Jena 6

If the facts are true, we have an ugly story. I felt this guy, Kelly Boggs, nailed my thoughts on the case:

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP)--On Sept. 20, people from all over America gathered in the Lilliputian Louisiana community of Jena. Many, mostly black, had traveled hours on crowded buses to protest what they perceived to be a situation that provided proof racism still exists in the rural south.

Led by civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, an estimated crowd of 15,000 to 20,000 came to central Louisiana in order to call attention to the plight of six black teenagers, all male and known as the "Jena 6," who have been charged in the beating of a white teen.

A person's perception is his or her reality. But if facts are imprecise and context is ignored, a person's reality can be far from accurate. Such is the case, I believe, in reference to the situation in Jena.

Time and space will not allow for a detailed discussion of the case of the Jena 6; however a brief synopsis is as follows:

Last September, a climate of racial tension emerged when a black high school student sat under a tree known as the "white tree." The designation implied the tree was off limits to blacks.

The following day, three hangman nooses were found dangling in the tree. The principle wanted to expel three white students responsible for the act. The superintendent and school board disagreed and suspended the students for only two days.

In early December, six black students, now known as the Jena 6, beat a white student while at school. The white teen was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital where he was treated for his injuries and later released.

The LaSalle Parish district attorney originally charged the Jena 6 with aggravated second-degree battery. Later he upgraded the charges to attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit the same.

In mid-December it was announced that one of the Jena 6, who was 16 at the time of the crime, would be tried as an adult. His bond was set at $90,000. By the time the teen came to trial in late June, his charges had been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit the same. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

An all-white jury was selected to try the teen. LaSalle Parish officials indicate they sent out 150 jury summonses. However, only 50 people reported for jury selection. None of them were black.

During the trial, the prosecution called 17 witnesses to testify. The attorney for the defense called none. The jury found the teenager guilty. The defense appealed the decision. On Sept. 14 an appeals court overturned Bell's conviction, saying Bell should not have been tried as an adult, although he remained in jail as that decision was being appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Bell reportedly was denied bail Friday.

The case of the Jena 6 is far from simple. However, I do believe it is a situation in which we can find good, bad and ugly.

Under the category of good, it is clear that the criminal justice system has thus far worked in this case. The charges originally filed against the Jena 6 were disproportionate to their crime. Also, the teen that stood trial should not have done so as an adult. A miscarriage of justice had occurred but the checks and balances of the system worked them out. American's criminal justice system is not perfect, but it is the best and works most of the time.

Also good is the fact that the protests were peaceful. Other than a lot of traffic snarls in central Louisiana, those who came to march conducted themselves in a positive manner.

On the bad side of the ledger are the district attorney and the presiding judge. It was a very bad move to charge the Jena 6 with attempted murder. It was equally bad to try one of the teens as an adult. The DA should never have done it and the judge should never have allowed it. Were these men motivated by race? I don't know, but their actions did not help the perception of the situation.

Another aspect that is bad in the case of the Jena 6 is the number of people that did not show up for jury duty. Only one-third of the 150 that received summonses bothered to appear –- and no blacks showed up. No one can know for certain how many of the 100 no-shows were black. Whatever the number it could have helped quell the perception of racism.

Under the category of ugly is the hanging of the nooses in the tree. The lynchings of blacks are a hideous and heinous part of our nation's history. The teens that placed the nooses should have received a more stern punishment. The slap on the wrist they received only contributed to the perception of racism.

Also qualifying for ugly is Jackson and Sharpton. They were aware that the all-white jury was due to the fact that no blacks showed up for jury duty. However, they continued to emphasize that an all-white jury convicted a black teen. They certainly added to the perception of racism in the case.

Is there racism in America? Without a doubt, there is. There are white racists, black racists, brown racists. However, to create the perception of racism where there is little or none is wrong.

In the case of the Jena 6 there was good, there was bad and there was ugly. However, while the wheels of American justice grind slowly, they usually grind fairly in spite of racism –- real or perceived.

Maybe as I learn more, my feelings will change. Hillary Clinton spoke out as follows and makes a lot of sense:

I am very worried about what has happened -- and what is happening -- in Jena, Louisiana. I do not condone violence of any kind, but this situation raises very serious questions of injustice and inequality. I am deeply concerned about reports of potentially disparate treatment of white youths and African-American youths in the criminal justice system. I am troubled by reports that African-American students were initially charged and may be sentenced in a manner out of proportion to their wrongs. And I have long been troubled by a history of disparate treatment of African Americans in our criminal justice system.

Situations like this one remind us that we all have a responsibility to confront racial injustice and intolerance. I urge the civil rights divisions of the Department of Justice and the Department of Education to thoroughly review these cases and the surrounding events to find out whether they raise federal civil rights violations.

When a Case Screams Out "This is Wrong," a Judge Should Do Justice

Do you remember the case where a administrative law judge sued a dry-cleaner for $67 million over the cost of a pair of pants? Well, despite "winning" the lawsuit, legal fees and costs have forced them to sell the dry-cleaning shop where the action took place. Apparently, the lawsuit lasted two years and involved thousands of pages of documents. My take? If a judge can't derail an obviously frivolous lawsuit sooner than two years into the case, something is wrong. We need to give judges the power to adjudicate the ridiculous early on and then let the "aggrieved" party appeal if they must.

California Coastal Cleanup Day: I'm Off to the Beach

California Coastal Cleanup Day

The premier volunteer event focused on the marine environment in the country. I, my children, and 50,000 other volunteers will hit coastal cleanup sites statewide to remove debris from our beaches and waterways. Since the program started in 1985, over 750,000 Californians have removed more than 12 million pounds of debris from our state's shorelines and coast. It's a great day, outside, with your family, doing something that feels right. Whatever your stand on government or the environment, we all like our beaches to be a bit cleaner, a bit less flotsam out there on the ocean.

Later all. After my beachtime, I'm headed to a volunteer carwash to raise money for my church's middle school group: full on dad time all weekend.

Brillliant Ad Campaign

We hate spam. We hate boring. But done right, no one can resist a superbly funny (e.g., "Dress to Kill" )marketing campaign. In the late 1990s, Ravi-Gullit Beeharry & Andrea Mancuso fashioned such a campaign for Wallis Fashion. And men have executed double takes ever since. To see the photos, go to Al Lowe's Humor Site and view his post titled "Why Men Die Younger." I think most will agree that it is worth the click.

On the other hand, ad campaigns can work evil too. As we learn in in the story of how "a graduate of Columbia Law School ... and almost 80 other people, who really should have known better, got suckered into giving away all [their] personal details as well as up to two months of [their] lives for “jobs” that never actually existed." In what the author believes was an elaborate scheme by the scammer to impress a girl.

If you read the above story, don't be too hard on the young man. I once accepted an email/telephone job researching American Indian tribal law in a particular setting for a man who claimed to work for ABC's 20-20. In the end, I got paid and the man turned out to be legitimate. But this was before the Internet developed into what is now an instant global information bank. And I made no real effort to research this individual's legitimacy. I just did the work and sent him a bill. He turned out to be a great guy.

Other advertising campaigns,

In Dublin, out of safety concerns, I suspect, we see this warning:

And this ad ran in New Zealand for a few weeks,

And finally, to close out on a non-advertising note, I stole this from a well done web blog that gives its author's personal choice of the best and worst that that net has to offer, hours of entertainment:

When Online Romance Invades and Shatters Lives

Thomas murdered Brian in a jealous rage over Jesse. This story has roamed the Internet since January. And it neatly illustrates the lurking danger we see behind some online interaction (e.g., When Murder Hits the Blogosphere; MySpace Murder Plot Foiled; The Baltimore Myspace Murder; Stalked by Strangers; The Online Feud that Turned Toxic; and so on).

I first stumbled upon this story in Wired. A story of an online romance where almost

everyone played a role, an online triangle that ended in heartbreak, death, and prison.

Thomas Montgomery punched in at the Dynabrade factory in Clarence, a small town in upstate New York. He strapped on his goggles and stood at his machine until the late afternoon, churning out components for power tools. After work, he walked the family dog, Shadow, and took his two daughters to swim practice. He became such a regular presence at the local swim club that he was named its vice president. He tried to be a good father and a decent husband to his wife of 16 years, Cindy. There were a few things he enjoyed — poker night on Fridays with the guys, playing Texas Hold 'Em on Pogo.com, and the Dynabrade euchre tournament, which he dominated for two years in a row. For the most part, though, life was uneventful.

Which may be why Montgomery looked at himself — a 45-year-old former marine with a reddish mustache, bulging gut, and disappearing hair — and decided to become someone else. That person, he wrote on Dynabrade stationery that he stored in his toolbox at work, would be an 18-year-old marine named Tommy. He would be a black belt in karate, with bullet scars on his left shoulder and right leg, thick red hair, and impressive dimensions (6'2", 190 pounds, and a "9" dick"). Emboldened by his new identity, Montgomery logged onto Pogo in the spring of 2005 and met TalHotBlondbig50 — a 17-year-old from West Virginia, whose name, he later learned, was Jessica.

He began instant-messaging "Jessi," who later also went by the handle "peaches_06_17," and the lies flowed easier with every press of the Return key. His mom had died of cancer when he was 12, he told her, and his father was a military man. At 17, Tommy had raped a cheerleader, and his life became so hopeless that he enlisted in the Marines. After a stint at boot camp in June to train as a sniper, he was headed to Iraq. Montgomery concocted elaborate ruses to maintain Tommy's cover story, creating a second identity as Tommy's dad, Tom Sr., who bore a striking resemblance to the real Montgomery. Tommy's access to the Internet was supposedly limited because of his military duties, so Dad, as Jessi soon referred to him, began shuttling messages between the two lovers. He also told Jessi to send any mail and packages for Tommy to him, because he had contacts in Iraq and could get them to the young marine quickly.

Tommy's tales of hard luck drew Jessi in. He was in need of comfort, and Jessi provided it, saying she was proud of him despite his mistakes. Tommy responded by telling her that she was "the best thing that ever happened to him." As their intimacy grew, he sent her a picture of a young marine, claiming it was himself, and confided that he planned to commit suicide in Iraq; she made him promise to stay alive for her. They talked on the phone when they could. But if Jessi couldn't reach Tommy, she sometimes IM'd Tom Sr. to talk about her lover. Jessi also emailed Tommy photos of herself, care of Tom Sr. She lived up to her screen handle, whether she was running her fingers through her flowing blond hair or wading in a pool in a yellow bikini or showing off her long tan legs in a denim miniskirt.

Jessi fell for Tommy, and Montgomery did, too — or, at least, for the idea of himself as Tommy, a young man on his way to a future with the prettiest girl around. Tommy told Jessi that he'd had their special motto — the Marine saying "Always and Forever" — tattooed on his arm, along with her name encircled by a heart. Jessi, for her part, crafted video montages of herself for Tommy that were set to power ballads like Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and Lonestar's "I'm Already There."

The story continues. It gets ugly. And it ends worse.

I searched out the New York Times article on this pretend web romance. I wanted to ensure some sort of reality existed behind the story. If someone out there is involved in an online relationship, read these stories and the other examples that I linked. And then just think about keeping safe and secure. A trusting nature and an open heart should not lead to a shattered life. But they can and sometimes do.

Child Uses Gun As Prop in School Picture; High School Bans All Props Including Flowers

We read that in New Hampshire, a few years ago, a student posed for his high school yearbook with a gun. Wow, I think we all know why we don't want guns showing up in high school year book photos. But increasingly, in America, we abandon all common sense when faced with such situtations. The school's answer when faced with the gun-holder, ban all photographic props (a zero tolerance props policy).

So when Melissa Morin had a photograph taken for her senior yearbook that showed her holding a flower, the school of course rejects the offending photograph. Apparently, the photograph showed the young lady sitting on a costume trunk backstage at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. She wore a black and white sundress and clutched the flower.

Now, while the photograph was banned. The school gave the parents the option of buying advertising in the year book and having the photograph appear in the year book in that manner. It's a sad world where we let the ridiculous becomes ordinary in an effort to protect ourselves from the obscene who violate society's rules.

I'm not outraged. I'm just sad at the direction our society is heading.

A 59,000-Word Brief is Still An Oxymoron, Even If Your Lawyer is Famous and Your Case is Really, Really Important

The Wall Street Journal's law blog relates "The Curious Case Of Skilling's Really Long Appellate Brief." Apparently, O'Melveny & Myers filed a 239-page appellate brief for Jeffery Skilling. This firm is at the top of the tree in Los Angeles. It's attorneys are not only bright, but for the most part, decent and ethical. They are also damn good.

Nevertheless, a 59,000 word brief (the normal limit is 14,000) is absurd. I would try to tell you how absurd, but Mr. Lawyer from Lowering the bar does it with more élan than I could manage. I quote briefly from his post, but you might pop over and read the whole thing yourself:

The last brief I saw that was long enough to mock was a 100+ page draft of a brief that featured a 17-page introduction (itself longer than most briefs), with eleven separate main arguments, the last of which was the Dormant Commerce Clause. (Tip: If your argument even mentions the Dormant Commerce Clause, you probably need a new argument.) O'Melveny's brief uses 239 pages to cover just five main points. ... Each and every page, of course, is deeply treasured by its author(s), who could no more delete one of these pages than you would push one of your own children in front of a bus to buy yourself a few extra seconds to dodge out of the way.

If a lawyer thinks about the case load of federal appellate judges; if a lawyer contemplates the volume of reading material these judges wade through daily; he or she may ask, "Do I really want my client's points lost in a 239 page black hole?"