Crime of the Century (Criminal Politesse Division)

NORTH CHARLESTON, South Carolina -- A man walked into a branch of the Wachovia bank here Tuesday and handed a teller a note saying he was there to rob the place. He asked for $30,000. When told, however, that the teller hadn't the money in her cash drawer he left, but not without first telling the teller "thank you."
   This man is one of the last of a dying breed: mannerly Americans. A Sept. 13 Associated Press story neglects to say whether the man, Melvin Jesse Blain, thirty-one, has ever attended etiquette classes. Plainly, however, he was an infant so nice his folks named him thrice, and from there they sure done raised him right.
   Under influences as disparate as politically-oriented shouting-heads talk shows, video games, reality TV, Tea Party rallies and the dispiriting artistic decay of Lindsay Lohan, Americans more and more appear to believe that good manners are a thing of the past and therefore are to be eschewed. That a man who allegedly planned to rob a bank showed better manners than do most drivers on American roads sounds a clarion call to his countryfellows: it's time to shape up... please.
   Mr. Bain didn't get far after leaving the bank: police officers discovered him walking near it. This suggests, although the AP does not confirm it, that Mr. Bain's mannerliness derives from a leisurely approach to life. How many would-be bank robbers take casual strolls near the banks they almost rob?
   The eminently polite Mr. Bain told police he had only recently been released from prison after spending almost four years there on a bank robbery charge. He added, according to the AP story, that he "didn't want to go back."
   Well, of course not. Politesse only gets you so far; one imagines that in prison that's not very far at all.
  Perhaps the judge in Mr. Bain's imminent case will recognize in him a thoughtful soul and will sentence him to perform community service in the guise of offering etiquette classes to the public. No doubt were the judge to hand down such a sentence he would receive from Mr. Bain a heartfelt "thank you," likely more than he receives from the bulk of the vulgarians appearing before him.
   As it happens, issues of fading politesse, though distressingly acute in America, can be international in scope. We now join the case, in Lisbon, Portugal, of an aide to the mayor of a suburb called Oeiras. The aide, insulted that a young police officer addressed him employing the informal form of "you" without adding the honorific "sir," bit one of the officer's colleagues on the arm, necessitating for that officer a hospital trip.
   A Sept. 13 Reuters story, forwarded to us by a regular reader who is a legal eagle and therefore has an eye for these sorts of things, reports that Esequiel Lino (no age given) had gone to the police station angry about officers having recently towed his daughter's car.

   Reuters quotes a police spokeswoman as saying that Mr. Lino "started verbally abusing the officers, kicking the desk and was warned several times, but it didn't stop him."
   Now, no one likes having one's offspring's car towed. Yet even from a standpoint of enlightened self-interest, Mr. Lino shot himself in the foot (bit himself in the arm?) by baiting police officers in their own "house."
   In the end, the incident demonstrates that rudeness always comes a-cropper.
   It is not without irony that, as Reuters flatly reports, "Lino's responsibilities in the mayor's administration include [maintaining] links with the police." These links, it is safe to assume, do not include gnawing on officers' arms, a notion which the kindly Melvin Jesse Bain, in his community service etiquette classes, would no doubt stress.

Great Days in the Justice System (Spoken Word Division)

LANCASTER, Ca. - Via a lawyer friend comes a pointed if bewildering exchange between a judge and a witness in a case in Lancaster, a California city located seventy miles north of Los Angeles (pop. in 2000: 118,718; puzzling Web site motto: "It's Positively Clear"): 


COURT: [So you signed the declarations] a couple hours after the July 11 exchange?
WITNESS: No, no, no. Yes.

Great Days in the Justice System (Tin-Hat Division)

SAN FRANCISCO, Ca. - We have recently seen that some judges, although no doubt well-meaning believers in the letter of the law, occasionally take that letter and trample it underfoot by engaging in droll courtroom antics.
   First came the Baltimore judge who married a man, accused of domestic abuse, to the man's victim. Now comes a Trinity County (California) judge rebuked by the State of California Commission on Judicial Performance for allowing a man to wear a tin-foil hat during court proceedings, according to an April 13 dispatch from the San Francisco Daily Journal.

   (The story was sent to us by the same Los Angeles lawyer who alerted us to the case of the Baltimore judge. It is reassuring to know that some lawyers are spending time doing what lawyers should be spending time doing: scouring the press for examples of courtroom monkeyshines the existence of which suggest to the layperson that the legal system is rife with human fallibility, a cheering thought for humanists but a no doubt terrifying one for, say, those on trial for murder.)
    The 2000 U.S. Census reported that Trinity County, in northwestern California, had a population of 13,022. There are no doubt more folks there today, but they are spread out over two million acres. The area has no incorporated cities, but does have charmingly-named towns such as Hayfork, Lewiston, and Weaverville (below). 

   May we assume, then, that in such an area everyone pretty much knows everyone else, and that a small-town sense of humor - in-jokes, comfortable hokiness, a genial disdain for tendentiousness - pertains?

   We can infer as much from the Daily Journal piece, which reports that Trinity County Superior Court Judge Anthony C. Edwards, who is one of but two judges in the heavily wooded area (see?), not only knew the man who wore the tinfoil hat, but knew that the man had joked months earlier about wearing such headgear to avoid jury duty.
   This proved to be simply too much for the Commission, which in its April 12 report wrote that "it reflects a lack of decorum for Judge Edwards to have allowed the potential juror, who he knew was joking, to leave the tinfoil hat on his head during court proceedings."
   Judge Edwards does seem to show what, in some eyes, could be seen as an alarming laxness regarding his office. In other eyes, however, it could be seen as an admirable informality, the hallmark of small-town life. 
   On one occasion, having recused himself from presiding over the case of a woman named Corrie Floris, who was accused of stabbing her boyfriend (they party hard in Trinity County), Edwards nonetheless presided over her arraignment, after which gathering he hugged her in full view of the courtroom. 
   Edwards and his wife, Cynthia, a lawyer, were friends with Ms. Floris; in court, Cynthia Edwards "stood up" for the woman and advised the judge - her husband - to appoint a public defender.
   On other occasions, according to the Commission report, the judge dismissed cases without legal authority, showed bias, and one time sauntered into court two hours late after taking court staff for a ride in his airplane and out to lunch.
   This last seems entirely excusable and understandable. Is there really anything so important on the Trinity County legal docket that it should interrupt a pleasant repast and a refreshing airplane ride? 
   Edwards' attorney, Joseph P. McMonigle, told the Daily Journal that Judge Edwards "respectively disagrees" with the Commission's report. Actually, it is unclear whether or not Mr. McMonigle said this. The correct phrase is "respectfully disagrees." Either Mr. McMonigle misspoke, or Daily Journal reporter Amy Yarbrough mis-heard him, or Ms. Yarbrough heard him correctly and mis-typed his words. Alas, we shall never know.
   It is plain, however, that Ms. Yarbrough wrote a surrealistic and incomprehensible lede: "Wearing a tinfoil hat may not get you kicked off a jury in Trinity County, but it will get you a rebuke from the Commission on Judicial Performance - if you're the judge who allowed it." For this, Ms. Yarbrough should be sentenced to thirty days of hard labor - say, parsing the "writings" of Sarah Palin, whose relationship with the English language is as informal as is Judge Edwards' with those who appear in his courtroom.

Great Days in the Criminal Justice System (The Marrying Kind Division)

BALTIMORE, Maryland - Becoming a judge, it would seem, cannot be easy. There are the years spent toiling away in law school, law firms, prosecutors' offices; there is the politicking and the glad-handing; there is the prospect of winding up on the night court bench; there is Sarah Palin. 

   Actually, Sarah Palin has nothing to do with judgeships, at least not until she's elected president in, we hope, two-thousand-and-never. We merely mention her because, well... she's just so weird, isn't she? 

   Anyway, with all the challenge and hassle of becoming a judge, you'd think that those attaining such a lofty perch would be clear-minded enough not to, for example, declare a hiatus in the trial of a man accused of domestic battery and then officiate a courtroom marriage of the man to his alleged victim, which, by law, excuses  her from testifying against him. 

   Yet this is exactly what happened recently in Baltimore, according to a March 17 piece in the ABA Journal ("Law News Now") sent to us by a Los Angeles lawyer with a keen eye for these kinds of shenanigans. 

   The Baltimore County District judge, a man named Darrell Russell, Jr., has been taken off the bench and remanded, as it were, to his chambers. There, the ABA Journal reports (quoting ABC News; the media plot thickens), he will review motions and civil cases. 

   It is possible that Judge Russell will also, in chambers, weep uncontrollably and drink himself stupid. This is not meant libelously; we do not know Judge Russell personally, and presume him to be a man of impeccable credentials, his penchant for sabotaging domestic violence trials notwithstanding. It's just that most anyone in his position would be forgiven for crying and drinking in chambers; what else are you going to do there, watch "Law and Order" and gnash your teeth? 

   We do know this about Judge Russell: he has a lovable sense of humor. An audio recording of court proceedings in the momentarily suspended trial captured the judge telling the defendant, Frederick Wood, twenty-nine, that because he found Wood not guilty, he could not sentence him to any crime. 
   "But," Judge Russell added, speaking to Wood and referring to Wood's blushing bride, "earlier today I sentenced you to life - married to her." 

   (A legal note: the ABA Journal reports that in courts of law, spousal privilege "can be asserted to prevent husband and wife from testifying against each other." Gays and lesbians eager to enter the holy state of matrimony ought take note.)