UPDATES

I have been told that people enjoy the longer blogs more. So today's blog will be one long blog. Then I am going home and resting. I cannot be home, as home is being cleaned.

The people meeting in London to discuss the financial crises looked really happy. So it looks like things are pretty much fixed. It will take awhile to get people back to work as wise people ramp up projects slowly.

SO you will have some time on your hands. Why don't you go to court? In the US very few courtrooms are closed to the public. The closed courtrooms almost always have juvenile in their name. 

COURTROOM visiting rules. Please do not have more than two people per courtroom. Many of the courtrooms are very crowded. Get there on time and sit as far away from the door as possible as everyone will crawl over you when their time comes. Do not watch just the judge, watch everybody. Be quiet and polite. The court will take a bathroom break and you will all be thrown out of the courtroom for about 15 minutes after no more than two hours. You will note the attorneys have priority because if they did not, no one could afford an attorney. Be prepared to be searched like you were going on a airplane. If you are asked to leave, leave. The courtrooms and their locations are posted on the court's website. Do not forget to visit traffic and drug court. THe parking will be horrible, and you will have to walk long distances in most courthouses. CHECK out the wheelchair lift at the Palo Alto traffic courthouse. The one that goes up the stairs.

I BET YOU A BEER (assuming I ever have some money) that they are still not providing defense attorneys at criminal misdemeanor arraignments in Santa Clara County.

I am starting to eat into my capitol at an alarming rate, mostly because I HATE asking clients for more money if I know it hurts them financially to pay me.

I AM REALLY TOO SICK TO DO TRIALS. Generally, I take cases that involve short cause hearings only. I am careful to represent clients for whom a disabled attorney is their only alternative. Usually my law office costs me money to operate, but I enjoy practising law part time, which is all I can manage.

BUT NOW, my wheelchair lift is broken. My landlord forgot to put my wheelchair charging cord in the new neighbors lease, and they are refusing to plug it back in. Actually, it never occurred to my landlord that someone would deliberately unplug a cord that was being used to charge a wheelchair. 

I am used to petty revenge. People do it to me all the time when they find out that they had misjudged me. The wheelchair thing makes them get even madder than they used to get. Or else they think that I am helpless in taking care of myself.

WHICH REMINDS ME. If you do social protest, eventually someone will suggest to one of your friends that you are suicidal. (This same technique is being used by vengeful soon to be ex husbands.) This triggers the police coming to where you are and carting you away in an ambulance. BOTH TIMES this happened to me, three or four days later, I was finally escorted from the building by the head of the department babbling apologies into my ear.

SO WHAT DO YOU DO IF IT HAPPENS. Calm down, act normal, eat when there are meals, sleep or pretend to sleep during the night. DO NOT take any offered medication. You have the right to refuse medication. You also have a right to a federal hearing within three days. ASK FOR THIS FEDERAL HEARING. Let all of your friends know where you are and talk to them normally as often as possible. Try to help your fellow inmates. Most of them are very lonely. Many cannot talk in group therapy, which is all they have, but they might talk one on one to you. WHEN YOU GET OUT, sue their asses. (I did not do the last part. I did not want to harm the friend who was frightened for me.)

TO GET OUT QUICKLY. Hire an attorney. Psychiatrists are amazingly frightened of attorneys. Or maybe they are just frightened of me. I recalled teaching one a lesson in the law in Napa County back when I was Pamela Lance.

I AM SUING EVERYONE INVOLVED if it happens to me again.

BTW, no one actually diagnosed me as crazy. I was just in for observation. However, I now can not buy a gun. Or teach in a school.

I BADLY NEED TWO VOLUNTEER APPELLATE ATTORNEYS FOR A FAMILY LAW CASE. I have a perfect example of harassment by court hearings, which I hope will trigger a appellate ruling that the respondent has unclean hands. I have carefully protected the record for appeal. I was well taught in how to protect a record for appeal when I was doing Legal Services poverty law on the Papago Indian Reservation. (I think Catholic Charities are the people who taught us.) I do not know how to relieve the mother and grandmother from having to pay me. If we win this appeal, WE COULD FIX FAMILY COURT. Assuming that California comes to its senses and adopts the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

WHICH REMINDS ME, I think Jerry Brown would again be a great governor of California. He did a good job last time, he was just ahead of his time. He really helped Oakland, but could not stop the violence caused by the drug wars. Aren't you all tired of pretty idiots? Oh, that idiot who investigated the private records of her Board of Directors is running for governor.

I THINK THIS MESS WAS CAUSED BY THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT. Let me tell you why. All of the fraudulent paper was purchased by Chinese investors. Chinese are some of the most savvy investors because the whole family is willing to sacrifice to make the family rich. Car parts from China were so unreliable that mechanics were going out of business because they could not afford to do warranty repair. About 25% of the computer chips from China failed to work or they have no idea exactly how they work. These chips made some of our electronic toys be unreliable. These chips also went into the manufacture of our defense and communications systems. I think the Chinese just want to slow us down so that they could catch up and that they have already been punished by the mess they created.

THIS IS WHY IT IS STUPID to be fighting nineteenth century wars in the twenty first century.

THOSE OF YOU who are thinking that your county is too small should look at the fact that I vote in city, county, state, and federal elections. There are also regional districts where I vote for people who are planning regional transportation. You also need courts to rule on what each government can do. The governments have to obey the courts. (We are having trouble with that in the US for some reason.)

FUN WAR STORY. Back when I was doing poverty law for the Pagagos, Legal Services was allowed to take any kind of legal case. (This soon changed as we became more and more effective in stopping petty harassment of poor people.) Anyway, I was doing an old drunk driving case in Tuscon, and I had NO DEFENSE AT ALL. The prosecutor refused to give me the standard deal that they were offering to white men with attorneys.

Three days before the trial, I saw my client in the parking lot. But it was not my client, it was his look alike cousin. So I asked the cousin to come to court, which he agree to do as he had to see his attorney in Tuscon about smuggling cocaine.

So, I asked the judge if I could have my client sit in the back of the courtroom and the judge agreed that I could do that. My client and his cousin sat in the back together. The cousin covered his face every time the police peeked into the courtroom. (I DID NOT INSTRUCT HIM TO DO THIS.) Of course, the officers ID's the wrong person and the case was dismissed.

The prosecutor was LIVID. We went back into the judges chambers at his request. I thought the prosecutor was going to have a stroke, he was so mad. But the judge just sat back in his chair and said, 'I do not know why you are so mad, all Indians look alike anyway.'

BTW, some of you seem to think that medical marijuana laws solve the marijuana problem for sick people. MARIJUANA IS A FEDERAL, SCHEDULE 1 drug. It is more illegal that morphine. It is against federal law to even prescribe marijuana. And doctors are so afraid of the federal government, that they will let people be in pain. And they will not give out opium based drugs to the non dying unless it also contain Tylenol, a known poison which damages the liver.

ALL OF THE ABOVE means that if you are operating a medical marijuana clinic, you could be arrested for federal criminal conspiracy. And the feds change their minds all of the time about what laws they will enforce.

I WAS REALLY HOPING to have a think tank. But I think that no corporation or government will fund me as I am too controversial. So I would like to be able to give street level legal advice to the writers of TV and movies. Maybe if we teach people how the law is supposed to work, they will tell us when the courts are not working. Right now, thanks to Law and Order, they think it is normal for prosecutors to violate US Supreme Court decisions. I also have to finish the child custody case that I am working on. There is too much information to allow another attorney to take over. Damn.