anymore and turn off public TVs if that’s the only offering. (It’s funny how almost ever complains when I do.)
I agree with your responders. No justice is to be found in the justice business – only getting the business. The best thing you can do if you are charged with anything is avoid trial. And you should never take a plea if you are innocent. It’s better, at least, to go down fighting for that second chance.
But that’s just my opinion having seen so many badly run trials.
Tried hard not to let the stupid trial ooze through the cracks of my media barricade. Of all the trials, why this one? And how about letting the jury decide, not the blathering talking heads of the tv? And how about not hounding the woman/ family afterwards?
They say the ratings went sky high though, so you know NO lessons were learned. The media will do this again and again and again…
Jill, only banks and the medical industry are exempt from trial. If the state can’t provide bread, it should still supply circuses.
Mr. Duff, as Mr Churchill said of democracy, it is the worst system, except for all the others.
You have it right, Badtux. The defense attorney was definitely not Clarance Darrow, but he was a total outsider to the local system. The key to his performance was not making the jury hate him, and continuing to insist that the prosecution prove something. The prosecution proved the defendant was a liar, and the jury convicted her of lying. The prosecution didn’t prove there was a murder, much less that the defendant committed it.
Suzan, I saw almost none of the proceedings, but what I did see was so lame, that I couldn’t believe the charge. The prosecutor must have been planning to run for another office to bring these charges, because they made no sense in any other way. They did not have an actual cause of death. That is rather important when you are attempting to prove murder.
Ellroon, according to my Mother, the entire family is a bunch of whackoes, so there was a lot entertainment value in talking about them with ‘experts’, apparently. I fear that the fact that Florida allows cameras in the court room, will make us the center of this new form of reality TV.
Ellroon, pretty young white woman on trial? Family of nutcases? Explosive charges of abuse and child molestation? Ratings gold. Just sayin’.
Suzan, trials are messy and the outcome always uncertain. A good prosecutor combined with a mediocre defense lawyer can convict a ham sandwich of murder even without a body or cause of death. At least, if the ham sandwich is in any way not attractive. If it has mold on it, and flies buzzing around it, for example, or has a bad smell, or has a past conviction for waistline abuse. If the ham sandwich looks mouth-watering and smells yummy and has a clean record, it’s a tossup. So the plea deal vs. trial thing if you’re innocent isn’t as slam-dunk as you put it.
Bryan, what was interesting to me was that this defense attorney was only a couple of notches above Orly Taitz on the lawyer food chain, having been sanctioned in the past for many of the same things that Orly Taitz has been sanctioned for (except not quite *that* level of crazy, but it’s hard to be as crazy as Orly Taitz!), yet despite being a total flake managed to make these prosecutors look like morons by, well, demanding that they make their case. It’s enough to make a penguin scratch his head and say “WTF?!”.
– Badtux the Ham Penguin
As near as I can tell he barely qualified for the Florida bar, but he knew the two most important things for a defense attorney: don’t annoy the jury, and insist the prosecution prove its case.
There was a change of venue, so the jury didn’t know any of the people involved, and this wasn’t “their” district attorney, and didn’t involve “their” friends and neighbors. I was surprised how quickly the case was decided, which means that the jury decided quickly that the prosecution didn’t prove murder. It is hard to get around the fact that the cause of death couldn’t be determined from the remains.
Oh, back to the central theme of this post about being right – Madame Defarge’s network was on when I went to dinner at my Mother’s and they had a pundit discussing the case – Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor who lost the OJ Simpson case.