Great Characters Make Great Stories

Two sides of the same coin.

John Daniel Davidson has a piece in which he talks about the "literary genius" of Justified, it's good and worth a look, but I think it could be more accurately titled "Great Characters Make Great Stories".

In the world Yost and Leonard spun out of one of those “oddball tales,” Boyd is no more a villain than Raylan is a hero; each man is a kind of shadow of the other, ill-suited to their assigned roles and unfit for the wider world. Cold and remorseless, justified in all his killings, Raylan is knotted up with anger and violence. His moral conscience amounts to allying himself with the law, though he ignores it when it’s convenient and flouts it openly to protect an ex-wife he loves but refuses to be with.

By contrast, Boyd exudes a kind of joie de vivre amid his many depredations while betraying a moral sensitivity far more developed than Raylan’s. He does wrong but doesn’t try to justify it to his conscience. In season three, Boyd kills a man on his crew, Devil, after learning of the man’s plans to betray him. While dumping the body, Boyd quotes something his father used to say: “Once you make up your mind to kill a man, ain’t nothing left to talk about.”

For me, what really makes Justified a great story is the complexity of Boyd and Raylan. Neither man is the classic one-dimensional hero or villain, and their interactions are the best part of the show. It's almost like they are each other's alter-ego, and I could almost see Boyd coming over to the right side of the law as easily as you could see Raylan slipping into a life of crime. Perhaps there's something to be said about how these two characters embody the opposing forces in human nature, and how they struggle against one another.

Similarly, the character of Walter White is probably why I liked Breaking Bad so much. Walter White was a complicated character, and it was fascinating to watch his story unfold. The transition of Walter White from a high school chemistry teacher to drug kingpin was quite a character arc than ended the only way it really could.

Hopefully, Justified wraps up as nicely as Breaking Bad did. Boyd Crowder may be one of the few "bad guys" I'd like to see get away. Maybe.

Richland County Lawyer Arrested: Alleged Motive - To Get a Discount on Gym Membership

Are you freakin' kidding me? 

When I saw the headline that a Columbia-area lawyer had been arrested, my first thought was, "Damn. Probably another lawyer drinking and driving." To my shock, I clicked on the story and read that the guy was arrested for allegedly lying to get a discount on a gym membership.

Wait. What?

I can understand bad decision making. We've all done dumb things. I can understand getting a little carried away and doing something over the line, but I just don't understand petty little crimes of dishonesty. I mean, you go to law school, bust your butt, pass the bar exam, probably have a ton of student debt, and you (possibly) throw it all away for a discount on a gym membership?

Is honor so cheap?

I don't know what ODC will do with this guy, but I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court comes down harder on issues of character than they do on other issues - as they should. I hope that he doesn't lose his licence over this, but I'm afraid that's a possibility.

"The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy."

                                                                                                     - Robert E. Lee

South Carolina Charges White Police Officer With Murder for Shooting Unarmed Black Man

Bernard Bailey

Richard Combs

With the grand jury not indicting the officer in Ferguson, and now the grand jury not indicting the police officer in New York City, I thought this story was kind of...topical.

If you hadn't heard, here's the basic fact pattern:

Bernard Bailey had come to the town hall complain about his daughter receiving a ticket for a broken tail-light. At some point, Combs (the police chief) attempts to arrest Bailey for obstruction of justice. As Bailey leaves the town hall, Combs follows him and a struggle ensued near or in Bailey's vehicle. Combs then shot Bailey twice in the chest.

Combs was charged with murder yesterday. Obviously, this is a different fact pattern from what happened in Ferguson, and what happened in New York. However, you have the similarity of a white law enforcement officer's actions resulting in the death of an unarmed black man.

And only South Carolina is going forward with a case.

Just food for thought. 

Monday Mid-Morning Headlines Thread 9-29-14

It's been a long weekend 'round these parts. We had a birthday party for the (now) three-year-old son, watched the Gamecocks lose a heart-breaker, and generally enjoyed the wonderful cool weather that indicates summer is in full retreat.

Anyway, pour some coffee and get to it. It's Monday.

Here are some of the interesting stories I'm seeing this morning:

1. A Louisiana restaurant is giving 10% discount to concealed weapon carriers. I love it. Anti-gun folks are probably going nuts somewhere.

2. The Khorosan Group is actually al-Qaeda. So that's why no one had heard of them up until we were told they were the most dangerous group ever.

3.  Indicted House Speaker Bobby Harrell's bond has been set at $18,000 and he has to get permission from the Court if he wants to leave the State of South Carolina. However, "Harrell has been granted permission to attend USC's game this weekend in Lexington, Kentucky against the Wildcats." Priorities, right? He may be under indictment, but he'll be darned if he ain't going to the Carolina/Kentucky game.

4. Fans will be able to give input on the name of the minor league team that is coming to Columbia soon. I'm partial to the Columbia Corruption, myself, but there are lots of options here.

Some Initial Thoughts on the SC Highway Patrolman Shooting in Columbia, SC

If you hadn't already seen this, on September 4, a South Carolina Highway Patrol officer shot a motorist during a traffic stop. They just released the dashboard cam video yesterday. Here's the video.

I've watched the video a few times, and it's clear that this was not a good traffic stop. Also, I'm going to say this up front: This shooting should not have happened. Nothing I am about to say should be construed to justify this shooting. OK? So save all the hate mail.

My initial impression is that things start to go a little sideways when the driver gets out of the car. Normally, you stay in your car at a traffic stop. Pretty much everyone knows that. I think law enforcement officers kind of get their "antenna up" when a driver immediately gets out of the car at a traffic stop.

Having said that, this officer certainly did not handle the situation appropriately. He did not control the environment well, and he did not interact with the driver appropriately. So, even though the driver did not do a good thing by getting out of the car, it's the officer's job to handle that situation.

It appears to me that the officer assumed that the driver was reaching into his car for a weapon. This was a bad assumption. Police officers should not shoot people based on assumptions.

Here are the factors that jump out at me that make this incident really bad;

Obviously, it's a white officer shooting a black driver. So of course, there's the element of race. Would this officer have reacted the same way if the driver had been an elderly white woman? I don't know. But this is the first factor that everyone sees. And it's important to recognize this factor.

The traffic stop seems to have occurred during the day. To me, this factor cuts against the officer. We're not talking about a 2:00AM traffic stop, here. For all the officer knows, this guy is on his way to work or something. The scene is well-lit, and there aren't any obstructions.

According to the WIS piece I linked above, the traffic stop was for a seat-belt violation. Now, it's fair game to stop someone for not wearing a seat-belt, but we're not talking about a felony here. Common sense tells you that stopping someone for a seat-belt violation is different than stopping someone for a serious charge. Again, this factor cuts against the officer. Not wearing your seat belt is a relatively minor violation.

Also, when did the officer draw his weapon? It's not clear from the video, but the first time you see the officer come into view, he already has his weapon drawn, extended, and pointed at the driver. To me, this indicates he already had it drawn. Again, that doesn't seem right.

Those are all bad things. Now for a couple of positives:

The driver is alive. That's the best news. No one is dead. Thank goodness.

Unlike Ferguson, there is a dashboard camera video, so we can all see what happened. We're not relying on eyewitness accounts from people inside the gas station. Remember how all the eyewitness accounts in Ferguson were dramatically different? At least with a video, there is a record of what happened.

The police officer was fired, and charged with a crime. This is probably the most important thing, so I probably should have mentioned it earlier. Law enforcement has to operate under the same laws as you and I do. Therefore, if you or I had shot this man in this situation, it's clear that we would have been arrested. Accordingly, I applaud the authorities for not trying to put the officer on "administrative leave" or some nonsense. You apply the same process to police officers as you do to citizens. This officer is now facing up to 20 years in prison for this incident. That's not inconsequential.

The video was released. This point dovetails into the lat one, but it's commendable that the video was released so we could all see for ourselves what actually occurred. There doesn't appear to be any attempt to sweep this under the rug. And that's very good.

Hopefully, the authorities will continue act in a responsible manner and other law enforcement officers will take this as a moment to really think about how they conduct traffic stops. They have a tough job, but they also have the responsibility to do it correctly. In this incident, the job was not handled correctly.

Anyone else have any other thoughts? There's lots to unpack here.

Lexington County Father to Be Charged With Murder of His Five Children

I don't even know what to say about this.

Lexington County, SC (WLTX) - Lexington County Sheriff Lewis McCarty says a father accused of killing his five children will face murder charges as soon as he's brought back to South Carolina.

McCarty updated the public Wednesday morning on the investigation into 32-year-old Timothy Ray Jones Jr., calling it unprecedented in his three plus decades in law enforcement.

"I've never seen a case like this," McCarty said. "We all see things in our career that have an impact on you. This case has impacted anyone...who's had anything to do with this."

Smith County, MS sheriff's officials say Jones waived his right to an extradition hearing, paving the way for him to be brought back to South Carolina late Wednesday.

The children's bodies have already been brought back home.

As a dad...as a human being...this is unthinkable. It's utterly unthinkable. I cannot comprehend or explain this in any way. I really have no words.

The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels today.

News Roundup for September 5, 2014

Happy Friday. It's a great (Amazon humidity level) day in South Carolina.

In looking around the internet, I see that George Will has an interesting piece on why Putin and his ambitions to expand Russia are a greater problem than ISIS. 

In other news: This is why we should have the death penalty. I can't even tell you how much this upsets me.

To end on a lighter note, we here in South Carolina officially have the best State flag.

Y'all be good out there.

American Journalist Executed - What Is Our Response?

In the wake of an American journalist being publicly executed by ISIS, I thought of this:

What will be the response from the United States today when one of our citizens is publicly slaughtered by a foreign power that has wrought so much death and misery on others?

What should our response be?

Women on "The View" Have Clarity on Guns and a Woman's Self-Defense

Take a look at this ad. Then read the rest of this post below the jump. Lots to unpack here.

Done? Ok, go below the jump.

SC Supreme Court Issues Opinion In Harrell vs. Attorney General

REVERSED! You can read the opinion here. I'll have comments later.

Trey Gowdy Does His Thing - IRS Scandal Gets Worse

This Trey Gowdy fellow...he's going places. I can tell you that I've seen lots of lawyers do cross-examination, and he's pretty good at it. But this is just devastating for the legitimacy of the IRS.

This entire IRS deal is getting worse and worse. The IRS is pretty much entirely devoted to record keeping. That's what they do. They keep records, and sort through taxpayers records. With this scandal, they've basically admitted that they're negligent record keepers at best, and intentional attack dogs of a political party at worst.

 

And this Koskinen guy is so arrogant. He's not sorry for anything. You know, when the head of a private company comes before Congress in connection with a big screw up, they're pretty contrite. Remember the GM CEO?

This guy is basically saying, Yeah, we don't have the records, or maybe we'll get around to it, but no big deal. We didn't do anything wrong anyway - just take my word for it, ok?

It's clear he doesn't give a damn about "Congressional oversight".

And on the issue of the "our hard drive crashed" excuse - let's just assume (for chuckles) that it's true. Ok, if someone's hard drive crashes, what's the first thing you do? Obviously, you make an attempt to retrieve the "lost" emails from the hard drive using IT expert before you destroy the freaking hard drive.

If no attempts were made to recover the information before the drive was physically destroyed, then intentional, and people like Lying Lois Lerner need to be charged with a crime.

Orange. Freaking. Jumpsuits.

IRS: We've "lost" more of the e-mails that you've asked us about. Totes Sorry!

If you didn't already know, the IRS has stated that they "lost" about two years worth of Lois Lerner's e-mails that the House of Representatives had subpoenaed. Because her computer "crashed".

Oops. We all make mistakes!

I mean, it's impossible that any sort of backup or retrieval could happen. I mean, computers are just magical things that no one really understands. Sometimes bad stuff just happens, right? I know, it's convenient that it just so happens these were e-mails that would possibly prove a criminal conspiracy, but I guess anything's possible, right?

Well, it just so happens that the IRS has now claimed that six more employees who were the target of a Congressional inquiry have all lost their e-mail as well - all in computer crashes. Essentially, they've lost another submarine.

This is simply not plausible. It's not plausible that seven different people, who all happened to be under investigation, all lost their e-mail in the same way, and there's no way to retrieve the e-mails.

We lawyers have a word for this. When you destroy or lose evidence in a civil case, it's called "spoliation". If you lose or destroy evidence, the trial court takes a negative inference against you, and then you lose the darn case. In my practice, I've had trial courts hold opposing parties accountable for destroyed digital information by taking a negative inference against them.

But the IRS is claiming that all this just accidentally happened. They're not criminal; they're just incompetent.

They ought to subpoena every single IT administrator at the IRS and question them under oath.

They Got Off Easy If You Ask Me

The Columbia parents who starved, beat, and tortured their own four-year-old son to death were sentenced to life in prison today.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2014/05/28/3472668/prosecutor-dss-ignored-many-pleas.html?sp=/99/205/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy

This kind of evil should merit the death penalty.

I Guess They Didn't See the Sign

Three men wearing hoodies entered the restaurant through the back doors with pistols, and forced several staff members to lie on the floor.

I guess they just missed the gun-free zone signs on the North Carolina restaurant because they came in the back door. If only the robbers would have come through the front door, the no-guns sign would have stopped them cold.

Charleston Woman Threatened to "Shoot Everyone" Over Stale Cinnamon Bun

What does she think this is, Pulp Fiction?

A customer at a Mount Pleasant restaurant threatened to "shoot everyone" after arguing over a stale cinnamon bun she was served, a witness said...Witnesses told police that three women were ahead of them in line when one of them began yelling at an employee that the Cinnabon cinnamon bun she was served was not fresh. The witness said the employee yelled back at the customer that there was only one left.

Don't mess with people's cinnamon buns, y'all.

Judge Manning Rules That Attorney General Must Stop Grand Jury Investigation

First things first: here's a link to the the actual order from Judge Manning.

After reading the order, it seems like the most important line is:

"Despite multiple requests, the Attorney General has failed to offer or present to the Court any evidence or allegations which are criminal in nature. Therefore, the Court is left only with uncontroverted allegations of ethics violations propounded by a citizen's letter."

There seems to be some serious disagreement about the factual basis of whether there is a crime here. Just from reading the text of this order, it's clear that Judge Manning doesn't see any "evidence or allegations which are criminal in nature". That seems to be the foundation of the rest of his ruling.

If you assume there are no criminal allegations,  then I kind of see Judge Manning's point here. The Attorney General is the top prosecuting officer in South Carolina, and he can prosecute criminal actions on behalf of the state as he sees fit.

However, allegations of a legislator's ethics violations aren't necessarily a criminal action. That's not to say that an ethics violation is a good thing - it just may not be a crime. It's an ethics complaint, and the Supreme Court has ruled that Ethics Committees have the exclusive authority to hear alleged ethics violations.

I agree with the general idea that before the Attorney General should get involved, there has to be a crime, an indictment, or something more than simply an ethics complaint.

What is troubling to me is that this order seems to preclude the Attorney General from even investigating the matter until the Ethics Committee makes some sort of final disposition. Judge Manning notes that the Ethics Committee is required to refer allegations of criminal conduct to the Attorney General. It seems he's saying the law allows the Attorney General should get a crack at investigating the matter, but only after it's been referred out to him by the Ethics Committee.

To me, if Attorney General Wilson has something that he can charge Harrell with that isn't an ethics violation, he can do that, and this order won't preclude him from going forward.

SC Teen Arrested on NYC Subway on Gun Charges

A 19 year old kid from South Carolina fell asleep on a NYC subway with a 9mm handgun sticking out of his waistband. The piece also says the gun was "defaced" which I assume means the serial number was filed off. (Oh, and just as a kicker, he had marijuana on him.)

He was promptly arrested.

So, let's see how many laws that means he's broken.

1. CORRECTION: He's underage to possess purchase a handgun from a dealer anyway - you have to be 21.
2. He's in New York City, which has very strict gun laws.
3. He's on a New York City Subway, which probably is a "gun free zone" with even stricter laws than New York City generally.
4. The serial number is filed off, so that's a a violation of federal federal law.

Not even including the drugs, that's four pretty serious charges that he's looking at, probably the worst of which is the defaced serial number.

He'll be in jail for awhile, unless he gets some kind of break for being 19, and they consider him a juvenile.

The Pine Tar Incident Revisited

You might have missed this yesterday, but a pitcher on the Yankees was ejected for having pine tar on his neck.

In light of that, I thought that it would be nice to revisit the original Pine Tar Incident.

Now, most everyone knows about the Pine Tar Incident, but did you know that there were some actual legal cases as a result of the game?

After the Yankees were declared the winner, the Royals protested the game. Their protest was eventually upheld by the American League, and the game was ordered to be resumed in the 9th innning, with Brett's home run counted.

The Yankees didn't want to play the game, so for the resumption of the game, the Yankees announced that they would charge non-season-ticket holders a $2.50 admission fee to attend. Two lawsuits were filed against the Yankees and Bronx Supreme Court (trial court) Justice Orest Maresca issued an injunction, also requested by the Yankees, preventing the game from being resumed until the lawsuits were litigated. Maresca also cited the Yankees' expressed concerns about security problems resulting from confusion over admission to the game

That injunction was immediately appealed by the American League and was overturned by Supreme Court Appellate Division Justice Joseph Sullivan. The Royals, who were in flight during that day's legal battles, did not know that the game would be played until they arrived at Newark Airport.

The Yankees finally agreed to allow admission for the game's conclusion to anybody with a ticket stub from the July 24th game at no additional charge.

Ain't baseball fun?

Man Gets 18 Months In Jail for Urinating on The Alamo

Don't mess with Texas.

Another Ft. Hood Shooting?

Damn. 

I'm invoking the 24 hour rule of not commenting on a shooting, starting now. All I'm going to say at this point is that this is sad. Our soldiers should not be getting shot on their own military bases. I guess someone didn't get the memo that Ft. Hood is a gun-free zone.