Out of the Loop

My posts have been a little few and far between lately because of some personal things going on in my life. I'm working on it, so hopefully I will be back with a little more regularity in the near future.

There were some great articles for discussion this weekend that would have made great posts, but I kind of missed the boat. So here's my discount version:

Story # 1: Rick Casey's column on a visiting judge ordering urinalysis on acquitted defendant: As much as it pains me to agree with Papa Smurf on anything, I have to admit that he's mostly right on this one. What in the hell was the judge thinking?

Long story short: A visiting civil court judge, presiding over a criminal trial orders the Defendant to have a urinalysis while the jury is deliberating. The judge makes her intentions known that she will allow the results to be admissible during the punishment phase, should the jury reach it.

The jury acquits. Judge makes her take the urinalysis anyway, at the Defendant's own expense.

It doesn't take a lawyer, or even an aspiring law school student to realize this is not right.

The big issue on this to me is that somewhere, it should be codified that visiting civil court judges should not be allowed to "visit" in criminal courts. And vice versa. When dealing with civil law and criminal law, it is truly the proverbial "apples and oranges" situation, and what happened with Casey Price most definitely should not have happened. Any criminal judge would have known that.

That being said, I think that Paul LaValle including the rookie prosecutor in the law suit is preposterous. The vast amount of rookie prosecutors would try their cases pantless if a judge told them to, because they just don't know any better. Picking on this prosecutor for not jumping up and down when a judge was ordering something is over-reaching, and bullying. Unless you really want to base your legal career on the teachings of Lloyd Kelley, I would spend some time considering how far your law suit goes.

Back off the young prosecutor, Mr. LaValle, and focus your lawsuit on where it should be focused.

Story # 2: Sheila Jackson Lee calls for Inquiry Into Harris County Criminal Justice System. Citing numerous "bad court thingys", Sheila Jackson Lee called for a Congressional Inquiry into the Harris County Criminal Justice system. She cited the Joe Horn "no bill" and the Chuck Rosenthal scandal as reasoning behind the need for an inquiry.

Um, okay.

It would be very interesting to see how exactly this "inquiry" would be set up.

Would it be calling the thousands of inmates who have been arrested and incarcerated in the Harris County Jail to appear before Congress and ask them if they enjoyed their experience?

Would it be hauling in all every prosecutor and Sheriff's deputy to Capital Hill and asking them if they were card carrying members of the Legion of Doom?

Or perhaps, is this, shockingly, Sheila Jackson Lee doing her typical grandstanding once she realized she could make a "bold" statement by denouncing something that is allegedly systematic.

Here's a newsflash for you, Sheila. There are going to be these things called "elections" in November that can potentially make a bigger difference in the way things are run than you ever will. I know that you are probably still sweating how to apologize to your constituents for supporting Hilary over Obama, but anyone with half a brain knows that you are only good for a sound-byte that will, most likely, bring you more contempt than admiration.

Besides, Congress has much more important things to deal with, like determining whether or not Roger Clemens ever used steroids or something of National importance like that.