I Keep Forgetting To Mention This

An ex-Blawger started a website with Public Defender inspired clothing and merchandise aptly named:

PUBLIC DEFENDER WEAR

I'm looking forward to new items on his site, and am probably going to order a couple of things off of it. I'm also thinking that although it will be much smaller market, the Public Defender Investigator might also have and interest in having some shirts designed for them?

I remember one shirt that floated around a few years back read:

Don't Shoot, We're On Your Side!

Good Stuff.

Anyway, go check out Public Defender Wear and buy something for that special someone in your life...or just be selfish and get it for yourself.

I Hate It When I Have To Do This

Cleaning up forgotten Blawgs.

It sucks.

Sometimes in the blawgging world, a Blawg will be going strong and steady and then one day, for no reason at all...it drops off the face of the earth. Or in some cases it slowly dies out. Mine was in danger of dying out about a year ago when I was trying to decide whether or not I should even bother with one.

Unfortunately for my three faithful readers I continued to Blawg and here I am.

Here are my fellow peeps that are getting the boot...at least until they fire up the keyboard and give it another go...I've left you all on my blawg list long enough in the hopes that it would be sooner rather than later but it never happened:

Injustice Anywhere - Why? Last Posted in April 2006. She made the move from Texas to Washington and then disappeared! #1 I hope she is okay and #2 I hope she starts blawgging again.

Alaskablawg - Why? Last posted in May 2006. Who couldn't peel their eyes away from the

Rachelle Waterman murder trial in Alaska. It made Court TV and reading Alaskablawg's Blawg and the daily updates from Court TV...It felt like we were there in the courtroom! Where are you Mr. Wells?

a Public Defender - Why? Last posted in March 2006. Another blog I enjoyed but it just fizzled out. Again, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he starts writing again.

The Replacement Blawgs/Blogs?

By The Seat Of My Skirt - Why? Me Likey cartoons and me likey skirts. Nuff said.

Daily Kos - Why? It's time I share a little bit more about myself including the Blogs I enjoy reading. Notice I didn't say Blawgs?

Democratic Underground - Why? If you need to ask, you don't need an answer. Well...I will say that the main reason I read is for one of its columns: Ask Auntie Pinko!

That is all. Carry on people, carry on!

Let's Give Her A Hand! Oh. She Already Has One?

More Myspace investigation examples -

I would like everyone to meet the lovely and talented Ms. Linda Elizabeth Kay:

Wait a minute.

Before I give you the goods, I want you all to to think about this. You see, if I was on the prosecution side of things and I found her webpage, I would now have access to all of her friends, her ironic sense of humor, and some snazzy photos to share with other detectives in the precinct.

Good thing I'm one of the good guys instead!

Nice huh?

Ms. Kay is accused of...well, I guess she's accused of having someone's hand in a jar. If you check out the pictures on her Myspace page, you'll find an interesting photograph that considering the latest news headline...is strangely ironic:

Accompanying the above photograph is the following quote:

A friend found this for me...it is all too relevent...

I'm sure the robot isn't responsible for the hand in the jar...I just wonder who is?

Update - 7/28/06 : I just found that The Smoking Gun did a 1 page story on Ms. Linda Kay which you can read here!

The Good Guys Face A Loss

Tommy Clinkenbeard, a Sacramento County Public Defender passed away this week.

I hardly knew him, but the incredible impact I know that he had on his clients, friends, and family were huge. Tommy was an unstoppable advocate for the homeless, he was responsible for starting the homeless court and legal clinic in 2000 at Loaves & Fishes, and he was tireless in his efforts to defend all of his clients whether they were high profile Capital Cases or the run of the mill drug abuser. Tommy was also an active member of Death Penalty Focus and a tireless crusader for the ultimate abolishment of the Death Penalty.

When I find out more information on services, and an official obituary, I'll post it. Rest in peace Brother.

2:30 p.m. UPDATE - Sacramento ABC News 10 did a web story on Tommy.

Photographs from: Sacramento News & Review, and U.N.I.O.N

Thats Where I Got Shot Four Years Ago.

I finally found it. Jeez, The house was more run down and beat to shit than I was told. There are 3 empty dirt filled lots across the street and next door filled with condoms, needles, a couple of stripped cars, and a few kids playing soccer with basketball. A pile of old Time Magazines from 3 months ago are strewn all over the place. Man, someone should really pick some of this shit up.

It's taken me four 4 fucking hours and pure luck to stumble on it, but I did. Thats all that counts in the end. I'm lucky that I even found the place I guess. That's what happens when you get directions from a dude on the corner tweaked out of his mind.

My attorney said our client (who is looking at life on a carjacking/drug case) told her we could find the "Party House" on the corner of two major intersections in my city. The exact description I was provided was: He (our client) said it's a lime green, two-story house converted into something like 4 apartments...oh, and there is usually a guy in crutches out in front on the stairs in front of the building. Talk to Crutches (Mr. Orion), and he can tell you where to find Pepper (Ms. Pepper).

Fucking great.

A crippled dude named Mr. Orion is going to tell me where to find my main witness, Pepper.

Oh shit, I know a Pepper...good ole Pepper. I mean, I really don't know how many Pepper's live in my city but I'm guessing that there can't more than a handful.

I ran across Pepper about a year ago. She is a sweet, but sickly, old Black lady who has been working the streets longer than I've been alive. She makes pretty good change turning tricks but she spends all of her scratch putting shit up her nose and loaning it out to friends. I admire her Socialist leanings but if she doesn't kick the drug thing, she'll be dead soon.

Unfortunately for our case, Ms. Pepper is the only witness to a carjacking that occurred about two weeks ago. Pepper was supposedly looking to buy some candy with Skittlz, our client at the time of the alleged carjacking, and they were nowhere near where the incident took place.

So here I am standing on the street in the middle of one of the hottest afternoons ever.

It's so hot that even the pigeons and rats (some people call them squirrels) are staying off the concrete. Alright, focus, do what you need to do and get the hell out of here. It's too hot to admire the scenery.

Where the hell is Crutches or Mr. Orion...or whatever the hell his name is? I walked around the four-plex for a bit and noticed one crutch leaning on the wall near the front door of one of the apartments. Hmmm...there is a window near the door with a cardboard sign on it. What the hell does that say? I got a little bit closer, and read:

Mutherrfucker - Try coming in this window again! We'll have a mutherrfucking surprise waiting for U!

Note to self, Knock on the door NOT the window...Jeezus. Alright, lets do this.

knock, Knock, Knock.

Wait.

Knock, knock, knock.

Wait.

Knock, knock...

Someone screamed, Who the fuck is it!?!?

Public Defender! I yelled back.

I could hear rustling around inside and then, Hold on a minute!

The door cracked open and a Black guy with closely shaved head, in his late 40's peeked out, Yeah? That funky smell, I noticed from the moment I walked up to the door got stronger all of a sudden. I'm looking for Ms. Pepper, You Mr. Orion? He looked a little surprised that I knew his real name.

Mr. Orion opened the door a little more and stepped outside with me. Yeah, that's me, What you want Ms. Pepper for? I gave him a shortened rundown of the events leading me to his front door, the whole while he looked semi-interested and exceptionally drunk but he managed to tell me where I could find her.

Before I left Mr. Orion, I asked him a question that I'd been dying to ask. Why aren't you using your crutches, isn't that why everyone calls you Crutches? He looked at me and took off his left shoe and sock, pointing out a scar near a mangled big toe. Thats where I got shot four years ago. My toe don't bend anymore but I can still walk. After I got shot I had to walk around on crutches for a long ass time and so everyone started calling me Crutches. I only had to use the crutches for about a month but I liked the nickname, besides, I can move around a lot faster with the crutches than without them.

No shit? Well, thats what I get for asking. Crutches looked at me like I was a moron, and he probably was not that far off in his thinking.

He added, Do I get a finders fee or something? I handed him another business card (he had dropped the first one onto some sticky crap on the ground). No, but if you run into any trouble, you can give me a call and we'll talk. He said, Thats good enough for me, then closed the door.

As I was leaving, I took another look at the crutch leaning against the wall. There was a Time magazine rolled up and taped to the area where the underarm cushion used to sit before it fell off from use.

It's good to know that at least someone is putting those magazines to good use. Hopefully I can find Pepper before the day is out.

Banjo's And Embezzling Sheriff's

Windham County, Vermont...never been there, but I hear it's beautiful AND a great place to visit!

Ahhhhh...who am I kidding, I never heard about the place till this story. It appears that the EX-Windham County Sheriff, Sheila Prue, (Notice I didn't add Deputy? We're talkin bout THE Sheriff) who was previously convicted of Misdemeanor Embezzlement charges is now working for the defense:

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- The former Windham County sheriff who resigned last month before pleading guilty to embezzlement charges is now working for a lawyer who is under contract with the Vermont Defender General's Office.

I suppose that Prue is extremely qualified to do the work and as far as her job as Sheriff went, she made a lot of history as the 1st female Sheriff in the state and also the 1st openly gay Sheriff in the state. From what I can follow, everyone seemed to like her before this pesky embezzlement case.

I didn't really go back to far through her history at the department and I'm hoping that the embezzlement charges weren't something that was drummed up by a bunch of asshole cops that couldn't take orders from a woman but...I did find this article at the Boston Globe which pointed out the most fascinating thing about this case:

Prue and her family also were accused of buying groceries, pet supplies, clothing, exercise equipment, household goods, a banjo and other items for personal use with the department's money.

A BANJO! You gotta love this shit. Also in the same article was a mention of another local (I'm guessing) Sheriff to the area that also borrowed a little cash then tried to say it was spent on a undercover narc investigation:

Prue's felony conviction and resignation come just over two years after Washington County Sheriff Donald Edson pleaded guilty to a felony fraud charge.
He then resigned.

Edson was charged after an investigation found that in 2002 he borrowed $25,000 from the Lamoille County Sheriff's Department. When the Lamoille County department asked for the money back, Edson tried to forge documents saying the money had been used for an undercover drug operation.

Hope everyone has a good Friday and a fan f-ing tastic weekend! I know I won't!

A Regular F*ckin National Geographic

I always enjoy it when Skelly at Arbitrary and Capricious posts real-life photographs of his travels around the beautiful state of Washington with his son or even photos of his pets at home. I realize that I've never met Skelly or talked to him on the telephone (we have exchanged emails) but its little things like this, that add to my enjoyment of his blog.

I don't have any dogs or cats that live under the same roof as I do anymore and after 31 years of life I'm still childless SO let me share a few animal pics from my last trip home and one not involving animals at all. I'll start witt the animal free pic:

I wanted to show my three faithful readers a photograph of the church that I grew up attending as a kid. With the exception of some fancy new decorations, the church is exactly the same as it was 19 years ago...no smartasses, I've been to church a few times since then!

That spot with the yellow arrow? Thats where me and one of my best childhood friends got in a shitload of trouble for eating candy in church. Yeah, thats right, I typed shitload anc church in the same sentence.

We were right in the middle of mass and the church was packed to standing room only. Alejandro (not his real name...or is it?) had thoughtfully shoved a pocketful of butterscotch candies in their bright yellow and super crinkly wrappers in his pocket and for some reason we both failed to notice that El Padre (and his superhuman hearing) had stopped his sermon to look at the two stupid kids in the back row, loudly dropping candies on the hard, wooden pews and giggling like little school girls.

El Padre walked from his podium (visible in the photo) over to us, told us to both stand up, grabbed each of us by one ear, and dragged us all the way to the front of church and made us sit on each side of him while he finished mass.

Our parents were sitting at the front of the church, where they didn't know their little devils had been the cause of El Padre stopping the show until we were seated red-faced (well, as red-faced as two brown skinned kids could be) in front of them...on the ground.

I still don't know how I got over the embarrassment and ass-whooping that I recieved after that but I did. I also never sit near Alejandro anymore in church...if I can avoid it. Yeah...giggling like a school girl has caused me quite a few uncomfortable moments in life...we don't have to get into that right now.

Does anyone have any idea what this bird is? Any guesses? I didn't think this was that big of a deal until I was talking with a couple of attorney's in our office who I swear have NEVER left the city a day in their life! They thought this creature lived only in cartoons. Done with the guesses?

It's a Roadrunner! You can see that he has a little lizard or mouse in his beak that he'd picked up for breakfast...if he wasn't running so fast, the photo would have been a lot less blurry.

Of course this is a female, California Quail which is not so uncommon in the Southwest BUT this is the first time I've ever been able to get close to their chicks! Again, the little buggers were running kind of fast so they are a little blurry too. What? I'm not a friggin nature photographer!

Last but not least on my church/nature tour is: Gopherus Agassizii

Gopherus Ag...what you ask? Why it's the friendly Desert Tortoise! Here is a guy that COULD NOT escape my camera lense and he was slow enough that my photographs were not too blurry. I think the guy posing in the photo above is named Frankie...or maybe I'm just making that up.

These old timers are slow but sneaky. While I was taking the photograph above and talking to the caretaker of these tortoises, this little guy snuck up on my and started attacking me.

I did my best to keep from screaming like a little school girl and punting him away...see, screaming, giggling...it's all the same thing when you're doing it like a school girl. I let him chew on my foot for about 5 awkward minutes, then when he was done chewing, he rested his head on my shoe and stopped moving. I think he might have fallen asleep after a hearty meal of New Balance shoe.

Okay, I'm done punishing you folks with my travel pics and stories. See you next time when I post the photos of my long lost collection of Star Wars action figures that I had as a kid!!!

More Fun Defense Investigator Hypotheticals

The following hypotheticals may look familiar to some readers out there that applied for a certain defense investigator opening at one of the highest paying Public Defender Offices in California (and quite possibly...the nation). I won't name the office but a little research ought to give it away rather quickly.

They attached the following hypotheticals to their job application, which I am posting as a public service to future investigators applying for jobs in California. These are the kind of questions you get in interviews and on applications...remember that most of them require basic answers and common sense. It also helps to think outside the box.

Sometimes.

Just read the hypos and exercise your cabeza:

A Deputy Public Defender asks you to investigate an incident, supplying you with the following details:

My client, Gunter Thor, is charged with making terrorist threats upon his sometimes girlfriend, Sonia Secrets. The police report quotes Ms. Secrets as saying, "He [Thor] said he would kill me for what I did. I did nothing wrong. Gunter is crazy and I'm scared to death of him. Ms. Secrets has filed affidavits in support of T.R.O.s (Temporary Restraining Orders) to keep Mr. Thor at a distance. She has reportedly received fiscal and counseling support from the local Battered Women's Shelter, the District Attorney's Victim Witness Program, her HMO medical plan, and her psychologist.

Mr. Thor told me Ms. Secrets tried to attack him when he confronted her about her two-timing him, but he denies threatening Ms. Secrets. Mr. Thor says Ms. Secrets has multiple liaisons with men, sometimes for money. She meets the men through a "hot and ready" singles advertisement in the newspaper, under the nickname "Vicky." Included in her clientele is a certain police officer, Mark Ramparts, who Mr. Thor says has been sending pornographic emails to Ms. Secret's home computer from his email account: Ramparts@excite.com. There is no mention of these liaisons in any police report that has so far been made available to the defense.

Mr. Thor says that Ms. Secrets is a chronic liar who milks people for emotional and fiscal support. "She never tells the same story twice," He says. He wants our investigation to confirm she is a pathological liar, and that this "crim" didn't occur. Given this scenario and request, what would you do, and how would you do it?(Please limit your response to 120 lines.)

and then there is #2, which is more on the ethical side of stuff (and also more obvious):

You have been assigned to catalogue the evidence at a homicide crime scene after the police have concluded their investigation. The scene is still fresh with crime scene forensic evidence: blood on the walls, broken bottles and smashed furniture.

The cause of death has been determined to be strangulation, with evidence of blunt forced trauma to the head. Investigators for the co-defendant are also at the scene. As you look through the kitchen drawers you find a tray with sharp knives. The knives look like they have not been taken out of the tray for sometime. You decide to individually wrap the knives in bubble wrap before putting them away in an evidence box. You count the knives before you leave to get the bubble wrap. There are five (5) knives. When you return you recount the knives and find that there are now only four (4) knives. As you are recounting you hear the voice of the co-defendant's investigator yell out, "look what I found! I can't believe the cops missed this!" When you reach the co-defendant's investigator he is holding a knife like those in the drawer and the knife has blood on the blade. The attorneys in the house are ecstatic because now they have a weapon to solidify the self defense claim.

What do you do?

Penis Enlargements...Just To Start The Week Off

It's a peculiar thing. Every day my bulk mail gets filled to overflowing with garbage email from spammers trying to sell something to me or trying to get me to click on a website to "Check out your neighbors naughty nieces" or some other strange shit.

Lately, I've noticed that I've been getting an awful lot of Penis Enlargement emails from companies that offer a "quick fix to small problem." I don't normally even have a chance to read them because they go straight to bulk mail but more recently, a few have snuck through my spam filter defenses and because they are usually hidden in a regular looking email...I open them!

It might be that I'm becoming more paranoid in my old age (very early 30's) but I'm beginning to think that someone, somewhere in my past, thinks I might have a problem...And the only way to solve this problem is this penis enlargement stuff.

I can't think of any other way these penis people got my email UNLESS somebody complained.

I hate the internets sometimes.

Getting Kicked To The Curb

***Not Investigation Related***

I was chatting with Melissa over at Peekaboo on Google Talk sometime last week (If you don't have it, you should download it. It also lets you voice chat and it's free...can you ask for anything more?) and she emailed me this weekend to see if it would be okay to post a transcript of our chat...I told her it was cool with me. Here it is:

me: have you caught your tail yet?

sancho: still chasing

me: aren’t you exhausted

sancho: my non-girlfriend dumped me

me: the one you love?

sancho: ya

me: gasp

sancho: feel horrible

me: I bet. I’m sorry
so have you
gotten shitfaced and flirted with hookers yet?

sancho: thanks :) not yet waiting for friday on the plus side i can concentrte ib just work ab\nd the gym now

me: oooh on friday. yeah you can concentrate. Also, you can mack on women with impunity

sancho: i knew i could count on you

me: !!! what’s that supposed to mean?

sancho: you know, 2 make me laugh

me: oh… hee
now you can get
sympathy ass
I just got dumped. . . .

sancho: or we can mack

me: hold me

And so the soap opera that is my love life takes another fucking twist. Jeezus.

Mi Casa Es Su Casa...But Not Really.

Its always a strange thing to go home for me. No, not home, where I live home but home where I grew up home.

It's not a bad thing. Just strange.

I recently went back home for a visit with the folks. It feels very familiar to pull into the driveway of my parents home because I spent so many years growing up there. I stopped to think about it and I realized that I've almost been living away from home in a psuedo-adult life as long as I lived in my parent's home as a kid (17 years to be exact). Can that be right? How can I have those feelings about this home yet I've never found anything like it later in life?

My last visit home was stress free and enjoyable, although I can't really put my finger on why...why it was so enjoyable. I got to spend a lot of time with my pops, watching some World Cup soccer, golfing, and cooking for my parents and grandmother. That was all great too but I still wasn't sure why things felt different this time around.

I still can't really put my finger on the reason why my visit home was so good except that maybe because the last few times I've been home there were recent deaths in the family that were just looming over everyone's heads and of course everyone was stressed out of their minds. This last visit though...there was nothing shitty going on and the stress was non-existent.

I guess it also felt like my folks were treating me differently (especially my Dad). I know this is going to sound really corny but I have to say, it felt like they treated my like an adult, a Man even.

Wow...that felt cheesy writing it and now it feels even cheesier reading it.

I don't know, I guess it feels like it's taken me 30 years to get to this point with my parents and it leads me to wonder - Now that I have this great relationship with my parents, how long can it last? What is going to happen to have it all taken away from me?

Pathetic huh? Always waiting for the other shoe to drop I guess.

More later...I have some photographs I want to share.