I generally try to keep all  my blog content original and don’t repost articles but this was too good to pass up and speaks for itself….   This appeared in the Austin American Statesman.  Having been watching the great HBO mini-series “John Adams“,  I can’t help but think he would have approved….

Lawyer jailed over lewd gesture at judge Man detained briefly while representing DWI client.

By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, March 21, 2008

An Austin defense lawyer was jailed last week after being accused of making a lewd gesture at a judge while in court representing a client on charges of driving while intoxicated.

Adam Reposa, 33, was held in contempt of court by County-Court-at-Law Judge Jan Breland for his “intentional and contumacious conduct during the court’s review of the plea bargain offer to his client before jury trial.”

Reposa, who could not be reached for comment, “made a simulated masturbatory gesture with his hand while making eye contact with the court in response to an objection by the state to his interference with the court plea bargain inquiry,” Breland wrote in a judgment of criminal contempt of court filed March 11.

Breland, who also could not be reached, noted that she and prosecutor Richard Gentry witnessed the gesture and “acknowledged so on the record.”

Breland ordered Reposa taken into custody and returned to court the next morning for a sentencing hearing. Handwritten on the bottom of the order above the initials “JB” was: “No bond without my approval.”

However, Reposa was released later that day on a personal bond signed by state District Judge Charlie Baird, who said the law requires that judges set bond in lawyer-contempt cases.

It does not appear from court records that further action on the case has occurred since his release.

skreytak@statesman.com; 912-2946

Who out there does not know a good lawyers joke…..   Who out there is really not joking when they tell it?   My favorite is “What are 200 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean…Answer:  A good start……

Why is that my favorite?  It is actually a truism.  There are way too many lawyers in this country…  There are way too many law schools in this country.  As of the writing of this article there were 196 ABA accredited law schools. There are more law students than lawyers in this country.  Law schools have ceased being places of distinguished legal ideals as their primary purpose and are now simply profit centers in their own right constantly looking for new ways to generate revenue to compete for more students and a very shallow pool of legal teaching talent

My town of Dallas, Texas recently tried to get an initiative through the Texas Legislature that would add a new law school based in Downtown Dallas. This law school would have been part of the University of North Texas.   Just what we need. Another substandard law school turning out more soon to be unemployed lawyers selling the “paper chase” Harvard ideal of what lawyers can expect in the real world in exchange for handing over that almighty dollar.  Thank god it was shot down but it is expected to pass in the next legislative session.

Bad new everyone….. No matter what you do, you are going to stick some half-ass school in there that will always be that.  What’s the goal here anyways?   What is it you expect to be in ten years……? In twenty years…….  Maybe you will raise your ranking from the worst to the second worst?   A worthy goal worthy of our legislative support…..   We all know what the real goal is and it is nothing as noble as educational ideals….. MONEY!

The good news is that I do have a solution.  First off we take the bottom half of all law schools and close them.  Unless of course my law school, The University of Pittsburgh is in that half.  If it is we close all law schools below my school. Self preservation of course starts with me…..   We give all disenfranchised law students educational incentives/financial credits to continue their education in areas that will benefit society and which they will actually be employable such as teaching. For those who actually think they can benefit the legal profession, they can complete with everyone else for the slots at the top tier schools.

We should also be able to sell our law degrees.  Let the free market Rule.  Lets devise a national bar exam specifically for that purpose.  If someone passes the test, their score will dictate the law degree they can purchase.   The higher the score the better the school…  We will start seeing law degrees for sale on EBay.  The market will set the worth of your education….. The only legal requirement will be that any money you get first has to pay back your student loan.  What the hell… you were not paying back anyways ………   Good luck selling that Metropolitan Dallas YMCA Night School of Law degree….. 

For those who oppose these measures ……

What are fifty thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean

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…..