#in court this would be so far away from admissible evidence it’s like a third layer of hearsay

[wafflesrisa]

On the supposed breaching of a previous agreement

After so much misinformation has been debunked, the one item I’ve seen repeated again and again is that there was a prior agreement which Carlos supposedly broke - but Charles gave no actual information about what the agreement was.

Surely the logical conclusion to draw is that we simply don’t know what the agreement was, and so we cannot cast shade on either Charles nor Carlos off the back of the statement. We simply do not know.

Specifically, while we do know Charles subjectively thought an agreement was broken, we do not have any ability to evaluate whether that conclusion is objectively true. Indeed, we don’t even know whether Charles, when making that statement, even had all the facts to hand (given he is not privy to Carlos’ radio messages and debriefing had not yet happened).

In this context the statement from Charles cannot be taken as objective truth. At most, it is a clear indication he was feeling subjectively frustrated.

The response I’ve seen from all over social media seems to be “let’s take Charles’s word for it that trust was breached, even if we don’t know what the agreement was”.

We have no facts. We have no information. We cannot draw conclusions as to what the agreement was, and therefore we cannot know if Carlos actually breached it.

Until (if ever) we have more information, Charles’ comment can only be taken as evidencing his frustration, and no more.

[verratensduo]

Erejean Week Day 4//Freedom

Jean sat there in his office, one of the best lawyers with the Innocence Project and he was waiting for his next case. He had been looking over a few pretty interesting ones, but he paused as he read over one that seemed to talk to him. It was different than his usual case, but it seemed this guy had been waiting for long enough for someone to come and help him prove his innocence. Though it was not hard to imagine why people did not want to touch this case with even a fairly lengthy pole most would never even dream of trying to touch this case because of the nature of it.

A pretty brutal murder, someone’s head bashed in with a crowbar and shot in the head to make sure they where actually dead. That was nothing less than terrifying to most, but down right no to even more. Jean had always enjoyed a challenge. He had a feeling he could do this. He looked up the number for the prison where the client was, he had waited for over fifteen years for his Justice. Thirty-three years old and the poor guy’s life seemed to be over, talk about a massive amount of suck, Jean would do what he could to help. He flipped through the phone numbers until he found the prison’s number and made the dial.

“Hello? Warden Smith speaking, might I ask who this is?” A somewhat tired, yet scholarly voice said from the other end of the phone.

Jean couldn’t help but wonder what type of warden this man was. Was he a good person? Did he treat the inmates fairly? Would he allow Jean to speak to his new client? He had better, Jean did this because people deserved to have their names cleared, and Jean hated having to jump through hoops just to have to just talk to his client and set up the discussions that should be going on for all of this.

“Hello, my name is Jean Kirstien. I am a lawyer with the Innocence Project. I am calling with the request to be put through to the inmate in your prison known as Eren Yeager. He has a conviction for first degree murder and it seems that the evidence against him is sketchy at best. I want to discuss things with him over the phone before our first face to face meeting. I love to become familiar with my client before I meet them and talk my plan to prove their innocence. Trust me when I say I am a man who does not go dishonest and I never charge for my services as I do work for a non-profit. I am here only to help him.” Jean gave his same basic greeting and explanation that he always did when meeting a new warden, though at this point he was sure his reputation likely proceeded him. Especially in this area.

“Ahh yes, I have heard of you. Judge Zackely sings your praises Mr.Kirstien. I suppose I should have expected someone like you would take this case.” The warden commented in a somewhat thoughtful way.

“Just from my preliminary read through, it seems most of the evidence against him is circumstantial at best, and at least on of the forensic tests is no longer admissible in court. I intended to fix this miscarriage of justice, now may I please speak with my client?” Patients wearing thin, Jean started to tap his pen as he waited to get to his main objective.

“Oh, my apologies. Of course you may, please hold while I put you through to him.” Erwin instructed and put Jean on hold.

Jean groaned, he always had to deal with stuff like this. Holding while they got the prisoner out of the cell. He couldn’t help but feel for Eren, this guy had been waiting for fifteen years, likely stuck in the same dingy smelly cell with only about an hour or so per week in the workout yard if he behaved for the prison. Something it seemed the male could not do as he was known to get into fights. He felt some relief  when the phone started to ring again, surely this Eren guy would pick up now.

“Hello?” A gruff, depressed voice answered his call, likely this Eren guy they had talked about. 

It seemed that the case, the murder of a Ymir McIntyre, the former girl friend of Historia Riese, the incumbent Mayor of the town was what Eren had been accused of all those years earlier. Jean sure had his work cut out for him, but he was sure that this Eren guy would understand him taking so long to call, because he would ensure Eren went free. Having maintained innocence for this long Jean was more than willing to believe he was innocent.

“Hello, Eren Yeager correct? My name is Jean Kirstien. I am with the innocence project. I am here to help you get out of prison for your wrongful conviction. You have been waiting for far too long. Is there a day I can come in and give you my plan of attack?” He asks as he gets his appointment book out for him. This was a pretty big thing going on here.

“You mean that huh? It does sound nice....finally being free again....we can meet this Thursday at noon....I am sure you see the, unflattering picture of my hair and mustache at the moment and would like to take the next few days to try and clean up a little.” Was the only real reply he got. It seemed that this Eren was a man of few words, that was fine by him.

“That sounds great to me, I’ll see you then. Thank you very much Mr.Yeager. Good bye.” Jean hung up as he finished scribbling down the appointment and then went to start his own mini investigation into the case that had taken place several years earlier.

Needless to say Jean already had several good plans at this point. Supposedly the bite-mark impression and a microscopic hair analysis comparison test had been the star pieces of evidence piled on top of circumstantial evidence the prosecution had presented where the stars of the case. That alone gave Jean some room, now he just had to get some DNA from Eren for a test and present that case, thankfully there where no witnesses otherwise things would have been much harder. Jean had already called his friend Marco, a forensic scientist working at a private lab who would do the case retests to ensure an impartial third party did it.

He made his way into the prison, a long and boring process really. He was a lawyer not a criminal planning to but his buddy out. Oh well, society did always assume the worst of people.

Soon he was inside, and led in to meet Eren Yeager. He did look quite a bit different than his most recent picture indicated, mainly he had shaved off the facial hair, but his hair was still pretty damn long, they would have to gel and man bun it for court Jean decided.

They started the meeting with a firm hand shake, in which Jean noted just how attractive the inmate was, but he had to banish that from his head, professionalism first.

“Alright Mr.Yeager, I have noticed most of the evidence against you was circumstantial at best. The two forensic tests they did on you are no longer admissible in court, so let’s get this going for you huh? I wioll take a swab of your DNA and send it off to have tested against what little DNA they have for the crime scene, when it isn’t a match you will be a free man, especially with my way of taking and attacking the fake sciences that put you away.” Jean flashed a smile,m and just for a moment could have sworn he saw a blush on Eren’s face, but just a moment.

“Thank you Mr.Kirstien. That sounds wonderful, I cannot wait to finally be free again.” Eren smiled a bit, thinking about what he might be able to do with the freedom, but whatever it was he knew it would be truly his choice at long last.

“You are most welcome, but please just Jean. I wish to be a friend and a lawyer to someone down on his luck, I note your adopted sister Mikasa and her husband Armin don’t really stop by with your nieces and nephews so I definitely think you need one other than the mayor who has limited time for visits.” Jean offered, and he did intended to fix the lack of family visits as well.

“I can’t blame them with what I was convicted of....but that does sound nice Just Jean.” Eren laughed at his own bad joke. “Then just call me Eren.”

Jean groaned but chuckled hearing what Eren said. “Oh you are so original Eren.” Jean now prepared his kit he had with him to get Eren’s DNA. “Now say ahh.” Jean instructed.

Eren did so and Jean got the DNA swab and dropped it in the forensics bag that came with his stuff. He got it all secured and looked up at Eren. “And with that my dear man, I do hope we have what we need to prove your innocence to the courts, and I look forward to working with you more closely in the coming weeks.”

The duo shook hands one last time and Jean left.

The next day hew sent the kit out to be tested and went about gathering the rest of his defenses. He called Eren often and gave him updates, sometimes they just talked about Eren’s family, which seemed to be only the ones who couldn’t visit because of social staus, and his older brother and his family far away, too far to visit, though they also believed him to be innocent. They also spoke about shared interests and the like when there was no updates on the case.

One month later, Jean gave the most heartfelt defense he had ever given and exposed the shortcuts of prosecution fifteen years earlier. When they where done, he sat down in his chair panting.

The next several minutes passed in  agony, the judge seemed to be taking his sweet time with making a ruling, but when he returned everyone stood and then sat, now looking to him again for the decision.

“In  light of the new evidence brought forth of Eren’s DNA not matching that of the person who murdered Ymir McIntyre, and the fact the star forensic evidence against him is not admissible in court,  the court finds Eren Yeager innocent of murder in the first degree and voids his conviction. You have our sincerest apologies Mr.Yeager. Case dismissed.” He then got up and left.

Eren felt his eyes water as he hugged his sister and her husband, his best friend and their kids. However, he turned down there offer to stay with him.

On their way out, Jean stopped him in the parking-lot and looked to him.

“I will not claim to understand why you didn’tgo with your family, but I respect it. However, if you have nowhere to stay, you can come stay with me for awhile.” He offered.

“I would like that.” Eren said getting a bit closer to Jean.

“Yeah...me too.” Jean wasn’t sure what happened next, he just out of the blue kissed Eren. This was perhaps his greatest case yet. And he was happy about that, and maybe he got just a bit more than finding justice for an innocent man.

[statusquoergo]

Part I

Apparently Alex managed to sway Katrina with his last pitch, because here she is showing up in Faye’s office late at night to inform her that “if Harvey testifies tomorrow, so will [she].” Uh, okay.

Except that Katrina’s not threatening to testify to the truth or anything; she plans to accuse Faye of “[asking her] to use [her] friendship with the other side, and when [she] refused, [Faye] got rid of [her].” Faye points out that this is a lie, and Katrina counters that it doesn’t matter because “it’s also the third time [she’ll] be accused of wrongful termination, only this time, it’s a crime,” and I’m confused, is she talking about the three strikes law? Because that refers to persistent violent offenders, not civil disputes; Faye could be accused of wrongfully terminating a hundred employees, that doesn’t necessarily make it illegal. Or is she saying that this time she’s accusing Faye of committing a crime that led to the wrongful termination? I guess this is that perjury thing Louis was warning Gretchen about, and wow, of all the people I expected to try to pull it off, Katrina was way down there on the list.

Not surprisingly, Faye follows Harvey through the lobby to accuse him of putting Katrina up to threatening her, which Harvey denies, and that’s technically true, but no matter, because Faye called for a one-day continuance for Harvey to get Katrina off the witness list (even though that’s not appropriate cause for a continuance to be granted, not to mention the fact that if they didn’t keep rushing everything, they might actually have time to deal with this sort of shit in the normal course of business the way they’re supposed to). Harvey refuses unless she puts their “entire agreement into writing” so she can’t “move the goalposts another fucking inch,” and this is so stupid that it has to be on purpose but I still can’t figure out what the hell is going on.

The next day, Faye is surprised to find all the major players waiting in the conference room to bear witness to her signing this agreement with Harvey, making a big show of their united front, so I’m guessing that whatever their big plan is…this is it. Gretchen gives Faye the document for review, and right on cue, Mike and Samantha burst onto the scene to accuse Harvey of tampering with Mike’s witness (Katrina), prompting Faye to accuse him of “[playing] dirty in [her] name”; Harvey defends that he stopped her from testifying, just as Faye asked, and Mike demands to know if that’s true, and Faye tells him not to “twist this,” and like, is their plan just to create confusion? Because it’s working. It’s dumb, but it’s working. Harvey and Mike yell at each other until Harvey shoves Mike, Samantha yells at Harvey and pretends to punch him (she does “punch” him, it just looks super fake), Gretchen putters around furtively in the background, and oh my god are they really doing what I think they’re doing?

With a heavy sigh, Faye signs the document, informing them all that “[she] can’t wait to put [them] all behind [her],” thereby prompting Louis to smugly tell her to “get the hell out right now” because yes they did do exactly what I was hoping they hadn’t: They tricked her into signing the document Gretchen swapped for the agreement, “an order for Harvey to witness tamper by any means necessary” that, in combination with the facts that “Katrina came to see [her] last night and there’s a record of it in the lobby downstairs, and after she did, [Faye] went to see Harvey, and there’s a record of that too,” makes her look guilty as fuck. And sure, “it may be bullshit, but to a jury, it’s gonna look like a hot fudge sundae.” (What the fuck does that mean?) Faye proceeds to go off the deep end a little, shouting that she’ll never back down and that Harvey is a blight, and a real fight almost starts brewing until Harvey kicks them all out so he can “give [Faye] the thing [she’s] wanted since the moment [she] got here, but not the way [she] wanted it,” and I get that he needs to get the last word in and everything, but this whole “patronizing asshole” routine is really off-putting.

The motley crew bustles off to a different conference room to fret that even Harvey’s best efforts might not be enough to get rid of Faye, but lucky them, Harvey makes a hero’s return about five seconds later to announce that Faye’s “packing her shit as [they] speak.” Louis immediately hires Samantha back, seconded by Alex if for no other reason than “finally giving Harvey what he’s always had coming” when she punched him in the face, and Louis needs to know what Harvey did to convince Faye to leave, but Harvey’s not telling yet. Or ever. I bet it was something super scandalous. Anyway Donna makes a speech about how much they love each other and therefore they should go out for drinks even though it’s like, ten in the morning, and that’s something you can do when you’re your own boss, so off they go.

This episode is basically two episodes scotch-taped together, so I want to pause here at the end of the first installment to talk for a minute about what just happened.

For nine episodes, the looming threat over this firm, and all these characters’ livelihoods, has been Faye Richardson’s attempts to put their affairs in order, to stop their habit of “crossing lines” (re: committing disbarrable offenses) to win their cases. It’s not an unreasonable request; in fact, they could easily get rid of her at any time by bringing the firm up to code, so to speak, but these rebels with a cause can’t stand being told what to do, so no one’s going to be entertaining that option. Okay, fine; we’re not going to take the easy way out, so instead the entire season is twisted into knots to find new and increasingly ludicrous excuses for them to do battle, all the while trying to weave in all the backstory that could’ve been built up at any previous time but probably wasn’t even conceived of until the moment it was thrown into this melting pot.

This disjointed narrative leads to a serious problem in trying to craft a satisfying resolution to this story: There’s nowhere to go but sideways. Faye established right at the start of her tenure that she would have no qualms about demoting or firing anyone who she deemed to be acting inappropriately, so the question there has never been whether someone would be fired (Chekhov’s gun and all that) but rather who, and, to a lesser extent, why. Louis was demoted but remained at the firm in essentially the same capacity, Samantha was fired but kept right on working with all her former coworkers, Katrina was fired immediately before the finale and therefore only kept in limbo for half an episode; none of these actions have any weight because they don’t have any serious consequences, not to mention it’s so obvious that everything will return to normal when all is finally said and done. There is no sense of mounting tension; however they planned to get rid of Faye, it couldn’t result in a hero’s reward after a long and hard-fought battle because every time they’ve gone up against her, it’s just been another parallel version of them trying to get away with business as usual under slightly different circumstances. The entire game has been played on normal mode and we’ve barely even bothered to leave the training area; the thing that finally does her in isn’t even a particularly clever ploy or masterful legal maneuver, merely that the sleight of hand happened to work this time around.

Except that it shouldn’t have worked, because it makes no sense. And as much as that ought to be the slogan anytime Suits tries to pull any sort of legal shenanigans, if they’re ever going to pretend to know what they’re doing, shouldn’t it be now? I guess they’ve made it this far, they might as well go all the way.

So Faye signs one copy of a document which makes her appear to have directed Harvey to tamper with a witness; this document is not notarized, the only witnesses to its signing stand to benefit directly from the signatory’s expulsion from the firm, no one in their right mind, much less a veteran officer of the court, would ever put something like that in writing, and as I said, this is the only copy, and there’s literally nothing stopping her from destroying it. Their supporting evidence is a lobby record of Katrina’s visit to see Faye the previous night; while it’s certainly possible that this building requires listing a point of contact before admission, the fact that Faye was surprised by Katrina’s appearance (“Katrina, you’re not permitted to be here”) makes that unlikely, meaning Katrina was almost certainly documented as a visitor to the firm, meaning that, as far as anyone not bearing witness to these events knows, she could have met with anyone there for any reason. The next piece of evidence, that Faye immediately went to see Harvey after Katrina left, is even more ludicrous, if possible; she followed him to the lobby, so there would be no record of their meeting unless they’re talking about a video recording, but even so, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that two coworkers might be discussing any number of things in the building where they work, so that’s hardly conclusive. At best, this all boils down to a case of she-said, they-said, built on a teetering mountain of conjecture, hearsay, perjury, and fabricated evidence that would force any self-respecting judge to acquit, putting them all right back where they started, but with a lot less patience for each other’s bullshit.

Except that none of this matters anyway, because, spoiler alert, Harvey only gets Faye to leave by promising to leave as well, framing it as some big sacrifice even though this is how he planned to end things all along. So Donna can make her speech about them all risking everything for each other to get Faye out, and they can all go out together to celebrate a job well done, but when it comes right down to it, at the end of the day, none of their parlor tricks really worked, and the war was only won when Harvey made the decision to throw himself down upon his sword for the rest of them. And even then, he didn’t sustain much of a wound, having already lined up a position at Mike’s firm where I doubt he’s going to stay a junior partner for very long.

I’m just saying that after all the buildup, after all the manufactured tension…this is kind of a letdown. Or, well, it would be, but I said I was keeping my expectations low and this is exactly why.

Onto the second half!

Part III

[unforgetabelle]

Lords, Lies & Ladybirds :LadyNoir July

part: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20

21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31

ao3

Promise

The next days seem to pass in a blur. Adrien and the other players finished off the run of their latest show to high praise from the townsfolk, but he had trouble taking true pride in the performance. As days turned into a week, he wasn’t the only one to feel a creative slump. A part of their family had vanished, and it seemed Adrien wasn’t the only one who found that in a few short months, Marinette had made herself an inextricable part of the theater. Her costumes were the vibrancy that encapsulated them on stage, and her quiet support a backbone many had come to rely on. Even now, when the truth about their dear costumer was an open secret within the walls of the theater, not a day went by without someone wondering aloud when Bertie would be back. The questions were never directed at him. Whether it was because the knowledge of his relationship with Marinette had finally gotten around or the imposing shadow of his bodyguard, Adrien didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, either.

Nino was the only one seemingly unfazed by the changes, but Adrien suspected his glowing countenance had less to do with the hole in their family and more to do with his recent tête-à-têtes with a certain fine Lady. In honesty, Nino’s calm probably came from him knowing more about Marinette’s current state of mind than he did with the amount of time he spent with her best friend. It seemed every afternoon, his friend was off to stroll the city by the Alya’s side, but Adrien cut him off anytime Nino offered to ask after Marinette on his behalf. Marinette had asked for time, and Adrien was determined to give her the space she needed.

Even if it was slowly driving him mad.

It was early Thursday morn, nearly a week since he spoke to her last, when someone finally remarked on his dourness. He was laying flat on the stage, enjoying the theater without the questioning eyes of his colleagues, when Plagg’s voice called out to him from the small table where here was eating a hasty breakfast. Then again, perhaps “remarked” was too kind a word...

“Would you stop sulking already?” His gruff voice shouted. “You’re melancholy is starting to make me lose my appetite.”

Tikki snorted as she passed behind him, not pausing as she flicked the back of her husband’s ear and went on tidying the backstage.

“I find that hard to believe,” she responded, with a pointed look at the spread Plagg was slowly devouring.

“Okay, fine, but c’mon, Tiks, even you have to admit the kid is being particularly annoying--”

“Plagg,” she warned.

“Over there, sighing like the world is ending and his life is over,” he grumbled, taking another bite of his bread with cheese.

“Oh, because you certainly were never melodramatic over a girl. Is that what you’re trying to say?” Adrien lifted his head and watched as Tikki put down her broom and fixed Plagg with a stare. Arms cross and lips pursed, her incredulity was unmistakable.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. He’s being ridiculous.”

“Really? So the love sonnets of questionable skill and borderline scandalous content I received during our first year of courtship were from a different suitor?  The carefully chosen flowers and piles of sweets from the bakery left on my windowsill each night from another one still?” Tikki looked away from her husband, whose face had turned a delicate shade of red, towards Adrien in exasperation. “Clearly I married the wrong man. My true love must still be out there wondering what he possibly did wrong.”

Plagg huffed in the corner and Tikki rolled her eyes before turning to blow a kiss towards the grumpy man.

“Fine, I was also a lovesick idiot at your age, Adrien,” Plagg admitted to Tikki’s chuckle. “So tell me: how bad did you mess up?”

Adrien simply gave him a look and Plagg nodded.

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“She said she needed...time,” Adrien grimaced at Plagg as the older man cringed in understanding.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

When they had both remained silent for a moment, Tikki cut in.

“How long has it been?”

“Nearly a week,” Adrien replied with a frown.

“And you haven’t contacted her at all? Sent a note? Nothing?”

Adrien sat up fully at the tone in Tikki’s voice and noticed with confusion a disbelieving look on her face.

“The girl asked for space, Tiks,” Plagg interjected as Adrien nodded in agreement. Tikki looked between the two of them and sighed.

“Men,” she muttered, turning to rumage for something in the trunk behind her. When she emerged, her arms were laden with a soft bundle wrapped in paper and tied with twine. “This is Nathaniel’s costume for next performance. My cousin finally sent it from her theater in the north, but it needs adjusting.”

Adrien blinked at her blankly and Tikki started to look annoyed.

“I was going to take it to Marinette,” she enunciated clearly, as if speaking to a child. “But I suddenly find myself burdened by so much work. If only there were someone who could run over there for me…”

“Some strapping young lad,” Plagg caught on and turned to look at Adrien as well. “Perhaps one with blonde hair.”

“Wha--” Adrien scrambled to his feet. “You can’t mean--”

“Thank you for offering, Adrien!” Tikki shoved the bundle into his hands and dragged him towards the door with a strength that did not match her petite frame.

“But she wanted time!” He called, finally forming a coherent sentence as his feet crossed the threshold.

“Not that much time,” Tikki muttered in reply. “Go. You can thank me later.”

Then, without another word, the door to the theater was shut in his face, and Adrien was left with no other option than to follow orders and pray Tikki was right.

~*~

Adrien had imagined walking up to Marinette’s front door too many times to count. He’d imagined what it would be like if they were openly courting. What it would be like to meet her family and to formally ask her father for her hand. In none of these scenarios was Adrien dressed so shabbily, bodyguard in tow, and carrying a dress. But then, in none of the scenarios was there deafening yells echoing out towards the street from the Dupain abode either.

Shoving the wrapped bundle into his guard’s hands, Adrien ignored his genteel upbringing and pushed open the front door without preamble. His rudeness, and in fact his entire entrance, went completely unnoticed by the melee within.

The house seemed to echo with voices. Adrien could hear quieter mutterings of distinctly female voices  bouncing towards the foyer from some room down the hall, but the loudest voices pulsated from the two men in the center of the foyer. A massive man stood with an angry glower, his low voice irritated but reasonable as a smaller, and evidently more furious, man hurled nearly incoherent insults at him. They spoke over each other, the taller man’s quiet tone no less forceful as he countered his opponents verbal attacks, but through the babble one thing became very clear.

Marinette had broken off her engagement.

Adrien stood shocked for a moment until a soft cough from next to him grabbed his attention. Turning, he came face to face with Luka. The man’s expression was outwardly indifferent, but Adrien could detect from experience the carefully concealed anger in his eyes each time the man who was obviously his father slighted Marinette or the Dupain family.

“Welcome to the war,” Luka greeted him with a cordial nod.

“What on earth--” Adrien began, eyes darting between Luka and the two feuding fathers at a loss for words. Luka smiled grimly and made quick work of recapitulating the events of the last few days for him.

“She told them...four days ago, I believe? And there hasn’t been a moment of peace since.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean her family wasn’t pleased, but while the Dupain women have descended to try and ‘talk some sense into her’, her father is trying to respect her wishes. My father,” Luka’s nose crinkled as he looked back at the man who, despite his wan frame, was no doubt related to the man next to him. “My father has not been as...receptive to the recent change in my relationship status.”

“Not that a broken engagement to Marinette isn’t a loss, but you are a man of stature and position. Surely you father would have no trouble finding you another match.”

“That would be true, had I ever shown any inclination towards marriage with any other...woman.”

Luka finished with a wink, and Adrien had no trouble catching his meaning.

“Without Marinette, I will dedicate myself to being a bachelor, at least in the eyes of society, and my father knows it. With no promise of a future heir…”

Luka trailed off, but Adrien nodded in understanding. He’d dealt with more than his fair share of the pressure that comes with continuing a family legacy.

“So, this has been all morning, but fear not,” Luka nudged his arm with his elbow. “My father will tire eventually, and she will officially be a free woman. Not for too long, though, I’m sure.”

“If that’s even what she still wants,” Adrien responded with a sigh and Luka gave him a deadpan look far to reminiscent of Tikki’s face that morning. “I really wish people would stop giving me that look.”

“She broke off her engagement for you. After you lied to her about who you were. Do you really still question what she wants?”

“She told you about that?” Adrien asked with a cringe and Luka just raised an eyebrow at him.

“She was a nervous wreck earlier this week. Alya and I cornered her into admission,” he replied with a shrug. “Marinette is very loved and has extremely nosy friends. Get used to it.”

He couldn’t help but smile at both Luka’s clear loyalty to Marinette and his subtle acceptance that Adrien would be around long enough to need to get used to anything when it came to her life.

“She said she needed time,” Adrien repeated for the third time that day, the excuse starting to sound weak even to his ears.

“Not that much time,”Luka responded easily. “I’m sure if she hadn’t been swarmed constantly by her female relatives for every second of the last few days, she would have told you so herself.”

“You really think so?”

Adrien looked over at Luka earnestly and the other man shook his head even as an incredulous smile came to his face.

“You really are hopeless, aren’t you?”

“Apparently so,” Adrien responded with a smile of his own, but it was short lived, the father’s conversation falling into dead silence before them. Luka and his attention immediately diverted to the two fuming men as Sir Couffaine pointed a finger at Mr. Dupain.

“Fine,” he seethed, jabbing his digit into the much larger man’s chest. “But if you think your little chit of a daughter will ever find a match like Luka, you are sorely mistaken. Good luck finding anyone else willing to take her off your hands.”

“Luckily, I don’t measure my self-worth by what men think of me,” the very woman in question announced, having broken from her relatives to enter the room from a side doorway.

“Marinette,” a shorter woman who was undoubtedly her mother cautioned, coming to stand behind her.

“No, maman. I am quite through with men who seem to think they have any right controlling the course of my life. Papa has tried to reason with Sir Couffaine, but the man seems to be either obstinate or dumb to his new reality.”

Luka snorted next to him but was quick to hide his grin behind his hand. Through the tension in the room, no one else paid the two young men by the door any mind.

Sir Couffaine turned to the young woman, face aggressively red from anger and took a step towards her, finger still pointed in accusation.

“If you were my daughter, I would--”

In an instant, his path was blocked. In tandem, he and Luka had taken a step forward, but there was no need. Before they even reacted, Thomas Dupain had the man’s arm in a vice grip, his expression no longer accommodating.

“She is not your daughter, Reginald,” Thomas’ voice was quiet, but the threat in his tone was clear. “And you will not even dare to breathe on her if you value your life.”

The moment his hand was released, Sir Couffaine backed away, discreetly rubbing his wrist as he spewed one last insult towards the Dupains.

“You are ruined. All of you!” He shouted, still backing towards the door. “The whole town will know of how your daughter slighted my son, and trust me, there will be no lack of rumors as to why. No one will ever want her hand.”

“I do,” Adrien spoke, taking a step forward before the man’s words even truly registered. As much as he hated to admit it, Couffaine was right. Luka was a charming, desirable suitor and above Marinette’s station. At the news that she broke off their engagement, gossip was sure to follow. To society, Marinette was only worth as much as the best match she could make.

And as much as it grated on him, he was considered quite a catch.

“I want her, that is,” Adrien repeated, his eyes finally finding Marinette’s as she spun and finally spotted him. “If she’ll have me, of course.”

“Adrien?” Her voice was breathless, and he noted with pleasure how the anger drained from her features as she regarded him.

“And just who the devil are you?” Reginald shouted, but Adrien didn’t spare him a glance nor waste a breath explaining himself.

“Father,” Luka announced for him, a barely concealed smile on his face as he laid a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “May I present to you Sir Adrien Agreste, only son of Lord Agreste and Marinette’s new betrothed?”

Reginald sputtered at his introduction just as a tittering of whispers caught Adrien’s attention from the doorway. He spared a glance to see a grouping of four women, all with vaguely similar features to Marinette and all staring at him in wide-eyed awe, but quickly turned his gaze back to the woman that mattered most. She seemed happy to see him, but he still searched her eyes for some validation that he was doing the right thing. He needed to know that she still wanted him and that he wasn’t putting her in another impossible decision byt stepping forward.

“Now just wait a minute,” Mr. Dupain spoke up through the chatter, hand on Marinette’s shoulder to root her in place as he stared with calculating eyes at Adrien “No one is betrothed to anyone just yet.”

The room silenced as Thomas faced his daughter’s new suitor.

“I don’t care how many flowers you send or grand declarations you make. Hell! I don’t care if you’re the bloody Prince of England, son,” he said. “We’ve already been through one broken engagement in this house, and there will not be a second. There is one thing I need to know.”

“I understand, sir,” Adrien responded, waiting for the man’s question. To his surprise, Thomas turned to his daughter.

“Marinette,” Thomas asks uncertainty. “Do you want to be betrothed to this young man?”

“Yes. I do,” she answered immediately and Adrien felt his heart skip.

“Are you sure?” Adrien asks in barely a whisper. His voice betraying his worry, but in that moment, it was as if only Marinette were in the room. He didn’t care who else heard him.“I know you wanted time--”

“Yes, minou,” she turned to look at Adrien with a smile, leaving her father’s grasp and grabbing his hands. “I honestly am.”

And as soon as the words left her lips, her knew that she meant it. Without looking away, he untied the ribbon from his neck and held the warm garnet ring between his fingers. He brought her left hand to his lips in a kiss as he looked to her for confirmation. In her eyes, all he saw was the promise of their future, and as slid the ring onto her finger, he finally sealed a promise of his own.

[tindang]

Nico!

3/28/21- It's been a week out from my visit to the emergency department at MGH. Blisters have formed since then, flowering from the red/brown patch of skin on my left thigh, where I had spilled boiling water in a terrible accident. I was in a lot of pain yesterday, but I woke up today to shrunken blisters and pruritus in-and-around the area. I'm sad to miss Palm Sunday mass and to have spent the whole weekend room bound. I've been trying to find some positives, but life has not been too kind lately. I'm back in a state of rollercoaster emotions and I'm waiting to get off.

-------------------

4/5/21 - Deviating from the Ideal: U.S. Migration Policies in the Context of Rawlsian Principles of Justice

In "Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders", the philosopher Joseph Carens begins his argumentation with the following epigraph:

Many poor and oppressed people wish to leave their countries of origin in the third world to come to affluent Western societies...[and] there is little justification for keeping them out.

He goes on to examine three distinctive political theories--Nozickean, Rawlsian, and utilitarianism--and applies them to the issue of immigration. Though distinct, Carens finds that all three approaches evince the moral failures of militarizing borders and restricting the movement of peoples, suggesting that a world without borders is one that respects the idea of moral equality. 

I found Carens's Rawlsian argument most compelling, insofar as it goes furthest in laying the framework for thinking about this issue transnationally. He does this in two ways: first, by arguing that people in Rawls’s “original position”--a tabula rasa -esque scenario in which people first come together to decide how they wish to be governed--would consent to principles of equal liberty and social redistribution if cloaked under a “veil of ignorance” that erases distinctions like race, class, sex, and most pointedly, national origin; and second, by refuting objections to the application of the Rawlsian veil to global contexts (Rawls had only intended for the original position to apply to certain societies with a “particular understanding of moral personality”, not all). 

I posit that the analytical power of Rawl’s original position, as it is applied to transnational affairs, comes from the tensions inherent in upholding principles of equal liberty in real-world settings. Of course, Rawls had predicted such conflict, and sought to address it by drawing distinctions between ideal and non-ideal theory: in ideal theory one assumes that people will abide by the principles chosen in the original position, even after the “veil of ignorance” is lifted; in nonideal theory, one considers the historical and human behavioral challenges of staying true to original-position precepts, which is more reflective of everyday problems and situations. I believe that these tensions between ideal and non-ideal theory serve as useful tools for critiquing restrictive U.S. migration policies. By exploring the deviations from ideal theory--in the context of U.S/Mexico border policies--towards the practicalities of non-ideal praxis, I hope to reify my understanding of border issues and justify (to myself) Carens’s conclusion, that there is little justification for restricting immigration.  

It is no surprise that current U.S. immigration and border policies fall far from the ideals of liberty envisioned in the original position. The question has always been how did we get here? The answer most likely predates any explanation that the Enlightenment might afford us, lying deep in the consequences of American settler colonialism and chattel slavery. Though I acknowledge this history and its foundational impact on modern American society, let me first flesh out my understanding of the gradual legal push away from ideal theory--while remaining always fully aware that the law is but one avenue through which principles of white supremacy and racism are encoded. If we are to then start with the legal perspective for answering the question posed above, we might begin with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Chinese Exclusion Case (1889), which contains the nation’s very first declaration of national sovereignty over immigration and vested Congress with plenary power over such matters. Sarah Song, a law professor at UC Berkeley, traces the philosophical tradition undergirding this decision to ideas espoused by Swiss author Emer de Vattel, whose Les droit des gens (The Law of Nations, 1758) outlined the parameters of sovereignty in the case of international law. Vattel writes:

The sovereign may forbid the entrance of his territory either to foreigners in general, or in particular cases, or to certain persons, or for certain particular purposes, according as they may think it advantageous to the state. There is nothing in all this, that does not flow from the rights of domain and sovereignty.

In staking this claim, Vattel followed already established notions of the state as being like a “moral person,” first laid out by German jurist/philosopher Samuel von Pufendorf, and later further developed by German author Christian Wolff. This personification of the state sanctions it with “an understanding and a will of which it makes use for the conduct of its affairs”, namely, as Vattel reasoned, in the interest of its self-preservation and self-perfection. It’s worth noting that Vattel understood that this self-interest deviated from the ethos of being a “moral person”, which if taken to its logical conclusion with regards to the idea of “moral state(s)”, would result in a “universal republic” in which “a real friendship [would] be seen to reign among them” (II.12). Here, it is not lost on me that this utopian conclusion mirrors the conditions of Joseph Carens’s ideal theory--that is, a global community void of hierarchical distinctions. In this sense, Vattel’s swing towards non-ideal realism, defined by state self-interest, may be at the heart of today’s polemics over immigration.

Indeed, I believe this is so. Public anxiety re the economic burden of migrants on American social institutions and fair wage have led to communitarian objections to increased migration from both conservatives and social democrats--while attending a protest against the Trump administration in 2017, I fondly remember standing next to a supposed feminist who, while rallying against the now former president, also expressed a resolute “no” when the crowd began reciting “Immigrants are welcome here.” The fixation on self-preservation may explain far-right popularization of terms like “chain migration” in lieu of “family reunification,” and the 2019 revision of the public charge rule which would have expanded the definition of being a “public charge,” and would have thus restricted poorer immigrants from either being admitted into the U.S. or attaining Legal Permanent Resident status. And, not surprisingly, today’s fears were enshrined in law vis-à-vis other, past Court decisions that occurred soon after that seminal 1889 case: in Nishimura Ekiu v. United States (1892) and Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), the Supreme Court again expanded the U.S. government’s power over immigration, citing further elaborations of Vattel’s theory of sovereignty (Song 2017); within the latter decision, these two passages from The Law of Nations are cited in their entirety:

Every nation has a right to refuse admitting a foreigner into her territory, when he cannot enter it without exposing the nation to evident danger, or doing her a manifest injury. What she owes to herself, the care of her own safety, gives her this right; and in virtue of her natural liberty, it belongs to the nation to judge, whether her circumstances will or will not justify the admission of that foreigner. (I.230)

Thus also it has a right to send [asylees] elsewhere, if it has just cause to fear that they will corrupt the manners of the citizens, that they will create religious disturbances, or occasion any other disorder, contrary to the public safety. In a word, it has a right, and is even obliged, to follow, in this respect, the suggestions of prudence. (I.231)

In other words, the state, by virtue of its personhood and the rights accorded to moral persons, has the right to exclude those it deems dangerous to its self-interest. As many scholars have pointed out, the right to exclude is essentially a property right; and the commensuration of individual property rights to collective, state territorial rights has been the source of much debate (See Carens’s Nozickean argument for open borders).

All this is to say that the principles of state sovereignty that underlie American immigration policy were founded under non-ideal theory conditions, which privilege human interest over ideal theory egalitarianism. The effect of this philosophical turn cannot be overstated; because while it is one thing to erect borders and deny access in the name of self-interest, it is another to punish those seeking opportunity and/or asylum for similar reasons. 

To explain today’s punitive approach to immigration, it is incumbent on me to outline another ideal to non-ideal theory transition: This time, I mark as my starting point the Bracero Accord, a U.S./Mexico bilateral program that, between 1942-1964, facilitated over 4.5 million temporary labor contracts to male Mexican workers in an effort to redress previous, depression-era deportations of Mexican-American citizens and to address labor shortages that appeared during and after World War II. Though imperfect (the program was ultimately deemed exploitive), this bracero initiative may have came closest in realizing the tenets of justice that ideal theory conceptualized, formalizing (now questionable) protocols for far pay and anti-discrimination; that is, in setting aside the dehumanizing experience that braceros encountered, we might think of the legal protections granted to these workers, and the imperative that the U.S. government showed in trying to repair its relationship with Mexico, as a promise towards an ideal--a quasi- “veil of ignorance” that ended up being unrealistic, ineffective, and violent. So, it might be here within the context of the hopes of the Bracero Accord and the porous border through which hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers made their way each year that we locate our ideal beginning.

From this point, the rapid progression towards non-ideal theory, which again takes into account the “historical obstacles and the unjust actions of others” that seek to undermine liberty and justice, paradoxically began during the civil rights era of the 1960s, when a) the termination of the Bracero Program and b) amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act effectively ended the legal and cyclical migration patterns of years past. Princeton sociologist Douglass Massey summarizes:

Whereas in the late 1950s, some 450,000 Mexicans had entered the United States each year as Braceros and 50,000 as permanent residents, by the late 1970s the Bracero Program was gone and legal visas were capped at 20,000 (Massey 2014)

A closed door, however, does not mean a locked one; notwithstanding new restrictions on migration, former braceros continued their northward journey through unauthorized channels, paving the way for what has become considered “illegal” migration. In his article, Massey provides this useful figure, which takes data from DHS to assess Mexican migration to the U.S. in the three categories shown below:

The noticeable inverse between trends in temporary labor migration and unauthorized migration (measured by the annual number of apprehensions divided by the number of Border Patrol officers, expressed per thousand) in 1964 reveals the unspeakable harms of supposedly benevolent updates to U.S. immigration policy. Despite the tapering of unauthorized migration since 1986, shown above, the wide-ranging consequences of the 1964 recategorizing of what were once “legal” guest workers to now “illegal” trespassers on the political, social, and individual levels of society deserves pause and reflection. 

At the broad level of the body politic, the rising number of annual border apprehensions in the mid-1960s effectuated closer federal scrutiny of the border. At the behest of political racketeers, members of the U.S. Border Patrol, and a changing landscape of public opinion surrounding undocumented migration, Congress enacted a litany of measures that further restricted entry: 1986′s Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), while granting amnesty and Legal Permanent Resident status to 2.7 million former undocumented migrants--subject to conditions of learning English and seeking citizenship--criminalized undocumented hiring and signed off the first of a series of significant increases in appropriations for the Border Patrol; 1994′s Operation Gatekeeper militarized the busiest border sector in San Diegos (See also ‘prevention through deterrence’ strategy); 2001′s PATRIOT Act made it easier for the government to employ immigration rules to detain or deport non-citizens without resort to the lengthy procedural regulations of the criminal justice system (Akram 2006). Juliet Stumpf and others have mapped these measures to a phenomenon they call “crimmigration,” which describes the American merger of criminal and immigration law that has happened since 1875 when the first federal statute was passed to restrict immigration of Chinese women. Since then, Stumpf writes, “the relationship between immigration and criminal law has evolved from merely excluding foreigners who had committed past crimes to the present when many immigration violations are themselves defined as criminal offenses and many crimes result in deportation” (Stumpf 2006). Indeed, today, immigration prosecutions outnumber all other types of federal criminal prosecutions, including prosecutions for drugs and public order violations (See “Prosecution/Courts”).

Interwoven into the political and structural realignments of U.S. migration policy during this time was the effect that legal/illegal discursive shifts had on White Americans. As politicians seized on the expediency of showing strength against the "Mexican Menace” and “alien invasion”, and as journalists found success in characterizing undocumented border crossers as “illegals” set out to “inundate” American society and “swamp” its culture (Chavez 2001), it becomes easy to imagine the kind of social re-engineering that must have taken place: As Mae Ngai reminds us in Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, Mexicans were once considered legally white and enjoyed migratory privileges not afforded to Asian migrants (Ngai, 38, 2004); but, as UMASS-Amherst professor Moon-Kie Jung might say, racial differentiation happens when people come to hold schemas for “separating human populations by some notion of stock or collective heredity of traits” (Jung, 64, 2006). Viewed in the light of American genocide, slavery, colonialism and imperialism, the racialization of Mexicans based on notions of in/exclusion was par for the course. We might find then, within the border debates of the mid to late twentieth century, the seed of today’s social animus towards Latinx migrants, which has encouraged bias in enforcement of immigration law and (most likely) inspired Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 (Read more about state/federal collaboration and interdependency when it comes to developing and enforcing immigration law in Judith Resnick’s “Bordering by Law”).

The human impact of these policy adjustments should not be forgotten, nor go unnoticed. For it is at the individual--and for some of my friends with undocumented parents, personal--level that federal immigration policies harm. This case is explicitly made in Jason de León’s The Land of Open Graves, which lays the blame for migrant deaths along the border squarely in the hands of the U.S. government. It is described in this podcast during which a university student talks about her experience growing up living in fear that her parents could be deported at any moment; and again, in the harrowing stories that undocumented child migrants have told, as documented by Valeria Luiselli in Tell Me How It Ends; and perhaps, more recently, in the iconic image of Yanela, the 1-year-old Honduran girl, who was captured crying for her detained mother. Between these examples, one thing is clear: U.S. immigration policies violate, if not the ideals of moral equality that America was founded on, then international human rights.

De Leon writes: “The benefit of the chronological distance from the pain and suffering of past migrations is that many Americans today have no problem putting nationality before humanity” (Leon, 26, 2015). In this blog post/essay, I make the case that this antipathy for life, or explicitly for the life of Others, has as much to do with historical myopia as it underlines the principles of self-interest that lie behind our legal and social interpretations. When people hear that undocumented migrant children are being separated from their families yet still defend the action as just since “They came into our country illegally,” I see this perverse rationalization as but a product of self-preservation. Mae Ngai has spoken about the consequences of normalizing such principles of sovereignty in immigration affairs, suggesting that it “generates the view that immigration is a zero-sum game among competitive nation-states” (Ngai 2004). Not only does this view fuel anti-immigrant resentment, it discourages us from seeing the moral worth of our neighbors and prevents us from coming together to form humane and bilateral coalitions for tackling transnational problems. 

Against the backdrop of U.S. human rights violation, and the radical transition away from the conceptions of justice laid out in Rawls’s original position, I remain cautiously hopeful that there will come a day when justice will be served. It might not happen during my lifetime, but I’ll be on the vanguard of this fight. 

[ashrizen]

yeah so uhhh i accidentally wrote like a 1.2k+ word meta about phoenix & the differences between him when we’re playing as him vs as someone else & the reasons behind those differences.     woO O P S.

               the reason phoenix comes off as so capable whenever we play as someone else & when we face off against him in aa6     —     capable to the point where it seems to not just contrast everything we’ve seen of him from his pov but do a near perfect 180 of it   ( what with him having figured out the case & having a set plan of action & having prepared witnesses & evidence beforehand )     —     is exactly because we’re viewing him from someone else’s pov.

               to the world at large, phoenix’s uncertainty & anxiety & admissions to bluffing & surprise at some of his own tactics working are all kept to himself, to the blue text of inner monologue.     he could be questioning his own decisions tenfold, yet to anyone else looking at him it would seem that he’s utterly confident in his statement.

               the thing is, he has, pardon the expression, a good poker face.     when we play as him, we get to see his anxiety & freak - outs, but everyone else just assumes he’s deep in thought rather than internally screaming & thinking   “ I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING WHAT IS GOING ON WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE LOVE TO TORTURE ME I AM FIVE SECONDS AWAY FROM CRYING ”   ( which sounds like an exaggeration but honestly that is a pretty much perfect summary of the sort of thoughts he has when he’s up a creek without a paddle ) .     his theater kid years have served him well, along with the inadvertent practice of general avoidance of open conversations & of poker   ( a game notorious for being a game of bluffs, something phoenix even mentions being akin to lawyering )   over the past near decade     —     he’s a good actor & knows how to look collected.

               plus, he actually is a pretty capable lawyer  ;     he’s certainly grown to be one over the course of the first trilogy.     i mean, you don’t amass a reputation of being the   “ turnabout terror ”   &   “ comeback king ”   & keep recognition as a brilliant lawyer for like nearly a decade, even through disbarment, on bluffs & luck alone.     that doesn’t fucking happen, especially in a country where the legal system seems to have absolutely everything stacked up against lawyers, with them being allowed limited police department assistance & having prosecutors be allowed to speak with   ( & thus potentially manipulate by making them omit parts of testimony )   the witnesses, & where the court favors quick trials to convict criminals as quick as possible, going so far as to have a trial length limit of three days & having the judge be the lone decider of the verdict.

               & also like, i mean, if people like miles & franziska can admit to phoenix being a worthy rival, someone on their own level, there’s no way the majority of phoenix’s success stems from Luck & Bluffing.     don’t get me wrong, he’s incredibly lucky   ( interruptions that give extra time, new testimony that was Just what was needed, new evidence that you can spot from a mile away contradicts established testimony, etc. )     & has bluffed his way through parts of trials   ( bluffing someone’s guilt to buy time, bluffing about contents of evidence to trick a witness, etc ) , but that’s still a very low occurrence percentage.     saying phoenix’s career has had so many successes due to luck & bluffs is like saying that miles edgeworth & franziska von karma, when they lost cases against phoenix, while both being brilliant prosecutors who’ve had perfect win records up until facing him, lost because of Bad Luck.     that doesn’t happen.     you don’t go years winning on brilliance only to lose due to Bad Luck.

               & you know what’s worse ??     despite boosts in confidence when he’s on a roll, a rather big chunk of phoenix’s internal monologue is spent stressing over shit.     the guy that’s lost three cases in his entire career   ( though the first two verdicts were fair & he had no qualms about them, so technically they’re only losses by name, & the third was lost in a foreign country with an unfamiliar court & legal system & the verdict was soon overturned due to proving his client’s complete innocence )   still second guesses himself & has internal freak outs when his grasp on near victory begins to slip, as though he hasn’t recovered soon after in every single case beforehand.

               also, on the matter of his level of capability post!trilogy, when you look at all the facts of the cases that phoenix   “ seemed to magically solve while apollo was still figuring it out ” , you have to remember a few things about the conditions surrounding the cases.

               in the case of zak’s murder, unlike apollo, phoenix was there at the crime scene & was familiar with all the tricks & quirks of the hydeout, not to mention the conditions of the previously ongoing poker game.     he had time for a quick investigation before the police arrived plus prior knowledge to ways one could disappear from the hydeout.     that, plus the good amount of time at the detention center he had to mull things over, easily explains how he figured the case out before apollo, who had never been to the crime scene, was informed of the case through kristoph, & only had a few hours to figure out the entire case from scratch.

               as for the case of the mishams, his investigation of things in relation to them spanned over 7 years & he’s stated that he’d taken trips to europe due to a friend needing help once in a while, which we can obviously assume to be edgeworth, so it’s highly likely he had help with small details.     not to mention, while phoenix may have figured out who done did it, he didn’t yet know how to prove it without a shadow of a doubt & how to use what he’d acquired to show the guilt.     he may have figured out who did the deed & collected evidence & information, but he did so over the span of 7 years, &, ultimately, it was apollo & klavier who put together all the puzzle pieces & were able to prove kristoph’s guilt.      the mystery of the black psychelocks still remains, & as we learned in aa5, they lock secrets that not even the keeper is aware of, but they’re not impossible to unlock, so there is potential for that mystery to be solved before kristoph’s death sentence is carried out.

               but i digress.

               aa4 is where the   “ magical knowledge of cases ”   starts & ends.     the cases besides zak & misham’s were solved entirely by apollo & trucy, & phoenix only helped out a little in the meraktis case, & that was just helping the kids get into the crime scene.     he did nothing else.

               meanwhile, in aa6 when we’re up against him & he has everything ready for the trial, while true that often phoenix doesn’t have all the details & evidence ready, not to mention the witnesses are often not as helpful as he’d like, you have to remember that edgeworth was helping phoenix with the case, being the only other person to know of the blackmailing situation.     so phoenix being more prepared than one would expect is nothing unusual when he has someone to help out, not to mention the sense of urgency to perfect the case due to the circumstances that no doubt played a large part in the preparations.

               phoenix doesn’t magically become more capable when we’re not playing as him     —     he’s always been as capable as he is, if more oblivious & clumsy with his work in his first couple of cases.     seeing him from an outsider’s pov just lets us see what he’s like without all the internal screaming & uncertainty, not to mention the fact that he’s grown quite a lot as a lawyer since his early years at the practice due to over a decade of experience.

[duaneodavila]

A Front-Row Seat To The Rise Of Litigation Finance: An Interview With Marla Decker [Sponsored]

Marla Decker

Three years ago, Marla Decker left her career as a complex commercial litigator at Cleary Gottlieb to become Managing Director at Lake Whillans Litigation Finance. She went from being a senior associate at one of the world’s most prestigious and established law firms to the first full-time employee of a promising but young firm in a still-emerging field.

It was a big risk — and it paid off. Both litigation finance and Lake Whillans have grown tremendously since 2015. At the end of 2017, Lake Whillans closed a $125 million round of funding. In May 2018, the firm won recognition as one of the nation’s top four litigation funders, in the inaugural ranking of litigation-finance firms by Chambers and Partners. And Lake Whillans has expanded its stable of top talent, adding Chris Hagale, formerly of Bartlit Beck, and Garrett Ordower, formerly of Wachtell Lipton.

Three years later, how does Marla Decker feel about her momentous move? Last week, I met up with her at the Optimistic Cafe — a fittingly named venue for discussing a booming industry — to find out.

DL: Back in 2015, you took a risk, leaving a thriving career at a leading law firm to become the first full-time employee of one of the first litigation funders. Are you glad you made the jump?

MD: Very glad. My colleagues at Cleary were great, but so are my colleagues here at Lake Whillans, some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I appreciate our process for evaluating cases, which is both organic and methodical, and our supportive, collaborative environment.

DL: Even if you’re glad you made this move, what do you miss about either practicing law or practicing law in Biglaw?

MD: There are people I miss working with, and I miss some of the accoutrements of law-firm life, from robust secretarial support to wine and cheese on Fridays. They’ve been made up for in other ways, but perks are certainly a draw of Biglaw.

In terms of practicing law, I miss the unpredictability of being on my feet in a courtroom or in the middle of a deposition, having just one moment to get it right — a definite adrenaline rush. But I do find my current role more intellectually engaging on a consistent basis.

DL: That might surprise some people. Practicing law at the highest levels is very intellectually challenging, isn’t it?

MD: Absolutely, and I had a broad and fulfilling practice at Cleary. But the types of cases we review for possible funding at Lake Whillans are so diverse across subject areas, and they come from around the country and even around the world. The factual and legal issues run the gamut; I might be looking at a pharmaceutical-licensing dispute on one day and a supply-chain dispute on the next. This differs from law-firm practice, where lawyers tend to specialize and where, if you’re staffed on a major case, you could be living and breathing that case for the next 18 months.

DL: Which skills from your Cleary years have carried over well into your current work?

MD: Certainly legal analysis, inquisitiveness, and big-picture thinking about cases and strategies. Coming into litigation finance after having been a litigator helps you understand the process and pace of a case, where parties might gain and lose leverage, and which legal issues are more significant than others.

Client management skills have also proven helpful, in terms of dealing with claimholders in a positive way. People come to us as funders like clients approaching lawyers: they have a problem, they need help, and they’re trusting us with a matter of great importance to them. Good communication is essential to getting on the same page and building mutual trust.

DL: Let’s turn to the process of evaluating cases, aka underwriting. How does Lake Whillans decide whether to fund a case?

MD: In general, for an incoming inquiry, one of the principals will have a phone call to screen the case and see if it fits our parameters. After that threshold review, we’ll execute a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) and have a deep-dive call, with most if not all of us at Lake Whillans on the line, to learn in detail about the case or opportunity (if it’s a portfolio of cases). We’ll want to learn about the facts, the potential damages, the procedural history (if any), and what the claimholders might be seeking in terms of a financial transaction.

If we’re interested, then we’ll generate an investment hypothesis and propose a term sheet. We might then negotiate over the terms, but we want to float terms early in the process so we don’t waste time on diligence if we’re too far apart on terms.

If we reach agreement on terms, then we go through full diligence, trying to prove out the investment hypothetical. Do the facts and the law support the thesis? Can the facts be established with admissible evidence? Is the investment hypothesis’s timeframe right? This involves a careful review of documents and discussion with the claimholders and their counsel.

DL: Speaking of diligence, we know you did your homework before making the jump into litigation finance. Now, a few years in, what has surprised you about your current job or field?

MD: I’m surprised by how litigation finance has already been through multiple iterations in such a short period of time. When I first entered, most users of litigation funding were Davids in David v. Goliath battles — small or midsized companies, often cash-strapped, up against much larger entities. But so much has changed since then.

First, there’s more demand from law firms for portfolio funding, or funding for a collection of cases. Imagine a law firm has a contingent interest in some number of cases, all at various points in the litigation life cycle, and it wants to accelerate monetization of those interests. It can do that through funding, instead of waiting 12 or 18 months before seeing any money.

Second, the types of corporates using funding are different. Large-cap companies are using funding to take litigation costs off their balance sheets, to monetize an asset — a claim in litigation — that they might not have pursued but for funding.

Third, there’s much greater demand for funding of international arbitrations.

Finally, the volume of incoming leads is exponentially larger today compared to three years ago.

DL: You mentioned increased use of funding by large companies. What’s driving that trend?

MD: A few factors. First, law departments and in-house lawyers face constant pressure to reduce expenses. If you can shrink your budget by moving litigation costs to a funder, you’ve achieved that. Moving expenses off your balance sheet is especially desirable if the company has some transaction coming up where the value of the company will matter. If you have expenses going out for litigation, that’s taking away from your EBITDA and lowering your valuation.

Second, awareness about financing has grown dramatically. People are coming to understand how litigation finance can change our legal system for the better, by leveling the playing field between plaintiffs and defendants, helping companies to pursue their business objectives, and bringing meritorious cases before the courts.

DL: So I understand Lake Whillans doesn’t have any openings right now, but what advice would you offer current Biglaw litigators thinking about following your footsteps into litigation finance?

MD: First, research the funders — who’s growing, hiring, and raising money. Identify the funders whose target investments align well with your skills. For example, at Lake Whillans we don’t handle patent cases, so if you’re a patent litigator, other funders might be a better fit.

Second, develop a broad litigation practice, where you’re exposed to many different cases within your firm. This will be useful when analyzing a diverse range of cases for possible funding. If there are cases in your firm that have been funded, try to get involved. It’s helpful to have a lawyer’s perspective on how litigation financing works.

Third, follow the funding industry closely — for example, by reading our blog!

DL: Besides litigators with broad experience, what other types of lawyers might thrive in litigation finance?

MD: Lawyers who are entrepreneurial, such as partners who have built up books of business and developed strong client relationships. Litigation finance is entrepreneurial. It attracts lawyers who are willing to take risks, tackle novel challenges, and go on new adventures.

DL: Well, it sounds like you’re enjoying this adventure, three years in. Congratulations on your success so far, and thanks for taking the time to chat!

Earlier: Introducing Marla Decker: From Litigator To Litigation Funder

David Lat is editor at large and founding editor of Above the Law, as well as the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.

[lit-works]

Heroes For Hire: The Gang wars trilogy

Chapter 7: A Day Off or an Off Day?

The second-hand of the wall-hung atomic clock ticked the seconds away as the hour hand struck 7 AM. Faint beams of golden sunlight stabbed through the blinds and onto the ceramic tile floor. The sounds of a city rising to the streets flowed in through the very walls, seeping into the otherwise relatively silent Heroes For Hire Inc. HQ. Misty paced to and fro, heels clicking as she stepped. Daredevil, Powerman, and Black Widow stood around in the room as well. In the very center of the small vacant office sat Tommy Kent in a folding chair.

“so, then who would Hammerhead want to take out next?” Daredevil asked, toying with his red baton.

“I haven't got the slightest. I’m surprised Hammerhead’s even wasting his time with the small-fry. Me and those teens with the knives, the flashing blade. We’re small-time. If I was him I’d be after bigger game.” Tommy confessed.

“You couldn't handle bigger game, Tommy.” Black widow mocked.

“Hardy-har-har, Darling. You gonna keep busting my balls all night? I don't know nothing. I already told ya.” Tommy spat at her.

Tommy had already spent the last 6 hours in that very chair, in the closed offices of Heroes For Hire for his interrogation. Once the monster and assassin had disappeared in that strange blue light Daredevil and Black Widow had quickly snuck Tommy to the company’s Headquarters. There they could house him in protective custody from Hammerhead’s goons, whom alot of Tommy had made enemies of. If anyone wanted to get to Tommy they would have to bring their fight to them, and fight on their turf. It also provided with relative privacy to question him and corroborate each other's stories and discover what really happened that night. A vacant office had been transformed into Tommy’s makeshift holding cell. The file cabinets removed, and replaced with a single military cot, a television with cable, and a folding chair. Until Hammerhead was locked up, the book safely returned, and Tommy’s life was safe this room would be his new home, from which he could not leave. Unless of course he wanted Daredevil to drag him back.

Misty had been stuck at Starky’s dealing with the police that reported on the scene. Performing interviews and being temporarily held by police had kept them disposed of for hours. But, after all the statements were made the incident reports filed the two were free to go. The two of them then made there way to HQ where they suspected their quarry had been transported.

“Where’s Hammerhead like to hang out?” Daredevil probed.

But, Tommy had become a quite willing informant against the man he believed responsible for the attempt on his life. “the only place i know about is this speakeasy themed bar he’s got, The Roarin 20’s. It’s not so far, lower east side. We used to go there on Fridays and play poker in the back. It's where i met his old lady.”

With every discovery made in the case it seemed more and more apparent that Hammerhead was in fact the criminal behind the theft and now all these gang killings. As they had been making their escape with Tommy there had been the attacker in the alley. He had shrouded the alley with some strange unnatural darkness. It had settled onto Natasha's skin almost like a layer of fabric. A dense darkness. However, Matt recalled the overheard interview between Marc and Foggy as well as the testimonies of the theft. This strange darkness had also been in the Met when the book had been stolen. Being a powerful figure within his own branch of the Maggia, Hammerhead very rarely ever had to get his own hands dirty. It seemed likely that whomever he had hired to steal the book was continuing under the employ of the crime-boss. It also seemed Hammerhead had gained a rather powerful ally. Daredevil told his companions of how the figure who had attacked them in that alley was blind, but could somehow much like he could. This proved quite a strange development.

But, there were still the monsters that had somehow appeared out of thin air in each attack. They were involved with Hammerhead’s plot, but from where did they come from? How were they magically appearing in that strange blue light. Tommy seemed to believe that the book itself had been what bestowed some form of gift onto Hammerhead. Given that even the curator of the Museum, Dr. Pride had known very little about the book Misty thought it best to look deeper into the stolen artifact. She asked that Luke look into it further and see what he could uncover. While Misty stayed indoors to monitor and protect their captive, Black Widow would be back out onto the streets trying to find Hammerhead.

Daredevil remembered the sounds of the clock, time ticking life away. “What time is it??!!” He asked, a frown messing up his face.

“About a quarter after 7.” Luke answered.

Daredevil hauled off and punched a nearby filing cabinet. “Shit!!!” Matt shouted.

“What?” Misty asked, confused by the outburst.

“Marc!!! He's in court this morning!!” Daredevil exclaimed. “I’m late!!”

-

Matt had changed out of his hardened leather Daredevil armor and into a spare yet simple black suit-and-tie affair. He stored his costume in one of the rear equipment rooms in the offices of Heroes For Hire. In a rush he tied his tie, throwing the cloth about his neck in a hurry. He tied his loafers and then gave himself a final pat down to make sure he seemed presentable. He walked for the front door, when Luke’s voice called out to him. “Hey, Matt!”

Matt turned his body to the direction of Luke’s voice and heard the sound of wind whooshing as something he had thrown lightly flew towards Matt. He caught his pair of rose-colored glasses in his hand. “You dropped those.” Luke said.

“Thanks.” Matt gasped and then bobbed out the front door and onto the New York streets. After leaving Heroes For Hire and only walked a block before turning into the alleyway and beginning to climb a fire escape. He was within a very short time frame to make it to the courthouse, so he would need to avert the hundreds of people already clogging the streets. Not only were the rooftops faster, but it was also more fun.

-

In the kitchen of his penthouse suite, atop a stool at the kitchen counter in little but his underwear and a pair of socks Peter Parker scooped spoonful after heaping spoonful of cereal into his mouth, eyes locked onto the tv screen mounted on the wall. A VNN news broadcast had caught his attention:

“MORE MONSTER MURDERS!!!” the anchorman's voice menacingly intoned. “This just in it appears just last night New Yorkers were struck again in a violent attack! The incident occurred at a Lower East Side Pool Hall known as Starky’s. According to police Starky’s is a dangerous gang hangout with a violent criminal past. It’s certainly living up to it's reputation, for last night a large brawl took place resulting in extensive property damage. Witnesses report to have seen Metahuman individual and former Avenger Power-man. Witnesses also attest to the presence of 'Frankenstein’ dueling against Power-Man. As well as some form of ‘Creature cloaked in darkness’. Until the police have a suspect in custody they refuse to entertain speculation about these strange beings. When asked about monsters being in his city our mayor James Jonah Jameson had but a few things to say ‘Oh, Hogwash! Not again!’.”

As Peter slurped down the dregs of milk at the bottom of his bowl he reached for his cell phone that sat nearby on the counter. Swiping away dozens of notifications for later he activated his contacts archive and began searching for the number to Heroes For Hire Inc.

-

Matt burst into the courtroom, clearly dishevelled. The members of the audience turned to watch him tap his cane down the aisle as he hurried towards the defendants booth of the court. The swinging doors between the audience and the court smacked loudly against his metallic cane as he pushed through it and quickly took a seat next to Foggy Nelson who stood addressing the court. On the opposite side of Foggy sat Marc Spector in shackles and his jailhouse jumpsuit.

Foggy took annoyed acknowledgment of the late arrival of his partner, but could not allow the disruption to interfere with his duties to Mark as a client. “May it please the court my name is Fogwell Nelson, and i have been self-appointed for the legal defense of a sort of appellee in this case, Mr. Marc Spector. Your honor, your court should affirm the decision of the Supreme Court and the statutes regarding vigilantism post the enactment of the Superhuman Registration Act or ‘the peoples of Stamford vs. The State of Connecticut’, and grant my client release or drastic reduction of the charges.”

“What are the ties between Mr. Spector and,  who you say nay be a potential third-party culprit and the victims of this case who may say wish for the court to permit the admission of hearsay evidence?” The judge asked rifling through tons of paper assorted on his stand.

“Well, your honor i believe there are two interests to that. The first is that it was only assumed that Mr.Spector had the motive, means, and opportunity to commit the principle theft charge when he in fact had none of those just moments prior, and he seemed to act as a guilty party would and even expressed feelings of guilt in the aftermath of the crime. The second answer to your question is that in regards to the statements that were made by my client ,which were or are really the only hearsay evidence that we are talking about here, i would assert that those are not hearsay at all! In that it is not offered for the truth of the matter in certainty. The connecting links go to what little evidence is held that presents Mr.Spector to be the culprit of this crime.”

“So, then are you immediately entering a plea of not guilty?”

“Well, your honor, i cannot argue the fact that he did indeed escape from Ravencroft's institution, i can argue the intent behind said escape. The intent and motive behind the escape from Ravencroft’s as well as my client’s own ‘hearsay’ evidence contributed to the New York Police department however vindicate him of any of the allegations regarding the theft.  The theft of course, i can and will argue and am in fact submitting an immediate plea of not guilty.” Foggy retorted.

The courtroom stenographer clacked away at her keys, as paperwork was passed and signed between the defendant, the prosecutor, and the judge.

“Your honor, in response to the defendant's request of the acquittal or reduction of these charges we suggest a refusal. The defendant, Mr. Spector was in clear disobedience of the law in all recorded and documented accounts of the incident in question. The New York district attorney's office would request the continuation of incarceration and the charges as currently held.” The appointed prosecuting attorney read from his printed paper.

“Objection, your honor!” Foggy spat quickly. “With the submission of a not guilty plea to the theft and subsequent charges, i would like to refute the claims of disobedience or direct breaking of any laws in that ny client was acting to serve the law.”

“Proceed…” the judge gestured, looking down his nose and to Foggy.

“My client, prior to the felony convictions that led to his admission and subsequent admission to the Ravencroft institute, Mr. Spector was in fact the masked vigilante known to the public as Moon Knight. During this time he had arrested or apprehended a number of high profile criminals. He had even be registered within the state of New York under the Superhuman registration act, and was the official 24th member of the Avengers Association. Given his status and position as an appointed agent of national security, via S.H.I.E.L.D. authorization Marc Spector is granted immunities from elements of the law that would impede his ability to perform his duties. My client was at the Met to stop a theft he had reason to believe would occur. The theft did in fact occur, but before my client, An Avenger could stop the true suspect he was arrested himself. The NYPD in direct violation of penal code involving the detention of an Avenger in an investigation. They were impeding justice.”

“He still escaped the institution, even if he wasn't there to steal the book, by your logic any crazy within distance of the crime scene shouldn't be considered a suspect?” The prosecutor laughed.

“And by yours, any crazy who walks the street is a crook.” Foggy spat back. He then turned and whispered to Marc. “Sorry about the crazy remark.”

“No offense taken.” Marc whispered back.

Foggy turned and shot Matt an angry glare, still perturbed by Matt’s tardiness to the case he had wanted to take.

“I do note that the investigation of the theft is still pending.” the judge said.

“Exactly. Because my client was not involved with the theft, and has no connection whatsoever to the crime besides his own investigation into the matter. Investigation he is entitled to as Moon Knight.” Foggy explained.

“Your honor, the initial matter here is the violent escape from Ravencroft. Though the incident carries the lesser assortment of charges, it is duly noted that during his stay in the institution his tenure would be considered the same as medical or appointed leave and that his duties and authority as an Avenger would have been temporarily negated. He was in violation of those laws prior to the theft.” the prosecutor reminded.

“No, and not so because he escaped attempting to perform his job. The staff and security at Ravencroft’s may very well have been the factors directly responsible for fugitive thief still being at large.” Foggy argued. “I will go onto say, given my client's skills and knowledge in regards to this case continuing to keep him detained may very well be impeding of justice itself as he has a wealth of knowledge as to the culprits who may be responsible.”

“In review of your plea and request, i would ask what course of action exactly you would like to see the court take if your request were granted?”

“Well, i would ask that my client Marc Spector be released of his own recognizance pending the continuation of this trial and the pending investigation as no conviction can be made until the case is closed or admission of guilt has been made.” Foggy stated.

“Objection, your honor, Marc Spector suffers from severe Mental disorders and does in fact have a long history of violence and now flight from custody.”

“Then, leave Marc in the care of a doctor.” Matt Murdock chimed in, jumping to aid Foggy. “Mr.Spector had long been a documented employee of the Heroes For Hire inc. Franchise as well as the Avengers for years. Given the Heroes For Hire company's current involvement in this investigation, to expedite the apprehension of the real thief we ask that he be released into the care of Heroes For Hire inc. Private Mental Health physician. So, he can help solve this crime and be kept on a leash so to speak.”

-

Matt and Foggy stood together in front of the jailhouse, with Dr. Regina Worrows, the in-house therapist of Heroes For Hire inc. That would be providing therapy for Marc upon his release. Foggy had been granted his request by the judge and Marc Spector would soon be a free man once again. Him and Matt spoke in hushed tones.

“Where were you, Matt? Do you have any idea how unprofessional and embarrassing that was?” Foggy asked.

“I’m sorry, i was up late….unpacking.” Matt said, thinking of the closest thing to the truth he could tell Foggy.

“And i didn't even really want you to be here for this Matt. It's not in our best interest for you to be involved with these vigilante cases. Everybody knows who you are.” Foggy confessed.

“Hey, look, i was able to get Misty and the Heroes For Hire to vouch for Marc. Who knows if they would have let him out without someone responsible willing to foot the bill and take the blame if he does anything crazy again.”

“True. But what if he does do something crazy again? What if he really is just some crazy?”

“You just put your career on the line getting him out of jail, Foggy. You've gotta believe he isn't, and that we're doing the right thing.”

Through large double doors Marc Spector walked out of the detention center. He was released in the clothes he had been booked into the jail in. The flawless white three-piece suit, slightly splattered with blood and stained with dirt. The cane he carried was slightly bent. As soon as the sun beat down on him he squinted, readjusting to natural sunlight after days of artificial atmosphere. He lifted his head and smiled towards Matt and Foggy, recognizing them. He began slowly walking over to them languishing each step as it was the most he had been able to walk in days.

“You've gotta have faith, Foggy.” Matt affirmed.

As Marc approached them he held out his hand to Foggy. “Thank you.” he said.

-

“No, baby, it’s all good. Danny and I just gotta take care of this thing. I’ll have the car back soon.” Luke Cage said into his phone, steering with one hand and talking to his wife with the other.

“Is that Jessica?! Tell her i said ‘Hey!’ and to kiss the baby for me.” Danny Rand interjected from the passenger seat to Luke.

The two of them rode down one of New York’s many packed streets in the Jones-Cage family minivan.

“Are you and him getting back together again?” Jessica asked over the line, the sound of Danielle giggling also carried over the receiver.

Luke Cage was bothered by that question. Him and Danny Rand had quite the history together. They had first met a very long time ago at a mutual friend’s party. Hogarth had been throwing Luke Cage a celebration for his release from Seagate prison. A minor villain who had become enemies with Luke crashed the party, and Danny Rand who was in attendance jumped to Luke’s aid and revealed his powers as The Immortal Iron Fist. He can channel and focus his chi to great ends, either empowering and strengthening his body to make himself a literal living weapon or using it heal himself and others as well as purge negative energy. From that point forward they developed an unbreakable fraternal bond and a beautiful rapport. They had seen everything with each other. When Danny Rand had disappeared and been presumed dead, through great error it had been Luke Cage who was believed to be responsible for his demise. However, Danny returned and fought for the honor of his friend and had him released once again from Seagate prison. Luke had even named his own daughter after his best friend, and named her Danielle. But, life had different things in store for the two of them. Luke was needed by his family and the Avengers as well as the new Thunderbolts team. He was always busy elsewhere. Whereas Danny had been called away to his home, the ancient forbidden city of K’un-L’un to defend it and embarked on many other adventures of his own and with other friends in the relatively unknown of mystic group The Defenders. This was the first time had even seen each other in months. Luke had found out Danny to find information about this strange book. A Madman’s mutterings.

“No, babe, we are not back together. Just gotta take care of this thing for Misty, you know.” Luke muttered quietly into the phone so Danny wouldnt hear.

“Tell Jessica i said ‘howyadoin!’?” Danny asked Luke, his arm out the passenger window riding the wind.

“This thing? Okay-- Just remember, you're the one who keeps saying you don't want to get the whole band back together again.” Jessica sounded skeptical.

“And i don't. This is just me and him doing what we gotta do and find out about this book.” Luke assured.

“Ok, then go do it. I don't wanna see any pics of you guys together on his facebook. I love you.” Jessica pleaded.

“Ok. I love you too, baby.” Luke replied and hung up his cell phone, tucking it into his pants pocket. He wore a simple yellow t-shirt, black denim jeans, and combat boots.

“Did you tell her i said ‘hey’?” Danny asked.

“You're sitting right there. You heard everything I said. Did you hear me tell her you said ‘hey’?” Luke shot back.

“Why didn't you tell her?” Danny asked looking forlorn and crossing his arms. “We’ve got history, man. We’re partners--best friends, Power Man and Iron Fist. And your wife doesn't even like me because you never pass along my friendly overtures.”

“First of all, we aren't partners anymore. Besides, Jessica likes you just fine. She just prefers silent Danny over talking Iron Fist.” Luke corrected.

“I don't even know what that means. Did she really say that? Does she really hate when i talk?” Danny asked, seeming hurt by the idea.

“No, man, Jessica doesn't hate it when you talk. She's just like me, in that she appreciates your silence more.” Luke tried to rectify realising how he had made it sound worse.

“You hurt me, Luke.” Danny said and pouted. “Deep down in my soul, it hurts--”

Luke reached his long arm out and tousled Danny’s already messy hair. “Nobody loves you like i do, brother.”

They both shared a smile and rode in silence for a few moments.

“So, scooping out something weird, huh?” Danny asked.

“Nah. Not really. Just helping Misty out with a bunch of fiddle-faddle.” Luke answered.

Danny laughed. “What the hell is fiddle-faddle?”

-

[kristinsimmons]

Alfie Evans and the Medical Ethics of Suffering

By PRADHEEP J. SHANKER, MD

Sadly, the case of Alfie Evans came to a close this week, as he passed away in his hospital room surrounded by his parents. The debate over the medical ethics involved goes on.

Ultimately, there are extensive moral, philosophical, and medical issues involved with the policies over these cases. They are complicated, messy, and often times heart wrenching. But let’s put some misconceptions aside to begin with, some propagated by the most extreme and emotional participants in this debate.

Those of us that took issue with the handling of this case for the most part do not believe the doctors involved were evil, murdering individuals. There was no malicious intent from the NHS or physicians involved. I am sure the physicians meant well, from their point of view.

A second point: this was not a case about preservation of resources for the greater good. In this case, the parents had found alternative sources to fund the care they wished for their son.  So those arguing that we need to make such decision to prioritize money for those that can be aided the most is largely off target, and not relevant to the case at hand. I also don’t believe that the single payer system of the NHS in England inherently caused their mistakes; I think any system that is blind to its own deficiencies could lead to such mistakes.

That said, what were the issues that were in dispute here?

First and foremost, what was the ultimate intent of the care providers in this specific case?  Both sides basically admitted, early on, that Alfie’s prognosis was dire.  The reality is this child was likely going to die, and even the experts preferred by the parents readily admitted this in court documents.

Why is this important? Some have raised other scenarios in which health care providers supersede the decision making of parents, for the welfare of the child. I personally have used the example of a bleeding child of a Jehovah’s witness, who was prevented from getting a blood transfusion. A similar example would be a child with a severe deadly infection, like meningitis, being prevented from receiving life saving antibiotics because of religious reasons.

However, that wasn’t the issue in this case. There was no path which provided a clear method to improve the child’s prognosis.  All the choices in front of the decision makers were about treating a child that had no long term prospects whatsoever. In the court proceedings, all sides agreed on the medical facts of the case, including the parents. So this was very different from the cases above, for that very reason.

So, what was the primary intent of Alfie’s doctors, if not to cure him, or prolong his life?

The primary intent stated over and over again in court documents was the focus on reducing Alfie’s suffering to the minimal amount possible.

The ethics of suffering is a deep and complex issue, in and of itself. A widespread view, especially in non-Western traditions, is that “happiness” consists of the absence of suffering. In Hindu and Buddhist belief, tranquility or contentment are amongst the most valued sentiments.

However, there is a distinction to be made between an obligation not to cause suffering and an obligation to prevent suffering. Suffering-focused ethics is a belief that places primary or particular importance on the prevention of suffering. Most views that fall into this category are pluralistic in that they hold that other things besides reducing suffering also matter morally.

The problem with suffering based ethics is, the absolutist view of such thinking takes you to strange, even dark, places. For example, some countries have begun to start programs that actively intend on…eradicating Down’s Syndrome. Down’s Syndrome  is a genetic defect cause by Trisomy 21, which causes mental defects and delayed intellectual maturity, among other issues. Some societies have deemed it ‘suffering’…for such people to exist.

For most people, this is an extremist view that seems unacceptable. Even in the UK, support for such a policy is a minority position. But again, if your primary goal is to reduce suffering, in any sense of the word…then there is a sort of dark logic to it.

Therefore, if you feel that such a policy is going too far…you are admitting that suffering cannot be used an absolute criteria for making end of life decision. You are basically stipulating there are other issues that also matter.

The UK court and the Royal College of Pediatricians itself reviewed the question of when it was appropriate to remove life sustaining medical assistance, and came up with three clear scenarios. The first is when death is immediate and/or imminent; that was not the case here, as Alfie survived for several days even without ventilator assistance. A second reason is informed consent for withdrawal of treatment; the parents actually opposed withdrawal of support.

Now here is the remarkable point: the third reason, the argument they finally made, and that the judge finally accepted in this case, states that even if absence of suffering or pain, if life is limited in quality, support can be removed; in short, the child would be better off dead than alive.

Now, this is problematic on several levels.

First…what is the scientific basis of quality of life? Is there some medical method to quantify how much ‘quality’ of life exists in a person, objectively?

Obviously, the answer is ‘No’. The physicians, and the judge in the case, are making a faith based decision.  They are basing this on their own moral, religious, and personal beliefs. There is no practical scientific method they are pursuing here.

If suffering is not critical to making this decision, what is?  Who exactly are we benefiting in such a case?  We are not benefiting the child.  The people benefiting are the doctors, the medical system, possibly the parents.  The judge is stipulating here that the child’s benefit is not necessarily critical in these cases. That is a shocking admission.

Frankly, I would have preferred a more logical and sensible medically based argument from the government and the court. The judge repeatedly made unscientific claims to defend his position. For example, at one point when the parents wanted to fly the child to Italy, the judge claimed that the flight may itself cause seizures. Notably, he never provided any evidence for this claim. It was a irrational statement, based on nothing, and because he was the judge…such irrational non-scientific claims were acceptable.

A second sound, logical, but harsher argument: that in a system such as the UK NHS, where there is limited funds to take care of everyone, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and therefore, rationing care makes sense. At least that would be a logical explanation of their decision. The decision, as it stands, lacked logical cohesiveness, and certainly has no objective science basis.

The second major philosophical issue in this case is the concept of parental rights, and how paternalism in medicine is a growing trend. This case illustrates the worst abuses of the archaic medical philosophy of paternalism.

Paternalism is the belief that physicians and medical professionals, being more educated and knowledgeable about health issues, should decide what is in the patient’s best interests, without regard to the patient’s own wishes.

Paternalism was a common practice among doctors before the middle part of the 20th century. But as individual freedoms grew in the Western world, patient autonomy (the belief that patients were intelligent and knowledgeable enough to make decisions for themselves) became predominant.

Paternalism becomes problematic as you further and further narrow the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their child. This process has a long history in the United Kingdom. In England, the Supreme Court has ruled that in any legal conflict about what is in a child’s best interest, the child must have an state appointed ‘voice’. This was an abuse of an original law that was passed to help care for children when two parents disagreed over the care of a child, especially in divorce proceedings. It has now grown to mean the government can interfere with decisions, even when both parents agree.

The specifics of the legalities aside, what becomes an issue for medical providers is, where do parental rights start, and where do they end?

Defenders of the NHS and physicians in this case continue to argue that to reduce Alfie’s suffering even one iota is moral. That in and of itself is not as white and black as it appears at first glance, as argued above. To compound this error, the judge specifically states suffering of the child is not necessary to remove life sustaining medical efforts.

If as the judge says suffering of the child is not necessary to remove parental rights, what exactly is the ‘red line’ he is willing to draw to protect parental rights? In short, he is admitting that there is no such line. The whims of the court and doctors, in his opinion, can always supersede any wishes of the parents, with logic, reason, or medical evidence notwithstanding.

Once there is no clearly definable limits to parental rights, what the UK is generally saying is that no true parental right exists. The simple fact is, they are reducing the concept of parent rights to a new definition: parental rights until such time the government decides it is inconvenient. That is no right at all.

For physicians, this is extremely problematic. Physicians rely on the decision making of families, because we have deemed them as the best arbiter of the feelings and intent of the patient. If that isn’t the case anymore…where does that leave us?

This leaves us with a gray area in which Alfie was likely to die, and likely to die very soon.  His suffering was not dramatically more or less with one course of action versus another, no matter how hard his physicians were trying to claim it as such.

So ultimately, when this is distilled down to the basics, the question largely resides on whether you believe parental rights are a true cornerstone of society…or those rights are simply a suggestion that can be ignored upon the whim of government officials and doctors, based on their own flexible moral code.

It would be another matter if there was clear evidence of harm with the parental choices.  If a parent is abusive, or illogical, then the state may have the right to intercede. But short of that evidence, where is the evidence that doctors somehow have a superior moral code to the parents? We have already shown that medical evidence was not the pre-eminent basis for making the final decision to pull all medical assistance to Alfie…and as such, all that is left is morals and faith.

Ultimately, physicians must realize that their knowledge, regardless of how extensive it is, is limited. Science can only go so far. And frankly, doctors must admit they are flawed. Some argued that the parents were so emotionally invested, they couldn’t possibly make a logical choice in this situation. But any physician that has treated a child knows, we are human and we are emotionally invested too.

In their piece on The Case For Suffering-Focused Ethics, Lukas Gloor and Adriano Mannino put it this way:

Given the difficulty of this task, it is important that we do not make it even more complicated by placing unreasonable formal demands on our values. Likewise, it is important that we do not hastily subscribe to some particular view without remaining open to reflection. Ultimately, choosing values comes down to finding the intuitions and guiding principles we care about the most – and if that includes a number of different intuitions, or even some form of extrapolation procedure to defer to better-informed future versions of ourselves – then the solution may not necessarily look simple. This is completely fine, and it allows those who agree with (some of) the intuitions behind suffering-focused ethics to care about other things in addition.

Nations must decide for themselves whether or not they think parents are the cornerstone of their society. The right of a parent to make decisions for their child is one of the most basic belief systems that is universal throughout the world.

Physicians are experts on medicine and science. What they are not experts on is values, religion, ethics and personal morality, and they shouldn’t pretend to be experts on such things. And in cases where the science leaves us questioning the truth of the situation, and we are left in a gray area of doubt and uncertainty, physicians would be well served to openly admit their limitations, and defer to the people most fit to make such determinations: a patient’s loved ones.

About the author:

Pradheep J. Shanker M.D., M.S. is a practicing Diagnostic Radiologist in Columbus, Ohio. In addition to medicine, he is an activist on health policy and educational reforms.

Alfie Evans and the Medical Ethics of Suffering published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

[isaacscrawford]

Alfie Evans and the Medical Ethics of Suffering

By PRADHEEP J. SHANKER, MD

  Sadly, the case of Alfie Evans came to a close this week, as he passed away in his hospital room surrounded by his parents. The debate over the medical ethics involved goes on.

Ultimately, there are extensive moral, philosophical, and medical issues involved with the policies over these cases. They are complicated, messy, and often times heart wrenching. But let’s put some misconceptions aside to begin with, some propagated by the most extreme and emotional participants in this debate.

Those of us that took issue with the handling of this case for the most part do not believe the doctors involved were evil, murdering individuals. There was no malicious intent from the NHS or physicians involved. I am sure the physicians meant well, from their point of view.

A second point: this was not a case about preservation of resources for the greater good. In this case, the parents had found alternative sources to fund the care they wished for their son.  So those arguing that we need to make such decision to prioritize money for those that can be aided the most is largely off target, and not relevant to the case at hand. I also don’t believe that the single payer system of the NHS in England inherently caused their mistakes; I think any system that is blind to its own deficiencies could lead to such mistakes.

That said, what were the issues that were in dispute here?

First and foremost, what was the ultimate intent of the care providers in this specific case?  Both sides basically admitted, early on, that Alfie’s prognosis was dire.  The reality is this child was likely going to die, and even the experts preferred by the parents readily admitted this in court documents.

Why is this important? Some have raised other scenarios in which health care providers supersede the decision making of parents, for the welfare of the child. I personally have used the example of a bleeding child of a Jehovah’s witness, who was prevented from getting a blood transfusion. A similar example would be a child with a severe deadly infection, like meningitis, being prevented from receiving life saving antibiotics because of religious reasons.

However, that wasn’t the issue in this case. There was no path which provided a clear method to improve the child’s prognosis.  All the choices in front of the decision makers were about treating a child that had no long term prospects whatsoever. In the court proceedings, all sides agreed on the medical facts of the case, including the parents. So this was very different from the cases above, for that very reason.

So, what was the primary intent of Alfie’s doctors, if not to cure him, or prolong his life?

The primary intent stated over and over again in court documents was the focus on reducing Alfie’s suffering to the minimal amount possible.

The ethics of suffering is a deep and complex issue, in and of itself. A widespread view, especially in non-Western traditions, is that “happiness” consists of the absence of suffering. In Hindu and Buddhist belief, tranquility or contentment are amongst the most valued sentiments.

However, there is a distinction to be made between an obligation not to cause suffering and an obligation to prevent suffering. Suffering-focused ethics is a belief that places primary or particular importance on the prevention of suffering. Most views that fall into this category are pluralistic in that they hold that other things besides reducing suffering also matter morally.

The problem with suffering based ethics is, the absolutist view of such thinking takes you to strange, even dark, places. For example, some countries have begun to start programs that actively intend on…eradicating Down’s Syndrome. Down’s Syndrome  is a genetic defect cause by Trisomy 21, which causes mental defects and delayed intellectual maturity, among other issues. Some societies have deemed it ‘suffering’…for such people to exist.

For most people, this is an extremist view that seems unacceptable. Even in the UK, support for such a policy is a minority position. But again, if your primary goal is to reduce suffering, in any sense of the word…then there is a sort of dark logic to it.

Therefore, if you feel that such a policy is going too far…you are admitting that suffering cannot be used an absolute criteria for making end of life decision. You are basically stipulating there are other issues that also matter.

The UK court and the Royal College of Pediatricians itself reviewed the question of when it was appropriate to remove life sustaining medical assistance, and came up with three clear scenarios. The first is when death is immediate and/or imminent; that was not the case here, as Alfie survived for several days even without ventilator assistance. A second reason is informed consent for withdrawal of treatment; the parents actually opposed withdrawal of support.

Now here is the remarkable point: the third reason, the argument they finally made, and that the judge finally accepted in this case, states that even if absence of suffering or pain, if life is limited in quality, support can be removed; in short, the child would be better off dead than alive.

Now, this is problematic on several levels.

First…what is the scientific basis of quality of life? Is there some medical method to quantify how much ‘quality’ of life exists in a person, objectively?

Obviously, the answer is ‘No’. The physicians, and the judge in the case, are making a faith based decision.  They are basing this on their own moral, religious, and personal beliefs. There is no practical scientific method they are pursuing here.

If suffering is not critical to making this decision, what is?  Who exactly are we benefiting in such a case?  We are not benefiting the child.  The people benefiting are the doctors, the medical system, possibly the parents.  The judge is stipulating here that the child’s benefit is not necessarily critical in these cases. That is a shocking admission.

Frankly, I would have preferred a more logical and sensible medically based argument from the government and the court. The judge repeatedly made unscientific claims to defend his position. For example, at one point when the parents wanted to fly the child to Italy, the judge claimed that the flight may itself cause seizures. Notably, he never provided any evidence for this claim. It was a irrational statement, based on nothing, and because he was the judge…such irrational non-scientific claims were acceptable.

A second sound, logical, but harsher argument: that in a system such as the UK NHS, where there is limited funds to take care of everyone, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and therefore, rationing care makes sense. At least that would be a logical explanation of their decision. The decision, as it stands, lacked logical cohesiveness, and certainly has no objective science basis.

The second major philosophical issue in this case is the concept of parental rights, and how paternalism in medicine is a growing trend. This case illustrates the worst abuses of the archaic medical philosophy of paternalism.

Paternalism is the belief that physicians and medical professionals, being more educated and knowledgeable about health issues, should decide what is in the patient’s best interests, without regard to the patient’s own wishes.

Paternalism was a common practice among doctors before the middle part of the 20th century. But as individual freedoms grew in the Western world, patient autonomy (the belief that patients were intelligent and knowledgeable enough to make decisions for themselves) became predominant.

Paternalism becomes problematic as you further and further narrow the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their child. This process has a long history in the United Kingdom. In England, the Supreme Court has ruled that in any legal conflict about what is in a child’s best interest, the child must have an state appointed ‘voice’. This was an abuse of an original law that was passed to help care for children when two parents disagreed over the care of a child, especially in divorce proceedings. It has now grown to mean the government can interfere with decisions, even when both parents agree.

The specifics of the legalities aside, what becomes an issue for medical providers is, where do parental rights start, and where do they end?

Defenders of the NHS and physicians in this case continue to argue that to reduce Alfie’s suffering even one iota is moral. That in and of itself is not as white and black as it appears at first glance, as argued above. To compound this error, the judge specifically states suffering of the child is not necessary to remove life sustaining medical efforts.

If as the judge says suffering of the child is not necessary to remove parental rights, what exactly is the ‘red line’ he is willing to draw to protect parental rights? In short, he is admitting that there is no such line. The whims of the court and doctors, in his opinion, can always supersede any wishes of the parents, with logic, reason, or medical evidence notwithstanding.

Once there is no clearly definable limits to parental rights, what the UK is generally saying is that no true parental right exists. The simple fact is, they are reducing the concept of parent rights to a new definition: parental rights until such time the government decides it is inconvenient. That is no right at all.

For physicians, this is extremely problematic. Physicians rely on the decision making of families, because we have deemed them as the best arbiter of the feelings and intent of the patient. If that isn’t the case anymore…where does that leave us?

This leaves us with a gray area in which Alfie was likely to die, and likely to die very soon.  His suffering was not dramatically more or less with one course of action versus another, no matter how hard his physicians were trying to claim it as such.

So ultimately, when this is distilled down to the basics, the question largely resides on whether you believe parental rights are a true cornerstone of society…or those rights are simply a suggestion that can be ignored upon the whim of government officials and doctors, based on their own flexible moral code.

It would be another matter if there was clear evidence of harm with the parental choices.  If a parent is abusive, or illogical, then the state may have the right to intercede. But short of that evidence, where is the evidence that doctors somehow have a superior moral code to the parents? We have already shown that medical evidence was not the pre-eminent basis for making the final decision to pull all medical assistance to Alfie…and as such, all that is left is morals and faith.

Ultimately, physicians must realize that their knowledge, regardless of how extensive it is, is limited. Science can only go so far. And frankly, doctors must admit they are flawed. Some argued that the parents were so emotionally invested, they couldn’t possibly make a logical choice in this situation. But any physician that has treated a child knows, we are human and we are emotionally invested too.

In their piece on The Case For Suffering-Focused Ethics, Lukas Gloor and Adriano Mannino put it this way:

Given the difficulty of this task, it is important that we do not make it even more complicated by placing unreasonable formal demands on our values. Likewise, it is important that we do not hastily subscribe to some particular view without remaining open to reflection. Ultimately, choosing values comes down to finding the intuitions and guiding principles we care about the most – and if that includes a number of different intuitions, or even some form of extrapolation procedure to defer to better-informed future versions of ourselves – then the solution may not necessarily look simple. This is completely fine, and it allows those who agree with (some of) the intuitions behind suffering-focused ethics to care about other things in addition.

Nations must decide for themselves whether or not they think parents are the cornerstone of their society. The right of a parent to make decisions for their child is one of the most basic belief systems that is universal throughout the world.

Physicians are experts on medicine and science. What they are not experts on is values, religion, ethics and personal morality, and they shouldn’t pretend to be experts on such things. And in cases where the science leaves us questioning the truth of the situation, and we are left in a gray area of doubt and uncertainty, physicians would be well served to openly admit their limitations, and defer to the people most fit to make such determinations: a patient’s loved ones.

About the author:

Pradheep J. Shanker M.D., M.S. is a practicing Diagnostic Radiologist in Columbus, Ohio. In addition to medicine, he is an activist on health policy and educational reforms.

Article source:The Health Care Blog

[courtly-j]

A reflection on 5 years law talkin’

I’m sat here in my study, enjoying the wind-down of my week of R&R with a cup of tea and listening to some music (I know - just a super hip and fun guy right here), and Human, by Jon Bellion comes on.  Only recently introduced to me, but it’s quickly moving its way up my list of favourite songs.

The central thread that runs through the song is the concept that regardless what we do, there will always be seeds of doubt which pervade our inner monologues.

I always fear that I’m not living right So I feel guilty when I go to church The pastor tells me I’ve been saved, I’m fine Then please explain to me why my chest still hurts I spent four thousand on the Mart McFlys Yet I’m still petrified of going broke There’s someone gorgeous in my bed tonight Yet I’m still petrified that I’ll die alone

For me, at least, the first verse (above) took inner-me straight to my career, which on Sunday chalks up 5 very long (and at the same time, very short) years.  Which, in turn, inevitably took me to the sitcom-esque (dfn. of, or pertaining to, situational comedies - you’re welcome) slideshow of the last 5 years of my life.  And what better place than here than to remember, ruminate and reflect.

I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer - I can’t point to any one thing, event or person which triggered it off.  There aren’t any in the family (even historically), nor in any of the family friends who were around growing up.  If I want to needle the grandparents, I say it’s because I watched A Few Good Men one day and thought I would look good in a uniform.  Intrinsically tangled with those intangible and inexplicable beginnings, however, has been an impulse towards service - whether in the form of government work or in the general sense of a profession - to serve the community in upholding the rule of law.

It tends to take people by surprise that I, with all my trappings of sarcasm and short temper, actually am that idealistic.  I do believe that a lawyer should strive to do good by all manner of men and women, not just those who have a large enough bank balance.  I do believe that a strong and independent legal profession is necessary for a functioning society.  I do believe that a person is innocent until they are fairly found guilty in accordance with law.  I do believe that a miscarriage of justice, without being put right, harms everyone; not just those parties before the Court.

I remember my admission ceremony in the old Banco Court - it was the afternoon session on 9 July 2012.  Chief Justice (now Governor) de Jersey presided (I don’t remember who sat with him - I vaguely remember Justice Mullins sitting, but not the third judge - it was a Justice of Appeal, I know that).  I even remember getting a nod from the Chief Justice when my application was formally moved.

I remember, particularly, the weeks leading up to that day - I won’t go into that here, but it wasn’t the welcome to the profession that I expected or wanted.

I remember the months which followed my admission, and the gradual, sickening, sinking feeling that I had made a terrible mistake.  To me, back then, I didn’t help people - I made things worse.  I just came along and gave them a massive bill at the end of the day which they couldn’t afford, with little to show for it.  I was tired; I was overworked; I was suffering from an existential crisis that made me question the years of planning and study which had led to that point.  Not a great position for someone who easily gets into their own head.

I remember the case which turned that around for me - the case that is my yardstick every time I reflect on my time in practice.  

I remember having a mention of a debt recovery matter at Holland Park Magistrates Court the next day, and being at my absolute wits end with it.  Late in the day, I get a call from my boss - this important client had referred this old lady, and I was to sort it out as a priority.  Being in the midst of preparation for Court, I was far from impressed.

So I gave the old bird a call to see what was so urgent that I had to divert my attention from my obviously much more important work.

Turns out, her daughter had recently been granted parole - a condition of that parole being that she wasn’t to have contact with her ex-partner.  Her daughter, enjoying time with her children, had been unceremoniously hauled back to prison with her parole revoked - all because, I was instructed, the ex-partner had contacted her, and she had told him where to go, by what means he could get there and had hung up - less than 13 seconds on the mobile call log.  The old lady was in a panic and had two little grandsons who were highly upset by mummy being dragged away by the policemen.  Me - I was just short-tempered that this was getting in the way of me getting ready for Court.

The very important client who had referred her had experience inside himself, and him being all well intentioned, had filed an urgent application seeking review of the decision to revoke the parole on her behalf.  He then, at the last second, told the old lady to arrange a lawyer for the hearing the next day.  At least, that was the information I got (turns out, it was just a mention, with proforma directions to be made).

Handily, I had just finished a matter with the legal officer at Crown Law who had the matter on behalf of the Parole Board and was able to beg a favour of her to appear as unpaid agent the next day to adjourn the matter until I had come up to speed (and more significantly, in my mind, had sorted out this debt recovery matter which was clearly more important).  She also asked me what our problem with the decision was, as the application (being drafted by a layperson) was as helpful in that department as may be expected.  I outlined my instructions, that there was no breach of the condition because my client hadn’t contacted anyone.

If we skip to the next morning, I’m at the Holland Park Magistrates Court impatiently waiting for my matter to be called.  My receptionist calls me at least 4 times in rapid succession.  On the last attempt, I answer and give her an earful, that I was at Court and nothing could be that urgent - she should know that.  She tells me that my opposite at Crown Law was on the line and urgently needed to talk to me.  As it transpired, my opposite had dug into the matter overnight and had made some independent enquiries.  I was told that the decision to revoke the parole had been made on unreliable (read: no) evidence, and she had recommended that her client withdraws its decision and reinstates the parole.  That recommendation had been accepted; the old lady and her grandsons could pick up my client from Brisbane Womens at midday.

I will always remember the call to the old lady - for most lawyers, there was nothing remarkable about a call such as that.  For me, it was my Damascene conversion.   Five years later, I still remember her name - both hers and her daughters.

There are many more cases which have made me question whether I still want to do this.  There are many cases where I find the phrase “who cares what the law says?” or “the client is always right - they pay the bills, they call the shots” gets forced down my throat.  The personal offence which I take each and every time one of those phrases gets tossed out is just a series of psychological and emotional paper cuts by this point.  

To bring this full circle - I’ll dip back into the lyrics to Human:

See I got GPS on my phone And I can follow it to get home If my location’s never unknown Then tell me why I still feel lost

The cases which give me a sense of drive and purpose, like the one I recalled above, are, unfortunately (and perhaps, naively), few and far between.  The work I do for Caxton, on the whole, gives me my professional lifeline back to my ideals and my modus operandi.  But - there are times where the balance dangerously shifts, and my inner monologue starts asking whether this is what I want to be doing.

For now, I guess it is.  

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

t the root of Trump’s new fury: Total contempt for American democracy By Greg Sargent March 6 at 9:49 AM What you need to know about Trump's wiretapping claim  Play Video2:25 Here's what happened after President Trump fired off a tweet accusing former president Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower before the 2016 election. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) THE MORNING PLUM:

President Trump is now wallowing in fury, we are told, because he can’t make the Russia story disappear; he can’t stem the leaks to the media; and he can’t seem to realize his promises. Some reports tell us that unflattering comparisons to Barack Obama’s early accomplishments are “gnawing at Trump,” while others say he went “ballistic” when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe, because it telegraphed capitulation to Trump’s foes.

But all of these things are connected by a common thread: Trump is enraged at being subjected to a system of democratic and institutional constraints, for which he has signaled nothing but absolute, unbridled contempt. The system is pushing back, and he can’t bear it.

Read These Comments The best conversations on The Washington Post Sign up On Monday morning, the latest chapter in this tale — Trump’s unsupported accusation that Obama wiretapped his phones — took another turn. Trump’s spokeswoman said on ABC News that Trump does not accept FBI Director James Comey’s claim — which was reported on over the weekend — that no such wiretapping ever happened.

As E.J. Dionne writes, this episode is a “tipping point” in the Trump experiment. Trump leveled the charge based on conservative media. Then, after an internal search for evidence to back it up produced nothing, the White House press secretary called on Congress to investigate it and declared the administration’s work done. While the previous administration did wiretap, the problem is the recklessness and baselessness of Trump’s specific allegations, and the White House’s insistence that the burden of disproving them must fall on others — on Congress and on the FBI. Trump’s allegations must be humored at all costs, simply because he declared them to be true — there can be no admission of error, and worse, the White House has declared itself liberated from the need to even pretend to have evidence to back up even Trump’s most explosive claims.

[Trump needs an intervention]

This is more than disdain for the truth. It represents profound contempt for our democratic and institutional processes. In this sense, it’s only the latest in what has become a broader pattern:

When the media accurately reported on Trump’s inaugural crowd sizes, the White House not only contested this on the substance in a laughably absurd manner. It also accused the press of intentionally diminishing Trump’s crowd count, thus trying to delegitimize the news media’s institutional act of holding Trump accountable to factual reality. Trump has tweeted that the media is the “enemy of the American people” and has accused the media of covering up terrorist plots. Stephen K. Bannon has railed against the press as “the opposition party.” Trump gave a recent speech heavily devoted to attacking the media, once again for deliberately and knowingly misleading Americans. All this goes far beyond merely questioning the media’s role as an arbiter of truth. After getting elected, Trump continued to repeat the lie that millions voted illegally in the election, undermining faith in American democracy. When the media called out this falsehood, the White House threatened an investigation to prove it true, which hasn’t materialized, in effect using the vow of investigations as nothing more than a tool to obfuscate efforts to hold him accountable. After a court blocked Trump’s travel ban, Trump questioned the institutional legitimacy of the “so-called judge” in question. He also cast the stay as a threat to our security, even though the ban has no credible national security rationale, something that has now been demonstrated by leaks from the Department of Homeland Security (exactly the sort of leaking that has Trump in a fury). Senior adviser Stephen Miller flatly declared that the ban would be reintroduced in part to demonstrate that Trump’s national security power “will not be questioned,” thus declaring the explicit goal of sweeping away institutional checks on it. And then the White House delayed introduction of the new ban in order to continue basking in good press from his speech to Congress, thus undercutting its own claim that this is an urgent national security matter. Trump continues to hold court at Mar-a-Lago, using the power of the presidency to promote his own resort, whose membership fees sink money into his own pockets. The White House publicly intervened in a business dispute involving Trump’s daughter and even tried to steer customers her way, an act which Kellyanne Conway embellished by cheerfully sticking a rhetorical middle finger in the face of anyone who finds such behavior troubling. We’re witnessing a level of total disdain for basic democratic and institutional processes that defies description, and perhaps calls for a new vocabulary. But the story does not end here. As Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic explain in a great piece, the almost comical lack of good faith that Trump and the White House are showing toward our processes is inspiring an escalation in institutional pushback — from the courts, the media, government leakers, and civil society — that is having much more of a constraining effect than Trump ever could have anticipated. Indeed, the Trump White House’s ongoing conduct is itself producing the very systemic resistance that now has Trump in such a rage.

[Trump: Bonkers, paranoid or trapped?]

*********************************************************

* BIG MAJORITY WANTS SPECIAL PROSECUTOR ON RUSSIA: A new CNN poll finds that nearly two thirds of Americans want a special prosecutor to examine potential contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign, including a large chunk of Republicans:

Among Republicans, a majority feel Congress can handle the investigation, but a sizable 43 percent support the call for a special prosecutor, as do majorities of Democrats (82 percent) and independents (67 percent). Overall, the poll finds that 65 percent would rather see a special prosecutor handle the investigation, while 32 percent think Congress is capable of handling it.

Meanwhile, the poll finds that Trump’s approval has barely budged — it’s 45 percent — which is odd, since pundits told us that his awesomely “presidential” speech would give him a bump.

* HERE COMES THE NEW, REVISED TRAVEL BAN: The Associated Press reports that Trump’s new immigration ban will be rolled out today or later this week:

The revised order is expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a 90-day U.S. travel ban. That follows pressure from the Pentagon and State Department … Other changes are also expected, including making clear that all existing visas will be honored and no longer singling out Syrian refugees for an indefinite ban. Syrian refugees will now be treated like other refugees and be subjected to a 120-day suspension of the refugee program.

It’s hard to say whether this one will fare better in court, but it’s worth noting that two Department of Homeland Security documents have now leaked undercutting the case for it.

What's in Trump's new travel ban  Play Video2:01 President Trump signed a new executive order on March 6, banning travelers from six majority-Muslim countries seeking new visas to enter the U.S. for 90 days and halting the refugee program for 120 days. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) * WHAT A WIRETAP OF TRUMP TOWER WOULD MEAN: Charlie Savage notes that the former president could not legally have wiretapped Trump Tower and adds:

If it was a criminal wiretap, it would mean that the Justice Department had gathered sufficient evidence to convince a federal judge that someone using the phone number or email address probably committed a serious crime. If it was a national security wiretap, it would mean a federal judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had a basis to believe the target was probably an agent of a foreign power, like Russia.

It seems unlikely at best that this happened, but it’s kind of amusing that Trump is alleging it, given what it would really mean in practice.

10 reactions to Trump’s wiretapping allegations against Obama  Play Video2:38 Former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. on March 5 denied that President Trump’s 2016 campaign was wiretapped while senators of both parties weighed in on the allegations. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) * DEMS SCHEME TO BLOCK TRUMP’S WALL: Axios reports that Chuck Schumer and other top Democrats are planning to filibuster the funding for Trump’s planned wall on the Mexican border, as a huge symbolic victory:

There’s nothing the Republicans would be willing to offer that could get Trump the eight Democratic Senators he needs to fund the wall … The way Democrats see it, if they can block the wall, they’d crush a central feature of Trump’s political identity. And … Schumer would thrill the Democratic base (though less so the red-state Democratic senators up in 2018).

Okay, but if Democrats really want to deal Trump a big blow on immigration, they should block funding for his proposal to add 10,000 agents to carry out mass deportations.

* RUSSIAN HACKERS TARGET LIBERAL GROUPS: Bloomberg scoops that Russia hackers are targeting a number of progressive groups, demanding “hush money” by using sensitive data they’ve obtained to blackmail them:

The hackers’ targeting of left-leaning groups — and the sifting of emails for sensitive or discrediting information — has set off alarms that the attacks could constitute a fresh wave of Russian government meddling in the U.S. political system … Some of the groups are associated with causes now under attack by the Trump administration.

The coincidences continue to mount.

* GOP HEALTH PLAN WILL ENRAGE EVERYBODY: Paul Krugman explains why the GOP’s repeal-and-replace bill seems destined to infuriate people all across the political spectrum:

Republicans have belatedly discovered what some of us tried to tell them all along: The only way to maintain coverage for the 20 million people who gained insurance thanks to Obamacare is with a plan that, surprise, looks a lot like Obamacare. Sure enough, the new plan reportedly does look like a sort of half-baked version of the Affordable Care Act … it’s enough like Obamacare to infuriate hard-line conservatives, but it weakens key aspects of the law enough to deprive millions of Americans … of essential health care.

But Republicans will be able to claim they finally liberated the country from Obamacare after seven long years of darkness and oppression, so who cares about the details?

* AND THE QUOTE OF THE DAY: Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, on NBC this morning:

“If the president walked across the Potomac, the media would report that he couldn’t swim.”

How long until Trump’s Ministers of Disinformation bash the media for refusing to report that he can walk on water?

[nancyedimick]

Short Circuit: A roundup of recent federal court decisions

(Here is the latest edition of the Institute for Justice’s weekly Short Circuit newsletter, written by John Ross.)

In 2014, a Colorado think tank wanted to run radio ads urging listeners to urge their elected officials to support criminal sentencing reforms but held off because it would have meant turning the names and addresses of the think tank’s donors over to the federal government. Click here to read an IJ amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to recognize that mandating such disclosures chills speech.

This week on the podcast: indefinite detention, lying child-welfare workers, and the SEC’s unconstitutional ALJs. Use iTunes? Click here. Read on, friends.

In 2014, New Hampshire legislators authorized abortion clinics to demarcate 25-foot buffer zones outside their facilities. Anti-abortion activists: Which violates our First Amendment rights. First Circuit: No clinic has set up such a zone, and it’s entirely speculative whether one ever will. So this challenge is not ripe.

Updated from last week: Deported illegal immigrant returns to U.S. to care for his terminally ill common-law wife and raise their grandson, who had been abandoned by their son. He also kicks their other son, a drug addict, out of the house. The other son informs the authorities of his father’s illegal status. Third Circuit (Dec. 30): In light of the too-lengthy but now-completed sentence the immigrant received, the terms of his supervised release should be relaxed. Third Circuit (Jan. 3): Hold off on that. Third Circuit (Jan. 9): And the Dec. 30 opinion is good law again. (Though he’s likely in ICE custody or deported at this point.)

Officers pull over two women in Brazoria County, Tex., and digitally probe their intimate areas for marijuana without a warrant (and without success) by the side of the road. Excessive force? Quite possibly, says the Fifth Circuit, so an officer who did not intervene to prevent the searches is not entitled to qualified immunity.

Law clerk at Texas appeals court suspects chief justice has committed financial misconduct, reports it. Allegation: The chief justice sees to it that a job offer offered to the clerk (by a different justice) is withdrawn. Illegal retaliation? The chief justice is not entitled to qualified immunity, said two-thirds of a Fifth Circuit panel last fall. This week: There is no cause to reconsider the matter.

Allegation: Decatur County, Tenn., officer attests that woman sold drugs; a grand jury indicts. Yikes! Video of the sale, which the officer did not review, shows a different woman. Sixth Circuit: False testimony to a grand jury is protected by absolute immunity, and the plaintiff cannot prove her malicious-prosecution claim without relying upon that testimony.

Oakland County, Mich., officer busts 19-year-old for pot, convinces her to turn informant. The officer lets slip her role in dealer’s arrest — during the arrest. The dealer murders her. Sixth Circuit: The teen’s mother can sue the officer.

In order for family members of legal immigrants to obtain approval to stay in the country, they must arrive after the principal visa holder. Feds: So a Lebanese immigrant who arrived 24 days before his father (in 1995) and was mistakenly permitted to stay cannot become a naturalized citizen (in 2017). Sixth Circuit: That’s what the law says.

Bay County, Mich., guard smuggles prescription mouthwash into jail for inmate with untreated gum disease. No good deed! Gossip about the incident prompts an investigation into prescription drug trafficking by guards. Sixth Circuit: A different guard who pushed back against the investigation (by urging fellow guards to disobey orders) cannot sue over his discharge — which was perhaps also motivated by his admission that he had sex with an inmate.

District court: A Sac County, Iowa, officer’s claim that he smelled marijuana emanating from a suspect’s apartment from 20 feet away (in windy weather) was plainly untrue. Suppress the evidence. Eighth Circuit: Reversed. The suspect’s statements to an investigator two days after the search were sufficiently attenuated from the defective search warrant.

Apple prohibits third-party developers from selling apps to iPhone users without Apple’s permission, which entails developers turning over a 30 percent cut of their sales. An antitrust violation? Plaintiffs have standing to find out, says the Ninth Circuit.

Allegation: Maricopa County, Ariz., corrections officials assign female guards to stand guard in close proximity to male pretrial detainees as they shower. A Fourth Amendment violation? The complaint should not have been dismissed, says the Ninth Circuit.

Drug doggie alerts to airline passenger’s carry-on; DEA agents find no drugs (or at least don’t mention any to the court). But they do find nearly $100k in cash. The passenger misses 35-day deadline to challenge forfeiture by three minutes, purportedly because an overnight delivery service failed to perform as advertised. Ninth Circuit: Three minutes late and a hundred thousand dollars short.

Allegation: Florida officers accessed DMV data on woman and her husband over 600 times without a legitimate law-enforcement purpose. Eleventh Circuit (2016): The statute of limitations started running on their Driver’s Privacy Protection Act claims when the violations occurred, not when the couple found out about them (via a public records request). They can’t sue. Eleventh Circuit (2017): Same deal with their Section 1983 claims.

SWAT team bursts into drug suspect’s home, ignites flash-bang grenade “very close” to nine-month-old. Indiana court (over a dissent): Unreasonable use of force. Suppress the evidence.

On news programs, lawyers allege that hospital used screws not approved for medical use in spinal surgeries and billed insurers $12k per screw (which cost only $65). Hospital owner: That’s all untrue, and I didn’t hire prostitutes to ply physicians for referrals either. California court: The lawyers’ allegations were presented in the context of the lawsuit they had just filed, so it’s not defamation. The hospital owner (who previously pled guilty to bribing a state congressman, among other things) can pay the lawyers’ legal fees.

Man allegedly grows marijuana in sizable greenhouse in his backyard. Police destroy the greenhouse with chainsaws, vehicles and leave a bit of a mess. Texas court: Could be an unconstitutional taking.

Many states do not adequately protect innocent people from having their property forfeited by law enforcement. But only a handful go so far as to require property owners to post a bond before they can challenge a civil forfeiture in court. Fortunately, Michigan is no longer among them. This month, Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation repealing the requirement that owners cough up between $250 and $5,000 within 20 days of a seizure or automatically lose their property. (Gone too is the gov’t’s ability to force property owners who challenged a forfeiture and lost to pay for the gov’t’s litigation expenses.) That leaves four states — Hawaii, Illinois, Rhode Island and Tennessee — that impose such a bond requirement. Read more here.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/01/16/short-circuit-a-roundup-of-recent-federal-court-decisions-38/

[wolfandpravato]

Short Circuit: A roundup of recent federal court decisions

(Here is the latest edition of the Institute for Justice’s weekly Short Circuit newsletter, written by John Ross.)

In 2014, a Colorado think tank wanted to run radio ads urging listeners to urge their elected officials to support criminal sentencing reforms but held off because it would have meant turning the names and addresses of the think tank’s donors over to the federal government. Click here to read an IJ amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to recognize that mandating such disclosures chills speech.

This week on the podcast: indefinite detention, lying child-welfare workers, and the SEC’s unconstitutional ALJs. Use iTunes? Click here. Read on, friends.

In 2014, New Hampshire legislators authorized abortion clinics to demarcate 25-foot buffer zones outside their facilities. Anti-abortion activists: Which violates our First Amendment rights. First Circuit: No clinic has set up such a zone, and it’s entirely speculative whether one ever will. So this challenge is not ripe.

Updated from last week: Deported illegal immigrant returns to U.S. to care for his terminally ill common-law wife and raise their grandson, who had been abandoned by their son. He also kicks their other son, a drug addict, out of the house. The other son informs the authorities of his father’s illegal status. Third Circuit (Dec. 30): In light of the too-lengthy but now-completed sentence the immigrant received, the terms of his supervised release should be relaxed. Third Circuit (Jan. 3): Hold off on that. Third Circuit (Jan. 9): And the Dec. 30 opinion is good law again. (Though he’s likely in ICE custody or deported at this point.)

Officers pull over two women in Brazoria County, Tex., and digitally probe their intimate areas for marijuana without a warrant (and without success) by the side of the road. Excessive force? Quite possibly, says the Fifth Circuit, so an officer who did not intervene to prevent the searches is not entitled to qualified immunity.

Law clerk at Texas appeals court suspects chief justice has committed financial misconduct, reports it. Allegation: The chief justice sees to it that a job offer offered to the clerk (by a different justice) is withdrawn. Illegal retaliation? The chief justice is not entitled to qualified immunity, said two-thirds of a Fifth Circuit panel last fall. This week: There is no cause to reconsider the matter.

Allegation: Decatur County, Tenn., officer attests that woman sold drugs; a grand jury indicts. Yikes! Video of the sale, which the officer did not review, shows a different woman. Sixth Circuit: False testimony to a grand jury is protected by absolute immunity, and the plaintiff cannot prove her malicious-prosecution claim without relying upon that testimony.

Oakland County, Mich., officer busts 19-year-old for pot, convinces her to turn informant. The officer lets slip her role in dealer’s arrest — during the arrest. The dealer murders her. Sixth Circuit: The teen’s mother can sue the officer.

In order for family members of legal immigrants to obtain approval to stay in the country, they must arrive after the principal visa holder. Feds: So a Lebanese immigrant who arrived 24 days before his father (in 1995) and was mistakenly permitted to stay cannot become a naturalized citizen (in 2017). Sixth Circuit: That’s what the law says.

Bay County, Mich., guard smuggles prescription mouthwash into jail for inmate with untreated gum disease. No good deed! Gossip about the incident prompts an investigation into prescription drug trafficking by guards. Sixth Circuit: A different guard who pushed back against the investigation (by urging fellow guards to disobey orders) cannot sue over his discharge — which was perhaps also motivated by his admission that he had sex with an inmate.

District court: A Sac County, Iowa, officer’s claim that he smelled marijuana emanating from a suspect’s apartment from 20 feet away (in windy weather) was plainly untrue. Suppress the evidence. Eighth Circuit: Reversed. The suspect’s statements to an investigator two days after the search were sufficiently attenuated from the defective search warrant.

Apple prohibits third-party developers from selling apps to iPhone users without Apple’s permission, which entails developers turning over a 30 percent cut of their sales. An antitrust violation? Plaintiffs have standing to find out, says the Ninth Circuit.

Allegation: Maricopa County, Ariz., corrections officials assign female guards to stand guard in close proximity to male pretrial detainees as they shower. A Fourth Amendment violation? The complaint should not have been dismissed, says the Ninth Circuit.

Drug doggie alerts to airline passenger’s carry-on; DEA agents find no drugs (or at least don’t mention any to the court). But they do find nearly $100k in cash. The passenger misses 35-day deadline to challenge forfeiture by three minutes, purportedly because an overnight delivery service failed to perform as advertised. Ninth Circuit: Three minutes late and a hundred thousand dollars short.

Allegation: Florida officers accessed DMV data on woman and her husband over 600 times without a legitimate law-enforcement purpose. Eleventh Circuit (2016): The statute of limitations started running on their Driver’s Privacy Protection Act claims when the violations occurred, not when the couple found out about them (via a public records request). They can’t sue. Eleventh Circuit (2017): Same deal with their Section 1983 claims.

SWAT team bursts into drug suspect’s home, ignites flash-bang grenade “very close” to nine-month-old. Indiana court (over a dissent): Unreasonable use of force. Suppress the evidence.

On news programs, lawyers allege that hospital used screws not approved for medical use in spinal surgeries and billed insurers $12k per screw (which cost only $65). Hospital owner: That’s all untrue, and I didn’t hire prostitutes to ply physicians for referrals either. California court: The lawyers’ allegations were presented in the context of the lawsuit they had just filed, so it’s not defamation. The hospital owner (who previously pled guilty to bribing a state congressman, among other things) can pay the lawyers’ legal fees.

Man allegedly grows marijuana in sizable greenhouse in his backyard. Police destroy the greenhouse with chainsaws, vehicles and leave a bit of a mess. Texas court: Could be an unconstitutional taking.

Many states do not adequately protect innocent people from having their property forfeited by law enforcement. But only a handful go so far as to require property owners to post a bond before they can challenge a civil forfeiture in court. Fortunately, Michigan is no longer among them. This month, Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation repealing the requirement that owners cough up between $250 and $5,000 within 20 days of a seizure or automatically lose their property. (Gone too is the gov’t’s ability to force property owners who challenged a forfeiture and lost to pay for the gov’t’s litigation expenses.) That leaves four states — Hawaii, Illinois, Rhode Island and Tennessee — that impose such a bond requirement. Read more here.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/01/16/short-circuit-a-roundup-of-recent-federal-court-decisions-38/