FREE ADVICE

I am going to have to stop giving out free advice.

Most people are grateful to get a quick 'what the problem might be' from an attorney. But no matter how much I say that I do not know everything and that the law is complex, most people hear what they want to hear. If I say there is a problem, they argue with me. If I say what the judge might do, and the judge does something else, they get angry with me. No one hears the words 'maybe' 'might' 'probably'.

My father used to say, "Free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it."

This is true, even about my advice. Why?

Because, unless I am paid, and provided with all of the documents, until I talk with the other side, I do not know everything I need to know. Sometimes a trip to the law library is necessary. Even then, the law is a very complex thing. It depends on the individuals involved, the documents, the statutes, the appellate cases, the view of law reviews, the political climate, the judge, the way things are usually done, and how sympathetic the client is. Often, cases with attorneys are done very differently than cases without attorneys.

Even with my paying clients I NEVER predict what is going to happen in a case.

THE BEST SUPER NACHOS

Super nachos are a fairly well balanced meal. For those of you who do not know CalMex food, nachos are corn chips with a topping of cheese. Super nachos are corn chips with a topping of meat, beans, cheese, sour cream. Like pizza, super nachos vary in toppings.

I was upset that my nachos and super nacho chips got soggy before I finished eating my nachos. So I asked my drive through Mexican place to give me the chips separate from the sauce.

Now I eat my nacho sauce like chip dip and never have a soggy chip.

Sometimes one has to stop and smell the food.

SF SHERIFF LOST HIS TRIAL BY CHECKBOOK

I know domestic violence is a real problem. However, I believe that prosecuting for domestic violence over the objection of the victim is also a problem. The San Francisco DA prosecuted the Sheriff over the objection of his wife, the alleged victim. The courts issued an order that the Sheriff could not see his wife, over the objections of the wife. All of this for a bruised arm. (The bruise does not look like damage from a hand grabbing an arm.)

Domestic violence counselors believe in "arrest first and ask questions later or better yet do not ask questions at all." They think that all women calling for help are unable to make decisions for themselves, due to abuse. They fail to consider that some women lie about abuse.

What they fail to realize is that, by spending time and money prosecuting cases over the objection of the victims with minor or no injuries, they are unable to have the resources to do something about the people who are in real trouble from domestic violence.

What victims need most is a safe place for the victim and their children when the victim finally decides to leave the abuser.

Unfortunately, women have learned that, if the woman gets her guy arrested, she can have the kids, the house, and all of the possessions. The man will be lucky if he can post bail. If he can post bail, he makes too much to get a public defender and too little to pay an attorney to take the case to trial. If he cannot post bail, he has to wait in jail until the public defender can take the case to trial. Forget the DA dropping the charges, even on cases where the woman was trying to break into the man's new apartment.

So the man pleads guilty. Then the family court does not let him see his children, and has a record for the rest of his life. He may lose his contractors license or his real estate license.

All this can happen even if the wife called after losing her temper and begs the DA to drop the charges.

So what should be done?

I think that BOTH parties should be required to attend counseling if the charges are to be dropped. We could hold the prosecution of the cases until the counseling is complete. If the wife is really being abused, she can learn in the counseling what she can do to protect herself. If there is not actual abuse, just anger, then both parties can learn how better to deal with the anger.

The current way of dealing with minor or no injury domestic abuse is NOT working. The system is being misused by angry women. Men who are charged learn that the system is so loaded against them that the judges do not even seem to listen when the men talk. The real domestic violence is ignored while we all congratulate ourselves on the number of innocent men we convicted.

BLIND JUSTICE IS NOT ALWAYS BLIND

Statutes of the goddess of justice always show her wearing a blindfold and holding up the scales of justice. She wears a blindfold because justice is not supposed to care if one of the people in front of her is ugly, has dark skin, is female, is gay. Justice is blind to everything except the rule of law.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' tells a story of justice that only saw skin color.

This happens more than one would think. It even happens in countries like the US, where we work very hard to make justice blind.

Often, I know the law is on my side, but I worry about winning because my client is Black, or is a felon, or is gay, or is an immigrant. I know that judges's attitudes reflect the attitudes of the rest of us. Too many of us believe immigrants, especially Mexican immigrants, are not really equal to the rest of us. Too many of us believe that gay people are immoral and decadent. Too many of us believe that women are not capable of making their own decisions.

Too often, justice reflects those beliefs.

I am SO PROUD of the people who keep justice blind. Keeping justice blind is REALLY HARD. It is so easy to find an obscure law which results in a win for the person who looks like the judge.

AFGHANISTAN SHOOTING

I am so sorry that a US soldier shot men, women, and children in a village in Afghanistan.

Such shootings happen in the US also. We know the people who do these shootings go crazy. We just do not know why they suddenly start shooting in schools, work places, and colleges. Usually we have no way to find out why as the shooter is either shot by police or the shooter kills himself. It is almost always a man, and we do not know why.

I am SO SORRY that it happened in Afghanistan.

NO ONE is going to say that this was something that the soldier should have done. The result will almost certainly be that the soldier who did the shooting will be sentenced to death, life in prison, or life in a mental institution. The reason that I would be in favor of the mental institution is that we will not be able to stop these "going crazy" shootings unless we understand exactly how the "going crazy" happened.

I know there is nothing I can say that will bring back the dead. But, believe me, NO ONE wanted this to happened.

MAD MEN AND VIAGRA

The angry men who oppose health insurance coverage for family planning (such as birth control pills), say that they do not want to "pay so women can have sex." I notice they do not complain that insurance pays for Viagra. The ONLY reason to take Viagra is so that men can be ready for sex.

One would think that the angry men would want women to use birth control. They are always complaining about having to pay taxes for schools, health care, and collecting child support. I guess they do not understand that a baby born today will need to go to school in five years.

Now the angry men are trying to hurt Planned Parenthood in any way they can. It does not matter that babies and their mothers will not get badly needed health care. They want revenge for Planned Parenthood taking the political position that women should be able to control their own bodies.

I remember people joking that, "It is easy to stop those uppity women, just keep them barefoot and pregnant."

I want our young women to have the chance to choose their own paths. The angry men seem to want us to return to being chattels.

ROBOTS ARE BETTER THAN I AM

In order to sign up for Google email, I have to get past their "robot finder". This is words using weird letters or a sound recording with a weird background. You then type in what you think the words are.

After multiple attempts to solve these puzzles in the correct manner, I had to admit that the robots Google is trying to stop are WAY better than I am.

I do already have a Google email address, and I think I even remember my user name. However, I do not remember the neat-o password. I did write down the password, but can not remember where I wrote it. Google does not seem to allow for password recovery.

I was also unable to sign up for grocery delivery at home. The website was more interested in security than with customers.

I know Google and the grocery company are trying to protect me from hackers. However, their protections are preventing me from opening accounts.

We are not all techies. Some of us have great difficulties in dealing with computers. Please remember us when you are trying to stop identity theft.

Personally, I think that you should relax the security as long as people use a computer which is known to be theirs. Of course, I have heard that robots can pretend to be a computer which is known to be theirs.

I do know that Facebook and Amazon are successfull partly because they do not give their users a hard time about security.

THE RICH 1% AND HONESTY

There is a new study out of UC Berkeley that concludes that the wealthier people do not obey traffic laws as much as the less fortunate. They also eat candy meant for children.

I do not think that this necessarily reflects on the morals of the wealthy. It does reflect on the perceptions of the wealthy.

Traffic tickets are much less expensive for the wealthy. A $400 fine is devastating to most of us 99 percenters. The same fine makes almost no impact on the 1%.

Probably more of us would break the law, if we could afford lawyers to defend us using every legal resource available.

Most of us realize how much effort and fundraising has to be done to get "free" candy for children. Even a Costco candy purchase can mean no fast food for the candy contributor. But for the 1%, a candy purchase costs a trivial amount of money, so eating some is no big deal.

If you have never had to worry about money, you do not understand the fear that comes from wondering how to pay the rent. If you have never been truly hungry, you do not understand that real hunger is painful until you are so starved that you no longer react to the hunger.

Is it immoral to just not understand?