This.

Not everyone aspires to be the President of the United States or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. That doesn't mean that everyone who works below those people are actually "below" them. I know people who went to college, but lack any kind of common sense. I also know people who never attended college, but they're extremely intelligent.

More prestigious positions don't always = more money and less stress. And some people thrive on being stressed; they need the pressure to stay motivated. Others, like DubaisSis, could have a high-paying job, but they choose not to because they love what they do, and making six figures isn't their number one priority.

To say something like, "You might have advanced degrees now, which I still doubt, but you damn sure didn't as a CPS worker," is kind of ignorant. I have a friend who is very intelligent, has a college degree, and he's delivering pizzas right now. I have another friend who has 2 degrees, a master's, and she's teaching 2nd grade. You just never know.

The problem isn't you "knowing what you're talking about", it's that you sound like you think less of the rest of us because we don't have the same letters following our names that you do. Maybe that's not how you intended to come across, but that's exactly what it sounds like.

There are multiple conversations happening in this thread.

I only care about your failure to admit that you, too, come with prejudices and subjectivity; and your assholeness regarding the letters discussion.

This. I don't really doubt your knowledge of the mechanics of the legal system, but your condescension to others on this board regarding the worthiness of your qualifications vs other qualifications has been really nasty. You and your qualifications aren't the only ones who know things, and you're not better than anyone else posting here. Quite frankly, that's been your tone: I'm a lawyer and therefore automatically better than you. Your tone has buried your legal knowledge.

There are many GCers with terminal degrees. That includes GCers who, even if we are not attorneys, have careers that require knowledge of the legal system.

Kevin's problem arose when he tripped over himself. The thread got derailed because of the back and forth. I'm all for a good back and forth but Kevin assumed he was most qualified and falsely believed he is an unbiased, nonprejudiced, objectively neutral expert. Then instead of critiquing the qualifications of the average CPS worker for the sake of discussion, and in a general sense, he made it a specific "you" directly aimed at als463 and (based on the tone) any GCer who Kevin assumes isn't up to his level of (insert whatever he unfoundedly assumed). Maybe we should create a pissing contest thread in which everyone posts their resume'/CV...not!!!

/thread recap

Miss Manners says your advanced degrees should be like silk underwear - it should be enough that you know you have them; there's no need to show everyone.

A gentleman who worked with my father was a former professor with very impressive credentials. He never made an issue of it, so when people found out about them, they were positively taken aback by 1.) his achievements and 2.) his humility.


And finally - How many lawyer jokes are there?
Three. The rest are true stories.

The JD is relevant here because none of you have or probably will ever discuss a plea deal with anyone because most of you aren't lawyers or aren't going to make the poor life choices which will lead you be in a position where you're considering entering a plea.

I recently had a case where I think I got her a pretty good deal considering that her co-defendant got 18 months to do for exactly the same crime with 5 years suspended and a permanent drug felony on his record.

On the other hand, she got 7 years deferred. That means that if she's a good girl and goes to her classes and doesn't get charged with any more crimes in the next 7 years, this whole thing goes off her record like it never happened and it won't be considered a felony conviction either.

She won't be able to buy or possess pseudoephedrine for a very long time though.

This case, I imagine, could be very similar to the case at hand. The deal the D.A. was offering was too good considering the amount of time she was looking at (2 years mandatory on the gun charge alone) had she proceeded to trial. It was kind of a no-brainer.

And yes, I do bring quite a bit more objectivity to the table than your average bear, and if you'll read very closely, I never said this guy was clearly innocent or guilty, just that under these circumstances, an innocent man might take a deal such as what was offered. I'm not sure how you can say I'm not objective if I've never offered a single conclusion. Just possibilities.

That got your caseworkers panties in a twist because she just knew he was guilty (based on her ample knowledge of this case from reading an internet article) and away we went.

Do I have an axe to grind with crappy CPS workers? You bet I do. Those idiots ruin lives. Whether als was a terrible caseworker, I don't know. Based on her leaping to conclusions here, the odds aren't terribly in her favor.

There's so much that I could say but I don't want to inadvertently throw shade on the GC attorneys who have no dog in this fight.

No, you don't. Do not confuse specific knowledge and specific experience with objectivity.

The objectivity of law has long been debated and researched and remains up for debate. Therefore everyone (there are people in the legal system with much more broad knowledge and experience than the attorneys) involved in the legal system has prejudices, biases, and subjectivity that are irremovable and difficult to buffer.

Wait, did you just leap to a conclusion (namely that she is a terrible caseworker - and don't even play the "well, I didn't SAY she was a terrible caseworker" game) based on absolutely no knowledge of her or her work experience, and criticize her for leaping to a conclusion? Sheesh.

Regarding Dr. Phil's attempt to get Kevin to admit that he has bias: there is only 1 correct answer here, and there is no one for whom this is not true. We ALL have bias. Hopefully we struggle to learn from our bias and improve, but any boob he thinks he's above it? Well, that's just precious. If Kevin had wanted 90% of this thread to die he could have cried mea culpa (that's lawyer talk, right?) on that single issue. If he could admit that his JD makes him very educated in one narrow area of life and does NOT necessarily make him smarter than anyone else, that would take care of another 5%. And then we'd have 5% left to discuss whether people (women, I guess) do or do not falsely accuse their spouses (husbands) of pedophilia and sexual assault and what to do about it. OK, let me edit. 85% Kevin's mea culpa, 5% he's not smarter, 5% pedophilia in divorce and 5% the douchy inflammatory way the media handles these types of cases and how it hurts society.

Never said I was smarter. Just more experienced and able to understand this from angles most would never consider.

And of course, I admit my bias against terrible caseworkers. I am concluding based upon ALS' dismissal of the possibility of someone caught up in a meth case at the wrong case/wrong time as being probably guilty and her assumption that this indivudal conclusively actually did what they were accused of and what they admitted to doing while taking a plea for no time because the prosecutors didn't like thier chances at trial as indicitive that this isn't someone who is very open minded.

I tend to be right about these things.

Oh, I'm sure you are firmly convinced you are almost never wrong.

How very close minded to assume that someone who is legally guilty is, um, guilty. Why, that's ridiculous.

I do appreciate you coming out and claiming that you have authoritatively deemed ALS incompetent - thank you for not subjecting us to any more weaselly "whether als was a terrible caseworker, I don't know" type subterfuge. Your open mindedness serves as an example to us all.

I think I've explained it at this point. If you don't get it, that's on you.

He's legally guilty for sure. Did he actually do it? A guilty plea to a suspended sentence when facing multiple decades behind bars if he took it to trial isn't going to convince me he actually did it. Especially when the mom has a huge financial motive to coach the kid to accuse her father of molesting her.

Frankly, anyone who still can't understand what I've been saying over and over has some serious reading comprehension issues. You haven't been there/done that. I have. Having successfully defended fathers accused of this very thing, from what is said in the article, it is difficult to tell whether it really happened.

I can tell you that a father molesting his own child is exceedingly rare. And that child being his first victim? Even more rare.

What's so hard to get? Even the prosecutor admitted that a conviction at trial wasn't a foregone conclusion. I suppose you know more about this case than the prosecutor?

Oh, I get it.
There's nothing wrong with my reading comprehension.

I don't know whether or not the convicted criminal in question is actually guilty: come to that, no one other than the criminal and the victim do. All I - or anyone - knows is the result of his trial.

The fact that you can't see - or admit - your bias, when it shows up in every post you make on this subject - speaks for itself.

Let me ask you this - does the issue of whether your client is guilty matter at all, or do you seek to mount the best defense of your client whether or not he/she committed the crime?

Kevin, I'm concerned about an ethical issue here. You've discussed various cases of yours with enough detail that it makes me really uncomfortable. I would be reluctant to retain an attorney who easily shared personal information about my case on an Internet board. What about attorney-client privilege? Could you not make your points without resorting to insulting others' intelligence or brirnging others' personal information to the table?

At the very least, it speaks to underlying qualities of character and judgement, and I think that (given your stated credentials) you will be able to explain to us how this is acceptable in a way that even I will understand, without resorting to put-downs or insults (implied OR explicit)

OTOH if your intent was to condescend, you've accomplished that goal and there's no need to respond. Carry on!

You want to poll the participants in this thread on how many of us are survivors of sexual violence?

In the case of the linked caase, it's all public record, so not privileged. I have not shared anything which is not public record except for my own belief that she really didn't do it. And that's based on information I've shared with the Assistant District Attorney in that case, ergo, again, not privileged. In other cases, I've kept things very generic. While the link for the information probably doesn't work, anyone can go down to the courthouse and go through the case file. It's important to show that this stuff really does happen and not just for the 1%ers.

No insults or put-downs have been used. And yes, I find it troubling that a former case worker would deny the possibility of the potential of someone being actually innocent of a crime because they know how that "type" of person is without ever having met them or familiarized themselves with anything but what they read in some news article. I have, however, in many ways and multiple times explained that people do sometimes plead guilty to crimes they are really innocent of because the deal the state offers is far and away better than the risk of potentially being convicted at trial and serving many years in the penitentiary.

I don't feel it's that difficult a concept.

I don't see how that's remotely relevant. Is it somehow offensive to a survivor of sexual violence to discuss the possibility of the innocence of someone even the prosecutor thought might not be convicted at trial?

It is relevant because you keep tossing around the word "rare" in discussing child molestation, specifically in terms of father/child abuse. Would that it were "rare".

You also keep making unfounded assumptions on everyone who comments. You really don't know what our experience in/with the legal system is, the specifics of our educations, our credentials, and our understanding of the issue of child abuse and the potential for false accusations. (Some of us have to, on an on-going basis, receive training in recognizing and reporting child abuse - possibly even more than you, with your law degree. Imagine that. ) All you can do is tout your own correctness and everyone else's lack of a law degree and hence inability to logically engage in this discussion.

The fact that you can't recognize your own use of put downs and insults is astounding.

It's not common...therefore, rare.

No one so far has stated they have any experience in plea negotiations. What is your experience in plea negotiations in criminal court?

Maybe it's me being recently divorced and being over men right now, but it is cracking me up that all he needs to do is stop and this problem would go away. I think he also is just not getting that "our" gripe is not with his knowledge of this particular issue, it's with his remarkably arrogant approach to the discussion.

There is room for a reasonable discussion on this issue, but tell me which debate teams in the US are the very best at "I'm right and you're stupid?" because that is the only argument I'm hearing here from our in house attorney. So maybe he made it to the national finals of the I'm right and You're Stupid contest, but apparently didn't win because none of us is going to fold on this one.

Rare is different than uncommon. Murder is (thankfully) uncommon, but I wouldn't say it is rare. Surely you understand the difference in both the connotative and denotative meaning of the words in question. Given your exemplary education I would expect a higher than seventh grade understanding of the subtle differences. (Please note - this is not an insult; as I teach seventh grade, I am merely pointing out that defining "rare" as merely "uncommon" is on-level with my seventh graders).

Were the issue only plea negotiations you might have a point.

It's not;you don't. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you do realize that but are simply choosing to ignore it in order to continue to stroke your ego. I could be wrong. It could be that you really do think this has all been about plea negotiations. If so, I'm sorry for giving you too much credit.

LOL at "I'm right, and you're stupid."

So...now you're an attorney AND a therapist? Good to know! ;) I also loved that you told me and SWTXBelle that we have poor reading comprehension skills yet, you ignore her statement about having training on child abuse and then go back to our lack of education in plea negotiations (because that's not what anyone here claims to have experience in other than you). I also wanted to echo what AZTheta mentioned about not feeling comfortable with an attorney who thinks he or she should go on an internet forum and just speak openly about cases whether or not they made it into the news. You are not the only person on here who has ever gone to law school or graduated from law school. There are a few attorneys on this site and they never talk about their cases--past or present. So, since you feel I am incompetent in whatever it is I do (since you don't know but, assume you do), I will call you incompetent and say I would never send a family member or friend to you. I wonder if the Oklahoma Bar Association is okay with your ethics.

No. The point is simply that your lived experience does not trump the lived experiences of others. You may be the best-versed in the law, but that does not make you the only person who has been involved in this type of thing.

Feel free to report me for discussing something which is public record. The case I linked wasn't in the news. Making the news isn't what is required for something to be of public record. Criminal pleas are not private matters.

You are way out of your league talking about legal ethics. Just stop.

I'm the only one who has commented in this thread who has ever been part of a plea negotiation, so I am the only person who has been involved in this type of thing.

FYP.

Too bad Kevin is the only GC attorney commenting in this thread.

And I work closely with attorneys for a range of issues. While these attorneys discuss their perspectives and experiences they are quick not to go into much detail for their cases. They make general comments about specific cases, or more specific comments about general cases, but are more inclined to say "it is the (insert case) if you want to research the details on public record." To go into great detail about cases when discussing touchy topics can be construed as a version of name dropping and there is a fear of leisure talk resulting in accidentally divulging information that is not public record and providing legal opinions that are not public record.

What information did I divulge which is not public record?

Hint: I gave you the public record. Everything I've said is part of it.

Interesting, DrPhil, what did you enter a plea to?

Hint: The point eludes you.

Many points elude him. He still thinks it's about plea negotiations.

Denis Healey succinctly said it best. My own father taught me "don't be a blabbermouth. It's way worse than having to have the last word". He also liked to remind me that when you burn your own ass, you are the one who has to sit on the blister. So think about it.

Happy Saturday, one and all!

Wow. I just can't get over his pretentious attitude.

AND WE HAVE A WINNER.

THIS.

And this other thread was just recently "ruined" because of his abundance of legal knowledge……………

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=139889

We don't have a problem with him being a lawyer and having possibly more legal knowledge than the rest of us. The problem is that we're not permitted to speak or have an opinion on these news stories because we're lowly teachers, business people, scientists, etc., and we apparently can't respond to what's been presented to us in the news if it has anything to do with lawsuits, plea negotiations, judges, lawyers, writs, subpoenas, affidavits, settlements, indictments, answers, verdicts, or anything else that deals with the law.

We know we don't have all the facts of this case. We know that people can lie. We're all just responding to what we read, which is what everyone does when they read ANY news story. Unless you were there and lived and breathed what occurred, then you'll never be guaranteed the absolute truth, and that goes for all of us.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/3fa1e42b0...r6fpo1_500.gif

But you really need to. Your attitude has been just as pretentious, if not even shittier, on other occasions. You're the last person to talk about reading comprehension, and I think you, like many of the people on this board, have some sort of personality disorder.

Just move on.

But I know you can't. LOL

So for those of you have experience at the protective services, counseling, etc. end of the spectrum, what is your instinct on this issue?

My instinct is that child abuse is wildly under-reported, and being a rich guy in no way means he's necessarily innocent, but as soon as you throw divorce into it I suddenly become much more leery of the facts of the case. Which leaves me back at no side taken.

It was many years ago but I worked as an Occupational Therapist in inpatient psych on a 5-12 year old unit for several years. In my experience, with children at very young ages who have been abused, they typically had knowledge of things that most children of that age would not have. The therapists usually used a lot of play therapy and children tend to imitate what they have experienced or seen through their play. Additionally, most children who are molested at that age had physical signs of the abuse. Their parts are small and adult parts (even fingers) are not and often do some damage. Proving WHO did it can be very difficult, but whether abuse had happened was pretty obvious. 95% of the kids who were on our 5-12 y/o unit had been physically or sexually abused.

I don't know what a lawyer would advise, but if I was absolutely innocent of a crime, I don't think I would accept a plea bargain. I would trust that since I was innocent, there would not be evidence to convict me.

Many "innocent" people take plea bargains because they or the people who are officially or unofficially advising them believe there is a high probability of conviction. Of course, they would rather have the charges dropped but the plea bargain is the lesser of the two evils when dropping charges isn't an option.

This is especially the case for certain charges and defendants of particular demographics. Saying "if you're not guilty you wouldn't take a plea bargain" doesn't work for many people in the system.

When my brother was (unjustly) accused of sexual assault, his lawyer said, first thing to know is your marriage is over and... everything after that didn't matter to him. When talking to the social worker to work through his near nervous breakdown over it, she said she knew right away he was innocent. She said when the accused says "what do I do to keep my family together" they're innocent. When they say "what do I do to stay out of jail" they are guilty. Of course, we don't know if the guy in this case asked this question, made more complicated (and yet LESS complicated) if the divorce proceedings came first and the accusations second. And, by the way, his marriage wasn't over, and is still intact 20 years later. His daughter got over being batshit crazy and is now a good daughter and mother.

I'm glad his marriage wasn't over.

I disagree with the social worker's "what do I do to keep my family together" and "what do I do to stay out of jail" rule. People who are accused of crimes say all sorts of things and that pertains to both the innocent and the guilty. That's one reason the legal system does not solely or primarily rely on hunches and "if the person says this" rules.

There are people who professionally and personally believe the cons of plea bargaining far outweigh the pros. As for this thread, the question I have been wondering is what are the criteria for when/why the general sentiment/general discourse should hold onto potential innocence even after a guilty verdict?