#Criminal Case Lawyer Fees

[prestigelegalllp]

How Do You Choose the Best Attorney for You?

If your situation is complicated and time-consuming, you should surely hire a lawyer in the long term. Don't forget to ask about criminal case lawyer fees if you're looking for a criminal defense attorney to handle your case.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats – including elected officials – all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked. Collectively, it would be much cheaper for all the victims to band together and hire a fancy law firm to invalidate the patent, but individually, it makes sense for them all to pay. A collective action problem:

https://locusmag.com/2013/11/cory-doctorow-collective-action/

Musicians get royally screwed by Spotify. Collectively, it would make sense for all of them to boycott the platform, which would bring it to its knees and either make it pay more or put it out of business. Individually, any musician who pulls out of Spotify disappears from the horizon of most music fans, so they all hang in – a collective action problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/#universally-loathed

Same goes for the businesses that get fucked out of 30% of their app revenues by Apple and Google's mobile business. Without all those apps, Apple and Google wouldn't have a business, but any single app that pulls out commits commercial suicide, so they all hang in there, paying a 30% vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

That's also the case with Amazon sellers, who get rooked for 45-51 cents out of every dollar in platform junk fees, and whose prize for succeeding despite this is to have their product cloned by Amazon, which underprices them because it doesn't have to pay a 51% rake on every sale. Without third-party sellers there'd be no Amazon, but it's impossible to get millions of sellers to all pull out at once, so the Bezos crime family scoops up half of the ecommerce economy in bullshit fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

This is why one definition of "corruption" is a system with "concentrated gains and diffuse losses." The company that dumps toxic waste in your water supply reaps all the profits of externalizing its waste disposal costs. The people it poisons each bear a fraction of the cost of being poisoned. The environmental criminal has a fat warchest of ill-gotten gains to use to bribe officials and pay fancy lawyers to defend it in court. Its victims are each struggling with the health effects of the crimes, and even without that, they can't possibly match the polluter's resources. Eventually, the polluter spends enough money to convince the Supreme Court to overturn "Chevron deference" and makes it effectively impossible to win the right to clean water and air (or a planet that's not on fire):

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/us-supreme-courts-chevron-deference-ruling-will-disrupt-climate-policy

Any time you encounter a shitty, outrageous racket that's stable over long timescales, chances are you're looking at a collective action problem. Certainly, that's the underlying pathology that preserves the scholarly publishing scam, which is one of the most grotesque, wasteful, disgusting frauds in our modern world (and that's saying something, because the field is crowded with many contenders).

Here's how the scholarly publishing scam works: academics do original scholarly research, funded by a mix of private grants, public funding, funding from their universities and other institutions, and private funds. These academics write up their funding and send it to a scholarly journal, usually one that's owned by a small number of firms that formed a scholarly publishing cartel by buying all the smaller publishers in a string of anticompetitive acquisitions. Then, other scholars review the submission, for free. More unpaid scholars do the work of editing the paper. The paper's author is sent a non-negotiable contract that requires them to permanently assign their copyright to the journal, again, for free. Finally, the paper is published, and the institution that paid the researcher to do the original research has to pay again – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year! – for the journal in which it appears.

The academic publishing cartel insists that the millions it extracts from academic institutions and the billions it reaps in profit are all in service to serving as neutral, rigorous gatekeepers who ensure that only the best scholarship makes it into print. This is flatly untrue. The "editorial process" the academic publishers take credit for is virtually nonexistent: almost everything they publish is virtually unchanged from the final submission format. They're not even typesetting the paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1

The vetting process for peer-review is a joke. Literally: an Australian academic managed to get his dog appointed to the editorial boards of seven journals:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals

Far from guarding scientific publishing from scams and nonsense, the major journal publishers have stood up entire divisions devoted to pay-to-publish junk science. Elsevier – the largest scholarly publisher – operated a business unit that offered to publish fake journals full of unreveiwed "advertorial" papers written by pharma companies, packaged to look like a real journal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090504075453/http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

Naturally, academics and their institutions hate this system. Not only is it purely parasitic on their labor, it also serves as a massive brake on scholarly progress, by excluding independent researchers, academics at small institutions, and scholars living in the global south from accessing the work of their peers. The publishers enforce this exclusion without mercy or proportion. Take Diego Gomez, a Colombian Masters candidate who faced eight years in prison for accessing a single paywalled academic paper:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

And of course, there's Aaron Swartz, the young activist and Harvard-affiliated computer scientist who was hounded to death after he accessed – but did not publish – papers from MIT's JSTOR library. Aaron had permission to access these papers, but JSTOR, MIT, and the prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz argued that because he used a small computer program to access the papers (rather than clicking on each link by hand) he had committed 13 felonies. They threatened him with more than 30 years in prison, and drew out the proceedings until Aaron was out of funds. Aaron hanged himself in 2013:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Academics know all this terrible stuff is going on, but they are trapped in a collective action problem. For an academic to advance in their field, they have to publish, and they have to get their work cited. Academics all try to publish in the big prestige journals – which also come with the highest price-tag for their institutions – because those are the journals other academics read, which means that getting published is top journal increases the likelihood that another academic will find and cite your work.

If academics could all agree to prioritize other journals for reading, then they could also prioritize other journals for submissions. If they could all prioritize other journals for submissions, they could all prioritize other journals for reading. Instead, they all hold one another hostage, through a wicked collective action problem that holds back science, starves their institutions of funding, and puts their colleagues at risk of imprisonment.

Despite this structural barrier, academics have fought tirelessly to escape the event horizon of scholarly publishing's monopoly black hole. They avidly supported "open access" publishers (most notably PLoS), and while these publishers carved out pockets for free-to-access, high quality work, the scholarly publishing cartel struck back with package deals that bundled their predatory "open access" journals in with their traditional journals. Academics had to pay twice for these journals: first, their institutions paid for the package that included them, then the scholars had to pay open access submission fees meant to cover the costs of editing, formatting, etc – all that stuff that basically doesn't exist.

Academics started putting "preprints" of their work on the web, and for a while, it looked like the big preprint archive sites could mount a credible challenge to the scholarly publishing cartel. So the cartel members bought the preprint sites, as when Elsevier bought out SSRN:

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/17/disappointing-elsevier-buys-open-access-academic-pre-publisher-ssrn/

Academics were elated in 2011, when Alexandra Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub, a shadow library that aims to make the entire corpus of scholarly work available without barrier, fear or favor:

https://sci-hub.ru/alexandra

Sci-Hub neutralized much of the collective action trap: once an article was available on Sci-Hub, it became much easier for other scholars to locate and cite, which reduced the case for paying for, or publishing in, the cartel's journals:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14979

The scholarly publishing cartel fought back viciously, suing Elbakyan and Sci-Hub for tens of millions of dollars. Elsevier targeted prepress sites like academia.edu with copyright threats, ordering them to remove scholarly papers that linked to Sci-Hub:

https://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

This was extremely (if darkly) funny, because Elsevier's own publications are full of citations to Sci-Hub:

https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/

Meanwhile, scholars kept the pressure up. Tens of thousands of scholars pledged to stop submitting their work to Elsevier:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Academics at the very tops of their fields publicly resigned from the editorial board of leading Elsevier journals, and published editorials calling the Elsevier model unethical:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/may/16/system-profit-access-research

And the New Scientist called the racket "indefensible," decrying the it as an industry that made restricting access to knowledge "more profitable than oil":

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/

But the real progress came when academics convinced their institutions, rather than one another, to do something about these predator publishers. First came funders, private and public, who announced that they would only fund open access work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7

Winning over major funders cleared the way for open access advocates worked both the supply-side and the buy-side. In 2019, the entire University of California system announced it would be cutting all of its Elsevier subscriptions:

https://www.science.org/content/article/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

Emboldened by the UC system's principled action, MIT followed suit in 2020, announcing that it would no longer send $2m every year to Elsevier:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#nerdfight

It's been four years since MIT's decision to boycott Elsevier, and things are going great. The open access consortium SPARC just published a stocktaking of MIT libraries without Elsevier:

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/

How are MIT's academics getting by without Elsevier in the stacks? Just fine. If someone at MIT needs access to an Elsevier paper, they can usually access it by asking the researchers to email it to them, or by downloading it from the researcher's site or a prepress archive. When that fails, there's interlibrary loan, whereby other libraries will send articles to MIT's libraries within a day or two. For more pressing needs, the library buys access to individual papers through an on-demand service.

This is how things were predicted to go. The libraries used their own circulation data and the webservice Unsub to figure out what they were likely to lose by dropping Elsevier – it wasn't much!

https://unsub.org/

The MIT story shows how to break a collective action problem – through collective action! Individual scholarly boycotts did little to hurt Elsevier. Large-scale organized boycotts raised awareness, but Elsevier trundled on. Sci-Hub scared the shit out of Elsevier and raised awareness even further, but Elsevier had untold millions to spend on a campaign of legal terror against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan. But all of that, combined with high-profile defections, made it impossible for the big institutions to ignore the issue, and the funders joined the fight. Once the funders were on-side, the academic institutions could be dragged into the fight, too.

Now, Elsevier – and the cartel – is in serious danger. Automated tools – like the Authors Alliance termination of transfer tool – lets academics get the copyright to their papers back from the big journals so they can make them open access:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Unimaginably vast indices of all scholarly publishing serve as important adjuncts to direct access shadow libraries like Sci-Hub:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#cornucopia-concordance

Collective action problems are never easy to solve, but they're impossible to address through atomized, individual action. It's only when we act as a collective that we can defeat the corruption – the concentrated gains and diffuse losses – that allow greedy, unscrupulous corporations to steal from us, wreck our lives and even imprison us.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

[prolifeproliberty]

There are 55 pages of jury instructions, but the most important pages are pp. 27-31

This is where the judge instructs the jury on what the charges are and what is required for a guilty verdict.

Many people have spread misinformation that Trump was just convicted of campaign finance violations. This is untrue. He was not tried on those charges.

The charges he was tried on were 34 felony counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree

This means they are saying Trump broke this law 34 separate times (in reality it’s that the same transaction is recorded and reported in multiple places, so each of those would be a separate count)

Normally, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor with a 2-year statute of limitations, which would mean they couldn’t have charged Trump with this UNLESS they could upgrade it to a felony.

To make it a felony, the prosecution is supposed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that:

1. He actually knew and approved of falsifying the records (Trump does not do his own accounting, if you weren’t aware)

2. He did so or agreed to do so with the intent of covering up another crime

The jury instructions include one possibility of what that crime could be (campaign finance violation), but the prosecution could not prove that he committed that crime and he was not officially charged and tried for that crime. The judge proceeded to tell the jury that they did not need to agree on whether the campaign finance violation was the crime that Trump was supposedly trying to cover up (p. 31). They only needed to agree that Trump was covering up some kind of crime.

Again, for those who haven’t followed this case, here was what the prosecution said happened:

Michael Cohen, as an attorney for Trump, made a payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for he keeping quiet about a sexual encounter she claims she had with Trump

Michael Cohen claims that he told Trump about the payment and was reimbursed for the payment, and that the reimbursement was recorded as a payment for legal fees (this is where they claim it’s being falsified)

Only the defense was able to completely discredit Cohen’s story about when he supposedly had this conversation with Trump about the payment. (The video has lawyers reviewing the transcript, reading it, and commenting on the significance)

And then there’s the fact that the only evidence that Trump even reimbursed Michael Cohen for this payment is a $420,000 transaction marked as legal fees. Thing is, the payment to Stormy Daniels was $130,000. More importantly, Cohen had previously testified that he had been receiving $420,000 a year as a retainer from the Trump organization for several years. That is, $420,000 was his normal annual retainer fee, split into monthly payments of $35,000.

In this video you can skip to about 49 minutes in to hear these lawyers read the transcript and discuss Cohen’s explanation of how a $130,000 reimbursement somehow ended up looking exactly like his normal annual retainer.

So based on this testimony, it looks like the Trump organization may not have even reimbursed Cohen for the payment, they just paid him his normal legal fees, which is why they were recorded as…legal fees.

So when I say this trial is a sham, this is what I mean.

[antoine-roquentin]

Biden’s nominating a former judge who ran a debtor’s prison where her salary and office expenses came out of the fees she charged criminals, incentivizing the harshest penalties possible, to serve as the federal government’s chief prosecutor in New Orleans:

Keva Landrum locks down nomination for U.S. Attorney, source says (March 31, 2023)

President Joe Biden's administration is expected soon to formally nominate Keva Landrum, a former Orleans Parish criminal court judge, to serve as U.S. attorney in New Orleans, according to a source with knowledge of the process. The move comes nearly two years after The Times-Picayune reported she became the top choice for the prestigious post....

Just what held up her nomination remains a mystery. 

A D.A. Runoff Will Decide New Orleans’ Criminal Justice Future (Nov 23, 2020)

This messaging matches parts of Landrum’s record. During her time as DA, she drew fire for coming down hard on marijuana possession. She prosecuted repeat offenses as felonies, charges that could result in five to 20 years in prison. Before her term, the office routinely treated such cases as misdemeanors, which carry much lower penalties. Critics accused her of racking up felony convictions to make it appear that the DA’s office was tackling violent crime after New Orleans was declared a “murder capital.”...

According to the magazine Antigravity, lawyers familiar with her practices told the magazine that Landrum regularly inflicted high bonds and long sentences as a criminal court judge. 

Appeals court mulls 'debtors' prison' lawsuit against New Orleans judges (April 30, 2019)

Federal appeals court judges heard arguments Tuesday on whether state judges in New Orleans crossed a legal line by squeezing poor defendants for fines and fees that made up a big chunk of the state court's budget.

In an August decision, U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance said that it was a violation of the U.S. Constitution for the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court judges who rely heavily on fines and fees to also decide if defendants could pay them.

She said the judges also could no longer jail anyone for failing to pay court costs until the defendants had a chance to plead poverty in a “neutral forum.”

Since the ruling, Orleans judges have received a $3.8 million cash infusion from the City Council that more than plugs the budget hole from Vance's decision and another from a loss of bail fees.

Nevertheless, the judges appealed both rulings, which could hobble their ability to collect court costs in the future. Chief Judge Keva Landrum-Johnson said they did so on the advice of attorneys.

[jotunvali02]

Playing Ace Attorney, Rise from the Ashes, part 1

"It's not Edgeworth who was murdered though."

Careful, be fucking CAREFUL with what you say, Phoenix...

"I am not accepting new cases."

Why?? Do you have better things to do??

Oh, so Mia used to do anything to get what she wants, "anything" too? Hmmm...

"That probably was why she was attracted to me."

Sooooooooooorrryyyyyy??????????????

"You know, attorneys aren't supposed to examine crime scenes."

But, but... I'm gonna slap you so hard, Phoenix!

"Put it in your pocket!" "Sounds like theft to me."

BITCH!!! That's what you've been doing ALL the time with NO second thought and NO regret and what basically made you win your cases and NOW you're having legal qualms??

I'm going to slap you!

*gasp*! Or maybe Edgey has been giving him basic classes of lawyering during these mysterious two months? Is it the better thing to do than your job, Fee-Fee??👀💞

Phoenix being his old whiney bitch again and Ema telling him to shut the fuck off. ^^

"You know, I aced a 97 on my test!" "Too bad they don't have a test for common sense!"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Queen Bitch Fee-Fee's baaack!

Oh, the Queen Bitch likes to be stepped on by another queen, huh?

Ok, did Lana Skye bedded all the sexy ladies of that city?

Don't tell me. The "boyfriend" is Larry, isn't it??

"Very useful. Not."

Bitch, why are you suddenly such a bitchy bitch again, anyway??

Hm, so Phoenix is the "evilest lunches of all".

Oh no.

My baby Edgey.😭

How must he have felt when he was awarded "the best prosecutor"? Two months after learning that ALL of his prosecuting (mentored by the killer of his father and who manipulated him all his life) had been, indeed twisted and ugly?

My baby... Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to gift him that??

"Wright? Still rummaging through my life? You know, I like it."❤️ "That voice..."💘

That voice that caresses and blesses my ears!!💞🥰

"Are you sure you should be showing clues to Mr Edgeworth?" "I don't give a fuck!! He's my boyfriend now! I'll show him anything, Ema! Anything..."

*showing the badge like an annyoing motherfucker again* ;p

"I once dreamed to be a defense attorney too..."

Nooo!!😭 What have I done?? I've made him sad! NOOO!! 😭😭

Can't I kiss him to make him feel better??

Rumors?? Babe, you never cared about the stupid rumors about you before! ...... ....... oh.💔

"Go ahead, Wright! You think I did it, don't you?" "So you've come to laugh at the fallen prosecutor? Then laugh. Laugh!"

No! Nooo!! Never!! What would FEE-FEE of all people do that??? Why do you think he hates you?? 😭😭💔

No baby!! Stop! Stop that self-flogging!! And just let yourself be hugged and loved!

Wait. So defense attorneys can defend themselves but prosecutors can't prosecute themselves?? Why?

Is this a timeline where it's traditional to treat defense attorneys better than prosecutors? Like defense attorney are societally superior to prosecutors?

Nooo... my baby thinks he was betrayed, framed and manipulated by a mentor he admired again! 😭 Takumi, will you stop torturing our baby Edgey just for ONE case????

Ok, an Edgeworth headbutt in Phoenix' face please!

"You must be proud to be the King of Prosecutors!"

But I... I will assassinate you, Phoenix. I will SO fucking assassinate you!

Oh and now you want to nap on Edgey's sofa!!

And Ema starts to get wet with her fantasies of Edgey. I can't blame her, I do the exact same.

"He doesn't seem concerned about his award."

No shit?? And why that, in your opinion??

"I place little faith in my memory." My baby 😭

"Looks like this guy was absent the day they gave out brains and good luck."

B-b-but.. what a douche!! This isn't being a bitch anymore, this is being a complete DOUCHEBAG, Phoenix!

Why are you such a spiteful CUNT today??

Gumshoe was "kicked out of the Criminal Affairs"?? Hmmm....

"What's going on with Edgeworth?" WHAT'S GOING ON WITH EDGEWORTH???

Feenie, have you fucking DEMENTIA joined to your cunt-isis???

No,... Edgey is getting bullied now?? Isn't this trial where he's being framed by a mentor again enough?? Wasn't Von Karma enough????

NO! NO! NO!!

Like, do his colleagues have fucking dementia too?? Did they already forget that Edgey was declared innocent, framed and manipulated all along, all his fucking life?? By the killer of his father?? While he repeated he was guilty and "deserved to be punished"?? Or that he's been living with a fucking PTSD since he was fucking 9??

And he "just wants to snatch the position of Chief Prosecutor", like WHAT?? Or maybe he wants to throw his jail his other mentor who ALSO lied to him and ALSO tried to frame him for murder???

Are lawyers in future Japan all brainless and heartless fuckers??

Ema: "Officer Marshall! Shut the fuck up!!"

Yeah, and don't go badmouthing my baby Edgey, you fucker!

"He was unbeatable. That is until he met you."

Fee-Fee's heart:

"The rumors lead to one person."

Who?? WHO's that umpteenth fucker who dares to hurt my sweet, baby, fluffy Edgey????

"You shouldn't believe your clients, Mr Wright." "Miss Skye: shut the fuck up!"

"I have to discover the truth all by myself!"

YAY! Fee-Fee is finally committing to be a big boy!!🥳

Without needing the help of teenage girl or of dead person!

[honestgrins]

kc + caroline has MANY complaints about klaus but her biggest one is that the only time he responds to her follow up emails is to ask whether something is illegal

Per My Last Email || Klaroline

Weirdly canon-esque, and I have no defense. But we all know Klaus would be Caroline's neediest client.

.

Dear Mr. Mikaelson:

Per the agreement you signed, my services have been retained for legal representation on your accumulated traffic tickets ONLY. Please note that these emails fall under attorney-client privilege, but you should still avoid excessive details that would test my standing as an officer of the court. I trust that you will respect my professional boundaries, as difficult as that will be for you. To make sure I have all the relevant information at hand, please forward me the details of your current ID, vehicle descriptions, and all license numbers. 

As your court date is tomorrow, please respond as soon as possible. Otherwise, I would highly recommend paying your tickets before 9 a.m. via the online portal. My retainer fee, however, is nonrefundable.

ID, vehicle descriptions, and license numbers, ASAP.

Best,

Caroline Forbes Salvatore

Attorney, MF Group

.

Sweetheart, settle a bet for me. Kol insists his baseball bat is considered a deadly weapon, but surely it's just the force with which he can wield the bat that makes it deadly - therefore, its presence alone cannot be considered "assault with a deadly weapon."

A speedy answer would be appreciated, I just noticed the local bar installed a security camera that may limit your legal arguments after the fact.

x

.

And don't think I didn't notice the "Salvatore" in your signature. 

I did.

x

.

Dear Mr. Mikaelson,

My married name is registered with the state bar association and a matter of public record. In fact, my ability to practice in Louisiana is predicated on the fact that "Caroline Forbes Salvatore" holds a valid law degree and active license. If you have a problem with that, please feel free to retain other representation.

That said, I do want to remind you that I may advise on hypothetical legal scenarios, but will not abet any illegal activity such as assault with a deadly weapon. The threatening manner in which you imply your brother might wield a baseball bat, hypothetically, would be enough to enhance any assault charges possibly caught on camera.

As your lawyer, I don't recommend putting these hypotheticals in writing, and I really don't recommend letting Kol loose on New Orleans with a bat. Hypothetically, the whole city has cameras and it's a miracle certain activities haven't come to light. Yet.

Since you failed to send me the necessary details before your court date, I asked Elijah. You're welcome for getting the parking tickets dismissed, by the way, even though your behavior in court was detrimental to your case. The judge was not amused by your sense of humor, and neither was I. To prevent a repeat performance, I would suggest storing your luxury sports car in your massive compound instead of literally the middle of a pedestrian plaza. Just a thought.

Elijah has also taken care of your court fees and my incidentals since I had to void your last payment. Next time, please just pay the invoice. You don't tip your lawyer.

Best, 

Caroline Forbes Salvatore

Attorney, MF Group

.

Love - quick question. Rebekah is throwing a bit of a tantrum and stole the doppelgänger blood I had stored. Is this a civil suit situation, or can I press criminal charges? Honestly, I think she'd have a lark in prison, but I think the inconvenience would be consequence enough for her to feel my ire.

x

.

Mr. Mikaelson,

Again, I'm sure this is a hypothetical situation where your sister, who lives in your shared family domicile and therefore has rights to whatever is stored inside, takes something of no actual value, such as human blood stored for medical study and nothing else, then - hypothetically - a grown man with substantial resources like yourself can surely see that neither a civil suit nor criminal charges would be wise to file. None of those details of a...supernatural...sort would belong in the public record.

Not to mention, sending your sister to prison would only get me and several other people killed.

Hypothetically.

Seriously, I'm too busy for this, and I'm not even on retainer anymore. I will be sending Elijah an invoice for this email communication.

Best,

Caroline Forbes Salvatore

Attorney, MF Group

.

I've wired a retainer fee directly to your account. And since you're on the payroll, I have some paperwork to go through. Working dinner? I'll buy.

x

.

Caroline: Klaus, you cannot send me a million dollars in a personal check. 

Klaus: Clearly, I can. Dinner?

Caroline: ...

Caroline: ...

Klaus: I'm thinking Italian. 

Caroline: If you think this counts as a retainer fee, I do not have the time to explain how wrong you are, but I will if I have to. To be clear, that is a threat, and you know I will follow through, complete with slide deck and appendices. If you would indeed like to retain my services for the family, Elijah and I have already worked through an initial contract with LIMITS, you absolute ass. All official business will go through him, I swear, or you will regret it. 

Caroline: Again, that is a threat.

Klaus: So, see you at eight?

Caroline: ...

Caroline: I'm donating the money you sent.

Caroline: But yeah, Italian sounds good.

Klaus: Change your email signature.

Caroline: Don't push it.

[beardedmrbean]

Four members of the UK's richest family are on trial in Switzerland amid allegations they spent more money caring for their dog than their servants.

The Hinduja family, worth an estimated £37bn ($47bn), is accused of exploitation and human trafficking.

The family own a villa in Geneva’s wealthy neighbourhood of Cologny, and the charges against them all relate to their practice of importing servants from India to look after their children and household.

It’s alleged that Prakash and Kamal Hinduja, together with their son Ajay and his wife Namrata, confiscated staff passports, paid them as little as $8 (£7) for 18-hour days, and allowed them little freedom to leave the house.

Although a financial settlement over exploitation was reached last week, the Hindujas remain on trial for trafficking, which is a serious criminal offence in Switzerland. They deny the charges.

This week in court, one of Geneva’s most famous prosecutors, Yves Bertossa, compared the almost $10,000 a year he claimed the family had spent on their dog, to the daily amount they were allegedly paying their servants.

The Hinduja family's lawyers did not specifically deny the allegations of low wages, but said they must be viewed in context - noting that the staff were also receiving accommodation and food.

The charge of long hours was also disputed, with one defence lawyer arguing that watching a film with the Hinduja children could not really be classed as work.

Some former servants testified for the Hindujas, describing them as a friendly family who treated their servants with dignity.

But the allegations that servants’ passports were confiscated, and that they could not even leave the house without permission, are serious, because they could be judged as human trafficking.

Mr Bertossa is calling for prison terms, and millions of dollars in compensation as well as legal fees.

Dark side of Geneva

It is not the first time that Geneva, a hub for international organisations as well as the world’s wealthy, has been in the spotlight over the alleged mistreatment of servants.

In 2008, Hannibal Gaddafi, son of Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, was arrested in his five star Geneva hotel by police acting on information that he and his wife had been beating their servants, including with a coat hanger. The case was later dropped.

But it caused a huge diplomatic row between Switzerland and Libya, with two Swiss citizens arrested in Tripoli as a retaliatory measure.

Just last year, four domestic workers from the Philippines launched a case against one of Geneva’s diplomatic missions to the United Nations, claiming they had not been paid for years.

The Hinduja's ongoing, high profile case will draw attention, once again, to the darker, uglier side of the city that likes to call itself "the city of peace".

[faithinchances]

Jamie Blackmails Richmond

@bluestone-dragon

Well you see, it's very easy to blackmail Richmond, because Richmond lacks good hiring practices, a solid code of conduct for its employees, and an HR department (apparently).

This one basically takes the "what if we didn't treat this as a joke" route to how Roy treats Jamie and to the lack of intervention into how Roy treats Jamie from the coaching staff and/or Rebecca and Higgins.

I want to emphasize that Roy's treatment of Jamie is inappropriate (Ola's, various threats to the genitals, refusal to coach), medically inadvisable (extra coaching, dick strings), flat out dangerous (extra training, attempted assaults, dick strings), and often illegal (dick strings, the assorted attempted assaults, threats of sexual torture). And in this universe, Jamie is aware of this but kind of unclear on what can be done about it, because clearly Beard and Ted have ZERO interest in making Roy be less abusive/toxic/criminal.

What do you do when you're in a toxic workplace that you legally can't leave (without severe repercussions to his career/financial situation)?

(want to emphasize that Jamie makes a SHIT wage for the Prem, probably like 350k per year. That's very good for people standards, but he would be the lowest paid on the team and among the lowest paid int he Prem, despite being incredible)

You go to HR: it turns out that Richmond's HR department is either ludicrously incompetent as a holdover from Rupert's days in charge, when he gutted them to remove a proper way of filing complaints about him, or Rebecca gutted them when she came into power because of their lack of appropriate action against Rupert, and then forgot to fix them when she had her come to Jesus moment, or HR are too starstruck by the Roy Kent Effect that they're unwilling to take action because it's Roy Kent.

So Jamie gets himself a fucking lawyer, finds out that his case against Richmond is iron-clad (which it is. All of this is done very publicly, with no one seeming to think that Roy is doing anything wrong except that it is EXTREMELY illegal).

Lawyer lays all this out to Rebecca and Higgins (who get their own lawyerly advice and find out they're fucked), and they agree to settle outside of the courts.

The deal is basically that Richmond will sell Jamie to an interested club of his choice in the summer following season 3, and he will receive a percentage of the fee paid to Richmond (fixed amount x or y% of the transfer fee, whichever is higher, etc).

Jamie leaves.

I haven't quite decided where- maybe Arsenal because I love Odegaard and Jamie would love Odegaard, and then he'd be on a top flight team competing in the Champions League every year and recently in the running for the Prem title. Maybe Liverpool, because I love them and he would love Klopp. Maybe Bayern Munich, just 'cause, or some other top team in Spain or Germany. Not PSG. Never PSG.

[stephensmithuk]

The Priory School

Published in 1904, this is the final story we're covering from Return.

It is also our first story set in the reign of Edward VII, who was a rather different monarch to his mother to put it mildly.

So, the Duke of Holdernesse's biography. Brace yourself, because this is going to need a few points to cover:

There have been a total of 40 dukedoms created in the English peerage; some of them have been recreated over the centuries after dying out due to lack of a male heir (they are nearly always male only) or the holder ends up becoming King, in which case the dukedom "merges in the Crown" and is free for further use. For example, Prince Philip was made Duke of Edinburgh as a wedding present when he married the future Elizabeth II. When he died, Prince Charles inherited the dukedom but didn't use it as he was already Prince of Wales. King Charles III then gave the Duchy to his brother Edward as a 59th birthday present, but made it life only. I will mention Edward again later.

Not counting the Duke of Cornwall, the title being explicitly linked to the oldest son of the monarch i.e. Prince William, the oldest active dukedom is Norfolk, currently with its 18th holder, Edward Fitzalan-Howard. He also holds the hereditary title of Earl Marshal, in that capacity organising both the funeral of Elizabeth II and the coronation of Charles III, something made a good deal harder when he got a six-month driving ban for driving through a red light while on his mobile. His lawyer managed to get a good part of the hearing done in private because the mitigation stuff involved discussing sensitive coronation details.

KG stands for "Knight of the Garter". Below the Victoria and George Crosses, the latter of course not yet a thing, this is the most prestigious honour you can get in the honours system. It typically goes to royals domestic and foreign, top officials including Prime Ministers and those who have done major works for the monarch personally. However, notable other cases include Sir Edmund Hilary i.e. the Everest chap. At the time, the Government made appointments, but to stop the honour being used for patronage, since 1946, the sole appointer has been the head of the order i.e. the monarch.

I could go on about the Garter, but we'll be here all day.

PC stands for Privy Counsellor, a formal group of senior advisors to the monarch, that includes top politicans. They still have a function, including intelligence sharing and can use the title "Right Honourable" even if they aren't. Some have in fact been kicked out recently for criminal convictions.

If you have multiple titles, your oldest legitimate son is allowed to use one of the junior ones as a courtesy title. Hence Lord Saltire. Pivoting back to Prince Edward, his oldest son James, aged 15, uses the title Earl of Wessex, his father's wedding present and will inherit that from his father. As a monarch's grandson, he will have the right to call himself a prince when he turns 18.

This said, it is perfectly possible for a kid to become a Duke in his own right. The other Prince Edward became Duke of Kent in 1942 aged just six when his father died in a plane crash.

Lord Lieutenants are official deputies of the monarch in the various 'ceremonial counties' (as British local government is now rather complex). They used to have a role leading the local militias and still play a role in selecting low-level judicial officials, but their main job is giving out medals and opening stuff. They also have deputies below them, who are the people you write to if you want a royal to open something.

Hallamshire was a historical area in what is now South Yorkshire, no longer a county by this point, that covers an area roughly the same as the modern-day City of Sheffield.

Preparatory schools or "prep schools" are fee-paying schools designed to prepare children for the Common Entrance Examination to get into one of the public schools like Eton or Fettes. They are frequently, but not always, boarding schools.

Yes, 13 May 1901 was a Monday.

An Eton jacket is a short (waist-length) jacket with three buttons. Outside the military, where it forms part of mess dress, it's now far more associated with service staff.

Heidegger shares his name with a German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, who had yet to come to prominence at the time. A Nazi supporter, he has the interesting distinction of being the only then-living philospher mentioned in the "Bruces' Philosophers Song" by Monty Python.

An "ordnance map" refers to the Ordnance Survey maps. Originating in 1745, when maps of Scotland were created to assist in putting the Jacobite clans then in rebellion against the government, these have been the standard maps for ramblers, the military etc. for generations and can be used to trace changes in places over time. The ones from before 1970 are now public domain and available online.

The bicycle track deductions have been debated to death by Holmesian scholars over years; Klinger covers their analysis in some depth. Doyle himself admitted he wasn't quite right.

It was a legal requirement for the details of the landlord of a pub to have their details prominently displayed at the entrance. By tradition, that was and still is above the door. However, since 2003, you legally just need the premises licence on display.

The Capital and Counties Bank had 473 branches across the UK until its 1918 acquistion by Lloyds Bank, still the largest retail bank in the UK.

Britain had "felony murder" like the US until 1957. Since Wilder is involved in the kidnapping, he would be just as liable as Hayes for the murder of Heidegger and could face the death penalty with him.

This became a matter of huge controversy in the 1953 case of Derek Bentley, also known as the "Let him have it" case. Bentley allegedly delivered those words to his accomplice in a burglary, Christopher Craig, a 16-year-old who then shot dead a police officer. Bentley himself had mental development problems with a IQ recorded of 77. Both were found guilty of murder and Craig spent ten years at "Her Majesty's Pleasure" as a juvenille offender. A recommendation for mercy in the case of Bentley was ignored by the judge and when the appeal failed, the Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe (who had also overseen a major increase in the persecution of gay men) declined to commute the sentence, despite 200 MPs calling for it. Bentley was hanged, but the continuing outcry was a key factor in the 1964 abolition of capital punishment in England and Wales. Bentley would get a posthumous royal pardon in 1993 and the Court of Appeal quashed his murder conviction in 1998 on the grounds of the flawed trial.

[peachymilkandcream]

Written In Blood|Part 2|Modern Yandere Levi x Evelyn

(A/N: I really wanted to explore these two more and I can honestly say an AU of them is pretty fun. Hope you enjoy and comment to be added to the taglist!)

WARNINGS: implied noncon/dubcon, graphic descriptions of violence, domestic violence, manipulation, mind breaking, yandere behaviour/themes, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, misogyny, etc.

===============================================

Levi knew the ins and outs of the legal system by now, with his knowledge he had easily been able to get dangerous criminals returned back in the streets to blame for his own crimes later. With many parties to blame the suspicion never fell on him. All criminals from the poor to the wealthy wanted him to represent them, knowing how he could baffle the prosecution and somehow get acquittals left and right even when the defendant was clearly guilty.

Everyone wanted his secrets, but he would keep those to himself. Finding out what poor souls were put on jury duty and charming them was his specialty. Offering a joke with some of the men, a understanding smile and feign interest as he heard another mind-numbing golf story. With the women, flirtations and promises of future intimacy to make them forget their worthless husbands or partners. Unanimously they always found his defendants not guilty.

"Ah, Mr. Schmidt was it?" He sits down, grimacing at the probably filthy chair set out for him.

"The hell do you want, some fancy rich asshole in a suit, what do you want with me? What, do I owe you money or something?"

"I'm a lawyer Mr. Schmidt, Levi Ackerman, have you heard of me?"

"Yeah I know you, you're the guy who gets everyone off with a slap on the wrist huh?"

"The same."

"I can't pay your big bucks, sorry."

"No don't worry about that, I only want to take this case because I'm curious as to the crime and why? Why go after someone so famous who could throw you in jail like this?"

"Because she's hot and rich, and who doesn't like that. But I'm telling you, she's got that rich bitch attitude that goes with it. Now I don't like that in a woman, y'know what I mean?"

"Absolutely, I feel the exact same way."

"So I figured I'd knock her down a peg or two."

"And how would you do that?"

"Break in, scare her a little, get her to drive herself crazy and then break in and fuck her 'til she's a fuckin' cum dumpster. See if she's still high and mighty then."

Deep down Levi could rip out the man's teeth, talking about his target that way disgusted him. If anyone he'd be the one doing that.

"I completely understand. Now how did you go about finding the address?"

"Apparently in one of her friend's personal posts they show the apartment number. It wasn't hard to find street and city. After that it was history."

"Now I'm obligated to ask if you regret what you did."

"Are you kidding? Fuck no. I regret that I got caught is all. "

"Good to know. And if you got back on the streets what would you do with your freedom?"

"Probably try again, now I know what her security looks like."

"Understandable."

"You're really gonna represent me even though I can't pay your fees?"

"Of course I am, not so much for you, but because I'm interested to see this woman you've taken so much interest in."

"Oh trust me, she's sexy as hell let me tell you that."

"I don't doubt it." Levi stands.

"What you don't need some more information or stuff-?"

"I'll be back for that, don't worry. See you in court."

"Yeah I guess so. Hey what are you going to do with that stuff I told you?"

Levi chuckles. "Who knows? Maybe I'll just finish what you started."

[ridenwithbiden]

("It's Your Money" Not His) "Since leaving office in 2021, former President Donald J. Trump has spent more than $100 million on lawyers and other costs related to fending off various investigations, indictments and his coming criminal trials, according to a New York Times review of federal records.

The remarkable sum means that Mr. Trump has averaged more than $90,000 a day in legal-related costs for more than three years — none of it paid for with his own money.

Instead, the former president has relied almost entirely on donations made in an attempt to fight the results of the 2020 election.

Now, those accounts are nearly drained, and Mr. Trump faces a choice: begin to pay his own substantial legal fees or find another way to finance them.

November 2020 to Early 2021

Mr. Trump raised a staggering $254 million online from Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election, to President Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, as he urged supporters to fuel an “election defense fund.”

The contributions came so quickly that on Nov. 9, Mr. Trump formed a new political action committee, Save America, to store all the cash.

Only a fraction of the money, however, went toward recounts and other legal challenges to the election. Some went to Mr. Trump’s lawyers during his second impeachment, related to the Jan. 6 riot.

But Mr. Trump banked much of the cash.

Rest of 2021

Mr. Trump started to use the money to fund his post-presidential political operation and what would eventually become his sprawling legal teams. In February, Trump renamed his 2020 committee to “MAGA PAC.”

By the end of 2021, Save America, which continued to bring in new donations, held a substantial portion of Mr. Trump’s fund-raising: $105 million.

2022

Both Save America and MAGA PAC spent significantly in 2022 on legal bills and other related expenses. The House held its impeachment hearings. The F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago for missing classified documents in August. Mr. Trump’s legal fees rose.

Mr. Trump spent about $27.2 million on legal-related costs for the year.

As Mr. Trump prepared to announce his 2024 run late in 2022, he faced a quandary: His PAC could not directly spend money to elect him as president. So Save America transferred $60 million to a pro-Trump super PAC called MAGA Inc.

2023

Save America began 2023 with $18.3 million. But Mr. Trump’s legal expenses were about to soar. He was first indicted in March 2023 in New York. Three other indictments followed.

Mr. Trump spent close to $60 million on legal and investigation-related costs — which included his lawyers, a document-production company and an expert witness in Trump’s New York civil fraud case.

Early last year, Mr. Trump made a change to bring more money into Save America, the PAC that was paying his legal expenses. At first, one cent of every dollar he raised online went to Save America; the rest went to his 2024 campaign. But with Save America short of cash to pay lawyers, he increased that to 10 percent.

It was still not enough. By June 2023, Save America had less than $4 million on hand. In an unusual move, Mr. Trump asked his super PAC for a refund of the $60 million he had given just months earlier, so that Save America could continue paying for his legal expenses.

By the end of 2023, more than $42 million had been returned from his super PAC to Save America.

2024

With his first trial looming — in the New York case related to hush-money payments to a porn star in 2016 — Mr. Trump’s legal costs continued to rise. He spent at least $9.7 million in January and February.

The more than $100 million in legal spending since leaving office does not include spending from Mr. Trump's 2024 campaign, which has not paid for his personal legal bills.

To cover the ongoing legal costs, his super PAC refunded an additional $10 million in January and February. But there is now only $7.75 million left to refund. Save America had less than $4 million at the end of February, when accounting for unpaid debts.

The Trump team has said the Republican National Committee won’t pay his legal bills. But his new shared fund-raising agreement with the party directs a portion of donations to his Save America PAC before the party itself.

Still, the account paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills will most likely be out of money by summer at the current spending pace.

Then, Mr. Trump will have to decide: Whose money will he use to pay his lawyers?"

[prestigelegalllp]

When considering divorce, it is critical to find an affordable lawyer who can provide sound legal divorce advice. You might be surprised to learn that many low-cost divorce lawyers in Singapore offer excellent Singapore legal advice divorce.

[shiorimakibawrites]

Rooftop Dining (Part 7 of Alley Cat)

Image credits: kissthemgoodbye.net / Amber Kipp / Nathan Dumlao

Pairing: Matt Murdock x fem! Reader

Word Count:  2286

Summary:  One day you are going to meet Daredevil somewhere besides the roof. Today is not that day.

Warning(s): Mentions of ableism, mild swearing, sickeningly sweet fluff

Series Masterlist

Rooftop Dining

by Shiori_Makiba

You decided to make an appointment with Nelson & Murdock the next day. First because you had no idea when the detectives would want to question you again and therefore wanted to get your lawyer lined up as soon as possible. Second because you weren't going to present this firm as a viable alternative to the pro bono clients of Lee, Everett, & Kirby without actually meeting them.

It wasn't because you didn't trust Daredevil's recommendation. You did. But those clients were often quite desperate and you felt you owed them the due diligence of verifying the information.

So far it was looking promising. Their website didn't give specific payment information, only stated that retainer fee or contingency percentage was determined on a case-by-case basis. However many the reviews you found by previous clients mentioned how reasonable retainer or contingency fees were, found the firm upfront about they are charging and why. Assuming they were charged at all. There were many pro bono clients in both criminal and civil cases.

If these reviews were accurate, Nelson and Murdock weren't in this for the money.

And they easily could have been, if they wanted to. People who graduated at the top of their classes at Columbia Law School would have no shortage of offers from big law firms. Well, Nelson would have no shortage of offers. You knew big law well enough to know that several firms wouldn't have extended to an offer to Murdock because they would have considered making accommodations for his disability too much of a hassle. They would have pretended otherwise if asked but that would be the reason.

But not all of them. Murdock still would have plenty of offers to choose from. The point was that if they had wanted to, they could easily have gotten jobs at a big law firm with a good salary and started working their way up to partner and the big money. Evidently neither of them wanted that since they opened their own firm very shortly after law school. There had apparently been some hiccups in the first few years with the firm even closing briefly.

You weren't too surprised by this. Law school doesn't actually teach you how to be a trial attorney and with no more experienced mentor, they would have been learning those skills via trial and error. Mostly error if your experience with baby attorneys was any indication. That they tried tackling cases as large as the Castle trial . . . and rumor painted Castle as a rather unruly client . . . rumors further speculated that Murdock had something personal distracting him . . . it would be more surprising if they hadn't experienced some kind of serious strain.

Whatever issues had plagued them in their early years, they seemed to have resolved them. The firm and its partners were gaining a pretty solid reputation.

Satisfied with your online research, you dialed the number on the card. The phone rang twice before it was picked up and you were greeted by a cheerful, female voice saying, “Thank you for calling Nelson & Murdock. This is Karen speaking, how I can help you?”

You introduced yourself and then said, “I need an appointment.”

“Let me pull up our schedule,” Karen said. “What day were you thinking?”

“Friday,” you said. It was not ideal since this was Tuesday but that was your next day off. You couldn't travel to Hell's Kitchen and back to the Upper East Side on your lunch break. Not unless you wanted to rush through the meeting, only skim the retainer agreement before signing it and eat lunch while you traveled. None of which sounded appealing.

And you'd probably wind up with mustard on your shirt.

Karen gave a little hum of acknowledgment before asking, “Do you have a preference?”

“Preference?”

“Would you rather have Nelson or Murdock?”

“Oh,” you said. “Not really. Whichever one is available first on Friday is fine.”

“Gotcha,” Karen said. “They collaborated so much that it doesn't especially matter but some of our clients prefer to deal primarily with Nelson or Murdock . . . . I have an appointment slot for Nelson free at two o'clock.”

“Two o'clock is perfect,” you said. It gave you time to run your errands in the morning.

“Two it is,” Karen said and you could hear the faint sound of typing. “Is this a criminal defense matter or a civil matter?”

“Criminal.”

More typing. “Can I have phone number?”

You gave it. More typing and then Karen asked, “Will you need any accommodations? For example, your paperwork printed in braille or large format?”

“No, I'm good,” you said.

“Okay . . . you're all set. Do you have our address?”

“Yes,” you said and read out the address.

“That's us,” Karen confirmed. “We're on the second floor. If you run into trouble before your appointment or need to reschedule, please don't hesitate to call.”

You nodded and said, “Thank you for your help.”

“You're welcome. Have a nice day.”

“You too,” you said and hung up the phone.

Their receptionist seemed nice. Granted, receptionist were seldom anything but friendly toward clients or potential clients. Even when those clients were being downright rude and would deserve getting told off.

The cops hadn't come to question you yet. You didn't think they had given up. Just that they were too busy. The exact details were still unclear but it appeared that the Sinister Six, along with some freelance nutcases, had tried to take advantage of the absence of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, to wreck havoc across Manhattan. Spider-Man, with help from the other street-level heroes, had apparently managed to thwart their plans.

But it still left quite the mess for the police to sort out. Compounding that was, according to the news, some non-super-villain criminals were hoping the cops and vigilantes were too busy to keep them in line and started creating havoc of their own. The trouble had erupted in the early afternoon, not long after your phone call to Nelson & Murdock, and only now at midnight had you stopped hearing the wail of sirens piercing the air.

You worried about your vigilante. One of the news crews had captured footage of one of the nutcases, who was identified as Bullseye, nailing Daredevil in the side with a thrown knife. Luke Cage had knocked out Bullseye before he could take advantage. Then Cage had grabbed Daredevil and both of them disappeared from the battlefield.

You would like to think that Daredevil had gotten treated for his injuries and decided to let someone else handle Hell's Kitchen for the night. But if his stubbornness about his ankle was any measure of his general stubbornness, you didn't have much hope of him being that sensible. Which was why you were on your roof scanning nearby roofs for any sign of him.

“What are you doing?”

You yelped and spun around. There he was, standing behind you. Tired, hurt, and with you actively looking for him, he still managed to sneak up on you.

“Looking for you,” you answered.

He frowned, “Why?”

“I was worried,” you said. “Saw you get stabbed on the news.”

“I'm fine.”

“You fine or normal fine?” you challenged.

His lips twitched into a smirk, “Oh, I've got fine written all over me, sweetheart. I thought we established that.”

Seriously? Was he really doing this right now? You glared at him but it had absolutely zero effect. “Answer the question, Mr. Smartass.”

This only made his smirk grow wider. Part of you was still worried about him but increasing large part of you also wanted to strangle him. All of you found him beautiful even when he was exhausted and bloody and being annoying. It was completely unfair.

“Daredevil–” you started before he held up a hand.

“I'm fine. It wasn't as bad as it looked. The knife missed anything important. And the suit prevented it from sinking in as deep as it could have. All I needed was a few stitches.”

“A few stitches,” you repeated and wondered if his definition of a few was anything like his definition of fine. “And you decided to fight like that?”

He shrugged. “I've fought with stitches before. I usually avoid pulling them.”

“And when you don't?”

“The Night Nurse redoes them.”

“They must love that, redoing their work.”

“It's not her favorite thing,” he admitted and then managed to look a little sheepish. “Especially if I wake her up after a long shift at the hospital.”

I bet, you thought. Whoever the Night Nurse was, she deserved a medal. “She ever suggest that you let your wounds heal before getting into any more fisticuffs?”

His lips twitched, “All the time but she has grudgingly accepted that I'm a terrible patient who will ignore her medical advice if means saving someone.”

That sounded about right. And hard to argue. You had the feeling you won't make anymore headway on that topic than the Night Nurse had so let it go. Time to switch to another subject.

“Did you eat?” you asked.

“What?” he asked. Apparently he wasn't expecting that particular question.

“Did you eat? In between the fisticuffs and getting stitches, have you had anything to eat?”

“Why” he answered.

“Was lunch the last meal you had?” you answered his question with a question.

“Why?” he repeated.

“I have sandwiches, cookies,” you said and held up the shopping bag you have prepared earlier. “And apple juice.”

“Apple juice, how fancy.”

“Very fancy,” you said. “I sprang for the good stuff. The local organic one that doesn't have twenty different preservatives and dyes on its ingredients list. Just apple juice and water.”

“Why that one?”

You looked at him with confusion. “Because you said you had supersenses? And I imagine those chemicals make the apple juice taste weird?”

“They do,” he said, surprised. “You bought that with my senses in my mind?”

His voice had gone soft, the words almost vulnerable. It was a sharp contrast to his usual brash confidence. But it pleased you that he was willing to show that hint of vulnerability with you. It showed a degree of trust that made your heart flutter with joy.

“Yes,” you said. You held out the shopping bag and only a little hesitation, he took it.

“You can eat it at home if you'd rather head back. Just be careful with the parkour, the juice bottles are glass. And don't throw them away when you finish – the store will sell you more juice at reduced price if you return the bottles.”

“Anything else?” he asked as he inspected the rest of the contents.

“Yeah,” you said. “Don't forget to bring me back my Tupperware.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said with a cheeky grin.

He lifted the corner of the Tupperware and sniffed, humming thoughtfully. “Chocolate chip . . . they don't smell like store cookies.”

“That's because they aren't,” you said. “I made them. From scratch.”

“You didn't have to do that.”

“I like to cook,” you said. “And bake. It relaxes me. And I prefer the taste of my own bread and cookies over anything in the store.”

He hummed in acknowledgment as he withdrew a cookie from the Tupperware container. You watched him bite into the cookie without no small amount of nerves. You were a good cook, a good baker, but you never made food for someone with superhuman senses. Nerves that only grew as he silently chewed.

“Are they . . . bad?” you asked, unable to take the silence.

“Bad?” he repeated, surprised. “Sweetheart, this is one of the best cookies I've ever tried.”

You felt your face flush, both from the unexpected praise and the petname. “It is?”

“Yes,” he said with a smile as gentle as his voice. “Feel free to feed me cookies anytime.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said. “Through maybe not up here.”

“Huh? Why?” you asked, confused.

“Well,” he said with a wicked grin. “I was informed that pigeons poop up here. Everywhere. All the time.”

Your face now flushed for a different reason, you swapped him on the shoulder. A response that only made him grin wider. You wondered if he was this snarky all the time or was just a Daredevil thing.

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a smart mouth?”

“Occasionally,” he said.

Which, judging by that unrepentant smirk, probably meant often. Why were you not surprised?

You felt a yawn coming and tried to suppress it but it had been a long day and you were getting tired so it escaped.

“I should go,” Daredevil said.

“You don't have to.”

“You're tired.”

“So are you,” you said mulishly.

“Let's make a deal. You say goodnight, head down to your apartment, pet Houdini and go to bed and in exchange, I promise to head home without looking to get into anymore fisticuffs, eat some of this lovely food, and go to bed.”

You considered his proposal. It was fair and benefited both parties . . . you nodded in agreement and said, “Deal.”

“Excellent,” he said.

“Verbal Contract. Make sure you uphold your end of the bargain,” you said. “Don't make me have to get it in writing.”

For some reason this made him smile, “Of course. I wouldn't do that to you. Now say goodnight sweetheart.”

“Goodnight sweetheart” you said. He laughed and then did something totally unexpected. He leaned down and pressed his lips to your cheek. And before you could react, he had turned and disappeared into the night.

You stood there for several minutes in stunned surprise. His lips had been as soft as you imagined. Your cheek tingled where he had kissed you. Eventually, you turned and head back for your apartment, one hand pressed against your cheek.

Maybe this ridiculous crush wasn't so hopeless after all.

End Notes

In no particular order . . .

Point 1: Matt took both me and Reader by surprise with that ending. I was not expecting that at all.

Point 2: I know some of those Marvel characters mentioned have yet to appear in the MCU but one advantage of fan fiction is that I'm not bound by corporate agreements that says you can't use X character because Sony (or whatever) has the film rights to them . . .

And fair warning that I have strained relationship with canon. Mostly because I have firm policy about ignoring it when I think it's being dumb – to paraphrase Nick Fury, “I realize that canon has made it's decision but since it was a stupid decision, I have elected to ignore it.”

I also tend to freely mix canons if I like what the comic / cartoon / tv show / movie did better. I also accept fanon or headcanon in areas where canon is silent or undeveloped or it has violated the being too dumb rule and its other forms of canon have not presented me with a suitable substitute for the dumb thing.

My attitude in this regard is not restricted to Marvel. I feel that way about all my fandoms. Probably why I find fix-it fic so appealing.

Point 3: I have no idea if any such apple juice exists anywhere. I made it and the store it comes up. UPDATE - According to a reader on A03, such stores with juice and the reusing of glass bottles do actually exist through they sell more orange and carrot juice with apple only being available in the fall.

Point 4: I have never called a law office or worked in one so I don't know what information the receptionist collects to set the appointment. Nor could I find anything specific. So I based it on my own experience working as a receptionist in a non-law office. If any lawyer is reading this story and would like offer a correction, please do so.

[tomorrowusa]

Part of a Trump fundraising message poorly disguised as a love letter to Melania. I'm sure most wives get Valentine's Day cards from husbands who use their middle initials when signing the greeting. ✍🏼🤭

Trump Campaign Roasted For Fundraising Off Unhinged Valentine's Day 'Love Letter' To Melania

The Donald is going to need to do a lot of fundraising thanks to spiraling legal judgements against him.

The Donald Trump Fire Sale Starts Now

Donald Trump’s companies have filed for bankruptcies six times, but now he may actually be about to go broke. On Friday, a New York judge penalized the former president $355 million after finding him liable for lying about his wealth and the value of his properties in New York — and that’s before pre-judgment interest charges, which according to the New York Attorney General’s office, adds another $100 million or so. Then there’s the $4 million owed by Eric Trump and Don Jr. each — which, come on, whose money is that really? The giant liabilities are due in part to Trump and his organization’s “complete lack of remorse,” Justice Arthur Engoron ruled, as well as for its deterrent effect: Trump and the Trump Organization’s officers were “likely to continue their fraudulent ways unless the Court grants significant injunctive relief.” Add this to the $88 million he owes writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her, twice, and Trump owes roughly $540 million. That would wipe out almost his entire estimated cash pile and vaporize about a sixth of his total net worth. Trump can afford this, but he is probably going to have to sell something big. His net worth, according to both Forbes and Bloomberg, is between $2.6 and $3.1 billion, but most of that is tied up in his buildings and other properties. His cash pile is about $600 million, Bloomberg estimates, and he cannot use campaign or political-action-committee money to pay these fines. Some of his attorneys’ fees can be paid for with money that he’s raised from donors, but it’s not clear what money is paying for which lawyers between the four criminal cases he’s fighting off.

Here are some ways Trump could raise money to keep from going bankrupt for a seventh time.

Since his ex-wife Ivana is already buried there, he could turn Trump National Golf Club at Bedminster into a MAGA cemetery. Heirs of people who die from listening to Trump's quack COVID-19 advice will want their loved ones interred under the BEST sand traps.

Mar-a-Lago could be leased for the filming of the next season of Naked and Afraid. Unclothed contestants would have to survive hazards such as Dinesh D'Souza film festivals, Rudy Giuliani's alcoholic rants, and Nick Fuentes/Kanye West Groyper dinner parties.

Trump could franchise his own national chain of spray-on tanning salons which would leave customers looking as orange as him from head to toe.

Only Fans. Tens of millions of MAGA followers may be willing to pay to see "Toad" for themselves.

[fenrislorsrai]

NOTE: in addition to dealing with systemic racism, this article also details a suicide. -

he focused his rage on one secret in particular: their handling of appeals sent to the court by prisoners who claimed they’d been unjustly convicted. Louisiana requires that a panel of three judges review all such petitions — known as pro se petitions, a Latin phrase that means “for oneself.” But Peterson wrote that the judges had instructed him to ignore the law and dispose of the appeals on his own. Defresne, he explained, signed off on the documents “without so much as a glance.” The implications were staggering. Over 12 years, the 5th Circuit, which is responsible for reviewing challenges from trial courts in four parishes, had disregarded at least 5,000 pro se petitions from Louisiana prisoners, according to the court’s records. The inmates ranged from people convicted of murder to nonviolent offenders sent away for life. Many had limited education and struggled to present their arguments in the language of the courts. If Peterson’s accusations were true, none of the judges had ever laid eyes on their claims.

-

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There is overwhelming evidence that state courts routinely send innocent men and women to prison. Researchers estimate that at least 1% of those serving time for violent offenses have been wrongfully convicted — roughly 7,000 inmates in state prisons alone — though they believe that number is much higher. Louisiana law says that people sentenced to death are entitled to court-appointed lawyers for all of their appeals. Subjected to such scrutiny, an astounding number of the state’s prosecutions have fallen apart. Since 1976, 82% of Louisiana’s death sentences have been overturned by appeals judges after defense attorneys exposed serious violations that occurred at trial. Most sentences were reduced to life; some prisoners were exonerated. That statistic underscores a fundamental inequity. The people sentenced to lengthy or life sentences were arrested by the same police forces, prosecuted by the same district attorneys, represented by the same public defenders and convicted in the same courts as those on death row, but they are on their own. When they file a pro se petition asking Louisiana’s appellate courts to reconsider their cases, they are at a significant disadvantage. Those petitioning the 5th Circuit after that meeting in 1994 had no chance at all. To create the appearance of a proper review, former staffers said Dufresne formed a “pro se committee,” which included three judges who agreed to lend their names to Peterson’s rulings. Whenever a judge on the committee retired, Dufresne appointed someone new. The nature of the pro se committee was an open secret at the courthouse. “I knew what they were doing, and I knew it was unconstitutional,” said one former clerk. “Everyone knew about it.” In Louisiana, courts charge prisoners a fee for petitions — generally $50. Those costs are usually paid by parishes in which the defendants are convicted. By 1999, the 5th Circuit was charging $300. The money, paid by taxpayers, flowed into the 5th Circuit’s discretionary fund. In a period when the state’s criminal justice system was close to financial collapse, with some public defenders representing as many as 400 people at a time, records show that the 5th Circuit collected at least $1.7 million for the pro se petitions its judges did not read. Former 5th Circuit employees told me the judges spent the money on office furnishings, travel allowances — even for retired judges — and other perks the state didn’t cover. When asked about the fund’s expenditures, the 5th Circuit said it keeps financial records for only three years and could not provide an accounting.

THIS ARTICLE DOES NOT HAVE A HAPPY ENDING. JUSTICE IS NOT SERVED

[creepybook]

"Are we happy?" - Fictober 2024

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Spencer Reid/Original Male character

Warnings: Spoliers for Season 12, Spencer's prision arc

Notes: Trans male original character

Fic bellow!!

Angel wasn’t exactly surprised when he got the call. A prison in Mexico informing him that his husband had been arrested for alleged murder? It almost felt inevitable, given how little he knew about Spencer’s life these days. Since Spencer had moved his mother into his old apartment, they’d barely seen each other. Angel couldn’t even remember the last time they’d shared a bed.

“I’ll be on my way. Don’t let him talk to anyone until I get there.”

When Angel arrived, it was impossible to ignore the contrast between his appearance and the dingy, worn-down prison. He was clearly overdressed, but then again, Angel had always known how to make an entrance. His outfit was sharp—elegantly tailored—and his look was completed by a wide-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses, which made him look more like someone attending a glamorous event than visiting a prison.

“Well, hello, sweetie,” Angel greeted his husband, his smile forced but polished. Spencer, however, didn’t seem even remotely happy to see him.

“What are you doing here?” Spencer asked, not even trying to mask the sharpness in his tone.

“I’m visiting my criminal husband, apparently,” Angel replied, adjusting his hat and glasses before revealing the annoyed glare behind them as he sat down.

“What were you thinking? Sneaking out of the country… I asked you if you were doing anything stupid to help your mom, and you said not to worry. Well, this seems pretty damn stupid!”

Spencer looked away, clearly ashamed. “You know I didn’t do it.”

Angel sighed, his frustration simmering beneath the surface. “Of course, you didn’t. I’d hope that if you ever actually decided to commit murder, you’d be smart enough not to get caught.”

Before Spencer could respond, familiar voices echoed through the room. His team had arrived.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After what felt like an eternity, Spencer finally made it back to Quantico. It should’ve been a moment of relief, even if it was under the shadow of an international criminal case. For just a second, he allowed himself to believe that everything might turn out alright in the end.

“The FBI won’t be representing Reid. He crossed the border and didn’t notify the Bureau. We’re on our own.”

Those words made Angel’s heart drop. A sinking feeling settled in his chest, and a small voice in the back of his mind whispered that things were only going to get worse.

The next morning, Angel went to deliver the bad news to Spencer. His tinted glasses hid the redness of his eyes, a subtle shield against the evidence of the night he’d spent crying and drinking. But he wasn’t about to let Spencer see how much he’d cared—not when, for months now, Spencer had barely bothered to ask how his day had been.

“Spencer, are you even listening to me? You’re on your own with this.” Angel’s voice cracked, but Spencer seemed lost in thought, as if only half-present.

Finally, Spencer looked up, breaking free of whatever trance he was in. “It’s fine. The team will prove I was framed.”

Angel rolled his eyes, crossing his arms in frustration. “Sure, but until then, we need to lawyer you up. I can get you the best team—people who’ll make sure you don’t set foot in prison.”

“I don’t want your dirty lawyers,” Spencer snapped, his defenses rising. “I’m getting out of this fair and square—no blackmailing or paying off judges. Besides, Emily already found someone to represent me.”

Angel clenched his jaw, biting back a sharper response. He exhaled slowly before speaking again. “Fine. Then I’ll cover the legal fees and bail.”

“Rossi already offered,” Spencer added, shaking his head.

Angel let out a bitter chuckle, trying to mask his growing frustration. “So, Emily got you a lawyer, Rossi’s covering the money... let me guess, JJ is handling things with your mom?” His voice dripped with sarcasm, but the smirk on his face quickly faded when he saw Spencer’s downcast eyes.

“Of course she is,” Angel muttered under his breath, the words stinging as they left his lips.

“My mom just feels more comfortable with her—especially after your transition…” Spencer started, his words trailing off.

“She doesn’t recognize me anymore, and she keeps forgetting I’m your husband,” Angel finished the sentence for him, the weight of it settling heavily between them. He didn’t mean to sound bitter; after all, Diana’s alzheimer wasn’t anyone’s fault. But it still hurt every time he heard her ask if Spencer was ever going to propose to that nice lady he always talked about.

Angel crossed his arms, his frustration bubbling over. “So, what do you expect me to do? Sit at home, rocking in a chair, doing embroidery and writing you letters, waiting patiently like some perfect little wifey?”

He was visibly annoyed, but Spencer reached out and took his hand, his touch soft despite the tension. “No, but you’re the best agent I know. I need you to keep your head in the game. I trust you’ll figure this out. I trust you’ll get me out.”

As much as Angel wanted to stay mad, Spencer had a way of making his heart flutter with the simplest words. It frustrated him how easily Spencer could still do that.

“Fine. You win.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Angel? I thought you’d be staying with Emily to handle Reid’s case?”

Rossi’s voice behind him made Angel stifle a sigh. He turned around, forcing his best fake smile, knowing he was expected to look at least a little shaken by his husband’s arrest.

“Yeah, well, Spencer and I agreed I wouldn’t get too involved. He knew if I stayed behind, I’d spend all my time trying to lawyer him up against his wishes.” Angel closed the notebook in his hand, a chuckle escaping him as he glanced at the lawyers’ names and numbers scribbled inside. “He was right.”

Angel was thankful the team still had other cases to distract him. Without them, he would’ve already gone mad from all the noise in his head. He stayed late in the office, pouring over paperwork, unwilling to return to his too-empty house. He should’ve been used to the loneliness by now. Spencer had been staying in his old apartment for a while, but this time felt different, and Angel knew it.

“Can we talk?”

Angel turned to see Rossi standing at the door of his office.

“Oh, sure... I thought everyone had left already.” He stood up from his desk and followed Rossi to his office. As soon as he entered, though, he could feel the tension in the air.

“You want to divorce Spencer?” Rossi's voice held a note of shock, almost offended.

Angel tried to play dumb. “What? Where did you get that idea?”

Rossi handed him the notebook Angel had been holding earlier that morning. “Well, the list of divorce lawyers written here sorta gave me a clue.”

“Where did you get that?!” Angel snatched the notebook from him, glaring.

“You left it on the jet. I took a peek, I’m sorry,” Rossi said, sounding like a scolding parent. “But I thought you were trying to help Spencer get out of prison.”

“What’s it to you? You’ve been divorced three times already!” Angel snapped defensively.

Rossi’s expression softened despite the harsh response. “Angel, I’m sure whatever’s going on between you two can be fixed.”

Angel huffed, the weight of it all pressing down on him. “Rossi, not that I owe you an explanation about my marriage, but if you must know—Spencer and I haven’t been living together since he brought his mother from Houston. I didn’t even know he was flying to Mexico every other weekend for some experimental treatment for her. We may still be married, but we haven’t been husbands in a long time.” His voice wavered as he continued, “I’m just so tired of lying in an empty bed, staring at the ceiling, and asking myself, are we happy?”

Rossi could see how long Angel had been holding this in. His gaze softened with understanding. “But do you think this is the best moment to make such a decision?” he asked gently.

“No,” Angel admitted, his voice quieter now. “That’s why the quicker we sort out his case, the sooner...” His words trailed off, but Rossi understood what he meant. Without saying another word, Angel turned and left the office.