Fun part: the detective got 25 years in prison plea-bargained down to seven. Still, better than nothing, right?
No, that was the kid he was questioning.
Bullshit, all the way down.
... which is what William James really said.
Errr, yeah, should have read that much more carefully. Oh well.
Man, you should read the transcripts of criminal trials. It's disturbing, to say the least. The lawyers/others with ready access to Lexis or Westlaw should look up the case of the People of the State of Illinois vs. Denise Turnipseed, which really highlights this idea. As a bonus, I believe it is the only published dissent I've ever read to incorporate the sentence, "Elvis lives."
another reason cops protect themselves: think how much of a prick this (and like, every) cop would be to work with. Especially if there is the chance he might get promoted over you. You want to be really damn careful he doesn't have the slightest bit of a grudge against you, and people like this are hypersensitive to signs of disrespect to begin with. you have to back him 100%.
There's a passage from an Alan Dershowitz book relevant to this post. He has never, as far as I know, provided any support for it, but it's still interesting. The book it's from isn't scanned into google or amazon book search, but some ugly website has posted the passage I want.
5: Now that I'm not in law school, my access to Lexis/Westlaw involves billing clients for the time or number of searches. I don't think it's just me that goes for, either.
Every interrogation - by police, by FBI, by CIA, by anybody - should be on tape. And if it isn't on tape, the results of that interrogation should mean exactly jack shit in court. And anyone who messes with that tape should hang.
Non-profits get a flat-rate deal. Whee! Of course, I don't have access to news, or ALR shit, or like a bunch of other things. Basically just cases and statutes. But whatev.
We get a flat-rate too -- clients get billed by some formula where if their work was x% of the total time the firm spent on Westlaw, they get billed x% of our flat fee (in other words, Westlaw gets more expensive for the clients in slow months than heavy months.) But that still works out to charging a client more for frivolous searching.
Would I be totally dumb to fly into Dulles for DCon? It's a pain, but it's cheaper and there's no layover...
Obviously National is the easiest, but I think Dulles would be okay. It's not nearly as annoying as BWI (for going to DC).
11: There's no metro stop there, but you can take the 5A bus to L'Enfant Plaza. Takes a little while, though--Dulles is in the middle of nowhere.
Once the Grand Rectification of Names occurs, and everything in the universe is properly labeled, the W will disappear from BWI, and it will just be the Baltimore International Airport. In this great future, the suggestion that one fly into DC using the Baltimore International Airport will make as much sense as flying into New York using a Philadelphia airport.
Shit, I'm going to BWI. There's a bus from there, 30 minutes to greenbelt metro, I thought it didn't look so bad.
8 is exactly right.
After all, if the cops aren't doing anything wrong, they've got nothing to worry about, right?
Okay, those with free electronic access, go look it up. The rest of you go to your law library. (I did try looking it up on the state's free website, but I guess it's too old to be available there.) Nobody should bill any clients for the search. Unless the case is actually relevant to your clients' issues.
Shit, I'm going to BWI. There's a bus from there, 30 minutes to greenbelt metro, I thought it didn't look so bad.
Don't let helpy-chalk scare you; it's fine. I fly into BWI every time I go to DC, and am in fact doing so this time as well.
In this great future, the suggestion that one fly into DC using the Baltimore International Airport will make as much sense as flying into New York using a Philadelphia airport.
BWI and IAD are almost exactly the same distance from Central D.C.
The difference is only about a mile. And using public transportation, BWI can be more convenient, depending on where you are going. So rest easy, SP.
BWI would actually be way more convenient if train tickets weren't so fucking expensive. There's a station right at the airport.
Yeah, it's certainly fine. Didn't mean to be alarming!
Sorry, didn't mean to scare people.
20: Three-dollar Metro express bus, baby.
Once the Grand Rectification of Names occurs, and everything in the universe is properly labeled, the W will disappear from BWI the "Reagan" will disappear from "Washington Reagan National Airport".
Oh, good. BWI was about $50 cheaper and also at better times- flight at 9am instead of 6:30. OTOH it's Delta to BWI instead of JetBlue to IAD, but I can handle the pain of a short Delta flight.
I'm flying to BWI, too. The 28th, so probably not the same time as you, SP- you're going down the day of? Teo, when are you flying in?
I bought my ticket! I decided it was worth the extra $30 to fly into National. Yay DCon.
Yes, morning of 29th, leaving afternoon of 30th. This was the family compromise, acquiring the travel profile of a terrorist.
I can't remember where I'm flying in.
SP is hardcore.
Gee, I wonder why cops feel free to lie and beat people? Maybe because even Good Liberals would rather chat about travel plans than focus on the corruption at the core of our Justice System.
Or maybe I'm just jealous that I won't be there.
Anyway, I'm very torn about the police now that I have a child. I want to be able to tell her all the reassuring myths about police officers, and in our marginal neighborhood, cops are more likely to be doing good than harm. But I also don't want her to think that the shit described in the post isn't SOP.
Life, why must you be complicated!?
Three-dollar Metro express bus, baby.
Yes, I know; I take this bus every time I fly in and out. It's a lot slower than the train, though.
Teo, when are you flying in?
3:53 on the 28th.
10: we have a flat rate, too, but still enter a client code when we log in. Then clients are billed based on their pro rata percentage of the time used, exactly as you describe. Is your system different? Because if you just enter some non-client/non-billable code, that should increase the total time without increasing any client's pro rata share. So you're not billing them for frivolous searching. I don't think. At least I hope that's right.
I suspect it's a mistake to give children the idea that certain jobs magically imbue people with `good'. I don't think there is any real problem with the parallel ideas that there are good, bad, indifferent, etc. people in all walks of life, but also that part of some job descriptions involves helping people.
I hear you on all counts, JRoth. The other day, my kid brought home a piece of creative writing in which the cop threatened to throw a guy off a cliff if he didn't confess. It was eerie, because with all the ranting I do, I don't think I've ever ranted about this kind of thing in front of her. And for that matter, the tone wasn't even "OMG, what a bad policeman!" Just kind of matter of fact, that's how it is.
I suspect it's a mistake to give children the idea that certain jobs magically imbue people with `good'.
Well, be fair: architects are objectively good.
I suspect it's a mistake to give children the idea that certain jobs magically imbue people with `good'. I don't think there is any real problem with the parallel ideas that there are good, bad, indifferent, etc. people in all walks of life, but also that part of some job descriptions involves helping people.
Soup makes a good point. Just like every other profession, there are very good officers, very bad officers, and a bunch of shleps in between.
increase the total time without increasing any client's pro rata share.
Nope, if each client pays a percentage of the total, the bigger the total is, the more they will pay.
The correct name for that airport is "PATCO National Airport." True fact.
It depends on how non-billable time is accounted for, and my ignorance on that front makes me worry.
39- If you have a flat rate as in 33, you just have to make sure the percent of each client doesn't change. So if you do frivolous searches with each client's ID in proportion to how many relevant searches that client would be charged for, then there's no problem.
39: I'm pretty sure, as in like nearly positive, that firm eats the unbilled portion (as in: only bills clients for their pro rata portion of the total, keeping trakc of the fact that some portion of the total is unbillable).
How could it work any other way? We're surely not billing pro bono clients for their portions, and it wouldn't be very fair to bill other clients for that usage.
And there's quiet a bit of lega research done for not-client-specific general legal research memos and whatnot.
28: Yay!
JRoth, tell the kid that cops are supposed to help people, etc., initially. But also, don't use language about "bad guys" or "bad people"--make sure she gets the idea that people who break the law aren't inherently bad. This is surprisingly easy, since little kids break rules all the time but you don't want to tell them they're "bad kids" for doing so.
At some point, she'll ask for a little more detail about how people get sent to jail or what have you, and then you talk about how the system is supposed to work. If she's bright, she'll say "but what if . . . ?" and then you say, yes, sometimes the police lie, sometimes they make mistakes, etc. If she doesn't ask, you can just say it anyway.
At least that's how I've done it. Interestingly, though I've never tried to give him a bad idea about cops, he is not a fan of cops (though he is of soldiers). I think if you raise a kid whose reasonably resistant to authority, the suspicion of automatically granting authority the benefit of the doubt comes pretty naturally.
34 is completely correct.
Recently I've gotten to see the good and bad of police work, up close. The good is pretty reassuringly good, but the bad can have catastrophic consequences. I think that's what makes it so hard. A terrible customer service rep isn't going to endanger your life. A bad (even a lazy) police officer can.
In happier news, I got my work schedule rearranged. I'll be heading in to D.C. probably sometime on Friday 12/28. Yay pretend Internet friends!
39: I think the idea is there is one flat rate -- say $100 -- and the 20 clients each pay their pro rata share, so that if 20% of all research time was on behalf of Client X, Client X would pay $20. Thus, if the % of time billed to a non-billable number goes up, Client X's pro rata share would actually be less based on the same hours. The firm would be absorbing a greater cost. Which the firm probably wouldn't like, unless they have set up a matter number that allows that kind of search because they are okay with it. (Which they plausibly might be if they want to encourage intellectual curiosity.)
35: this kind of stuff is all over TV and popular culture. The structure of the standard Hollywood thriller is: first 20 minutes, something horrible happens to the hero's family, next 80 minutes: hero wreaks equally awful revenge on those who did it. He's morally licensed by the fact that his enemies are Evil, you see.
Sometimes there are closeups of his anguished face right before he is forced to throw yet another Evil person off a cliff, rip off their testicles, or whatever.
Do you want to know what stinks?
Child Protective Service investigations. The worker interviews somebody. Goes back to the office. Types up the interview. Then, another worker can come to the hearing and testify about what the person said. Triple hearsay, at least. No problem.
You do not have tone, inflection, body language, nothing../ ARgggggg it pisses me off.
(Anyway, I think it's better not to talk to kids about "bad cops" any more than about "bad people"--the problem is that the system grants them a kind of unquestioned/unquestionable authority, so when they do bad things, even for quite human reasons, it's a major problem.)
We pay a flat rate for our firm and we get unlimited use. We do not bill the cost to the client. But, of course, we are billing our time.
At Caroline's school they don't talk about bad people, they only talk about "people who make bad choices." At home we don't talk about bad guys either.
Nevertheless, Caroline has picked up the concept of a bad guy, although she sometimes has to struggle to find the words to express it. The other day in the comic book store Caroline picked up a superhero book that had two people fighting on the cover and she asked "Daddy, which one of these guys is...is...being mean?" I said that they both looked like they were being mean and directed he to a Simpsons comic book.
51: I think the Bad Guy concept is pretty deeply rooted in human nature (I'll leave the veldt cracks up to other commenters). That's precisely why you have to educate people to question it.
Yeah, 46 seems like a possibility -- I can't see how it could come out the client's pocket, but it could come out of the firm's depending on how they account for it.
OK, but "Triplets of Belleville" is hard to explain without recourse to the phrase "bad guys."
Also the phrase "frog popsicles," but that's not really germane to this discussion.
Rob, what's the name for a guy who reliably does bad things out of settled dispositions, etc?
At Caroline's school they don't talk about bad people, they only talk about "people who make bad choices."
Magistra, if you are lurking about, this is your cue to jump in with an amusing anecdote.
47: Possible explanation, though Rory doesn't watch tv/movies of that nature (other than having seen the Blues Brothers at an inappropriately young age), as much for her lack of interest as anything. Possibly filters through from other kids who watch alot of action/adventure stuff.
(She did in fact learn about testicles being ripped off recently, though, when the Man vs. Wild guy met some Berbers in the Sahara. Said testicles had belonged to a goat and were shared as a delicacy. She asked for an explanation, and promptly decided it was not a gracious treat to serve one's guests.)
I'll leave the veldt cracks up to other commenters
On the veldt, in times of drought, the dry earth could open up unpredictably, sometimes right under one's feet. Thus, it was in the collective interest of the tribe to shout out "Veldt crack!" to the people around you whenever you saw one.
Some lazy veldtians would not call this warning when they could, and from this springs the ur-concept of the Bad Guy.
Rob, what's the name for a guy who reliably does bad things out of settled dispositions, etc?
You know, in our house, we don't talk about that particular kind of individual often enough to give him a special name. We can talk about people who lack more specific settled dispositions, a sociopath, someone who is weak willed, etc. But we don't really need a general term.
Except for the Caroline part of we, who is actively looking for such a term. The closest candidate in her vocabulary is "robber" (or "wobber"). She frequently wakes me up in the middle of the night and asks me to lock the back door, in case a wobber comes in.
Rob, what's the name for a guy who reliably does bad things out of settled dispositions, etc?
Sinner?
I was brought up with the notion that we are all sinners and we are all prey to temptation to sin, and some of us fall into the habit of giving in. Somehow I was brought up with this in a non-religious household, but I think it's valuable.
At Caroline's school they don't talk about bad people, they only talk about "people who make bad choices."
at least blame the victim memes are still being installed early, i see.
The closest candidate in her vocabulary is "robber"
My mother has invented a very popular game to play with my sisters' and cousins' children. It's called "Rotten Robbers," and my mom and the kids set up a robbers' fort from which they make sallies to steal various items from everyone in the house. When the game is over, they put everything back, but one does wonder about the lesson being taught here.
but one does wonder about the lesson being taught here.
Don't I know about lying cops... It would make me so much happier to think that excessive force is used only in isolated incidents, but then I would be lying to myself.
That's it. I'm jumping on a melting ice floe. If only the cops would follow suit...
what's the name for a guy who reliably does bad things out of settled dispositionsstates of capacity to act, etc?
Vicious.
at least blame the victim memes are still being installed early, i see.
I've never really understood this sayings usage, because it always seem missapplied in practice.
`blame the victim' seems perfectly applicable to a case where a woman was being told that her dress caused her rape, for example.
It never seems to be used that way. Instead, it always seem to be applied in assertion of some sort of cartoony black & white version of events where you have a good guy and a bad guy and that's just the way it is. People seem to use this term when they want to disdain any attempt to understand things on a less superficial level.
oh, this is great
In his 14 years with the UHP, Gardner has had complaints leveled against him, "but most were unfounded or not sustained," Davenport said. He declined to talk about specific instances.
http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_7592075
From the linked story:
"The trooper is being held accountable as our we,"
Um, transcription error? Dysgraphic reporter? Spell-check to the rescue again?
People, people: don't call it BWI, call it Thurgood Marshall. (Unless you routinely call our other airports "DCA" and "IAD.")
It's easy to catch either a MARC or an Amtrak train from the airport (short shuttle bus ride) into DC. Better seats than a bus, and less chance of getting stuck in rush hour crap.
BWI, Marshall, hell I call it Friendship.
(And O'Hare is still Orchard to me.)
/curmudgeon
Those folks flying in to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport should be aware that the train station is not at the airport. You have to take a shuttle to the trains. Also, it is wise to check the train schedules too. You don't want to be shivering on the train platform for 45 minutes in December.
Also, using the trains can be tricky on the outgoing flight -- if you're flying out on a Sunday, for example, they don't run all that often, and you can wind up needing to get to the airport very very early (or taking a cab).