Protecting the kids, Georgia style

This past week the Georgia Supreme Court did itself proud as it declared that being placed on a child abuse registry without notice isn't a punitive measure, that it doesn't deprive anyone of a liberty interest and that due process just doesn't apply when we're doing something to protect the kids.

Georgia maintains a child abuse registry and limits access to government agencies, law enforcement and childcare facilities. The general public does not have access to the database.

One can be placed on the registry if an investigator with the Georgia Department of Human Services, Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) substantiates an allegation. To substantiate an allegation, the allegation must be confirmed by a preponderance of the evidence. The abuse investigator then files a report and the person's name is added to the registry. The person then receives a notice from the state and has 10 days to appeal the decision before an administrative law judge.

Now I will concede that being placed on the Georgia child abuse registry isn't the same as being placed on a sex offenders' registry since the database isn't available to the general public, but, it's never a good thing to have your name added to any list the government is compiling for allegedly doing something wrong.

And the Georgia Supreme Court showed how out of touch with reality they are when they decided that being placed on such a registry doesn't deprive an individual of a liberty interest. The court wasn't concerned with anyone being defamed by the state nor were they concerned with any possible legal consequences down the road. If you can't show that you have been affected negatively by being added to the registry, then too bad.

But the bigger issue here is the process by which it happens. The state doesn't have to notify an individual that they are being added to the registry - the state just has to provide notice after the fact. The person being added to the list isn't entitled to cross-examine the accuser nor to put on an evidence before being added to the registry. He only has the right to appeal the decision after his name has been added.

Now it's time for you to decide if this notice is sufficient to inform a person of what they are accused of or if it's just a vague piece of mumbo-jumbo.

You were substantiated on as a result of K.S. maltreator exposed the child to inappropriate sexual contact which resulted in the maltreator inappropriately touched and dry humped her in the residence of the legal guardian.

The Georgia Supreme Court found that this constituted sufficient notice. It is grammatically incorrect and the sentence (if you can call it that) borders on incomprehensible.

It's much easier to win a trial as defendant than it is to win on appeal. At trial every presumption is supposed to go to the defendant (of course we know that is often just a fiction we tell ourselves), on appeal every presumption goes to the side that won at trial.

In the case of the Georgia child abuse registry, all it takes to find your name on it is for an investigator to find the alleged victim has moved the ball past the 50-yard line -- without the other side being heard. In addition, in the scenario at hand, we have an investigator (a member of the executive branch) being tasked with making what would appear to be a judicial decision by determining whether or not the allegation was "proven" by a preponderance of the evidence.

But the Georgia Supreme Court wasn't having any of that. They decided that administrative agencies can make quasi-judicial decisions in the course of implementing the law. The court said the use of the term "preponderance of the evidence" didn't make the investigator's job a judicial function because those words just give guidance to the department.

Most troubling, though, was the court's finding that not providing notice before being added to the registry doesn't violate a person's right to due process. The court decided that since there is a procedure in place for a person to appeal the decision that sending a letter with a vague description of what the person was accused of is sufficient to pass muster with the 14th Amendment.

This decision shows just how far a court is willing to go "to protect the kids."

h/t Andrew Fleishman

Can acting in a client's best interest violate the 14th Amendment?

On Wednesday the US Supreme Court heard a case out of Louisiana that raised the question of whether or not a lawyer can tell a jury his client is guilty - over his client's wishes.

Robert McCoy lived in Louisiana with his wife Yolanda, their infant daughter and her son. Mr. McCoy was a violent man who threatened Yolanda with a knife. She eventually left with the children. She fled with her daughter but left her son with her parents so he could finish school.

Mr. McCoy killed her son and her parents and was charged with the three murders. There was a 911 call from Yolanda's mother in which she is heard talking to Mr. McCoy telling him that Yolanda and the baby weren't there. Then there was a gunshot and the line went dead.

Despite the evidence against him, Mr. McCoy maintained his innocence throughout the case. He told police the murders were the result of a drug deal gone bad.

At first Mr. McCoy was represented by a public defender - but he fired his attorneys when they refused to subpoena his alleged alibi witnesses. His parents then hired Larry English for the princely sum of $5,000 to represent their son.

Now, as an aside, if that was indeed the fee paid to retain Mr. English's services, someone should have known that this wasn't going to work out well for Mr. McCoy. The amount of the fee is much to low to represent someone facing the death penalty. It is a fee that screams out "I'm looking for a plea deal!" to anyone who would listen.

Mr. English set about trying to convince Mr. McCoy that it was in his best interest to plead guilty in an attempt to get the death penalty off the table. But Mr. McCoy refused to change his plea. So, Mr. English set about on his trial strategy to save Mr. McCoy's life -- even if he didn't want saving.

“People can walk themselves into jail. They can walk themselves, regrettably, into the gas chamber. But they have a right to tell their story.” - Justice Sonia Sotomayor

At trial Mr. English repeatedly told the jury that Mr. McCoy was guilty of the murders. According to Mr. English, his goal was to get the jury to convict McCoy of the lesser charge of second-degree murder because he suffered from diminished mental capacity, thus sparing his life. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Mr. English was not up on the law in Louisiana (as if this should have surprised anyone). You see, in Louisiana you are only eligible for a diminished capacity defense if you have entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Oops.

In the end, Mr. McCoy was convicted on all three counts and sentenced to death. He then appealed, arguing that his right to due process was violated when his attorney told the jury he had committed the murders, despite his protests of innocence.

On the one hand, this matter seems fairly straight forward. An attorney works for his client. He doesn't have to like his client. He doesn't have to agree with his client. But his job is to represent his client to the best of his ability. A client has the right to enter a plea of his choice. A client has the right to request a bench trial or a jury trial. A client has the right to take the stand to testify if he so desires. The attorney's role is to advise the client as to the best course of action.

But what if the client ignores what's in his best interest? What if a client has the chance to mitigate the damage but chooses not to do so? What if the client is following down a path that will lead him straight to the death chamber?

What is an attorney to do in those circumstances? If we are to act in our client's best interest, can we ignore our client's wishes when it comes to trial strategy? We can all advise our clients to take a plea deal when the arrangement is in their best interest - even if they don't realize it; but we can't force them to take the deal.

What was the sin that Mr. English committed? Was it his trial strategy of conceding guilt in hopes of saving Mr. McCoy's life or was it his misunderstanding of the law? I would argue it is the latter. In this case the real problem was the attorney's incompetence. Whether or not one's trial strategy deprives the client of due process is a moot point when the attorney has no idea what the law is.

I think the larger questions to be answered are: to what extent are we mouthpieces for our clients and just how far can we go in being advocates for our clients? And when it comes to representing those accused of criminal acts, where does the concept of due process draw the line?

See also:

Amy Howe, "Argument analysis: Concern for death-row inmate's right likely to trump line-drawing worries," SCOTUSblog (1/17/2018)

A common sense decision

Terrence Williams was convicted of murder for killing Amos Norwood in 1984. Mr. Williams said he did it because Mr. Norwood had abused him when he was a child. Nonetheless, the District Attorney, Ronald D. Castille, made the decision to seek the death penalty.

In 2012 a Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) court stayed the execution and ordered a new sentencing hearing as a result of Brady violations on the part of the prosecutor.

In 2014, the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court reinstated Mr. Williams' death sentence.

Nothing new there. Except that the chief justice was Mr. Ronald D. Castille. The same Ronald D. Castille who signed off on the death sentence almost 30 years before.

Yesterday, in Williams v. Pennsylvania, No. 15-5040 (2016),U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was the swing vote in a 5-3 majority that decided a judge must recuse himself from ruling on a capital case in which he had a "significant personal involvement" as a prosecutor.

Makes perfect sense to me.

But the question is why did this have to go to the highest court in the land to make such a basic finding? Mr. Castille, of course, thinks the ruling is ridiculous. But it's Mr. Castille's logic (or lack thereof) that I find ridiculous.

Mr. Castille was an elected district attorney. He made the decision to seek the death penalty against Mr. Williams. He made that decision for any number of reasons. And he thought everything was kosher when the question of whether or not to reinstate the death penalty in the case came before him in his role as Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court. At what point did this train run off the rails?

Mr. Castille's concern is that a good number of judges come out of the prosecutor's office and that their fingerprints are all over too many cases to keep track of. He's worried that judges will have to recuse themselves by the bucketload as a result of this opinion.

Maybe he's right.

And maybe that's not such a bad thing were it to happen.

Whether Mr. Castille wishes to admit it or not, his vote in the case in 2014 was nothing more than an affirmation of a decision he made in 1984 that someone deserved to die. He wasn't going to second-guess himself. There was no chance he would have voted against reinstating the death penalty because that would be an admission that he was wrong in the first place. I doubt seriously that any of his colleagues on the bench were going to call him out on it, either.

The conflict of interest is clear and Mr. Castille should have recused himself without being asked because of his involvement in the case at the trial court level. His failure to do so, and his insistence that he did nothing wrong or suspect, speaks volumes about his judgment, or lack thereof.

Exposing religion for what it is

Some time ago I wrote in this very space that the Supreme Court had no choice but to recognize same-sex marriage across the nation. Once the first state recognized it, the Equal Protection Clause left no wiggle room.

Not ones to let something as fundamental as the law get in the way, our wingnut governor, Greg Abbott, and wingnut attorney general, Ken Paxton, have announced that they think the Supreme Court got it all wrong. According to these two paragons of ignorance, the Court's decision infringes upon the religious freedom of all the hate-spewing, right-wing, bible-thumpers who are desperately holding on to an image of America that never really existed.

And I, for one, am glad they are all trumpeting the religious freedom angle because this argument shows, once and for all, what religion is really all about.

Gov. Abbott (who sometimes makes Rick Perry look like a scholar and a statesman) sent out letters to the heads of state agencies hours after the Supremes ruled, that it's okay to withhold benefits from same-sex couples if such an arrangement offends the religious sensibilities of the agency heads. What? Has Greg Abbott never read the Fourteenth Amendment? Has he never heard of Loving v. Virginia?

Just what part of every citizen being guaranteed equal rights under the law does he not understand?

Religion has been used throughout history to justify oppression and repression. It has been used to justify the stealing of natural resources. It has been used to justify slavery and Jim Crow. Invoking it to defend discrimination in the choice of marriage partners is the latest use of the "opiate of the masses" to justify the second class treatment of a group of people. So far as I know, the only purpose of religion is to indoctrinate the masses into believing that their state of repression is willed by god and that they will get their equality once they are dead.

And to think that millions of people have fallen for that. Just think about it. When you're dead, you're fucking dead and it doesn't matter whether there's equality or not.

At some point Abbott and his minions will get slapped down and the State of Texas will be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era. Until then I can sit back and enjoy watching the curtain getting pulled back on religion and exposing it as the con that it is.

Texas ban on same-sex marriage struck down

And now Texas is the latest to fall. On Wednesday, US District Judge Orlando Garcia, issued a ruling declaring Texas' ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional.

From the decision (courtesy of The Washington Post):

"Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution," Garcia wrote in his decision. "These Texas laws deny Plaintiffs access to the institution of marriage and its numerous rights, privileges, and responsibilities for the sole reason that Plaintiffs wish to be married to a person of the same sex."

As I wrote over a year ago, once one state legalized gay marriage the bans in other states would be declared unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. The simple fact is that once one state says it's okay for same sex couples to get married every other state will have to (even if dragged kicking and screaming) recognize those marriages. If a man and woman get married in Texas and move to New Mexico, they are recognized as married in New Mexico. They are also recognized as being married when it comes to federal benefits and taxes.

And once a state recognizes same-sex marriage the same rules must apply. Just think about the absurdity of the argument that Texas will recognize an out-of-state marriage for a heterosexual couple but won't recognize an out-of-state marriage for a same-sex couple. That is discrimination on its face. Now maybe Texas doesn't have to make same-sex marriage legal in the state - but, under Equal Protection jurisprudence, Texas must recognize an out-of-state marriage or else come up with some rational explanation for why the state recognizes some marriages but not others.

Late last year in Utah a federal judge issued a similar ruling, prompting hundreds of gay couples to get married in the waning days of 2013. The US Supreme Court then decided to issue a stay on the court's order which has led to the state putting a halt to recognizing those couples who got married before the stay was issued. Which raises the issue of whether such a move by the state would amount to an ex post facto law.

In order to avoid a similar situation (or because he wanted to have it both ways), Judge Garcia immediately stayed his order pending an appeal by the state.

The ruling puts Texas Taliban gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbot in a potentially awkward situation as he will file an appeal of the ruling and argue to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that the state's ban on same-sex marriage doesn't violate anyone's rights under the Constitution. While that argument may very well appeal to certain segments of the Texas population, it's hardly a ringing endorsement for inclusion.

Gov. Rick Perry couldn't resist opening his mouth and sticking his foot in it arguing that since Texas voters overwhelmingly rejected same-sex marriage in a statewide vote that the courts were meddling where they shouldn't be. I guess that the fair-haired one has forgotten, or just doesn't realize, that just because a law is on the books and supported by a majority of folks, doesn't make it constitutional. He might want to review Brown v. Board of Education as a refresher.

DOMA is doomed

The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. - Loving v. Virginia, 388 US 1 (1967).

Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. - US Constitution, Art. IV, Sec. 1

Last Tuesday, Maine and Maryland became the first states to approve same-sex marriage. The results ended a string of defeats at the polls over the years.

The passages of those two measures will mean the effective end of the Defense of Marriage Act. As I have written before, once one state recognizes same-sex marriage, every other state will be forced to do the same - whether they like it or not.

Back in the 1950's, the state of Virginia made it a crime for an interracial couple to marry. To add insult to injury, the laws of that time not only voided such marriages, but the parties involved could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

In 1958, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, living in Virginia went to Washington, D.C. and got married. They then went back to Virginia and settled down. Less than a year later they were indicted, convicted and sentenced to one year each in prison. The court suspended the sentences for 25 years provided the Lovings left Virginia and never returned.

In 1967 the case, Loving v. Virginia, made it to the Supreme Court. The Lovings argued that the Virginia laws violated their rights to due process and equal protection. The state countered that the laws did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because both the white partner and the black partner were subject to the same sentence.

The Warren Court begged to differ. Said the Court:

These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

The Court reversed the convictions and declared the Virginia statutes unconstitutional.

Opponents of same-sex marriage will argue that marriage laws were left up to the states at the founding of the republic. That is true - which is why conservative support of the Defense of Marriage Act is so tastefully ironic. Here we have yet another example of how the right wants selectively limited government.

The fact that marriage is left to the states to regulate is why DOMA is now doomed. Let's think about it for a bit. The Full Faith and Credit Clause says that a state must recognize the legal proceedings and records of any other state. And that's what happens now. If you get married in California and then move to Texas you are just as married in the Lone Star State as you were on the Left Coast. You are entitled to the same rights and privileges as a couple that was married in Texas.

The Equal Protection Clause says you have to treat people equally. You can't treat one person one way because he or she is white or heterosexual and then treat another person differently because that person is black or homosexual. That notion applies to married couples as well.

It will take time but sooner, rather than later, every state in the Union will be required to recognize same-sex marriage - even they have to be dragged kicking and screaming. All it's going to take is one couple to file one suit challenging a law banning same-sex marriage for the chain reaction to occur. It would be much easier if governors and state legislatures would just recognize that the issue is now moot and pass laws conferring the same status for same-sex couples as heterosexual couples.

That, though, would require character and leadership.

Judge decrees that defendants must waive attorney-client privilege

"My attorney has advised me that this plea will result in the following immigration consequences for me: __________."

This is the new admonishment that Marc Carter, the Presiding Judge of the 228th Judicial District Court has added to the plea papers used in that court.

What could possibly be wrong with the defendant acknowledging he understands the potential immigration consequences of his plea? What court, in the post-Padilla era wouldn't want it on the record that the defendant was aware that his plea could have some serious consequences as to his or her future in the United States? More cynically, what court wouldn't want to cut off those habeas writs alleging the defendant was unaware of the consequences of his plea off at the knees?

But let's think about this for a second. The last time I checked my conversations with my clients were privileged (with very rare exception). Only the client can waive that privilege.

Judge Carter is requiring defendants to waive attorney-client confidentiality. More than that, Judge Carter is requiring defendants who may not understand the privileges and protections they are afforded by law.

When entering a plea, a defendant necessarily waives his right to remain silent. But there is no such requirement that he waive attorney-client confidentiality. Any attorney who presents this paperwork to his client prior to a plea is asking that client to waive a right he or she may not even be aware they have. Any attorney who asks his client to sign this admonishment is knowingly violating a sacred trust.

Are we going to start carving up that privilege depending on the type of crime alleged or the immigration status of the defendant? Is asking a certain class of defendants to waive privilege a violation of the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause?

And then there's the little bitty problem that a defense attorney cannot tell a client exactly what the potential immigration consequences of plea could be. If the alleged conduct would constitute a felony under federal law, then the client may be subject to deportation. If the alleged conduct is a crime of dishonesty, the client may be deportable. If the client pleads guilty to a drug charge, he may be deportable. But what about immigration bonds and the pleadings los federales must file? What about the client's status and his history? These are all factors that play a role in how any immigration action might end.

And exactly how is this going to work when the defendant who is here without the blessing of our government is offered a reduced charge if he pleads guilty on the initial setting? Is that attorney going to have enough information to explain to his client what the implications of the plea may or may not be? Is that attorney going to know what his client's legal status is and how the court proceedings may affect that status? Will the court question the signing of the admonishment on the initial setting or be satisfied to have something to that effect on the record?

The admonishment is a bad idea for many different reasons. Judge Carter needs to reconsider the entire idea.

Admonishment - 228th JDC

Got Jesus?

Would you rather sit on a pew or sit in jail?

That's the choice being offered in the town of Bay Minette, Alabama for those accused of non-violent misdemeanors (let's forget, for a minute, the absurdity of putting someone convicted of a non-violent misdemeanor in jail). In exchange for attending church on a weekly basis, a defendant can have his or her case dismissed.

I thought Judge Clinton here in Houston had a goofy idea when he offered to reduce community service hours in exchange for reading a Christian how-to book. That was nothing.

The police chief sees nothing odd about the program. He doesn't think it violates the First Amendment because no one is forcing folks to take part and participants can pick the church of their choice. He thinks it's a good idea. And it saves the city the $75 it would cost to house an inmate per day.

I'm all for alternative methods of sentencing and rehabilitating folks. Just locking them up in the county jail (or the state pen) ain't working. Giving someone an alternative to their destructive behavior can't help being a step in the right direction.

But church? Religion has been used for centuries as a tool of manipulating the masses. Tell people that their lives aren't going well because God isn't happy is a masterful way to getting them to tune out the inequities in our daily lives and not question authority. Religion has been used to justify murder, homophobia and sexual abuse.

The charlatans who parade in front of the television cameras live high on the hog as they press their congregants to give up more and more of their hard-earned income because "God will give it back ten-fold!" Just look who's living in the McMansion an driving the Mercedes.

And what about that whole First Amendment thing? You know, the little provision that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion. The Fourteenth Amendment applied those prohibitions to the states.

Offering to dismiss a case if a person attends church every week for a year discriminates against non-Christians and athiests. It violates the very spirit of equal protection under the law. Enacting such a policy confers additional benefits on those who share the religious belief of the judge.

Is the city getting a cut of the tithes?

Court nixes no video policy

John Barry, the (former) presiding judge in of Court Court No. 3 in Collin County, Texas, has had an interesting, to say the least, policy regarding the playing of DWI videos at trial. They weren't.

Judge Barry did not allow the prosecution or the defense to show the video during trial. They could talk about it. They could ask the officers involved, or other witnesses, about it. They could refer to it during their closing argument. But they could not pop it into the VCR or DVD player and hit play.

You see, Judge Barry, believed that the only proper time for the jury to see the video was during their deliberations. The six folks in the box weren't allowed to view the video within the context of the trial. They were expected to remember the points the defense made while cross-examining the officers involved.

In his first point of error, appellant contends the trial court's ruling forbidding the playing of exhibits during trial, and more broadly its policy on video evidence, constitutes an abuse of discretion, deprived him of the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment and Article I, section 10 of the Texas Constitution, and deprived him of his right to present a defense and confront the witnesses against him in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Appellant concedes the trial court has the discretion to set reasonable restrictions on how video evidence is published to the jury, but he contends a blanket policy prohibiting the use of such evidence during direct and cross-examination without regard to the individual facts and circumstances of a case is an abuse of discretion. Appellant contends the ruling excluding videotape evidence harmed him by eliminating his counsel's ability to present evidence in a manner that allows the jury to assimilate it as the trial progresses. He contends it is unreasonable to expect jurors to remember details developed during examination and cross-examination about recordings they have not seen or heard, and diminishes his ability to effectively cross-examine witnesses by removing the jurors' ability to actually see the impeachment evidence. In the event the jury does choose to examine the videotape during its deliberations, appellant contends the failure to present it contemporaneously with the testimony discussing it makes it more difficult for the jury to match up the video with the questions asked because the lawyers are unable to show the jury what is being referenced. Appellant contends his constitutional rights are violated by a ruling that deprives his counsel of the ability to show properly admitted evidence to the jury, explain its significance, use it to support opinions that appellant was not intoxicated, and to confront and impeach the State's witnesses to expose inconsistencies in the witnesses's testimony. 

But no longer.

In  v. Packer v. State, No. 05-10-00552-CR (Tex.App.--Dallas, 2011), the Dallas Court of Appeals said that Judge Barry's policies violated Mr. Packer's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to present a defense and to confront the witnesses against him.

 We agree with the parties that the trial court's ruling prohibiting the publication of the videotape evidence to the jury in a timely manner, a decision preordained by the trial court's policy without reference to the facts and circumstances of this case, was arbitrary and constitutes an abuse of the trial court's discretion

That such a policy was allowed to be carried out is a travesty. So much so that the state submitted a letter brief acknowledging that the policy violated Mr. Packer's right to an open trial.

Of course, so as not to lean too far in guaranteeing a defendant's right to a fair trial, the court decided not to publish the opinion - meaning it is not to be cited to as authority in subsequent cases.