Very Important Stuff

I think I may have lost my manhood card tonight.

Well, I probably lost it a long time ago but right now, I’m sitting on the edge of my seat watching the finale show of The Bachelor. If I could find a nice pink dress to wear tonight, I’d probably be more comfortable.

For anyone that has been watching the show, I hope you are with me in rooting for Sarah, the kindergarten teacher. Why? She is a little too goody goody for me and her baby voice really bugs me. My hope is that Travis picks her and leaves Moana for me out here in California. Moana doesn’t live too far away from me and I really think we'd look really good together.

A natural fit, no?

If you think the photoshopped photo above is creepy, come over to my house and check out the cool sample of Moana's hair I bought on Ebay!

Sometimes I wonder why I'm still single.

This Is Some Crazy Shit!

The execution of Michael Morales was indefinitely postponed! I usually like to talk a littl ebit about things like this, but I'm so swamped with last minute investigation requests right now I can barely breathe!

You can read about this most recent news at The Washington Post. Maybe I'm the only person that finds it interesting and even a little bit hopeful but I hope not. The ethical dilemma of physician's who swore an oath to help people, assisting in the execution of a healthy individual boggles the mind.

If I have a chance later, I'll log on and post my comments later.

(Photo from The CDC and Associated Press)

Morales Execution Postponed Till Today

Yup. Postponed.

Like a simple appointment.

You can read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Agony Of Defeat

This is so bizarre.

I just came back from another fantastic weekend of seminars and training at the Annual Capital Case Defense Seminar in Montery, California. I got to catch up with a ton of old friends and attend some great sessions.

Let's see...I arrived in Monterey on Friday and we finished up with a half day of seminars today. It was exhausting, exciting, sad, informative, and it gave me hope. Hope in knowing that there are people out there that are working together to put an end to this crazy punishment that the citizen's of California have deemed is a just punishment for a select few individuals.

Fast forward to now.

It's about 11:00 pm, and as I sit at my keyboard in the comfort of my home, The State Of California is scheduled to execute Michael Morales in the next hour. Michael is not a saint, of that there is no doubt, BUT there is no justice in killing the man...simple as that.

I know the last time I brought up La Pena De Muerte, it sparked a bunch of wait until someone close to you dies, THEN you'll change your mind comments to which I responded that I DID have a close friend whose life was taken at the hands of several people, years ago and although it was difficult, I saw beyond the anger and revenge I wanted.

A shirt I saw (and obviously took a photo of) at the Monterey conference says it all for me:

Yup...says it all.

Sleep tight Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another injustice has been served.

Capital Case Defense Seminar - Day 1

Woohoo! It's finally here! I'm leaving for the CCDS in beautiful Monterey, California. I'll be bringing the laptop and my camera to try and keep everyone up to date with whats going on. At the very least it might give you an idea of what goes on if you plan on attending next year.

I think we can check in to the conference today and then the keynote speaker does his thing in the evening, and then a reception which is usually everyone catching up with the people they haven't seen since last year. It's a little boring at first but then after the booze has begins flowing...the Shenanigans begins!

Note: I really enjoy the word shenanigans. I suppose its mostly because I like the way it rolls off my tongue when I say it. I first heard it when I went to this bar called Shenanigans, in my favorite fishing state of Wisconsin.

Good times.

The Crying Date II

Jeezus. When I fuck up, I can always count on my fellow bloggers to let me know about it. Thank you.

I think.

Let me respond to everyone:

Anonymous email - First off, I named her Puppet Girl because she likes to do this play acting thing with sock puppets and…it’s a long story. The name has nothing to do with me manipulating her or anything bizarre like that! Jeezus, I had to name her something!

Notguilty - Yes , I do really like her but I was very honest with her the first time around when I told her that the distance thing was something I would have a hard time dealing with. The truth is, if she lived within a reasonable distance from me, I would be the luckiest guy in the world to be with someone like her.

Melissa – Thank you for understanding. Not necessarily the money part but the distance thing.

Magnum PI – I won’t agree that it was cold of me to say what I did, although I did try and call her once to talk about it. She didn’t call me back and I’m not going to beg her to talk to me. If she does decide to talk to me, I’ll take her call anytime. I do wish that I had been able to take back what I said to her and rephrase it somehow. I guess I just wanted to talk about it in person when I could look at her in the eyes, instead of over the phone a few days later.

Audacity – Nope, No DTR.

WomanoftheLaw – It’s not that I didn’t suspect she still had feelings for me and I’m not arguing that I didn’t have feelings for her but the fact of the matter remained that regardless of how we felt about each other, her living in another city AND state is something I can’t live with. I guess it didn’t really matter what she was calling what we were doing but I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea…oh, and yes to the last question.

Blondie – Please don’t apologize. I was going to talk about this the day it happened but I decided against it…mostly because of the responses I figured I would get and mostly because I’ve been trying to sort my feelings out about it.

I called it a Crying Date story because well, Puppet Girl probably would have called it the end of a date when it all came crashing down. In my mind…In my mind we were not really dating. She happened to be in town for whatever teaching conference she was speaking at and we were two old friends with a history together and it was easy just to be with eachother. Right or wrong, I don’t know…I do know that we weren’t dating.

I agree about the whole, if it's really meant-to-be there's a way to get through it thing. Anything is possible but the long distance between us is surely permanent at least for the next few years. She just bought a house and I can’t leave my job.Yes, there was hanky-panky. I have only one bed in my house and she insisted that I not sleep on the couch. I wasn’t going to argue with her. I never said anything that would give her the expectations that our being together would result in a renewed long-distance relationship.

I found out from Big Mouth today that she had separated from someone she had been seeing for almost a year about two months ago. I knew when she stayed with me that she had been seeing someone but she told me it was over and I didn’t ask for details.

Libralinda – Heartless is such a cruel way of describing what I did. Maybe you’re right though. She asked me what I had meant when I talked to Big Mouth and I told her that even though she was never meant to hear what I said, I meant what I told him. I do care about her and I regretted moving away. But I did move and there is no going back. I asked her if she would ever consider moving closer to me (and some of her family) and she said probably not for another 5 years.

I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed some of you or shocked you with the fact that I can be a real asshole sometimes. I do try to go through life, hurting as few people as possible but sometimes it just doesn't work out, no matter how hard I try. I guess now some of you see why I’m still single. My life is pretty much an open book (at least on this blog) and I try to talk about as many of the details that I think I can handle and not bore everyone to death.

As much as I care about Puppet Girl, I’m not going to weigh her down as the miserable long distance boyfriend who sees his girlfriend once every couple of months and complains about it to no end.

I could never make her happy that way and even if she won’t admit it, I think she knows I’m probably right.

Alaskablawg Hangs Jury

For those that have been following the Rachelle Waterman murder trial on CourtTV...the news is:

HUNG JURY!

I know it ain't an acquittal but one of the Jurors is quoted as saying they were split 10-2 in favor of acquittal. So close! Good Job Steven and yes, you live to fight another day!

The Crying Date

Okay, I have been a very bad Blogger. No posts since last Wednesday? Can that be right?

Hmmm.

Well, work has been busy (as usual) and I've partly avoided posting because I've been avoiding talking about my crying date. Mostly because I've had a few weeks to think about it and anytime I run it through my head I come out sounded like a big ole jackass.

Yeah, that's right, it’s all about me and how I come out looking…Anyway, here it is:

THE CRYING DATE

First a little background. I used to date Puppet Girl a loooooooong time ago back when I was in my early twenties. We dated for about 1 ½ years then I had to make a tough decision to move away for work. It should be said, that I’m not a big fan of the whole long distance relationship. The reason? Well, I'm not a very needy person but if I'm dating someone, I want to be able to see them more than once a week. If anyone else has had a long distance relationship for any length of time that really enjoyed it…well, I'd REALLY love to hear about it.

Any hoot.

Puppet Girl and I ran into each other again a few months ago when she came into my town for some teacher's conference. I was really glad to see her. She looked fantastic, her blonde hair was a little shorter than I remembered, but she looked like a million bucks. Wow, I forgot about her smile. Seeing that smile always used to make my day. It was good to see her again.

We did the usual catching up that you do with good friends that you haven't seen or talked to in forever. We talked about mutual friends, her girlfriends, my dude friends…you get the idea.

As it always seems to…the topic of conversation shifted to us. What happened? You lived 11 hours away! That's what happened! She went on to tell me that I had a fear of commitment and that I could never have a normal relationship with a woman until I understood that not ALL relationships need to have both parties living in the same city and not ALL relationships are perfect.

Yeah, she went off on me for a while. Not like she was angry, but she just wanted me to understand that long distance dating is okay and that it was a lame excuse for me to use to stop seeing her. I didn't argue with her.

She mentioned that she had recently talked to another friend of mine, Big Mouth, who had told her (in all his infinite wisdom) that we had gone out drinking a while back and in a drunken stupor, I’d told him what a big mistake I had made ending things with her.

Fucking Big Mouth.

Even if I DID say that…which I’m not saying I did. Big Mouth broke Dude Rule #17 which is, don’t repeat the moronic drunk crap you say to one another at a bar while reminiscing about past loves and what could have been. You just don't!

Don’t worry, I've got a special payback in mind for Big Mouth.

Puppet Girl left town after her conference and she called me the following week to tell me she would be in town again. She wanted to know if it would be okay to stay with me since she was only going to be in town for a night. I said I wouldn't have it any other way.

This happened again and again. She would fly into town on a Friday, go to some meeting while I was at work then hang out with me the whole weekend. It was all fun and games until her last visit a couple of weeks ago.

I heard her on the phone talking with someone when I got out of the shower. Yeah, no, I can't make it, I have a date tonight and I’m out of town anyway. I didn't hear anything else. Date? Who does she have a date with? She's been with me since Friday..Oh. She's talking about us. Us? Crap.

We went to dinner and I didn't say anything about the date thing. It was always easy to relax with Puppet Girl and we just had a good time…until the following day when I took her to the airport.

For some reason, right at the passenger drop off, I decided to say, We're not dating. Right? We’re just friends. We're just friends? Right?

She looked at me for about 7 seconds without saying a word. I could see it in her eyes though. I had hurt her. I regretted saying anything. The tears were building up in her beautiful blue eyes until they couldn't hold it anymore.

She didn't say anything to me. She gave me a wet, salty kiss, got out of the car, and walked her fast walk into the terminal.

I haven’t talked to her since.

3 Subjects Of The Apocalypse

My next post WILL cover the next three topics:

1. Public Defender Investigator poisoned (just rat poison) by his wife (allegedly).

2. A Florida Cop who used his official police vehicle video camera to records chicks in bikini's.

3. My crying date.

Thank you for your patience, and interest.

Alaskablawg And The Flamboyant Trial Closing

I would have loved to have sat in on Alaskablawg's closing in the Rachelle Waterman murder trial (as described by blogger Harriet Ryan on the CourtTV website). Unfortunately, I was too cheap to get a subscription to watch the live trial:

Day to the prosecutor's night, defense attorney Steven Wells (pictured) delivers a loud, passionate summation. He nearly breaks an easel as he pounds on it while reminding jurors that simply knowing about the murder plot is not a crime. At another point, he dumps two dozen books about parenting teenagers and recognizing bad relationships on a table before jurors. "These books would not sell millions of copies if these weren't everyday common problems of men and women and teenagers across this country," he says as he argues that Rachelle never could have expected to foresee her mom's death when she "vented" to Arrant. He blames her "devil" ex-boyfriend for everything. And after ticking off nine witnesses who testified Waterman seemed to have a normal relationship with her mother present, he tells jurors, "Either she is a cold-blooded, psychopathic bitch monster that ever walked the face of this earth, or she didnt know what was going to happen and she didn't want it to happen!" He asks the panel not to hold his flamboyant behavior against his client and sits down.

I wonder if there is any chance we can get a transcript of the closing?

The Brown Devil

Yes, folks it's poo poo I'm talking about here.

I'm not going to copy Skelly's entire post here, but this story has me laughing my ass off! In short, A Knoxville County Assistant Public Defender wrote a fantastically descriptive letter to local jail officials complaining about fecal matter on the walls of the attorney rooms. They responded with a letter that basically said, You're a dumbass, it's glue on the wall, not shit!

Read Skelly's post on it and then you can follow the links to the Knoxville County Sheriff's Office Official Website...yup they posted the letters for the public to see.

Personally, I think the letter is great, and I wish that I could write even half as well as Auer does, but for obvious reasons, it was a bad idea to send a complaint letter like that without attempting other ways of having them acknowledge the situation first. From the Sheriff's office response, it sounds like they've recieved letters from her before.

Just to put a face to the name of the APD (Julie Auer):

And Sheriff Tim Hutchison:

(Auer's Photo from Knoxville Writers Guild and the Hutchinsons from the Knoxville County Sheriff's website)

The White Devil

I just want everyone to know that The White Devil, has a name! Which White Devil am I referring to? The Miniature Poodle from Sundays, Puppy Bowl II!

Thanks to Skelly and his link to Moonwritings, I discovered this:

It's sickening isn't it? Look at him. Smug and pretty. Just makes me sick.

Yeah, I know, I need to let it go.

Update From Last Week:

I just want everyone to know that last Friday when I was going over the week's MAJOR F**CK -UP'S, I talked about screwing up some subpoena's (that didn't get served) for one of my favorite Misdemeanor attorneys. Later, I said that the issues were resolved...turns out they weren't. The Judge decided he wouldn't allow a continuance and we had to go forward with Trial on Monday.

I worked my ass off on Friday, a little bit on Saturday (a couple of reports on Sunday) and by Monday, we had all of our witnesses lined up (along with an extra witness I found). My attorney called me last night and the verdict had come back on the case...

NOT GUILTY!

Yup. I still don't want to screw any more cases up for her, but it sure lit a fire under my ass.

Whew!

Oral Statements And Cheerleaders

I promised the two perv...Oh, I mean readers that were interested in the welfare and outcome of the criminal cases against the two cheerleaders arrested in Florida in November 2005, that I would try and follow up on the story if possible.

Oh yeah, it's possible.

Pity that I'll never have any clients like this but The Smoking Gun has (as usual) done a great job of making the oral interviews completed with witnesses on this case, available to the public. You can read about it here.

I love cheerleaders.

Happy Anniversary To Me!

My blog is one year-old today (actually yesterday, but I didn't bother to post)! Who knew I'd still be posting or that I'd even move up from one regular reader (thanks mom) to three! I'm glad to still be around and hopefully I'll be able to last at least another year.

Okay, with that out of the way, lets talk about Sunday.

Sunday was quite possibly the biggest disaster in Super Bowl history. It was lame. I really wasn't a fan of either team but I'm really not a fan of the Steelers.

The commercials, which in Super Bowls where my team is not in it are what make or break it sucked...for the most part. I think the Fed Ex cavman commercial was great but that was about it.

Sunday's saving grace? PUPPY BOWL II!!!

I put Direct TV on autotune when I saw that there were three hours of something called Puppy Bowl II and if I could have stayed awake, I would have watched the whole thing. The kitten halftime show was a bit of a drag (many of the kittens were just NOT focused on their routine) but the game play was excellent. I did wish some of the puppies would have been a little more assertive with a certain poodle that was being a real pain in the ass, but all in all, it was fun to watch.

Blondie posted about it yesterday so, I'm just jumping on the bandwagon.

For those that care to hear about the crying date, I will say a few words about that subject later today.

Friday, Sweet Friday!

Ahhh...you have no idea how glad I am to see Friday, February 3rd, 2006 on my calendar.

No, nothing special going on today but this has probably been the roughest week I've had at work in a long time.

Let see, where do I even begin? How bout here:

THIS WEEKS MAJOR FUCK UPS

1. I fucked up on a subpoena for one of my favorite Misdo attorneys. She has what is going to be an excellent 1538.5 Motion (A motion to suppress evidence) and the hearing was set for this week. Let's see, I interview the main witness in the case? Let me just check off a big fat YES on the list! Did I successfully send her a subpoena for the hearing date? Why Yes...Hmmm, why is there still a subpoena in my file? CRAP!!! The subpoena never got served!

2. Was it enough to fuck up on ONE of the cases belong to my favorite misdemeanor attorney? No, it was not. I decided I needed to top it off with TWO subpoena's that didn't get served. This one was on a completely separate case than #1. Not that it makes it any better.

(NOTE: The only thing that has made Major Fuck Ups #1 and #2 easier to take is that the attorney on the case is the sweetest attorney in the world and she told me that one of the cases was going to get continued (by the DA) and she could request a continuance on the other one...so my clients cases (and my ass) have been saved.

3. This one isn't really a fuck up more than it is a disappointment. A very nice client was really pushing me to investigate a fraud case of his and I spent 4 hours Wednesday night traveling to dumpy trailer parks, ghetto diners, and crappy motels only to find that although all these great witnesses I was uncovering were providing great interviews...none of them were beneficial to our client. I guess its going to be good for my felony attorney to know what's out there (as far as evidence and witnesses that can hurt us) and of course the DA hasn't talked to anyone that I talked to.

4. A client plead on a case that I wished in my heart he wouldn't have. I'm certain he was innocent of the charges but he didn't want to take a chance with a jury. He is happy, knowing he'll be out in 5 years instead of 15. Unfortunately, he'll be a registered sex offender and have little to know chance living a normal life again. It sucks.

So that's where things stand. I know things could be a whole lot worse in the grand scheme of things but still, I'm disappointed in myself.

Life goes on. I'll work a bit this weekend, watch the Seahawks tear apart the Steelers, play some poker, and Monday is the start of a whole new week. I'm ready to start it over.

"Lie" Detectors

Magnum PI from my favorite fishing state of Wisconsin pointed out an interesting article on in the Wisconsin State Journal on Voice Analyzers and their use by the WI Department of Corrections.

In an interesting note (everything is interesting to me!), one of the few companies that makes the high end analyzers is (or was) being sued by the family of a child who was accused of murdering his sister in San Diego County a few years back. Not only was the analyzer used but there was a false confession involved (using our favorite Reid Technique) and a homeless guy later ended up getting arrested for the murder after the charges were dropped against the kids.

You can look up stories on the subject right here.