Another Criminal Defense Conference, Another Few Minutes Of Dreaming

Over the past two weekends I've attended two different criminal defense conferences. In 15 years I've probably attended 30 or so. Each one includes talk of new case law, good and bad. They include war stories of that case, or those cases, where a judge, a jury, or a motion led to victory for the defendant. There's that new case that the police will learn to "get around," and there's the judges who tell us what they like and don't like in court.

And at the end of every conference we are led to the same belief, that we can win more cases, that we can win every case.

These conferences bring defense lawyers together within a state, a federal district, or a country. We learn we all have the same issues, the same cases, and the same clients. We leave and return to court Monday with a renewed sense of "what if?"

And then there's Tuesday.

Yes, if we tried every case, we'd control the system. If all our clients had the money to hire the best experts, or even a mediocre investigator, we could learn things that would cause a jury or judge to think twice about whether our client was guilty.

But we don't. Private lawyers don't, public defenders, don't

It is a system, and as we defense lawyers hear in court from the bench, "we have to move things along."

The economy is making things worse. More desperate lawyers practicing criminal law, taking fees to "pay the bills" that aren't enough to do a competent job. Take the client to court and tell him you got a great deal. He doesn't know. He'll spend 30 seconds thinking about whether to become a convicted felon, which is 30 seconds less than he spent thinking about who to hire.

We leave these conferences with a renewed sense about Monday, only to be faced with the inevitable Tuesday.

Brian Tannebaum is a criminal defense lawyer in Miami, Florida practicing in state and federal court. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. To learn more about Brian and his firm, Tannebaum Weiss, please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com



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Being Pro-Life, And Pro-Death

Abortion.

I know, I shouldn't write about abortion.

Abortion is not something we debate, its something we accuse others of supporting, or trying to prevent women from obtaining legally. Abortion is something that intelligent people refuse to debate, and wack-jobs kill people over.

Killing doctors who perform abortions is nothing new. But the advent of 24/7 conversation via the internet causes the news, the reaction, and the incendiary hypocrocrits to be heard all in one.

There are two types of "pro-life" schools of thought: Those that think there is only one pro-life school of thought, and those that make exceptions. The former have no use for the latter, but the former have some explaining to do post-assassination of Dr. Tiller this weekend in church.

If you are pro-life, you do not believe in killing an unborn child. I'm not going to get into the debate here about whether a fetus is a human being, I'll assume for purpose of establishing hypocrisy, that it is.

Hypocrisy, being pro-life, and pro assassination of a doctor who is performing legal abortions.

Thou Shall Not Kill?

Or "Thou Shall Not Kill Those That I Believe Should Not Be Killed?"

I know, true pro-lifers believe he was a "mass murderer." But he wasn't, because for whatever you believe about what Dr. Tiller did for a living, and are at least a wee bit knowledgeable when it comes to law, it was not illegal.

Case in point, did any pro-lifers call the police anytime they heard Dr. Tiller performed an abortion?

But they believe that someone who does something legal, yet against religious and moral beliefs, is properly assassinated in church on a Sunday.

Those who believe it was OK to blow Dr. Tiller away last Sunday are good at throwing darts, but generally won't engage in a debate. I've read some comments from those "no one should be crying over Dr. Tiller's death," people, responded with a question, and received no answer.

Maybe the solution for these supporters of murder can try to get an asterisk after Thou Shall Not Kill*

Brian Tannebaum is a criminal defense lawyer in Miami, Florida practicing in state and federal court. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. To learn more about Brian and his firm, Tannebaum Weiss, please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com



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