Shut Up!

After 35 years of practicing law in the trenches of state and federal courts, I have narrowed my advice for all my clients down to one, simple, direct sentence: "Shut Up."

No kidding. Really. Just shut up.

Living in Florida, I have come to love deep-sea fishing. Enter my law office, and on my walls, above my desk, staring and glaring at my clients, is a stuffed, six-foot steel blue Marlin. Below the fish is a plaque that reads: "Behold the beautiful, majestic Marlin. He would not be here if he had not opened his mouth."

When you are a 7-year-old kid growing up, and your mom catches you with your hand in the cookie jar, you inevitably and sheepishly try to come with an excuse. Mom pushes and prods you to confess, and you do. She then hugs and kisses you, and you make up as she tells you everything is going to be all right.

It does not work that way with a cop when he pulls you over. The police are not your parents. The sheepish lie you first tell him becomes a prior inconsistent statement that is going to be used in a court of law against you. The cop does not hug you, kiss you, and make up. He searches you, arrests you, and locks you up. So what you should do is just shut up.

Do not bargain with cops, negotiate with cops, or promise deals you cannot deliver on. The promises they make on the street are not binding in the courts where prosecutors charge you. Deal with the reality that if you are caught with drugs you are now the prisoner of a drug war. In war, you are only required as a prisoner to give your name, rank, and dog tag number. Do not give consent to search your car, your person, or invite cops back to your home. Do a Nancy Reagan: just say no.

As my friend William Panzer says, an Oakland, California based criminal defense attorney, also on the NORML Board of Directors, "If everyone kept their mouth shut, half the people in jail would not be there. The cop's job is to put you in a cage and anything you say beyond identifying yourself helps them put you there." His advice too: "Shut up."

Read On: Counter Punch

"I'm a criminal"

Lately, I've been telling people that I'm a criminal. This shocks most people, since I don't "look like" one. I'm a fairly clean-cut, light-skinned black woman with fancy degrees from Vanderbilt University and Stanford Law School. I'm a law professor and I once clerked for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice -- not the sort of thing you'd expect a criminal to do.

What'd you get convicted of? people ask. Nothing, I say. Well, then why do you say you're a criminal? Because I am a criminal, I say, just like you.

This is where the conversation gets interesting. Most of my acquaintances don't think of themselves as criminals. No matter what their color, age or gender, most of the people in my neighborhood and in my workplace seem to think criminals exist somewhere else -- in ghettos, mainly.

They have an unspoken, but deeply rooted identity as "law-abiding citizens." I ask them, "Haven't you ever committed a crime?" Oddly, people often seem perplexed by this question. What do you mean? they say. I mean, haven't you ever smoked pot, didn't you ever drink underage, don't you sometimes speed on the freeway, haven't you gotten behind the wheel after having a couple of drinks? Haven't you broken the law?

Well, yeah, they say, but I'm not a criminal. Oh, really? What are you, then? As I see it, you're just somebody who hasn't been caught. You're still a criminal, no better than many of those who've been branded felons for life.

Perhaps there should be a box on the census form that says "I'm a criminal." Everyone who has ever committed a crime would be required to check it. If everyone were forced to acknowledge their own criminality, maybe we, as a nation, would second-guess our apparent zeal for denying full citizenship to those branded felons.

In this country, we force millions of people -- who are largely black and brown -- into a permanent second-class status, simply because they once committed a crime. Once labeled a felon, you are ushered into a parallel social universe. You can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education and public benefits -- forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind.

Full piece at: CNN

Disturbing Police Abuse News

There have been numerous reports of police abuse recently, ranging from Washington to Missouri and now Illinois.

An 18 year-old male was brutally beaten by officers from an Illinois Police Station in retaliation for his mother's attempt to file a complaint against the way her son had been treated. The mother is a Muslim-American woman and wears the Hijab, the traditional Muslim headwear. During the beating, one of the officers yelled at the young man that this was all because of his "Muslim bitch" mother. ADC has been in contact with the Department of Justice and is working with the family to pursue legal remedies.

Source: ADC

Disturbing. Our tax dollars support this form of domestic terrorism.

Wake Up America

Aside from the mistake from his mouth at 5:29, I <3 this man:



And in case you were wondering, "what a police state looks like":

Rialto Muslim Woman's Headscarf Lawsuit Allowed to Move Forward

(Alhamdulillah. She's got one obstacle down and 394302 to go.)

A lawsuit accusing San Bernardino County of violating a Rialto Muslim woman's rights by forcing her to remove her headscarf was allowed to proceed by a federal judge Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips denied a motion by the county's attorneys seeking to have part of the case dismissed.

"There's clearly enough here to satisfy the requirements for the claimant," Phillips said in a brief hearing at the Riverside court.

Full Story: Press Enterprise

Fake Plaques Sent to Lawrence Police for Being 'Corrupt'

Once more, I almost fell out of my chair laughing . . .

LAWRENCE — They were real looking enough. Three wooden plaques each embossed with a gold police shield, a small gun piece and each engraved with an officer's name.

But these "plaques" sent to the police department Sunday were no awards. They came from a bogus address in Puerto Rico, supposedly sent from a former assistant district attorney and were in recognition for the officers being "corrupt." They were dated "9-11-2007."
. . .
Lawrence police also notified the postal inspector in Boston. The sender could face federal charges for using the U.S. Postal Service "to threaten, harass or intimidate," Romero said.

Full Story: Eagle Tribune

I want to be happy. I want to think to myself, "yay! Some cops finally had the roles reversed on them and now know what it means to feel intimidated or threatened." However, I'm not quite there. I have a hard time believing receiving a plaque compares to 'driving while Black' or 'flying while Muslim' or heck living while poor or 'of color.'

If it's not the first time these folks have been called corrupt, I've got an inkling the accusations are based in seeds of truth.

...still laughing at the idea of these cops feeling intimidated by a plaque!