Sandy Slaga

Crotchety Old Lady Alive and Kicking

The Crotchety Old Lady and I have been going at it the past several months about this whole solo law thing. She poked. I ignored. She prodded. I told her she was a few shots shy of a decent mega latte.

Well, the Crotchety One and her bony finger are on a warm beach somewhere, basking in the rays of their victory. My ribs are recovering from the months of jabbing. And I’m back to getting some sleep and a decent cup of morning java.

I’m launching a solo law practice and joining the ranks of home office lawyers, also affectionately referred to by Chuck Newton as Third Wavers, Spare Room Tycoons and Carpet Commuters.

Stay tuned!

Taking a Risk in Plain View

Sherrie Sisk’s guest post at Susan Carter Liebel’s blog, Build a Solo Practice, LLC, spoke to me. We’re talking, “Girlfriend, I’m talking to you.”

Sherrie’s conflicted feelings about starting a solo law practice were met by the sound of her own voice beckoning. “Yes, but … I really, really want this.” And Sherrie responded with the courage it takes to say, “Yes, I can do this. Yes, I trust myself.”

I’m on the same journey, but hell, I’m bringing up the rear. We’re talking the dust at the end of the rear. We’re talking layers, nay years of layers, of dust in the neurotransmitters.

Yet in the corners lives Crotchety Old Lady with a bony finger. And she’s poking me in all manner of bodily places, but usually at about rib number seven. “Come on, honey, do it! Whaddya waiting for? Whaddya want, a formal invitation?”

Well, a lot less debt and The Teenagers’ college paid for would be nice. A fully-equipped office with a “serenity” decor would be peachy. As would a full appointment book, intact client list and six months’ worth of overhead in the bank.

The Crotchety One and her bony finger have a good snort and guffaw. And the pokes continue. This is making it increasingly difficult to sleep or have a decent cup of morning java.

The more I resist the risk, the harder the bony finger pokes. If I’m looking for divine guidance, I think it’s been here awhile. Damn, that rib is getting sore.

The Law of English Muffins

The eighteen-year-old was late for breakfast this morning. Again.

Three years of law school, two bar exams and almost ten years of practicing law ain’t got nothing on one eighteen-year-old boy’s skill at driving me into a close relationship with Jack Daniels.

As I sucked in brewing coffee vapors, the scholar of AP X-Box Live and Honors Cigar Smoking announced his goal for the remaining three months of his high school career. To-wit: thou shalt not complete a full week of school. Leave early, arrive late. Fabricate illness. Whatever it takes.

I lovingly suggested that such reckless disregard for the climax of his Catholic education would perhaps not be wise within earshot of a menopausal mother who holds title to his car.

Then I popped his English muffins in the toaster, invoked St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes, and savored a few minutes just hanging with my son before he left for school.

In another year and a half both of The Teenagers will be in college. The heavy lifting will be done. Then to law or not to law?

There have been mixed emotions since taking a break from law seven years ago. Was it the right thing to do? Have I been gone too long to go back? Have I wasted the degree and license?

God knows it’s been one fantruckingtastic moment after another being home. Expletive-laden X-Box Live chatter echoing in the heating ducts. The familiar 11 p.m. weeknight cabinet slamming and glass clanging in search of a bedtime snack. The aroma of maturing socks at the bottom of a bowling bag. The eyeball rolling and heavy sighing.

And the English muffins.

Cream cheese or peanut butter? OJ or milk? Yea, it’s been indulgent. Maybe even spoiling. But not for them. For me.

And while I may not miss the occasional expletives courtesy of the cheap heating vents, I will sure as hell miss the English muffins.

Old News at Duke

Three Duke lacrosse players. An exotic dancer. A party.

Wrongly accused? It appears so.

Outrageous? If true, yes.

News? No.

It happens every day in this country. And it’s been happening since the first gavel hit the bench.

To young men of the working class. To young men of color. To young Hispanic men. To young men without the financial resources to hire the best that money can buy.

Darryl Hunt. North Carolina. 19 years old. Life sentence for the rape and murder of a 25-year-old woman. Imprisoned 18 years before being exonerated in 2004.

Alan Gell. North Carolina. 20 years old. Sentenced to death for the murder of a 56-year-old man. Imprisoned 9 years - half of those on death row - until a jury acquitted him in a retrial.

Brandon Moon. Texas. 25 years old. Imprisoned 16 years for the rape of a woman in El Paso before being exonerated.

Ronnie Bullock. Illinois. 27 years old. Imprisoned for almost 11 years for the rape of a 9-year-old Chicago girl before being exonerated.

Where were their headlines?

Where were their mothers’ appearances on CBS’ 60 Minutes and the morning talk show circuit?

Where were the state bar associations investigating those prosecuting attorneys?

Where were the state attorneys general to conduct reviews of the criminal charges against those young men?

Why is it news now?

Perhaps because now it’s happened to some upper middle class young white men.

Michigan Shames Supreme

Shame on you, Michigan Supreme Court.

In the respect and trust categories, the legal profession has long ranked up there with used car sales people and the IRS.

Sadly, the justices on the Michigan Supreme Court are seeing to it that we stay there.

It’s That Time of Year

If it’s late June, this must be the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices are hard at work these last few days of the term, announcing a plethora of eye-catching controversial decisions certain to be water cooler fodder for perhaps the next week or so.

Kansas v. Marsh, a death penalty case, is one of those decisions. The case was decided 5-4. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion.

“We hold that the Kansas capital sentencing system, which directs imposition of the death penalty when a jury finds that aggravating and mitigating circumstances are in equipose, is constitutional. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Kansas Supreme Court, and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.” Marsh, Slip Opinion at pp. 17-18

Huh? Here’s the scenario. A jury in a death penalty case has found a defendant guilty. Next the jury must impose a sentence. In its sentencing deliberations, the jury considers aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Marsh says that when the jury determines that mitigating circumstances and aggravating circumstances are equal, the jury must impose a sentence of death.

More telling than the actual decision by the U.S. Supreme Court are Justice Thomas’ words in a part of the opinion referred to as dicta. That’s lawyer code for “don’t try to use this when you argue a case.” Justice Thomas writes,

“Indeed, the logical consequences of the dissent’s argument is that the death penalty can only be just in a system that does not permit error. Because the criminal justice system does not operate perfectly, abolition of the death penalty is the only answer to the moral dilemma the dissent imposes. This Court, however, does not sit as a moral authority. Our precedents do not prohibit the States from authorizing the death penalty, even in our imperfect system.”

Moral authority? Precedents? Can you say Brown v. Board of Education?

Arkansas In Your Bedroom

Sometimes the deeper you dig the trench, the more ludicrous you look standing in it. Which brings me to the State of Arkansas’ Department of Health and Human Services and its argument to the Arkansas Supreme Court yesterday in defense of a policy prohibiting gays from being foster parents.

In its infinite wisdom, the Arkansas Child Welfare Agency Review Board, which oversees the state’s foster care program, came up with a humdinger of a trench. Tucked into its Standards for Approval of Family Foster Homes, this body of book-learned adults included the following:

Family foster parents must have the personal characteristics which enable them to assume the responsibility of caring for foster children. No person may serve as a foster parent if any adult member of that person’s household is a homosexual. “Homosexual”, for purposes of this rule, shall mean any person who voluntarily and knowingly engages in or submits to any sexual contact involving the genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person of the same gender, and who has engaged in such activity after the foster home is approved or at a point in time that is reasonably close in time to the
filing of the application to be a foster parent. p. 6, Section 6.0 A.2 PUB-022 (R. 01/2002)

Let me get this straight. If you engage or submit and have engaged at a time that is close in time, you’re out. And if any adult member of your household engages or submits and has engaged at a time that is close in time, he or she is out, too. But if you engage or submit but haven’t engaged at a time that is close in time, you’re safe. You’re also safe if you have minor members of your household who engage or submit and have engaged at a time that is close in time. But you may have other issues in which the State of Arkansas is interested.

The rationale behind this burst of brilliance is that, according to the agency’s lawyer, moral fitness is fundamental to the health and safety of foster children. And everyone knows that sexual orientation is the litmus test for moral fitness.

As Justice Annabelle Clinton Imber so astutely queried during yesterday’s oral arguments, Arkansas is also going to have to ask heterosexuals if they engage or submit.

I, for one, am not saying whether I engage or submit, or even if I have engaged or submitted at a time that is close in time. And you can bet your trench that the members of Arkansas’ Child Welfare Agency aren’t saying either.

Judge Richard Palumbo

Last October 10th, Yvette Cade’s husband went to her workplace and doused her with gasoline. When she ran, he chased her into the parking lot, held her and threw a lit match on her.

Three weeks earlier, Judge Richard A. Palumbo had dismissed the protective order she’d gotten from a Maryland court.

Yvette had appeared in Judge Palumbo’s court asking that the protective order against her husband be extended. She didn’t ask that he be arrested or imprisoned. All she asked for was time.

Evidently even that was just too much of a bother for Judge Palumbo. Get over it, Yvette. Get a divorce. Next case.

Yvette Cade has an associate’s degree in computer science from Southern Ohio College. Richard Palumbo has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland.

Yvette Cade is a certified mortgage consultant. Richard Palumbo has a law degree from the University of Baltimore.

Yvette Cade is a top sales representative for T-Mobile Wireless. Richard Palumbo is a former Maryland state legislator.

Yvette Cade is a mother. And last October Yvette was a petitioner in a courtroom.

Richard Palumbo is a judge. And last October Richard Palumbo was the judge in that courtroom where Yvette asked for more time.

Maryland’s Commission on Judicial Disabilities finally found their sex parts and filed official misconduct charges against Judge Palumbo, according to the Washington Post.

Good. Judge Palumbo should have his gavel taken, his black robe removed and be escorted from the bench, permanently.

Kudos to Qwest

If you don’t call your mom this Sunday, the National Security Agency will know. And if you do call your mom this Sunday, the NSA will know.

Under CIA director nominee Gen. Michael Hayden, the NSA has been tracking your phone calls since 2001, according to a recent USA Today article. And not just when you call your grandma in Poland or your customer in Hong Kong. We’re talking the call you make to your spouse, your doctor, your stock broker, your lover, your therapist, your bookie, your dealer, your escort service, American Idol and that every-so-often phone sex line.

Once upon a time, President Bush told us that he’d given the NSA permission to eavesdrop on the international phone calls of suspected terrorists or people suspected of having links to suspected terrorists. He said he could do this because he’s the President of the United States, and he didn’t need no stinkin’ permission or warrant from a FISA court or anybody else.

Besides, the NSA would only do this, President Bush said, when one of the people on the phone call was outside the United States. If both people on the call were in the United States, well then, gosh darn no way the NSA is tracking that call.

Turns out President Bush was mistaken. Again. Faulty intelligence?

Not to worry. The NSA is “only” collecting call records. You know, merely the history of whom you’ve called and who’s called you since late 2001. They’re not including customer names, street addresses or other personal information. Can you say cross-reference? Reverse lookup?

The point of all this? The NSA says it’s to create and maintain a database of every phone call ever made within the borders of these United States. Every phone call. Ever made. By anyone. Ever.

When approached by NSA soon after the September 11 attacks, telecommunications giants AT&T, BellSouth, SBC and Verizon didn’t hesitate to dole out the data.

The only major telecommunications company to decline the invitation to cooperate was Qwest. Its lawyers had the unmitigated gall to ask a few questions. Like, how about running this by the FISA court? Remember FISA? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that set out a few rules for this kind of stuff? Or maybe a letter of authorization from Alberto Gonzales? You know, the Attorney General of the United States? The NSA refused.

Now go make that phone call.