Jon's news & views

Winter professional holiday party invitations are coming from left and right. Some of the parties are interesting, but some are less exciting than the tax-deductible one Rick Moranis planned in Ghostbusters.

One holiday party that will be both entertaining and good for social justice is the December 9 party in Baltimore by Civil Justice Network. Civil Justice Network is a public interest group that has found a way to involve small and solo law practitioners simultaneously to do good and well. The party will be in Baltimore City, which is a John Watersesque city of non-stop entertainment any time of year, including in such places as Hampden and Fells Point.

As I have learned from CJ, everyone is invited to the party: Non-lawyers and lawyers; those litigating on our side and against us; and everyone else. Here is the invitation. I look forward to seeing you there. Jon Katz.

Eleven days ago, Washington state Supreme Court justice Richard Sanders shouted "Tyrant" to outgoing Attorney General Michael Mukasey after Mukasey allegedly drew laughter at a Federalist Society meeting when he underlined that the last time he checked, Al Queda was not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. (The Federalist Society video does not appear to have picked up laughter, so either the laughter was just filtered out before the speech hit the Federalist Society's screen, it was not as loud as Justice Sanders asserts, or the truth lies somewhere in between.) Justice Sanders insists he left Mukasey's speech long before he collapsed, which is a curious assertion if the Federalist Society's video (omitting the collapse) is correct that the Geneva Conventions comments came at the last ten minutes of Mukasey's speech.

In any event, the story raises a few issues and facts, including the following:

- As much as I am not fond of Barack Obama's choice of Eric Holder to be attorney general, the video of Mukasey's speech shows him to be a key cheerleader for Bush II's disregard for affording basic legal protections to alleged terrorists. The nation will be better off when Mukasey leaves office along with Bush II on January 20, 2009.

- The Federalist Society is a very influential networking group for those wanting Republican presidents to appoint them to positions on the bench and in the Justice Department.

- Federalist Society gatherings draw numerous (if not many more) Supreme Court justices, lower federal court judges, and state court judges.

- By his presence at the November 20 Federalist Society meeting and apparent involvement with previous Federalist Society activities (through a Google search), Justice Sanders apparently is a Federalist Society member. Will the Federalist Society try to purge him over his heckling, or does the society wish to portray itself as welcoming such a range of differing thoughts?

- By his own account, Justice Sanders took the Washington state Supreme Court bench in 1995 by election and has gotten re-elected every six years since then.

- Justice Sanders is outspoken, and has his own website.

- Justice Sanders filed a cert. petition to the United States Supreme Court after having been disciplined after his visit with inmates at a prison for those convicted of sexual offenses. By silence in Scotus Blog and Google, it seems the petition was denied.  

Do any of you have further information on Justice Sanders? Have you argued before him or otherwise met or observed him in action? Jon Katz

Underdog readers, lend me an eye or two. I have found a webdesigner to update my clunky self-created static webdesign circa 1999.

After the designer sent me the first design, I asked about arranging for black typeface and putting in pictures of me and my staff, maybe with a slideshow, as well as automatic dropdown boxes. The sitehost working with the designer responded with this second design. The text and photographs in these two designs are just samples.

I have not before circulated the second design, which I like better than the first. Responses to the first design, have been generally positive. However, one person said the first design looks like most other lawyers' websites and lacks a focal point. Another person said the feel of the first design is so cold that she would not want to hire such a lawyer. As a counterpoint, another person said he'd want a criminal lawyer showing such an image. I like the idea of a focal point, as would Chagall, but what should be the focal point? 

Enough of what I think. I seek your feedback, unvarnished and merciless. Thanks. Jon Katz

Regardless of their party affiliation, presidents each year "pardon" a turkey, only to leave 48 millions more for "Thanksgiving" slaughter.

Does the title of this blog entry sound harsh? Would it sound harsh or even overexaggerated to turkeys? Would I prefer such harsh words to the massacre (should we read that as "murder"?) inflicted worldwide on billions of innocent mammals, birds, and fish each year, to satisfy the cravings of human diners?  

Would you be eating meat today if you were shown and told in advance since infancy what you were really eating and how the animals are slaughtered, including the blood, guts, and untold suffering? Is it anything but advertising euphemism that meatsellers cloak animal corpses in such code words as hot dogs, hamburgers, pork, beef, bologna, sausage, bacon, ham, meatballs, and meatloaf?

Soon after graduating college in 1985, I could no longer resolve all the toil I had spent advocating for human rights while chomping on burgers, chicken, and tuna fish. I responded modestly by cutting out all red meat, to distance myself further from my relatives in the so-called meat food chain. Three months later, I was at the Carnegie Deli, and ate a corned beef sandwich -- one of the most delicious meat items in the world for me of all time, and a scent that still made me swoon before retching on my last visit there this year -- figuring (rationalizing may be more like it) that I already came across as peculiar to many, so why add to the perception of peculiarity? I finished off the corpse in no time, with the most delicious rye bread, pickles, and fries on the side.

Meat-eating continued nagging at me. However, that did not stop me from increasing my array of meat and fish eating the following spring while on a dream business trip in Hong Kong and Japan, where for the first time in over six years I let pork and shellfish pass my lips, and indulged in sukiyaki made of prized Kobe beef.

A year later, I finally swore off red meat for good. Cravings kept me with red meat that long. A year after that, I learned how disgustingly gelatin is made. Completely grossed out, I then cut off all land animals from my plate. Two months later, I went to the Baltimore aquarium, followed by a visit to Little Italy for dinner. I felt ill at the thought of ordering marinara and shrimp, after having spent time with so many amazing and feeling fish at the aquarium a mile away. I later learned that it is not only lobster, crabs and shrimp that face the most gruesome of boiled/steamed-alive fish deaths, as I watched a fish being scaled alive at a Chinese supermarket, to be told by its buyer that chicken also is more delicious by plucking the feathers when the chicken is alive. That was twenty years ago. I have never eaten meat fish or fowl again. Seven years ago, I cut eggs and milk from my diet. Egg-producing chickens and milk-producing cows get slaughtered for meat after they stop producing; their relatives who are not raised to produce eggs and milk get slaughtered earlier. Too many food-raised land animals are treated horrifically during their terribly short lives, including the calves who are slaughtered as babies for prized veal, after struggling in tiny cages in the dark without their mothers, iron or milk, to obtain the tender pink flesh prized by chefs and restaurant food critics. How does that bad karma not get transferred to the meat that is eaten? 

Human executions are excruciatingly painful, despite litigation geared to reduce the pain. No similar efforts are made to minimize the physical and psychological suffering of animals, as they are led to slaughter first seeing and hearing their brother and sister animals slaughtered before their very eyes. Unlike humans executed in American death chambers, food animals are methodically beheaded, stabbed, and killed otherwise. See this gruesome video giving a brief meeting of your meat. More videos are here.

Even if most people are unwilling to become vegetarian, world hunger and food prices will still dramatically fall if people drastically reduce their consumption of meat, fowl, milk. milk products and eggs. There has never been an easier, more healthful, or more delicious time to live vegetarian; even supermarket aisles have infinitely more vegetarian choices than just five years ago. Restaurants have more vegetarian options than ever before, including Burger King and Subway with their veggie burgers (may not be vegan, though, but it is a start). See how you feel about your health, your annual physical exam, the environment, the animals around you, and world hunger after making such a change in your eating choices. You may never turn back.

For many years I kept my vegetarianism mostly to myself, figuring that everyone should be able to do their own thing. They may, including my own thing to speak up for the animals who cannot speak up for themselves.

Happy Thanksgiving? Happy for whom? Jon Katz.

Image from NASA's website.

As Johnny Cash sang, "bad news travels like wildfire, good news travels slow ."

The Journeys shoe retailer apparently disagrees with Mr. Cash's sage lyrics; or else has weak, incompetent, or non-existent public relations advisors; or else discovered that the following problem arose in higher corporate echelons than as merely an aberration at just one retail store unit. It seems beyond dispute that on October 17, 2008, at Journeys' store number 1166 in Overland Park, Kansas, an African-American man returned a pair of athletic shoes to Journeys for a refund after having found a better price, only to then receive, along with his refund, a return receipt saying "DUMB N----R" under the section for "CUST". The newscast on this incident is here, and the printed story is here.

Over a month after this incident, the video of the event was forwarded this past Friday to a national trial lawyers email listserv that I am on. Not knowing anything else about the matter at that time, I visited Journeys' website only to find absolute silence there on the matter. Consequently, this past Friday, I sent the following online message to Journeys: "To Journeys- I would have thought that your website would have had an immediate explanation for the "dumb N----r" receipt referenced in this story: http://www.kmbc.com/video/17768384/index.html." On November 23, I received the following canned reply from Journeys' owner Genesco (including the quotation marks, for inexplicable reasons):

Greenland dog image available for publc use here. 

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Ken Lammers and Scott Greenfield recently commented on the dropping of Underdog from my blog's title line.

I selected the Underdog moniker for this blog's 2006 maiden voyage, to capture the essence not only of me, my clients, and my criminal and Constitutional defense work, but also the immigration law work of my then-law partner Jay Marks. The moniker -- originally inspired by my hero and amazing teacher Steve Rench -- still fits, so I have returned the Underdog title to its rightful place on this blog's masthead.  

As to the title of this blog entry, thanks for the Talking Heads' inspiration for it. Jon Katz. 

Imagine not just reading our Underdog blog, but working at Underdog's central headquarters. I humbly ask Underdog's readers to send the finest candidates our way to fill an additional part-time legal assistant position. Full details about the position are here.

Our office is less than a mile from our nation's capital. It does not get any better than this for those seeking such work. Thanks for those who spread the word of this job opening at our law firm. Jon Katz. 

Even though Maryland courts and government offices apparently are closed for Election Day, we will be open today. Remember to vote early and often. Jon Katz.

Too often, people think that full bilingualism is enough to do sufficient interpreter work. Wrong, especially when it comes to the fast pace and rough-and-tumble of interpreting during a trial.

Next time a judge questions why passing an interpreter certification test is not good enough, show the judge this article, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/13/AR2008101302419.html. Jon Katz.

For many years, I have been defending about as many criminal cases in Virginia as in Maryland. In Virginia, I defend more criminal cases in Fairfax County than anywhere else in the commonwealth.

Most of the counties where I practice in Virginia are a close drive to my office and home. However, many potential and actual Virginia clients would prefer the convenience of my having a Virginia office. Furthermore, some are on pretrial release that confines them to Virginia. Consequently, I researched shared office suite options, and selected a good one with full-time reception service in a nice office building with free parking in Tysons Corner in Fairfax County, Virginia.

My Silver Spring, Maryland, office will continue to be my principal office. Here is the location of my new Virginia office:

Jon Katz, P.C., 1420 Spring Hill Road, Suite 600, Tysons Corner/ McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia 22102, (703) 917-6626.

Speaking of Virginia law practice, I understand that some D.C.-licensed lawyers toy with the idea of obtaining nothing more than a Virginia address in an effort to obtain a Virginia bar license without taking the Virginia bar exam. However, my reading of the governing legal provisions is that such reciprocity is only available to those who will be practicing full-time in Virginia. Therefore, I went to the trouble of preparing for and taking the Virginia bar exam twelve years ago, simultaneously handling a full trial litigation docket. After a long day of litigation work, I would plow through my home study course's audiotapes and workbooks, do practice essays that were evaluated by the course's owner and director, and then go back to work the next day.

I am happy I went to the trouble of taking and passing the Virginia bar the exam. I get many interesting cases and clients there. Unfortunately, Virginia's criminal justice system overall is the most draconian of all three states where I practice. In Virginia, for instance, Jencks material (statements of opposing witnesses) is generally not available in criminal cases; limited discovery is available for criminal cases, particularly in District Court; and a criminal defendant facing no more than one year in jail is forced to pursue a non-jury trial, and, only if convicted may the defendant then appeal for a jury trial de novo after such a conviction and sentencing. Handgun law is one area where Virginia criminal law is more favorable than the law in neighboring Maryland and the District of Columbia; Virginia breathes more life into the Second Amendment than the other two states. Also, Virginia law permits jury voir dire, which is tough to obtain in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Jon Katz.