Two absolute requirements for a trial lawyer, yes, any lawyer are (1) a conscientious caring for his or her client and (2) the credibility of the lawyer. One cannot exist without the other and absent either, the lawyer is but an actor, usually a poor one, a gross pretender.

I argue that caring is contagious. One cannot ask a jury or a judge to care if the lawyer does not care. We tend to like caring people. That’s because we like to be cared about, and some of us like to be cared for. We tend to trust caring people. I say caring is a disease that can easily be caught. But true caring is sometimes hard to come by. Trial lawyers are asked to care for vicious killers, for people who commit horrible acts of cruelty, persons who do evil things, hurt children and cheat old people out of their life’s savings.

But the accused were once innocent children. As all of us, they began life with a clean, pure unmarked canvas. Much of what is written on the canvas is the cruel psychic graffiti, the ugly splashes, smears and slashes laid on the canvas by those who were parents qualified for that sacred trust only by virtue of their reproductive organs, by those who themselves were never cared for. To that extent, not caring is also a disease – one that is often fatal to a useful and productive life.

I suspect that we could put a wiggly little loving Spaniel puppy in a cage, starve it, poke it with sharp sticks, never pet it, ignore its need for love and sustenance and convert the pup into a vicious attack animal when it was grown. But there still remains in that dog the puppy. 

The metaphor is imperfect and sentimental, but you get the drift. One wonders if we are not placing our condemnation in the wrong place. Ought we not be prosecuting the puppy’s owner?   Extending the argument, are we not often prosecuting the wrong person – the parents, those who were responsible for the child, those who by hate and ignorance molded the child into the killer and the rapist – ought they not be the accused in the case? 

My view is simple:  I see the innocent child first. When I see the monster the child has become I feel sadness at the waste and horror at its consequences, and I feel helpless over my inability to change either the accused or the system that created the accused, a system that now prosecutes him with more of the same – more fear and more hatred. Indeed, hatred and fear are the most contagious diseases of all. But one thing a trial lawyer can do – and must do.  He or she must give the accused, the first victim, a caring and competent defense. 

Sometimes we can do more.

Here is an email I just received from a close friend of mine, Joey Lowe, a fine trial lawyer who is defending a soldier in a court martial proceeding. He is doing more and writes:

Dear Gerry:

Sgt. Nelson was a foster kid from New York inner city. He never knew his father, and his mother died when he was only 8. Family was something that Santa Claus could not provide but the Marine Corps offered and so he enlisted right out of high school. He was in the battle named Operation Iraqi Freedom where he was a combat troop who fought his way from Kuwait all the way up to Baghdad. There he saw some pretty terrible stuff especially at the Battle of Al Nasariyah.

He was then brought back again in 2004 for the worst urban combat fighting that the Marine Corps have participated in since the battle for the City of Hue in Vietnam, and some say Iwo Jima because of the close quarters and hand-to-hand combat necessary to root out the jihadist enemy.

There, he and his unit were taking fire from an entrenched and barricaded enemy. Sgt. Nelson watched helplessly as his best buddy was shot and bled out into the dirt streets because the Marines were pinned down and could not get to him fast enough.

The Marines gained access to the house only to find four military aged males sitting on pillows in this barricaded house pretending to be just innocent residents. Despite the fact that the Marines had dropped leaflets for weeks informing the residents to leave the city and that anyone who stayed behind would be considered enemy combatants, these four males said they were just house sitting even though the house was locked from the outside.

Once the Marines had searched the second story of the concrete house they found all kinds of military assault rifles, AK-47s, RPK which is a Russian Military machine gun, loads of ammunition and spent brass from the bullets they had just shot at the Marines. When the jihadists were confronted with the weapons, the spent brass and the smell of cordite (gun powder) throughout the house they just smiled.

The Platoon commander ordered that the jihadists were to be shot and not captured.

The platoon commander, an officer, was given immunity and never charged, the Sgt.-in-charge was tried and acquitted out in town, the second-in-charge was tried on base and acquitted and now they are trying to convict Sgt. Nelson, mostly because he refused to testify against the first two Marines. The Government put him in federal prison on Memorial day to force him to testify, but he still would not.

We have filed this petition because we believe that the command, through the prosecutor Capt. Gannon, have committed undue influence over the prosecution and according to military courts-martial rules and case law, the case can be dismissed if the judge finds that the acts by the prosecutor would leave the public feeling a loss of confidence in the fairness of the proceedings.

Therefore, we are asking for circulation of this petition for direct proof that the public perceives that these proceedings appear unfair.

All that they have to do is to click on this link http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/sgtnelson/index.html and if they fill out a few fields, it will record their support.

Joey

Recently I was thinking with a friend of mine about the death of loved one. I heard myself say that the death of a loved one can be a gift.

How is that possible?

My mother’s suicide was a gift to me. It took many years for me to realize this, for her death brought with it both pain and wonder, it brought grief and misery and guilt; but in the end the pain became the stuff of my growth.

I am today who I am because of her death. That I have suffered and grieved has caused me to reexamine my own life, and to try to find better ways to live it. I can hear and understand the grief and guilt of others better. I can see the beauty of the gift of life and to cherish it.

Yes, her death was a gift – one I would give everything to be without, but with it I shall hopefully become a person with a larger soul.

Some folks ask how did I become so well known, or “famous.”  That is mostly a matter of luck.  I took cases that I thought were important, that turned me on. I was selfish. I wanted to satisfy my own needs, namely, to engage in something meaningful. I wanted to help, but that is because I needed to help, and in the end, that is taking care of one’s self.  Being selfish for the right reasons is the trick. I have not always been successful there.

Gerry

Folks,

I feel fulfilled and honored when I earn your company as faithful readers. I have enjoyed the opportunity to share my thoughts and ideas—and I’m gratified that you were out there to discuss them. To communicate with you has been a privilege and a frontal attack on the ubiquitous loneliness from which many of us suffer beyond the demanding encounters we experience in our everyday carryings-on.

Still, I am wondering, how do you feel? And what are your expectations of me? What are your expectations for this community of ours? What would you like to talk about?

I am like a New York City delicatessen—I have a lot of ready items on my menu, as I’m sure you do.

Let me hear from you.

Best, ever,

Gerry

I can remember my mother preaching: “Money is the root of all evil.” Her preaching was appropriate because we had little of either.

I am not one to downgrade money as a means of exchange – money for goods and money for services. But what happens when money becomes the meaning of life?

What happens to us when we dedicate our lives to its acquisition, that we judge our worth, our success, our power, our beauty, our intelligence and our right to dominate others depending upon how much money we have acquired?

What happens when we admire those who have much money, squeezed from the hides of helpless workers and we fail to recognize the mother, stricken with poverty, who, nevertheless, put her children though college. What about the father who dug ditches and cleaned latrines but set a role model of honest labor for his sons, while the corporate executive played money games on the stock market and wrested unearned bonuses from his shareholders?

This so-called down-turn in the economy is a danger to us. But as all dangers are likewise opportunities, these times give us an opportunity to rethink what is worthy of our admiration, both in ourselves and others.

As Sitting Bull said, “I have spoken.”

I see those miles of white markers at Arlington Cemetery – thousands on thousands of small white gravestones placed over the bodies of young Americans who gave up their lives to save our American values. We have not always acted beautifully – not always in accordance with our highest ideals. We have failed from time to time. But Americans as a people have not failed.

Not yet.

The would-be torturers ask: “What do we do when we know an attack is eminent and that one person knows when and where the devastation will occur? He will not respond to ordinary interrogation. Shouldn’t we torture him for the answer?”

The question is a trick question – a dishonest hypothetical construct. Let me show you why:

The torturer will always argue that the man he has strapped to the gurney knows when, where and by what means the bomb will fall. How does the torturer know this? Has he tortured others to find out? Haven’t we opened the doors to torture in exponential proportions? Haven’t we provided an excuse to all who wish to torture and the rationale to torture at will?

The torturer himself may be unstable, misinformed, evil, stupid or paranoid. His agenda may be pathological. Do we test the torturer hoping to discover if he is solid and credible? In general I would not trust the life of a harmless bunny rabbit to someone who is willing to torture another human being. There is something shadowy and fearsome about such a person who would allow himself to perform such horrors on another human being. It is easy to get caught up in trick questions that have no concrete attachment to reality. We ought not argue such questions because they open dangerous pits from which we may never be able to extricate ourselves.

Let me ask my own hypothetical question: Suppose we could store all of our American values, in, say, a cup. To whom would you entrust the sacred cup? Would you deliver it to some unknown person who was chosen by Lord knows who, who, himself was chosen by Lord knows who, to protect and preserve the cup for a nation?

Another hypothetical question: Would we deliver the wealth of a nation to someone who instead of torture, could roll out a train loaded with thousand dollar bills – billions – to purchase the necessary information to save the nation? It would, of course, greatly affect our taxes. It would break many of us. We might argue that the enemy might well accept such massive wealth under false pretenses but still destroy us. Yet the enemy may well also accept torture without telling us the truth and in the process of torturing we would have sacrificed our values as Americans.

Torture is evil. To accept it under any case – and all cases will eventually prove to be hypothetical – is to tell ourselves that we really don’t believe what we say we stand for.

Torture is evil. To accept it under any case – and all cases will eventually prove to be hypothetical – is to tell ourselves that we really don’t believe what we say we stand for. It says that we lied to those kids who gave up their lives and whose bodies rot under the little white markers at Arlington Cemetery. It says we have a set of life rules that when tested have no meaning, because they can be set aside at the whim of some unidentified torturer in a hidden room. That person does not speak nor act for me.

Likely he does not speak nor act for any of us.

Photo Credit: beggs

I see that the Acting Chief Financial Officer of Freddie Mac is thought to have committed suicide. Nice looking man with a pretty smile. Apparently hung himself. Probably loved by some or many.

Money.

The power of dead money. It can give life and it can kill. When money becomes the soul of a culture, we are in trouble. I think of the king in Bhopal who claims that his goal is for gross national happiness as, of course, distinguished from GNP (Gross National Product.)

Simple ideas.

Life, our magical gift.

Many corporate executives openly and arrogantly steal from the public companies they work for. Since the company belongs to the stockholders, they steal from the stockholders. They betray the stockholders’ trust. Take a look at this chief executive compensation data, please.

Paying themselves such wildly unearned bonuses constitutes simple embezzlement. Of course, the board of directors must approve these bonuses, most of which have increased during this spiraling downturn (let us call it what it is, this depression.) But the directors are part of this conspiracy.

An engaging question: Is such conduct criminal?

Let me make the argument with a simple analogy: John Manager runs a local grocery story for its owners, the many heirs of Henry Owner, deceased. All of the money earned from the business belongs to the estate, and none, of course, belongs to John or the trustees.

A fair and reasonable wage for John, according to his skill and experience is $100. But John has a special relationship with the trustees. First, they were selected by John. Next, they have a tacit understanding: John gets $1000 for his work instead of $100. But the trustees John selected get benefits that include tickets to the Superbowl, recommendations to join John’s clubs, his political support when one of the trustees wants to get on the city council, trips with John to Hawaii during the deadly winter, and John buys groceries from the trustees who are his wholesalers. John is also on the board of the wholesalers who happen to overpay themselves. The heirs are so many and so scattered that they take what they get and are happy to get any benefit at all.

John has, in fact, stolen $900 from the heirs since the reasonable value of his service is $100 while he has paid himself, with the trustees’ consent, $1000. Nifty little scheme. Remember, the monies have been paid by the trustees with the full knowledge of the above facts. The conspiracy is to aid John in stealing $900 from the estate. A dedicated prosecutor could make a criminal case stand up against both John and the trustees.

But no one will prosecute because John and the trustees and the prosecutor and the prosecutor’s political bosses and all of their mutual friends are members of the same country club, all give to the local symphony and all go to the same church and pray together every Sunday and, of course, buy a gross of Girl Scout Cookies.

If Billy Joe, half doped up and in need of another fix, comes stumbling into the store and, at gun point, robs it of $20 he will be immediately prosecuted and sent to the pen for twenty years. He is a danger to society, is he not?

I rest my case.

If a corporate executive will steal from the corporation it runs will it not also steal from the American public that constitutes its customers and clients? And can we really trust its products or services?

We are so afraid. The hand of the trainer has been on us. It has been a punishing hand. Often cruel. It has jerked us up short. It has demanded that we think and act in ways that please the trainer.

Over the years we have become like the horse born wild, captured, and then broken. We now back up to the plow and wait to be harnessed. The trainer – the composite of parents, the pressure of peers, of teachers and preachers, of public relations gurus, of politicians, and the flock itself, have domesticated us.

We have been taught how to act and how to think. Our values have been grafted on to us, ideas that are often strange to our genetic beginnings.

We conform. We embrace convention and distrust and disrespect those who do not. We are regimented and constrained and tamed.

We must conform, else we are in danger. Can you see it – ten thousand minnows, all silver, and that one red minnow? Can you see the approaching shark?

But we have choices. Dare we make them?

I have earned inquiries about why I don’t share my “wisdom” about how to treat and cure us of the current economic crisis, better understood for what it is – our own Great Depression.

Instead, I have been testing our sense of humor – our HQ. Humor in hard times is like Preparation H on hemorrhoids. It does not cure the problem, but it makes us feel better. Real humor hangs on the border of insanity, but requires sufficient intelligence to approach insanity. What is your HQ?

If anyone can tell us in fifty words or less what we should be doing to dig out of this Depression and guarantee that it will work, please share it with us. Please. I will pass it on and make your voice heard, if not by the powers that be, by Henrietta. Otherwise, be wise and tell us something funny.