I officially graduate from Law School today. Hurray for me.

Coincidentally, today is also my anniversary. 7 years. Hurray for me again.

It’s funny that it worked out like this… I went to my law school’s evening classes, while working full time. When people hear that they marvel and ask if it was hard. My answer is always that I didn’t have it so bad, and that my wife took on all of the extra responsibilities. She took care of the house, meals, kids, bedtimes… and all while working part time.

That’s friggin hard.

A desk job and evening school? Psh… nothing compared to real life.

So it’s funny that I’m graduating on my anniversary, but it’s fitting because my wife is the reason I am graduating.

This post is something I have been thinking on for a while, but Laura McWilliams prompted me to post it with her Love of the Law, part 2 post.

I went into law school with a gut feeling that I could never defend criminals, and that if I went into Criminal Law it would be as a prosecutor.

Then I was introduced, through the eyes of cases skimmed during class and through the perspective of the Criminal Defense attorneys I “met” through twitter, to the Criminal Injustice system of our country.

I mentioned in an earlier post that my Maryland Criminal Practice class was taught by Judge Dana Levitz. Judge Levitz was the State’s Attorney in Baltimore County for a number of years, and he has many incredibly interesting stories from his time as a prosecutor.

I think the best way I can sum up the way I feel about criminal law now is with the following story:

One particular story involved two young men who were driving in a pickup truck, on their way to rob a colored tile store. While en route, they saw an older gentleman driving a moped. The passenger of the of truck told the driver that “he was going to get that moped” and to pull up alongside the older man. When the truck caught up and was even with the moped, the passenger reached out the window with a gun and shot the older man in the head. At that point, they drove off.

An oncoming car witnessed the truck pulling even with the moped, heard a loud bang, and saw the old man fall. The witnesses called 911 and the police caught the two men in the truck, but they had no idea which of them actually shot the older man.

During interrogation, the driver gave a statement with all of the information — that they were going to rob a store, that the passenger told the driver to pull up and that he didn’t know what the passenger was going to do, and that the passenger shot the older man. It turned out that the passenger had a long history of violent crime, and it was the driver’s first offense. The driver had just graduated college, and was joining the Navy. The prosecution cut a deal with the driver; if he testified, the State would only ask for 20 years. The State asked for death for the passenger.

While hearing this horrific story from the prosecutor of the case, the first thing I felt was pity and sympathy for the victim and his family. I mean, I really felt for them; ever since I had kids, I find myself tearing up whenever family is implicated in anything — hell, cheesy cartoon movies can have me furtively wiping the corner of my eye.

The next thing I felt was outrage. But not towards the defendants. Here’s the prosecutor who recognizes that the driver is a young man with a whole life ahead of him. He graduated from college already. He went to college and graduated — you can imagine how proud his family is of him. He is already enlisted in the Navy and ships in a matter of months. Off to serve his country. The prosecutor recognizes all of this and offers a plea bargain — only 20 years instead of death. 20 years. Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that those 20 years will completely nullify whatever positive direction his life was going previously? 20 years in jail, where his country will serve him (only in terms of the cost of incarceration, obviously).

I won’t discuss the death penalty; you might like to know that though the passenger was convicted and sentenced to death, he is still alive on Maryland’s death row.

I love justice. I truly and deeply feel for victims and their families and the suffering they are forced to endure, but they are not (or should not) be a party in a criminal case.

Laura says that life without prosecutors would be anarchy, and she is right. But life without Criminal Defense attorneys would be hell.

Sex offence is a treacherous subject.

As a father, I am gripped by the slight nausea and immediate gut-reaction of wanting to hurt someone who hurts children. I’m okay with that. Child rapists are among the lowest of the low; that’s not something I will change my mind about.

I feel similarly, if less viscerally, about a man who forces himself on a woman — your standard rapist.

If our laws were directed specifically at those miscreants, there wouldn’t be the (same) problems we currently have. Unfortunately, someone, and I’m not sure who, decided that the only way to keep our children safe is to come down hard on sex offenders. Sex offenders has become synonymous with child rapists in the mind of the public, so anything done to and in pursuit of sex offenders is fair game.

That by itself is worrying, since even the lowest of the low have rights, but it just keeps getting worse.

While hiding behind the cry of “Think of the children!” legislatures compound the problem by lumping everything they possibly can under the penumbra of sex offence. That’s why we’re left with the issues of children’s lives forever ruined by youthful indiscretion.
That’s why we’re left with people who need help, but who end up sentenced to spend the remainder of their lives in prison.

Fear mongering is an insidious evil that permeates every aspect of our culture and our nation, and the reason it’s not going away is because it works.

When we allow ourselves to be convinced that our children are not safe without the draconian and over-broad sex offence laws, we cheapen and insult victims of rapists and abuse, as well as willingly relinquishing our rights and turning a blind eye towards justice.

‘Tis the season! The finals season, as opposed to the holiday season. The two are nearly similar: one is  a time of bitterness, depression and strife; and finals season is even worse.

Allow me to pause while you groan.

Being a non-traditional law student gives me a unique perspective on finals. My day job is extremely flexible and I am able to take days off to study; and my family — my wife, since the kids are too young to have a real say — is also supportive and wonderful, letting me study in (relative) peace while I’m home.

That  being said, life for a non-traditional student does not stop during finals. I can’t study through the night since I have a family to pay some modicum of attention to and work to go to (early) the next morning. I can’t focus my entire brain power solely on the issues of the semester since I have a job that requires the use of my brain. How fondly I recall my days doing construction work! Ok, not so fondly…