It was 1982. the Commodore 64 was the cool new thing, Britain and Argentina went to war over the Falkland islands, spymaster Yuri Andropov rose to power in the Soviet Union, and Vic Morrow and two chidren died in a helicopter accident while filming Twilight Zone. Disney opened EPCOT to the public, John De Lorean got busted for coke, the Unabomber narrowly missed killing people at Vanderbilt, and Larry Walters took his famous balloon flight in a lawn chair.
Ronald Reagan was president. I didn't like him because he was a conservative, and conservative pricks like Jerry Falwell were trying to destroy rock music. Us kids thought that was a scary thing at the time, but of course he never had a chance: MTV had just launched, the Biograph theater on Lincoln was staging midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the airwaves were filled with songs like Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero", Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger", the B52s' "Rock Lobster", and Golden Earring's other hit.
(Follow the "Eye of the Tiger" link to check out what music videos used to look like. Yikes.)
There was also a hardrocking band called Axe, and they had just released their third album, Offering. The first cut on the album was "Rock 'n' Roll Party In The Streets."
It was the end of my last year in high school. The hot summer was filled with good friends, fast driving, wild parties, and rock and roll. I was at the top of my game with the whole world ahead of me, and "Rock 'n' Roll Party In The Streets" was the sound of freedom.
It's a purely personal reaction, I'm sure. I don't know anyone else who had that reaction to it. Heck, I've never even met anyone else who remembers the song. But to this day it gives me a rush like no other.
It starts with a keyboard intro that I instantly recognize, then the guitars come in with power chords to punctuate the rhythm, and then the drums and Bobby Barth's strained voice:
You know, I know, this ain't gonna last forever
Let's take advantage while we still can
I'm sure that you'll find the days couldn't get any longer
Day after day it's gettin' old fastLet's have a knock down, drag out rock 'n' roll party in the street
Get all the boys together have them tell everybody that they meet
Friday night at midnight we're all gonna get what we need
Let's have a knock down, drag out rock 'n' roll party in the streetYou know, I know, we ain't gonna show no mercy
To anyone that tries to get in our way
I'm sure that you'll find we got to put the word out for certain
Once the party gets started we're all here to stayLet's have a knock down, drag out rock 'n' roll party in the street
Get all the boys together have them tell everybody that they meet
Friday night at midnight we're all gonna get what we need
Let's have a knock down, drag out rock 'n' roll party in the street
Axe broke up after guitarist Michael Osborne died in a car crash. Barth worked on other projects and then in 1997 he put the band back together and they recorded new versions of many of their songs for the album Twenty Years From Home. I think this was a work-around for a sticky rights issue or two, allowing the band to finally release CD versions of the songs.
In many ways, the newer version of "Rock 'n' Roll Party in the Streets" is a better song than the old one. Barth's voice seems clearer and richer than it was in 1982, the guitar work is more crisp, and the whole thing has a more professional sound.
But the original version will always be my favorite. For most of a year, I lived my life to that song.
]]>Fortunately, I had a backup plan. In a blatant attempt to encourage more Chicago-oriented crimlaw blogging, I emailed my question to Denise Nalley, a local criminal defense lawyer whose Chicago Criminal Law Journal blog is getting off to a slow start. She was nice enough to provide an answer, which I'll repeat here in case anyone else is interested:
Regarding lock picks, it is important to note that many things can be construed as burglary tools under the statute, like screwdrivers. Also that little stick pin that many parents have to open doors if their kids lock themselves in a room is also technically a lock pick. So, it is not illegal to just own them, the State must also prove intent to enter AND intent to commit a theft therein. The problem arises when what you own is a "lock bumping" device. This refers to a device used to move the internal tumblers and I suspect is what you are interested in. If a person is found in possession of one of these devices a Judge may infer intent and you will be screwed unless you are in a profession allowed to be possession of said device. (See statute below) If found guilty of Possession of Burglary Tools it is a Class 4 Felony punishable by 1-3 years in prison and it is a probation eligible crime. I have no knowledge of any City statutes deviating from State statutes here. I hope I answered your questioned.
Nalley also included the relevant statute:
Sec. 19 2. Possession of burglary tools.
(a) A person commits the offense of possession of burglary tools when he possesses any key, tool, instrument, device, or any explosive, suitable for use in breaking into a building, housetrailer, watercraft, aircraft, motor vehicle as defined in The Illinois Vehicle Code, railroad car, or any depository designed for the safekeeping of property, or any part thereof, with intent to enter any such place and with intent to commit therein a felony or theft. The trier of fact may infer from the possession of a key designed for lock bumping an intent to commit a felony or theft; however, this inference does not apply to any peace officer or other employee of a law enforcement agency, or to any person or agency licensed under the Private Detective, Private Alarm, Private Security, Fingerprint Vendor, and Locksmith Act of 2004. For the purposes of this Section, "lock bumping" means a lock picking technique for opening a pin tumbler lock using a specially crafted bumpkey.
(b) Sentence.
Possession of burglary tools in violation of this Section is a Class 4 felony.
(Source: P.A. 95 883, eff. 1 1 09.)
That's not quite the answer I was hoping for---when jail is a possibility, I'd prefer a somewhat brighter line---but I suspect it's the best answer I'll get for such a hypothetical situation.
By the way, just so we're all clear, I'm not a lawyer, Nalley has never even met you, and this isn't legal advice.
]]>It's about what experts mean when they say a piece of evidence is "consistent":
The criminalist who did the ballistics comparison wasn't sure he had a match...The most he could say is that the gun was "consistent with" the one that fired the bullet that killed the young woman. The murder weapon.
"Consistent with." What the hell does that mean?
It means "might be." It means "maybe or maybe not." It means "sure it's possible." It means "who knows." All of which is a way of saying that it means not much of anything at all.
I have no idea what the ballistics expert means by "consistent," but if he has any scientific integrity, the word "consistent" has a slightly more precise meaning than Gamso is allowing for.
Consider Gamso's next paragraph:
"He's not desperately poor." That's consistent with the guy who got laid off from the plant and is struggling to get by on unemployment and food stamps and also with Bill Gates and his billions. It tells you nothing.
But it does tell me something. It rules out the possibility that he's desperately poor. Assuming we have a reasonable definition for "desperately poor," it tells me he's not living in the streets, sick and starving.
"Not desperately poor" is an awkward phrase, because it's the negation of "desperately poor" rather than a positive assertion the way "consistent" is. But that leads us to a clearer understanding of what "consistent" means in ordinary usage: It means not inconsistent. That is, when the expert testifies that the gun he tested is "consistent with" the murder weapon, it means he cannot rule it out.
It sounds pretty weak, doesn't it? Saying you can't rule something out is a long, long way from saying it's true. As a matter of philosophy of science, however, this is as good as it gets. Scientific tests never really prove anything is completely true. The only possible results of any test are that it is consistent or inconsistent with the idea being tested. Our technological civilization is built on scientific theories which have never been proven true, but which have survived countless attempts to prove them false.
"Consistent" means something, and when you have enough consistent results, it comes as close to certainty as science can get.
Gamso quotes from the Federal Rules of Evidence:
Rule 401. Definition of "Relevant Evidence"
"Relevant evidence" means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.
That definition bothers me for a reason that is probably a bit pedantic. In particular, I'm botherd by the phrase "make the existence of any fact...more probable or less probable". I think I know what the rules are trying to say, but I believe it is an error in reasoning to say that a fact can be more probable or less probable.
The facts may be unclear, confusing, complex, uncertain, or unknown. But whatever the facts are, they happened. "Probable" has nothing to do with it. There's no way that evidence or testimony at a trial can somehow reach back in time and change what really happened, or change the probability that something happened. Evidence can't make reality more probable or less probable, because reality is fixed.
Evidence in science is no different when you examine it carefully. For example, a public health study might be reported in the nightly news as estimating that "10 million Americans have Greenfield's disease." A newspaper report might add that the study has an error of "plus or minus 2%." That sounds like a strict cutoff, but a scientist would explain that it's really a confidence interval. If you delve into the study, you'll probably find out that the newspaper reporter used the study's 95% confidence interval. The scientist would explain that this means there's a 95% chance that the true number of Americans with Greenfield's disease is within plus or minus 2% of 10 million.
The scientist would be wrong, however, for the same reason the rules of evidence are wrong. However many Americans have Greenfield's disease---let's say it's 9,982,458---that's how many have Greenfield's disease, and there's no chance or probability involved. What our 95% confidence interval of plus or minus 2% is really saying is that conducting this scientific study has a 95% chance of giving us a result that is within plus or minus 2% of the true number. Or, to put it another way, our result is consistent with the theory that Greenfield's disease affects about 10 million people.
Getting back to our ballistics expert, when he says the defendant's gun is consistent with the murder weapon, he's not---despite what the Rules of Evidence say---making it more likely that the gun is the murder weapon. Rather, he's saying that with some degree of scientific confidence, the prosecutor's theory that the gun us the murder weapon was not disproved by the ballistic examination.
Now let's look at a simpler example.
Suppose we suspect that a coin has been modified so that when flipped it always come up heads. We think this modification is subtle and undetectable to the naked eye (and we have no instruments available). How can we prove that the coin has been gimmicked if we can't detect the modification?
Simple: We flip the coin.
If we flip it once and it comes up heads, that proves almost nothing. The coin will do that half the time even if it's perfectly legitimate.
So we flip the coin again, and it comes up heads again. With two tests of the coin in our data set, the possibility that it's a gimmicked coin is slightly higher, because this result will happen by random chance only one time in four. Do a third test, and it's one time in eight. Four tests will come up all heads only one time in 16 with a fair coin, and so on.
If we keep flipping the coin and we keep getting heads, the possibility that this is a fair coin gets smaller and smaller. Ten heads in a row is only a 1-in-1024 possibility with a fair coin. By the time we get to 20 straight heads in a row, the odds of this being a fair coin are less than one in a million. It's safe to conclude there's something wrong with the coin.
(I've just made the same mistake the Rules of Evidence made. The coin is either gimmicked or it's not. The 1-in-a-million probability is really a statement about the accuracy of the testing method. That is, it's not really that the odds of this being a fair coin are less than 1 in a million. Rather the odds of a fair coin behaving this way are less than 1 in a million.)
The coin testing process I just described is good science for three basic reasons. First, it puts numbers to its results. Real science almost always involves some math, and real scientific studies usually state their results in form of probabilities and confidence intervals. Gamso does not report that the ballistics expert gave any probabilities with his conclusions.
Second, and more generally, our conculsion about the coin includes information about the error rate of our testing process: The chances of a coin that is not gimmicked behaving this way are less than 1 in a million. When the ballistics expert testified that the gun was consistent with the murder weapon, did he quantify or even characterize the possibility that it wasn't the murder weapon? For example, did he explain what percentage of all guns would be consistent with the murder weapon? If it's 1 in a million, that's a pretty good sign that you've got the right guy. If it's 1 in 10, the expert's conclusion is just barely relevant.
Third, our conclusion about the coin is based on a series of independent tests. Each flip of the coin is a test. The results of any single flip indicate very little, because even a fair coin will come up heads (produce a false positive) 50% of the time. However, when we conduct a series of 20 independent tests, we can reduce the false positive to one in a million. In general, the more tests we conduct, the more we can reduce the liklihood of a false positive.
This last point is crucial to reaching a conclusion because (in theory, anyway) that's logical rationale behind how the evidence in a trial builds up to a conclusion. Let me see if I can illustrate this with some data that I totally made up.
Let's pretend that the ballistic match is a very simple two-step process. First, we match the caliber of the gun, which must be one of 10 possible calibers which occur in equal numbers---i.e. for any given caliber, 10% of all guns are a match. Second, we match the land-and-groove pattern within the barrel, of which there are 10 possible patterns, all occuring in equal numbers. Since each matching step eliminates 90% of the guns, a ballistic match that passes both steps has eliminated 99% of the guns, meaning that only 1 in 100 guns will match.
In addition, we have a witness ID, which we'll assume is also 90% accurate. Combined with the gun match, this eliminates 90% of the remaining false positives, meaning that only 1 in 1000 gun owners match the criteria. We're getting somewhere.
It all goes wrong, however, if there are hidden connections between the criteria. For example, how did the police narrow down the suspect list that they presented to the witness? If they already had the ballistic report, perhaps they did a database search for people who owned guns of the same caliber as the murder weapon, and used the resulting list to build their suspect list.
If so, this means that the witness ID and part of the ballistic examination are correlated and not independent. And to the extent that they're correlated, we have to factor that out of the calculation. In this case, every suspect presented to the witness was known to have a gun that matched the caliber of the murder weapon, so the ballistic expert's discovery of this fact adds nothing new. This eliminates the 1-in-10 ratio for the caliber match, and we're back down to a 1 in 100 chance of a random person matching the known facts about the murderer.
One of the reasons DNA evidence is considered so good is that scientists have a pretty good understanding of the prevalence of various DNA markers in the human population and of the correlations between them. In fact, DNA testing is explicitly based on statistics, which is why DNA test results usually include an estimate of the chance of a false positive. With a good DNA sample, the chance of a random match is often less than 1 in a billion, and lawyers love to bring that number out in trial because it is so impressive.
By comparison, Gamso's account of fingerprint experts saying things like "There is no error rate. It's 100 percent accurate." is infuriating. Only abstractions are perfect. Everything in the real world has an error rate.
Sometimes that error rate is vanishingly small, which allows us to say that something is "error-free" when speaking informally. But if you press for a number, a real scientist should be able to find one.
]]>My iPhone has similar limitations---no multitasking, no USB or FireWire, a closed application deployment mechanism---but it's a cell phone: Making it more flexible would come at the risk of making it less reliable. But in a general-purpose computer, I want a lot more flexibility, and I can live with the reliability problems the come with it. (Yes, I am a Windows user. How did you guess?)
If I still traveled for business, I might appreciate an iPad as an on-the-go email and surfing computer, but the touch keyboard probably isn't adequate for typing long email messages. As a photographer, I'd love to have a small computer that I could use to preview and backup my digital photos, but there's no way to attach an external camera.
I can almost hear the Apple true believers sputtering about how wrong I am: The iPad has both a keyboard and a camera connection kit available as accessories. Well, yes, but since the iPad only supports the proprietary Apple connector, you have to use Apple's keyboards. If they'd put a USB port on the iPad, it could use any of hundreds of popular keyboards.
The camera situation is no better. Instead of USB or FireWire, you have to use the iPad Camera Connection Kit, which offers you two modules for transfering images. One of them is an SD card reader, which is kind of a ripoff considering that cell phones far less powerful than the iPhone---let alone the iPad---have had built-in SD card readers for years.
The other camera connection module is even more galling: It's a USB adapter that allows you to connect the iPad to your camera's USB port. You know what else would have allowed you to connect your iPad to your camera's USB port? A USB port built into the iPad.
It seems like a really frustrating design. It might have made a nice way to accept and transport large specifications documents and image files I get when I visit clients, if only it had a filesystem to store and organize them. If I were a musician, the iPad would be an awesome tool for recording and remixing music, but there's no way to attach a digitizer or a midi keyboard. If I were a video producer, the iPad would be a nice way edit together simple videos, such as a video blog, but there's no way to pull in video from a camera.
Granted, I'm not a visionary genius like Steve Jobs, and perhaps by this time next year I'll be raving about the wonders of my cool new iPad, but I just don't see it...
]]>So I Googled "state of the union republican response", but all Google could find was last year's Republican response. The new one hadn't been indexed yet. Not a problem: I'll just search one of the news sites...unless...
Seriously, does anybody really pay attention to the opposition response? It's given by someone that the last election's losers are hoping we'll like better than the guy they ran for President last time, and nothing he says matters, because unlike the president, he's not in a position to do anything about it. Most people probably don't even know that Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell gave the speech. I know I wouldn't if I hadn't decided to write about it.
So...when I wrote my review of the Republican response to the State of the Union, I went ahead and used last year's speech by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. So far, no one has noticed.
(Probably because no one cares, and also because no one reads my blog.)
Anyway, here's my review of the real 2010 Republican response to the State of the Union, as delivered by Governor Bob McDonnell and transcribed by CNN (as far as you know, because you really don't care enough to check. I wouldn't.):
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Good evening. I'm Bob McDonnell. Eleven days ago, I was honored to be sworn in as the 71st governor of Virginia. I'm standing in the historic House Chamber of Virginia's Capitol, a building designed by Virginia's second governor, Thomas Jefferson.
It's not easy to follow the president of the United States. And my 18-year-old twin boys have added pressure to me tonight by giving me exactly 10 minutes to finish before they leave to go watch "SportsCenter."
(LAUGHTER)
I'm joined by fellow Virginians to share a Republican perspective on how to best address the challenges facing our nation today.
We were encouraged to hear President Obama speak this evening about the need to create jobs. All Americans should have the opportunity to find and keep meaningful work, and the dignity that comes with it.
As I've said before, too much of a focus on jobs makes for bad economic policy. Jobs matter, but so do things like productivity and producing things people actually want.
(APPLAUSE)
Many -- many of us here tonight -- and many of you watching -- have family or friends who have lost their jobs. In fact, 1 in 10 Americans is unemployed. That is unacceptable.
I usually let this sort of thing pass, but just for the record, 1 in 10 Americans are not unemployed. Unemployment figures are given as a percentage of people in the labor force, which is everybody who wants to work, whether they are working or not. Since about half of all Americans are too young to work, retired, disabled, institutionalized, or just don't want to work, our current 10% unemployment rate means that about 1 in 20 Americans is unemployed.
Here in Virginia, we've faced our highest unemployment rate in more than 25 years, and bringing new jobs and more opportunities to our citizens is the top priority of my administration.
Good government policy should spur economic growth and strengthen the private sector's ability to create new jobs.
(APPLAUSE)
We must enact policies that promote entrepreneurship and innovation so America can better compete with the world. What government should not do is pile on more taxation, regulation and litigation that kill jobs and hurt the middle class.
Man, the right wing really is obsessed with tort reform...
It was Thomas Jefferson who called for "a wise and frugal government which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." He was right.
Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much. Last year, we were told that massive new federal spending would create more jobs immediately and hold unemployment below 8 percent.
In the past year, more than 3 million people have lost their jobs, and yet the Democratic Congress continues deficit spending, adding to the bureaucracy, and increasing the national debt on our children and our grandchildren.
The amount of debt is on pace to double in five years and triple in 10. The federal debt is now over $100,000 per household. This is simply unsustainable.
The president's partial freeze announced tonight on discretionary spending is a laudable step, but a small one. The circumstances of our time demand that we reconsider and restore the proper limited role of government at every level.
(APPLAUSE)
Without reform, the excessive growth of government threatens our very liberty and our prosperity.
In recent months, the American people have made clear that they want government leaders to listen and then act on the issues most important to them. We want results, not rhetoric. We want cooperation, not partisanship.
(APPLAUSE)
There is much common ground. All Americans agree that we need health -- health care system that is affordable, accessible, and high quality. But most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government.
Republicans in Congress have offered legislation to reform health care, without shifting Medicaid costs to the states, without cutting Medicare, and without raising your taxes.
And we will do that by implementing common sense reforms, like letting families and businesses buy health insurance policies across state lines and ending frivolous lawsuits against doctors and hospitals that drive up the cost of your health care.
Allowing insurance to be sold across state lines is a great idea. It's a good way to increase competition in the health insurance market, and it will cost very little to implement. Also---and this is a little unusual these days---it's completely within the enumerated powers of the federal government since it's a classic example of interstate commerce.
And our solutions aren't 1,000-page bills that no one has fully read, after being crafted behind closed doors with special interests. In fact, many of our proposals are available online at solutions.gop.gov, and we welcome your ideas on Facebook and Twitter.
And still, no one has read them...
(LAUGHTER)
All Americans agree that this nation must become more energy independent and secure.
No they don't. We don't have to be energy independent any more than we have to be automobile independent, clothing independent, or consumer electronics independent.
We are blessed here in America with vast natural resources, and we must use them all.
Why should we use our own natural resource if we can get them cheaper from somewhere else?
Advances in technology can unleash more natural gas, nuclear, wind, coal, alternative energy that will lower your utility bills.
Here in Virginia, we have the opportunity to become the first state on the East Coast to explore for and produce oil and natural gas off-shore.
(APPLAUSE)
But this administration's policies are delaying off-shore production, hindering nuclear energy expansion, and seeking to impose job-killing cap-and-trade energy taxes. Now is the time to adopt innovative energy policies that create jobs and lower energy prices.
Uh, I'm pretty sure we can't increase the number of people working on energy production without raising the costs. If energy gets cheaper, someone's going to be out of a job.
(APPLAUSE)
All Americans agree that a young person needs a world-class education to compete in the global economy. As a young kid, my dad told me, "Son, if you want a good job, you need a good education." Dad was right, and that's even more true today.
The president and I agree on expanding the number of high-quality charter schools and rewarding teachers for excellent performance. More school choices for parents and students mean more accountability and greater achievement.
Since the president opposes the charter schools in D.C., you might want to check back with him on that.
A child's educational opportunity should be determined by her intellect and work ethic, not by her ZIP Code.
(APPLAUSE)
All Americans agree that we must maintain a strong national defense. The courage and success of our armed forces is allowing us to draw down troop levels in Iraq as that government is increasingly able to step up.
My oldest daughter, Jeanine, was an Army platoon leader in Iraq, so I am personally grateful for the service and sacrifice of all our men and women in uniform, and a grateful nation thanks them.
(APPLAUSE)
We applaud President Obama's decision to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We agree that victory there is imperative for national security.
And we'll know we're victorious how? What would achievable victory look like?
But we have serious concerns over the recent steps the administration has taken regarding suspected terrorists. Americans were shocked on Christmas Day to learn of the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit. This foreign terror suspect was given the same legal rights as a U.S. citizen and immediately stopped providing critical intelligence.
He's not getting the same legal rights as a U.S. citizen, he's getting the same legal rights we give to everyone who is accused of a crime. The only way it would make sense not to give him legal rights is if we weren't going to put him on trial. I'm not ready to live in a country that summarily imprisons people without a trial.
Look, if they start attacking us with such fury and in such numbers that our justice system can't keep up, then of course we can hold them without a trial. That's a war. But one guy trying to kill some people? That's not a war. That's Saturday night in every big city in America. We handle those cases by the tens of thousands every year. The underwear bomber is just one more attempted murderer.
Also, "critical intelligence"? The terrorist leadership trusted critical information to a guy who was willing to put a bomb in his underwear?
As Sen.-elect Scott Brown has said, we should be spending taxpayer dollars to defeat terrorists, not to protect them.
That would be those 30,000 troops you mentioned earlier.
(APPLAUSE)
Here at home, government must help foster a society in which all our people can use their God-given talents and liberty to pursue the great American dream. Republicans know that government cannot guarantee individual outcomes, but we strongly believe that it must guarantee equality of opportunity for all.
That opportunity exists best in a democracy which promotes free enterprise, economic growth, strong families, and individual achievement.
Many Americans are concerned about this administration's effort to exert greater control over car companies, banks, energy, and health care, but over-regulating employers won't create more employment, overtaxing investors won't foster more investment.
That paragraph is dead-on.
Top-down, one-size-fits-all decision-making should not replace the personal choices of free people in a free market, nor undermine the proper role of state and local governments in our system of federalism. As our founders clearly stated, and we governors clearly understand, government closest to the people governs best.
Correct again. Where were you during the previous administration?
(APPLAUSE)
And no government program can ever replace the actions of caring Americans freely choosing to help one another. The scriptures say, "To whom much is given, much will be required." As the most generous and prosperous nation on Earth, it is heartwarming to see Americans giving much time and money to the people of Haiti.
Thank you for your ongoing compassion.
(APPLAUSE)
Some people say they're afraid that America is no longer the great land of promise that she has always been. They should not be.
America will always blaze the trail of opportunity and prosperity. America will -- must always be a land where liberty and property are valued and respected and innocent human life is protected.
Government should have this clear goal: Where opportunity is absent, we must create it. Where opportunity is limited, we must expand it. Where opportunity is unequal, we must make it open to everyone.
(APPLAUSE)
Our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to create this great nation. Now we should pledge as Democrats, Republicans and independents -- Americans all -- to work together to leave this nation an ever better place than we found it.
As usual, I suspect that "work together" is politician-speak for "do it my way."
God bless you, and God bless this great land of America. Thank you very much.
And that's it. Next year, I won't play games with the opposition response. Probably because I will forget they even have one.
]]>Now here's Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, [as reported by CNN]:
Tonight, we witnessed a great moment in the history of our Republic. In the very chamber where Congress once voted to abolish slavery, our first African-American president stepped forward to address the state of our union. With his speech tonight, the president completed a redemptive journey that took our nation from Independence Hall to Gettysburg to the lunch counter and now, finally, the Oval Office.
Indeed. That we've come so far in race relations is a very cool thing, and something we should be proud of. Electing a black man to the presidency is not the end of racism, but you can see it from here.
More after the break...
]]>Working from the official Whitehouse transcript:
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 27, 2010
Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address9:11 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Madam Speaker, Vice President Biden, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:
Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union. For 220 years, our leaders have fulfilled this duty. They've done so during periods of prosperity and tranquility. And they've done so in the midst of war and depression; at moments of great strife and great struggle.
It's tempting to look back on these moments and assume that our progress was inevitable -- that America was always destined to succeed. But when the Union was turned back at Bull Run, and the Allies first landed at Omaha Beach, victory was very much in doubt. When the market crashed on Black Tuesday, and civil rights marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday, the future was anything but certain. These were the times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union. And despite all our divisions and disagreements, our hesitations and our fears, America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, as one people.
As one nation? That never really happens. Also, did Obama just use the battle of Bull Run during the frickin' Civil War an example of moving forward as one nation? We were literally killing each other!
More, after the break...
]]>Does either of those statements seem reasonable to you?
Then how come so many people think it makes sense to respond to the Citizens United ruling---which struck down restrictions on corporate spending for political advertising---by saying the original laws didn't violate the First Amendment because "Corporations aren't people, and money isn't speech"?
]]>I've been saying for a while that asset forfeiture is theft by government employees, but what I didn't realize is that they've started to privatize the thievery:
Timothy Bookwalter, the elected chief prosecutor for Putnam County, Indiana, did not represent the county in its effort to keep Anthony Smelley's money. Nor did anyone else in his office. Instead, the case was handled by Christopher Gambill, a local attorney in private practice. Gambill manages civil forfeiture cases for several Indiana counties, and he gets to keep a portion of what he wins in court. "My contingency for my own county is a quarter; for the others it's a third," Gambill says.
Read the whole thing.
]]>(Hat tip: Radley Balko.
]]>A US Airways crew panicked by a Jewish teen's prayer ritual aborted a flight from LaGuardia Airport on Thursday, landing in Philadelphia amid unfounded fears of a terrorist bomb.
The trouble began when the 17-year-old White Plains youth pulled out two small Scripture-filled boxes used for his morning prayers on the Louisville, Ky.-bound plane, authorities said.
The official story is kind of amusing in a we've-seen-all-this-before kind of way:
Officials with the airline, however, said crewmembers "did not receive a clear response" when they talked with the teen, according to a statement issued by Republic Airways, which owns Chautauqua.
Translation: "We didn't understand his response."
Scott sums up the problem:
Just because you don't know what something is doesn't provide justification to deem it a threat.
There's a whole world of truth in that sentence. People with power have always felt a paranoid need to crack down on things they don't understand. From jazz to rock music, from ferets to pit bulls, from women who wear pants to men who wear droopy pants, unimaginative people have feared them all.
Anyway, when the plane landed, the kid explained what happened to the police and they let him go on his way.
In the other blog post, Scott tells us about a guy who got stopped for a traffic ticket and immediately told the officer he wanted a lawyer. This made the cop suspicious, and she promptly searched the car, finding his mother's dead body in the trunk.
The problem here is that
the invocation of a constitutional rights cannot serve to give rise to probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, nor can the defendant be questioned after invoking right to counsel.
So the officer discovered the crime during a search that apparently wasn't legal. Naturally, this will cause problems when the case goes to trial.
What I'm wondering, however, is whether the police and FBI would have let the 17-year-old Jewish kid go if he'd asked for his lawyer when they started questioning him. I mean, it must have seemed obvious to the kid that he could explain the problem and they'd understand. As it turned out, he was right.
But that doesn't necessarily mean it was a good idea to explain himself. A lot of people are in jail because they explained things to understanding cops.
]]>I blog about justice and economics and freedom and government perfidy, but the disaster in Haiti right now has little to do with any of those things.
I could probably find a way to link the disaster or the relief effort to one or more of my favorite topics, and soon I probably will. But for now...
For now I think we just let the governments and aid organizations do their thing.
]]>Is it legal to own lock picks in Illinois?
Chicago, IL
And it it's legal, are there places where you're not supposed to have them? In particular, does Chicago have different laws?
[typos in my original question]
This morning I got my first answer from Avvo Level 10 Contributor Alan James Brinkmeier:
This attorney is licensed in Illinois.
Illinois has stringent picklock laws and locales require a locksmith license to use lock-picking devices to open locks in situations where the owner needs access. Lock picks are devices used to lift the various pins found within the cylinder of a lock. These special tools are used in order to open the lock without the use of a key.
Criminal activity is one such reason for strict picklock laws.
You might find my Legal Guide helpful "Ethics: Yes I Need a Lawyer!"
http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/ethics-yes-i-need-a-lawyer
Good luck to you.
God bless.
NOTE: This answer is made available by the Illinois lawyer for educational purposes only. By using or participating in this site you understand that there is no attorney client privilege between you and the attorney responding
Brinkmeier's Avvo page describes his practice as 30% appeals, 25% state, local, and municipal law, 25% aviation, and 20% defective/dangerous products. He's apparently been practicing for 26 years.
I Googled "Alan James Brinkmeier" to see if I could find his firm's website. No luck. But I did find listings for him at Zoominfo, Superlawyers, and LawPromo. I thought I also found listings for him at the Southeast Texas Record and CASA, but it turns out those sites are just offering free legal advice services which are really just a feed from Avvo. I guess Avvo is syndicating its Avvo Answers service to other websites.
I also discovered that Houston criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett has mentioned Brinkmeier in a post entitled "Avvo Answhores":
Brinkmeier, who has "answered" more than 8,000 questions on Avvo, "answers" questions in the area of ethics and professional responsibility, employment and labor, car and auto accidents, debt collection, lawsuits and disputes, child custody, juvenile law, wrongful termination, DUI and DWI, immigration, appeals, civil rights, and domestic violence anywhere in the U.S.
The disclaimers should say that the "answers" are for entertainment, rather than education or information.
What's the game? Why can't people like...Alan Brinkmeier, who recognize that they have no clue what they're talking about, just keep their traps shut and let the lawyers who have some chance of knowing the law answer the questions?
Brinkmeier took offense to this in the comments, and then he and Mark got in to a slightly bizarre argument about the comparative reliability of their respective phone systems.
As is my way, I took the following paragraphs from Brinkmeier's response
Illinois has stringent picklock laws and locales require a locksmith license to use lock-picking devices to open locks in situations where the owner needs access. Lock picks are devices used to lift the various pins found within the cylinder of a lock. These special tools are used in order to open the lock without the use of a key.
Criminal activity is one such reason for strict picklock laws.
and I fed them into Google, which lead me to this page at Superpages.com (which is also the second result in a Google search for the title of my question) in which the first three paragraphs contain the following sentences:
(emphasis added)
I don't think the apparent similarity of certain turns of phrase is entirely in my imagination, which leads to one obvious conclusion: Not only does James Alan Brinkmeier give free advice on Avvo, he also writes for Superpages.
]]>I've always been fascinated by things like lock picking and safe cracking, and maybe some day I'll take the time to learn more about it. Of course, I'd probably have to have some lock picks to do that, which got me wondering what the laws are on possession of lock picking tools. If only I knew a lawyer I could ask...
This seemed like a good time to try another question for Avvo Answers---Avvo's forum where lawyers earn points by answering questions for free. The last time I tried this, it didn't work out too well. The first lawyer pulled an answer out of his butt, and the second lawyer---Illinois criminal defense lawyer Jeremy Richey---was able to give the answer I was looking for only after we talked about it a bit here on the blog.
Is it legal to own lock picks in Illinois?
Chicago, IL
And it it's legal, are there places where you're not supposed to have them? In particular, does Chicago have different laws?
[typos in my original question]
Now let's see if anyone provides any interesting answers.
Update: I've posted about a response.
]]>Ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says he's "blacker than Barack Obama" and tells Esquire magazine that he was a real person in a political arena dominated by phonies.
Blagojevich, referring to the president as "this guy," says Obama was elected based simply on hope.
"What the (expletive)? Everything he's saying's on the teleprompter," Blagojevich told the magazine for a story in its February issue, which hits newsstands Jan. 19.
"I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived," Blagojevich said. "I saw it all growing up."
The White House refused to comment.
Yeah, I'm sure they had nothing to add to that.
A little later, I read something I like:
Blagojevich continues to accuse prosecutors of persecuting him for routine political deals.
We can only hope he's right. And that it catches on.
]]>