Well, one lawyer has found a way around all of this.  I can’t for the life of me understand how no one figured out before.  Robert P. Mangieri, 68, discovered a way to outsmart all us dolts wasting our time with education and training.  He found that you can just practice law without a license.  It’s so easy and obvious, how did years of attorneys not figure it out sooner?  No need to waste all that money and time on law school or endure countless hours trying to understand how that freakin’ rule against perpetuities doctrine works, just lie and say you did all that crap.  Then all you have to do is open shop, maybe hang up some fake diplomas, and start raking in the money from hapless clients who are too poor to properly check out your credentials.  And the best part is that you don’t have to do any legal research since you’re already lying about your competency or that you’re even legally able to practice law.

I can’t tell guys – was I laying the sarcasm down a little too thick in that last paragraph, or not enough?

As I mentioned in a previous post lawyers in America already have a bad enough reputation without yahoos like Mangieri screwing it up even more for us.  If he had attended law school, he would have learned that lawyers are subject to an incredible number of rules on ethical lawyering, which cover everything from proper notice to guidelines on fees.  Though chances are as a fake lawyer, he probably already knew some of these and chose to ignore them.

Do any of Mangieri’s former clients have a legal recourse against him?  You better believe they do.  Not only is the would-be lawyer being subjected to criminal punishments including grand larceny, impersonating an attorney, and conspiracy to defraud (all of which carry an incredibly light sentence of 4 years – way to deter people federal government!), but he’ll also be open-season to a plethora of tort claims.  The most obvious being fraud and maybe malpractice, but since he’s not officially a lawyer that latter one might not be so obvious.  Though as the saying goes, you can’t get blood from a turnip.  Despite Mangieri duping people into paying him money for services he wasn’t qualified to render, most of his clients weren’t very wealth themselves so Mangieri himself might not be worth so much.

But don’t let Mangieri’s tale fool you into thinking all lawyers are shysters.  Though you should always be sure of your lawyers credentials, according to the latest LegalMatch statistics attorney malpractice cases are among the lowest received.  So don’t be scared to hire a lawyer, just make sure they are actually lawyers first…

Why You Should Always Check Out Your Lawyers Credentials: A Moral Tale is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

But there are some things that have always been viewed as important.  The necessities, you know, like making sure you have food to eat, a place to sleep, or clothes to wear.  Oh, and not getting arrested.

Getting popped by the police and hauled down to the pokey can be a traumatic event.  The only thing worst is actually being convicted and sentenced by a judge afterward.  This is usually true.  I say usually because even in this seemingly clear-cut territory, another one of life’s oddities can sometimes rear its head (I know, I know, I really need to cut back on the clichés).  Because for some people (probably the cool kids) as long as the conviction isn’t a felony than there’s nothing to worry about, right?  Umm… no, not right.  Oh, misguided cool kids, and to think I once wanted to be like you.

A misdemeanor is no laughing matter (there I go again).  Misdemeanor offenses range from vandalism to petty theft to narcotic possession and more.  Penalties vary from state to state, but in general a misdemeanor conviction can result in fines up to $1000, a year in jail, and/or community service.  And depending on the type of offense, you can also be ordered to complete a rehabilitation program or have your driver’s license suspended or even revoked.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg (ugh, another one).  The negative byproduct effects of a misdemeanor can cause chaos in the rest of your life, as well.  Depending on the severity of the offense, a misdemeanor conviction can limit what jobs are available to you or even get you expelled from college depending on your school’s student conduct policy, not to mention the embarrassment of having a blotch on your otherwise clean record (last one, I swear).  The cost of contracting an attorney, though helpful in resolving a misdemeanor criminal case, can be high, too.

The sheer amount of conduct that can be categorized as a criminal misdemeanor is often confusing, as well.  Once again, laws and what is considered illegal vary from state to state.  LegalMatch has received misdemeanor cases for everything from skate boarding on school grounds to noise violations.  Though the vast majority of LegalMatch’s misdemeanor cases still involve drug and theft offenses, it’s important to note the caveat of obscure laws.

So what can be done?  A good way to keep yourself out of the big house is to stay knowledgeable about changes in your local laws, especially those that concern you or your particular industry.  You can do this by contacting your local city hall, law library, or do the modern thing and research on the internet.

What else can you do, you ask?  Well, you can also stay out of trouble by doing the most obvious thing and not commit well-established crimes, such as robbery.  Duh.  That’s you’re best bet (dammit…).

Demystifying the Misdemeanor is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

I was curious about who was being arrested while on probation in California, and what their history was. Every year in California, LegalMatch gets tens of thousands of clients seeking criminal defense attorneys. I decided to look at LegalMatch statistics for the last 12 months for clients who were being charged with misdemeanors and felonies in California. Particularly, I compared the figures for both misdemeanor clients and felony clients according to their probation status:

Probation Status of Felony Suspects in California:

• No Probation: 70%
• Yes, currently on Probation: 18%
• I don’t know: 12%

Probation Status of Misdemeanor Suspects in California:

• No Probation: 77%
• Yes, currently on Probation: 14%
• I don’t know: 9% 

More suspects were being re-arrested for felony charges than misdemeanors. Conversely, more misdemeanor suspects were not already on probation, and more were aware of their probation status.

These statistics mirror national statistics showing that of those arrested while on probation, more were being arrested for felonies than misdemeanors. Is this a sign that the system isn’t working? Not necessarily, but considering that in California there are double the arrests for misdemeanors than felonies, one has to wonder why more of those who are being arrested again are being arrested for serious crimes. As California’s prison over crowding crisis continues to shake out, how California decides to continue its probation process will have an important effect on the future of the system.

In California, Probation Violators More Likely to Commit Felonies than Misdemeanors is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

I was curious of the most common causes for removal. According to LegalMatch.com intake reports compiled from thousands of client entries in the past 12 months, these are the most common reasons cited for removal from the U.S.:

• Convicted of a crime: 42%
• In the United States illegally: 40%
• Visa has expired: 16%
• Not paid taxes: 1%

A lot of squabbling goes on in the media and the blogosphere about whether an “illegal immigrant” is actually a criminal. The point of these “debates” is usually to score quick political talking points.

Contrary to popular belief however, mere unauthorized presence in the United States is not always a crime. The above poll matches Homeland Security data showing that in fact, the majority of aliens removed from the United States were not criminals. According to Department of Homeland Security statistics for 2007, only 31% of immigrants removed were actually convicted of a crime.

Although removal can subject one to criminal sanctions, the majority of removal cases are limited to civil penalties or based on breaches of administrative laws. When an immigrant is removed without criminal consequences it is incorrect to really refer to this person as a “criminal.” The “illegal aliens are criminals” talking point is nonetheless often used to somehow justify the mass jailing and deportation of illegal aliens, but it rings hollow when statistics show that the rule being broken by most of these people is mere unauthorized presence. According to the above statistics, it would be incorrect to assume that more than 42% of those immigrants facing removal are in fact criminals.

Most Removed Immigrants Not Criminals, Data Shows is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

According to LegalMatch.com intake reports collected over the past five years, the most common “white collar” crime charge people sought legal help for was credit card fraud.  Ironically, it may have been Madoff’s greed that prevented him from experimenting with credit card crime.  Many criminals make fairly modest credit card transactions in order to avoid the harshest penalties:  according to one source, the Secret Service doesn’t prosecute cases involving less than $150,000, and the Federal Trade Commission doesn’t investigate fraud cases unless they involve at least $2,000.  Madoff, whose giant Ponzi scheme involved about $65 billion, may have considered credit card scams not worth his trouble. 

The second most common charges facing LegalMatch clients involved insurance and unemployment fraud.  It’s obvious why Madoff, who was wealthy before embarking on his scheme, couldn’t pull off unemployment fraud, but it’s less clear why he avoided insurance fraud.  

The third most common charge facing LegalMatch’s white collar crime clients involved check fraud.  This crime is usually committed on a smaller-than-Madoff scale, which most victims losing an average of $5,000.

Madoff’s case differs from the average LegalMatch client’s case in other ways too.  While Madoff did not have any prior arrests or convictions, 34% of LegalMatch.com white collar crime respondents had prior arrests, 26% had prior felony convictions, 24% had prior misdemeanor convictions, and 16% had prior juvenile convictions.  Madoff’s clean record could have helped him avoid detection by authorities:  Madoff planted the seeds of his scheme in the early 1990s, and although concerns were raised as early as 1999, serious inquiries were not made until December 2008, and formal charges were not brought until 2009 after Madoff’s sons reported him to federal authorities. 

Finally, while Madoff is 70, most LegalMatch.com white collar fraud cases involved persons in their 40s and 50s, and no LegalMatch cases involved defendants in their 70s.  Perhaps Madoff’s age worked to his advantage: he probably acquired significant financial and social skills over the years, and investors may have perceived him as more “trustworthy” because he was older.  Of course it also helped that he had inside connections which allowed him access to numerous investors, wealthy and middle class alike.

LegalMatch Update on White Collar Crime in America is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

Most people have heard of a .08 blood alcohol content (BAC) limit, and will somehow assume this has something to do with driving drunk. In reality the law varies by state to state. (How many times have you heard that?) Some states have higher legal limits than others, or laws that do not require a blood alcohol measurement for conviction.

The following lists the most common BAC levels cited by the thousands of LegalMatch customers looking for a drunk driving attorney last year, in order of frequency: 

• I don’t know: 24%
• .10 to .15: 20%
• No test given: 16%
• .16 to .20: 12%
• .08 to .09: 9%
• .21 or more: 7%
• .07 or less: 7%

There is an easy joke here about not remembering what your test score was for driving drunk. I will eschew it as a matter of editorial professionalism. There are a variety of reasons besides inebriation for not knowing what the test results were.

My interest lies in the 7% who were pulled over and arrested for being below a .07%. The reason most states utilize a .08% blood alcohol level is because of studies showing a significant drop off in a person’s ability to drive with a .08% or above BAC. Prosecuting the offense follows a familiar pattern: introduce the reading, introduce the expert, and introduce the findings damning the defendant to the nether-regions of presumptive guilt-purgatory.

But what about the tee-totaling .07 percenters?  Presumably their state still allows for their prosecution. In California, for instance, you can be prosecuted either for being above a .08%, or for driving “while under the influence.” In English, that means that you were so under the influence that your ability to drive was impaired.

Even though the defendant can technically still be guilty of a crime, anything below a .08 BAC in a state like California will always be used by the defense. Why? Because jurors expect a .08 reading or above. It is akin to the CSI effect: jurors expect police investigations to have fancy forensic scientists with super-technologically advanced super-computers that can recreate three dimensional representations of a crime scene piece by piece. Which of course is a complete fantasy.

For whatever reason, jurors come into the court with a preconceived notion that drunk driving means driving above a certain level, usually .08%. The truly rational left brained jurors might be able to completely shed this preconception. The majority of jurors, on the other hand, are skeptical of a test below .08%, or the absence of a test at all. Throw in error rates and the fuzzy science often relied upon by prosecution experts as “proof” that field sobriety tests show impairment, and the prosecution usually has a loser on its hands.

Most Cited Breathalyzer Results for Drunk Driving Arrests in Past Year is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

Some claim there is no link between recessions and increased crime.  People in this camp rely on U.S. Justice Department statistics that show crime flourished during the 1920’s, 1950’s and 1960’s-when the economy was also booming.  But wouldn’t one expect that during hard times, people who are suffering would steal to compensate for their lack of income?  While there have been reports of increased incidents of shoplifting during recessions, there may be counteractive forces at work which balance the overall property crime rate.  For instance, during economic downturns, people often move in with relatives and stay home more, both of which tend to have a stabilizing effect.    

Others have found a strong link between economic downturns and crime waves.  Those who believe this theory claim that statistics can be skewed by a number of forces.  For example, in the 1990s, when Michigan’s Ecorse Police Department retrieved dead human bodies from the Detroit River and classified them as “floating bodies,” the crimes weren’t recorded in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report since that crime category wasn’t recognized.  Additionally, crime rates during the Depression may have been distorted by Federal Government programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).  In the 1930’s, the CCC took over 500,000 unemployed young men (who pose the greatest risk of committing crimes) from cities and moved them to isolated work camps where they lacked the opportunity to commit crimes.  Without these measures, would there have been a rise in crime during the Depression?  Who knows. . . .   

While the relationship between recessions and violent and property crime is debatable, it makes sense that certain crimes do in fact rise in tandem with hard economic times.  Specifically, domestic violence, alcohol-fueled crimes, and elder abuse have reportedly been increasing as families struggle with the stress of the current recession. 

What can be done?  While state budgets may be strapped, it may be cost-efficient to implement educational programs in order to prevent an increase in domestic crimes.  Another preventative measure:  don’t cut police department budgets!  If there aren’t sufficient officers in place, criminals will have more opportunities to offend.  And if the effects of decreased security resources illustrated by the recent holiday shopping tragedies are any indication, we cannot afford to under-fund law enforcement.

Stay tuned: LegalMatch is currently mining case detail related to criminal offenses since the Dow Collapsed.  Once we have a sufficient sample of this data we will advise if we see a correlation between the Dow and Crime.

As The Dow Plummets, Will Crime Rates Rise? is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

Let’s take the Supreme Court case of Cone v. Bell as an example. Gary Cone was found guilty of a brutal double homicide in 1980. For more than a quarter century the case has maneuvered through the courts, (typical of capital punishment cases), with the latest installment coming today in Washington D.C.  Memphis prosecutors failed to release evidence to the defense that Cone was high on amphetamines at the time of the murder. The defense’s main argument was insanity, something that would have spared their client the death penalty. (And prevented 25 years of appeals and millions of dollars in court fees, paid by taxpayers.)

Being high on amphetamines would have lent credence to their claim, but Prosecutors today told the High Court such evidence was irrelevant. Some of the justices fervently disagreed, with Souter going so far as to call the respondent’s argument “utterly irrational.” Justice Stevens commented on the record that he worried about the ethics of the profession.

If the court rules against the state here, Cone might get spared the death penalty. But what about the prosecutors?  Don’t let the Duke Lacrosse case and what happened to disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong fool you-not every defendant is a wealthy white Duke Lacrosse player with money and clout to get a prosecutor disbarred.  In fact, cases such as this usually go silently into the night-or silently into the court’s archives-without anything happening to prosecutors.

Something needs to be done. Prosecutors have an ethical and legal duty to uphold the law; releasing exculpatory evidence to the defense is the law. If they fail to uphold this important constitutional safeguard, they must face discipline. This is a serious transgression-by failing to release evidence they are obligated to give up, they are being dishonest not only to defense counsel, but to the court hearing the case.

Although criminal sanctions may be going too far, some sort of mandatory bar disciplinary action is necessary here. Prosecutors should be motivated to err on the side of disclosure in deciding whether to release evidence to the defense. As things currently stand, some prosecutors seem preoccupied with winning the case, not upholding the law and the principles of the Constitution.

The Hypocrisy of Unethical Prosecutors is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

Simpson claimed that he was merely taking back his belongings that had been stolen, and his lawyer urged the court to consider the minimum sentence of six years because Simpson does not have a criminal record. 

Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass, however, focused on the violent and premeditated nature of the crimes, along with the overwhelming evidence against Simpson.  Glass expressed dismay with Simpson during the trial, accusing him of “arrogance or ignorance or both,” and doubling his bail after he violated his release terms.   

Glass has been both heralded for her “tough on crime” approach, as well as criticized for sacrificing defendants’ constitutional rights in the name of courtroom efficiency.  Specifically, critics allege that Glass has dismissed challenges to her rulings and has failed to furnish defense attorneys with complete reports of defendants with mental troubles.  The judge is currently under review by the Nevada Supreme Court for preventing defense attorneys from entering their clients’ psychological evaluations.

Although there has been some speculation that the harsh sentence was in part motivated by a desire to punish Simpson for infamously beating murder charges 13 years ago, so far, few (besides Simpson’s lawyer) have objected to the sentence.  Also, there have not been widespread accusations that his conviction was racially tainted.  Under law, Simpson’s acquittals for the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, should not be used against him in subsequent trials. 

Judges can, however, impose harsher sentences based on a felon’s prior record or for bad behavior.  Here, Simpson’s courtroom behavior did not constitute legal grounds for imposing a harsher sentence.  Yet, unless it is proven that Glass’ sentence was driven by improper motive, or that she violated another guideline, Simpson’s sentence will stand.  Is this justice?  I suppose the appeals court will have the chance to determine that. . . .  Recent reports indicate that nearly half of the jury thought Simpson should have been convicted for the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, and Simpson’s lawyer has stated that jury bias will form the basis of their appeal.

Through The Looking Glass: OJ Faces Up To 33 Years In Prison is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog

“The thing that really bothered me was that [Drew's] attorney kept claiming that nobody reads the terms of service,” she said. “I always read the terms of service…. If you choose to be lazy and not go though that entire agreement or contract of agreement, then absolutely you should be held liable.”

Quick question: did you read the terms of service for this website? Did you read the terms of service for your email carrier? A forum or blog you just posted on? Google? And did Judge Wu not inform his jury of the difference between being “liable’ and being found “guilty?”  The juror goes on to say that she was disappointed with only securing misdemeanor verdicts, noting that if more malicious sounding text messages had been offered into evidence, it would have been easier to convince the entire jury that Drew’s conduct rose to the level of a felony.

First of all, I stand by my earlier comments when this trial ended that assigning criminal culpability to private contracts is kind of, well, crazy. What you and I go to jail for should always be written by legislators, not corporate attorneys or over zealous intellectual property contract lawyers. Although what Lori Drew did was heinous, let’s not go down this road to bring her to justice.

This also adds another layer to the debate. Namely, how much emotion and back-story should be considered acceptable in these kinds of cases? The juror here stated “trust me, I was so for this woman going away for 20 years,” and throughout the article appeared very moved by the clearly tragic consequences of this online hoax. The defense, for their part, tried their best to keep evidence of the suicide out of the trial entirely, under the (reasonable) argument that it would be more prejudicial than probative to whether Lori Drew actually committed a crime.

Lori Drew was not on trial for causing a suicide or for murder, but that is what this amounted to. How much of the verdict here was retributive rather than based on the law and the facts? Time will tell, as this will be appealed to the 9^th circuit court. (And from there possibly to the Supreme Court, who are not very fond of the 9^th circuit.) Although Lori Drew’s alleged actions are outrageous and deserve contempt, are they federal crimes? If the “act” being criminalized here is not following a website’s terms of service, I have to say no. Let’s keep those violations in the realm of “liability,” not “guilt.”

Lori Drew Jury Foreman Agrees: Don’t Read Your Terms of Service? Go Directly to Jail, Do not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Constitutional Rights is a post from: LegalMatch Law Blog