Thursday, February 7, 2008

This started out as a friendly debate...

It appears as if the City of Portland has been secretly persuing a program where some of my clients are offered drug treatment in lieu of prosecution.

Problem arises when these clients are on some secret list that the City won't turn over to me or the other attorneys in my office.

This article was posted by one of our newspapers and the comments have now gotten ugly. I think I just told another lawyer, publicly, to "bite me." Childish?

Check it out: http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/2008/02/randy_leonard_to_face_court_ov.php

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Random Musings...

I, apparently, am a terrible blogger since I haven't written anything in 6 weeks or so. I could have lots of excuses, but why would anyone care anyway?

My roller derby team won their first game of, this, the Rose City Rollers third season. Heathers Por Vida!

I've been in trial almost non-stop since the New Year. Oddly, I was on a winning streak. Since I mostly represent thieves and junkies, winning streaks are few and far between. It all started with winning a 11 to 1 "not guilty" on a simple possession case where my client said to the officer, "yes, those are my drugs."

Next, I won an elude in a vehicle case where a jury member contacted me afterwards to let me know that they thought my client was a really nice young man and they just wanted to help him out. OK, it was only mostly a win. I won the felony charges and lost on the misdemeanor of reckless drive. Best of all, the client had been convicted of delivery of drugs "within 1000 feet of a school" back in 2001. He was placed on five years of probation and told that if he took one step wrong within those five years, he'd be sent to prison for 60 months. The reckless drive that I lost at trial happened about 45 days before his probation expired. So, we had a hearing about the probation violation. The judge told me off the bat that she wasn't going to send him to prison for 5 years, but that 1 year in jail might get the message across. After I had presented all of my arguments, she terminated probation as successfully completed and let my client walk out of the courthouse.

Finally, I won a motion to suppress when the police found the stolen lap top when my client--who was not being arrested--opened the trunk of his totalled car to take his stuff out. The cops told the judge that they are "required" to "inventory" all of the stuff that was in the car that they are towing. They need to make sure nothing the guy who isn't being arrested and is free to walk away is taking with him is stolen. Really. The very strange thing about this motion was that the judge ruled that the "inventory" of the stuff in my client's arms was just fine and dandy, but the police officers went too far when they "ran" the serial number on the computer through their network and it came back stolen. That "running" was a search without a warrant. Well, yes, it was. But, ummmmm, the cops are allowed to randomly look at the stuff that I'm carrying away from a car that is being towed and there is no suspicion that I broke any laws other than the ones that say I shouldn't run my car into light poles? Ooooo Kay.

I haven't won since, but there's lots of up comming opportunity!

My friends have a great blog: www.girlgonechild.com Super funny. Apparently, when they registered the domain name, no one noticed that there is a previously existing blog, www.girlsgonechild.blogspot.com Now readers of that blog want to firebomb my friends' houses. Isn't that a tad bit of an over reaction to an honest mistake?

I cried when John Edwards decided to end his campaign for President. I got over it and I think I'm an Obama girl now. Yes, I know I am.

I've been composing a special post just for Woman of the Law in response to her New Year's resolution (here: http://womanofthelaw.blogspot.com/2008/01/resolve-to-find-or-be-found.html). I think it's an important issue.

There, that was a laundry list of musings, for sure.