Things to NOT do when stopped by the police … or in the alternative make sure you’ve got one of my business cards.
THE VICTIM (FINE) SURCHARGE – a brief history.
How Having a Baby Can Land a Woman in Jail | Alternet
CRIMINALIZING PREGNANT DRUG USE IS PROBLEMATIC – Particularly when we legally define a foetus as not being a human being until after emerging alive from the womb. Test the baby and if found positive for drugs, seize and remove the baby, charge and imprison the mother. I’m having difficulty in seeing the positive aspects of this policy.
EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE – can be dangerously inaccurate
EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE – can be dangerously inaccurate and easily lead to miscarriages of justice. “Fleeting observations that generate misidentification are a notorious cause of wrongful convictions.” Justice Melvyn Green
INTEGRITY – Global TV anchor Leslie Roberts suspended | Toronto Star
I have always believed that the way to success is to work hard, develop skills, be honest, put my client’s interests above my own and have integrity. I have kept to that philosophy even when it has cost me and my family personally. But then you run across someone with a totally different self-serving at the cost of every one else, under the table philosophy of someone like this guy and it makes me feel like a fool…a complete idiot. I could play that game and I could play it well, but I chose not to, because it’s not right.
FALSE CONFESSIONS
If you’ve ever wondered why a lawyer will always advise you not to give a statement to the police – if you’ve ever wondered why some people make false confessions – if you’ve ever wondered why I’m against the Reid interrogation technique – watch this 20 min. video. Some police are very skilled at inducing false confessions – which lead to wrongful convictions.
Beloit College: The Lunchbox Series with Larry White – YouTube.
Public pays millions for legal fees of federal judges under investigation | Toronto Star
I wonder why the Judges are not limited to the assistance of duty counsel or the $100/hour legal aid rate paid to lawyers and subject to the financial income eligibility criterion of about $12,000/annum, if their defence is publicly funded? That’s all any other accused person is afforded.
Public pays millions for legal fees of federal judges under investigation | Toronto Star.
New Year, new laws: Everything you need to know about this year’s big bills | CTV News
THE DRUG WAR IS THE NEW JIM CROW
If a government wants to control a portion of the population they determine their cultural distinction and criminalize it. “In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African-Americans.” The drug was is the new Jim Crow.
Book Excerpt: Understanding the New Jim Crow | BillMoyers.com.
Alcohol-Induced Blackouts | Jim Wigmore | LinkedIn
James Wigmore knows a lot about alcohol. If after drinking you don’t remember what you did, does that mean you have a defence for what you did?