Being an attorney, I had to laugh at the story about the web site FireGeorgeKarl. George Karl is the coach of the Denver Nuggets. These fire the coach web sites related to the coaches of sports franchises have become popular. There is even one out there called FireAvery.com. Avery Johnson is the coach of the Dallas Mavericks who are owned by my brother Mark Cuban. The absurdity of these sites and the notion that they have any effect on NBA decision making is self evident but hey, everyone has an opinion and the right to voice it as long as it does not cross into the area of slander and defamation.

What I found funny about the FireGeorgeKarl site was the Coach Karl’s attorney, Brett Adams, of the law firm of Adams, Babner and Gitlitz also decided to voice his opinion by email sent to the owner of the site. I guess Mr. Adams never bothered to read my DATAPINBALL post about thinking before you hit send……… His email threatening to “sue the owner of the site into bankruptcy” pinballed to the expected path of least resistance…… The owner of the site did exactly what I would have done. He posted the email on his web site……

What is ironic is that Mr. Adams impugned the quality of the web site owner’ life, asking if he had nothing better to do than to create such web sites…..

Mr. Adams obviously had nothing better to do than do take a three step process into legal idiocy….(Something every attorney has frankly done at one time or another including myself) The first step was to lose his temper over nothing at all; the second step was to write an email about it while he was still pissed; the third step was to hit send….

Talk about reducing your reputation value! Once more time the point is made that attorneys, especially attorneys with huge egos, have zero sense of humor…… That email was not written out of rational legal analysis, it was not written out of rational desire to achieve it a legal result. It was written out of sheer ego and a sense of self inflated importance……. This is an ailment very common to the legal profession. Now I will concede that Mr. Adams may very well have been instructed by George Karl to take some action but I doubt that Mr. Karl dictated the specific action to take….. Ego combined with carte blanche is a dangerous combination…….

I have a suggestion for Coach Karl. If he really wants to get results he should can Brett Adams as his counsel and retain the firm of Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Rabinowitz….. Three savage Jews that will tear the skin off you…. They kicked ass for Archie Bunker……

So let it be written……. So let it be done……

Former high priced hooker/escort Ashley Alexandra Dupre’s (aka Kirsten) is ready to cash in big time on her “client #9 fame” liaisons with disgraced and soon to be indicted former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.   She shouldn’t buy the Park Avenue Penthouse just yet…. 

It is my bet that the tabloids, mainstream press and the blogosphere will make make more out of her projected multi-millionaire status than she will ever see a penny of.  The “Cuban Crystal Ball” is telling me that unless she rolls both her civil and criminal liability into an immunity grant in exchange for her testimony against Spitzer, before the year is out she will be facing both federal and state indictment as well as civil liability for income tax evasion and back taxes.  I admittedly know very little about the area of the law but if I were on the government side I would already be working on a “levy” against any profits she gets from appearances on the talk circut,magazine appearances clothed and unclothed and books. Even if she is able to roll any criminal tax liability into any criminal testimony for the government, I find it very hard to believe she will get a pass on the civil tax liability…..

Any criminal and civil tax attorneys out there to comment?

The Dallas Morning news is reporting that a former judge now running for Cook County District Attorney (on the Oklahoma border) committed prosecutorial misconduct during the murder trial of a man accused of raping women twenty years ago.  Judge Mike Snipes concluded that the Court of Criminal Appeals should grant Clay Chabot a new trial because Janice Warder, the lead prosecutor in the case, failed to disclose information favorable to the defense that could have changed the jury’s verdict.

The 10-page finding said that Ms. Warder did not tell Mr. Chabot’s defense attorneys about inconsistent statements by his brother-in-law Gerald Pabst, whom DNA tests now show to be the rapist. The judge also said that Ms. Warder did not disclose discussions with another witness about her not being interested in prosecuting him for drug dealing.

Ms. Warder violated what is called “The Brady Rule“. This is a court ruling that requires the prosecution to turn over to the defense evidence which may be “exculpatory”(which may prove the defendant’s innocence)  This was a court ruling in the 1963 Supreme Court  case Brady v. Maryland.

I admit that I have long since forgotten anything I learned about criminal law and procedure in law school and studying for the Texas Bar Exam.  I also admit that anything I know about criminal law is as a result of watching re-runs of Law and Order and Law and Order SVU ad-naseum…..   That makes it easy for me. When someone asks me for advice in the criminal law area, I simply research a particular Law and Order episode, tell the person when that episode will air and to watch it and send them a bill……. Well not really but I do know some attorneys who I would swear practice law that way…… Sure as hell beats going to the law library or paying for Lexis…..  Law and Order comes with my basic cable so it saves me a hell of a lot of money in legal research…..

In any event, I digress…….

I was simply shocked that the article inferred that there was no administrative or criminal legal recourse against Ms. Warder for her conduct in the trial. I clearly recall a Law and Order episode entitled “Under The Influence” that dealt with this issue. 

In this episode, Jack McCoy withheld the statement of a flight attendant whose testimony would have resulted in a lesser charge for person accused of murder by running over some people while drunk. He even encouraged her to leave the country during trial!   There was clear implication in the show that this was prosecutorial misconduct and sanctionable…. 

Jack gets off the hook but hey I love Law and Order, don’t you?

Jack McCoy is my idol.  Isn’t he yours?  I have every episode ever broadcast Tivo’d.  I am sure you do too.  I think I could have bypassed law school and just watched Jack McCoy prepare and try cases.  I would pass the bar and be the best trial attorney ever!  Isn’t that what you did?  I love Jack!  He wins the great majority of his cases, and certainly all his rape cases!  He withholds evidence from the defense and walks away without as much as a slap on the wrist!  He lies to witnesses and defendants and it is okay!  Jack makes inflammatory comments not supported by the evidence to the media and he is a hero for it!   His trial arguments are often emotional and not based on any evidence, but no one objects and he gets the conviction! 

Wait, there is a catch here.  Sam Waterston, who plays Jack McCoy, is an actor – not an attorney.  Sam Waterston, after committing all those terrible legal sins every episode, gets to go home to his wife and kids every night and read his script for his next episode.  

Does anything happen to Janice Warden for her legal sins which in my book are no less egregious twenty years later? 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating some “absolution” for guy on the receiving end of the misconduct….. If you read the article, he is clearly a bad guy and contrary to popular believe the ends often due justify the means. 

What I am concerned about is the drunk driving rule which states for every time you get pulled over for drunk driving, you drove drunk up to 100 times without getting caught. (I can’t remember where I heard that) There has to be an innocent schmoe caught up in that math somewhere……

Maybe I am just naïve and Dallas Justice and justice everywhere is just like the Law and Order television show….

What am I missing here…..

Once again, the premise that attorneys have no sense of humor is proven. This time by a Houston attorney named, Mark Bennett who took some shots at me in his Criminal Defense Blog. It is ironic that I would argue that failure to service and/or communicate with the client is the most excusable in the criminal defense arena where it is about immediate results against huge consequences for a bad one…. If Mark gets me off on a murder rap, I certainly would overlook no returned calls…..

I must have really struck a nerve down there with my “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT BLOG or maybe it was my criticism of Rusty Hardin. Other than my comments about Rusty, (which I am sure he read and was traumatized to no end) I went back and looked at the ‘SHIT BLOG”. Maybe I was off base and should clarify, quantify, rectify and every other “fy” out there……. It really does not matter does it…? I am sure that other than obviously making Mr. Bennett uncomfortable, my little read thoughts will not have much effect on the state of attorney-client service in the State of Texas

I however I frankly think I am in a better position to opine on the subject than the Mark Bennetts of the world…. Why do you say? I say this because I can be more objective in that I am not beholding to any special interests…… What special interests do you ask? The largest legal special interest out there that 90 percent of attorney’s rely on to get their business…….. Other attorneys.

There is a warm blanket of honesty attached with not needing referral business as I am sure Mr. Bennett does……

Time to go get my bicycle hose out of the closet. Need to “self’ inflate” my reputation value….. I have no doubt Mr. Bennett uses one of those electric heavy duty ones to deal with his ego……