Daily Archives: October 26, 2010

G-hic G-hic G-hic G-uilty?

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[I don't want to hear anything about the title of this post. Deal with it.]

Remember hiccup girl? Even if you don’t, you can guess that she’s a girl who hiccups. She made national news two years ago as the girl who couldn’t stop hiccuping (video at the end of the post). She’s now in the news again, being charged with the murder of Shannon Griffin, a 22 year old male she met a week ago. According to police:

Griffin met [hiccup girl] Mee online just a week before his death, police said. They arranged to meet Saturday night at 511 Seventh St. N.

It was a trap. The three plotted to lure Griffin to the empty home and rob him, police said.

Griffin pulled up about 10 p.m. Mee led him to the back, where police said Newton and Raiford tried to rob him.

Mee kept on walking, but seconds later gunshots rang out. Griffin struggled with the men, police said, and was shot three times in the chest and once in the shoulder with a .38-caliber revolver.

No one reported the gunshots. Police found Griffin when a caller reported a sleeping transient about 11 p.m. Saturday.

Police found the gun and shoes left behind by a suspect.

Griffin had less than $60 on him when he was killed.

All three have been charged with first degree murder. Sentencing maven and lawprof Doug Berman exhorts:

I will use the “Hiccup Girl” case to highlight common arguments against broad felony murder provisions (e.g., that it treats too harshly a defendant with little or no bad mens reaconcerning causing another’s death and may not be an effective was to deter underlying felonies).  But the case has me now wondering whether and how first-degree murder cases such as this one can and should get resolved via plea bargains.

As a technical matter, the only form of homicide which the “Hiccup Girl” can be charged with is first-degree murder.  I do not think an honest prosecutor and/or judge could or should allow Jennifer Mee to plead to a lesser homicide charge.  I suppose a prosecutor and/or judge can (and likely will?) allow Mee to plead guilty only to robbery charges and simply not bring any homicide charges.  But would this be truly a just outcome?  Would such a plea deal, in essence, be a form prosecutorial nullification given that the Florida legislature apparently has decided that the Jennifer Mee’s of the world out br be facing first-degree murder for which the only available punishments are death and life without parole?

What? For someone who is considered an expert on criminal sentencing and who is also teaching future lawyers about criminal law, this is extremely poor statutory reading and reasoning. This assumes many things:

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Politicizing judicial elections (updated)

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[Update: apropos of this post, I just stumbled across this Slate piece, chronicling the horrific partisan commercials in judicial election campaigns this year. A terrific, must-read entry. H/T. Radley Balko (will this get me a link now?)]

It’s election season, which means we’re all subjected to those horrible bipartisan attack ads, each side proclaiming that the other is a vicious child molester who eats babies for dinner while swimming on corporate money, stolen from the pockets of hard-working, salt of the Earth middle Americans.

That’s de rigueur and to some extent, we’re all immune to it. But what happens when that same poisonous tact starts to infiltrate the re-election of a Supreme Court justice? That’s exactly what’s occurring currently in Illinois, where the retention campaign of Supreme Court justice Thomas Kilbride has been met with some vicious attacks ads on the radio, leading him to fundraise millions of dollars to mount his own campaign. Oh, and he’s running unopposed. There. Is. No. Other. Candidate.

While listening to this story on NPR this morning, I was a little befuddled by this fact. The reporting did not explain it at all and only when I came across this website, did it become clear: in order to retain his seat on the Supreme Court, Kilbride must get 60% of the vote. The pro-business Illinois Civil Justice League is trying to ensure that he doesn’t.

Ed Murnane leads the pro-business Illinois Civil Justice League, Kilbride’s leading critic. Murnane rallied the business community after Kilbride voted this year against limits on medical malpractice claims.

“It became obvious that Thomas Kilbride not only had the worst record on civil issues,” Murnane said, “he also had a terrible record on criminal issues, and we thought the voters of Illinois who are being asked to send him back to the Supreme Court for 10 more years needed to know about his record.”

Those radio ads? Incendiary fear-mongering of the worst kind: the misleading kind Continue reading →

Does Martha Dean have a point?

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If I’d never heard the words “attorney general” and “lawsuit” and “active practice” in the same sentence again, ever, I’d have been a happy man. Today, I am sad.

As Rick Green reports, professional whackjob Attorney General candidate Martha Dean tweeted today that she’s filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that her opponent, George Jepsen, doesn’t qualify to be AG of CT. Yeah, this shit again:

Just filed court challenge to Jepsen’s qualifications under Supreme Court standard: trying cases & 10 yrs of active litigation experience.

It seems, though, that her suit is sparked in part by the Court’s decision in the Bysiewicz case from earlier this year. As you will remember, the supreme court issued its ruling from the bench, holding that Bysiewicz was not qualified to be AG of the state. Last week, they issued the actual decision. Here’s the crux of that decision:

We next address the intervening defendant’s claim that the trial court improperly determined that the plaintiff’s performance of her duties as the secretary  of the state constituted the active practice of law under § 3- 124. Specifically, the intervening defendant claims that, to be eligible to serve as the attorney  general under  § 3-124, a candidate must have ten years experience in litigating cases in court. The intervening defendant further claims that, even if  litigation experience is not required, the plaintiff did not have ‘‘ten years’ active practice at the bar of this state’’ because she has not, on behalf of clients  and as her primary means of livelihood, engaged in conduct that required a high degree of legal skill for ten years. We agree with both claims.

There’s further clarification on that, and that’s where the problem lies:

We conclude, therefore, that, as used in § 3-124, the phrase ‘‘attorney at law of at least ten years’ active practice at the bar of this state’’ means an attorney with at least some experience litigating cases in court.  Although the presumption of eligibility might require this court to conclude that an attorney who has  not practiced exclusively or even primarily as a litigator for at least ten years is qualified to hold the office of attorney general under § 3-124, the presumption does not authorize us to ignore the clear intent of the legislature that the attorney general must have some measure of experience in trying cases. Because it is undisputed that the plaintiff has no experience representing persons in court, we must conclude that she does not meet the eligibility  requirements of § 3-124.

Do you have your brain turned on tonight? Good. Then you’ve already seen the problem here. The court has established, in essence, a case-by-case standard. They have taken it upon themselves to add an element of minimum practice to the statute, without defining what that minimum is. Continue reading →