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Desperate women ended up in the chaotic, choked city of Mumbai, India.  Most were from backwater, dirt-poor villages throughout the countryside, searching for a new life.  More often than not, they had to resort to prostitution to survive.  The remaining thread common to all was that they were, for the most part, illiterate.  And when it came time for them to communicate to family and friends left behind in the villages, they turned to G.P. Sawant for his letter-writing services.  He never charged them a penny for the work he did on their behalf.

The letters he would write relayed false assurances that the women had found legitimate work in the city, claiming positions like shopkeeper or an extra in the Bollywood film industry.  Not daring to speak of the squalid living conditions, the beatings, the torture, the rapes, they would include money orders of rupees along with the handwritten letters drafted and completed by Sawant.  The prostitutes called him “Brother” and tied a string around his wrist each year in Hindu tradition.  Sometimes, suspicious parents or other family members would board a train and come to Mumai to investigate for themselves exactly how the wayward daughter, wife, girlfriend or mother was actually doing.  Their trek would take them directly to Sawant’s stall just outside the post office since that was the site the women would use as return address on their letters written by Sawant.  He would greet them kindly and patiently but never disclosed any information about the woman’s work or whereabouts.  Such was Sawant’s code of honor: you make your living writing about a person’s lives, complete with knowledge of their secrets, you die with those secrets.  But now, with the advent of the cell phone and texting, new technological opportunities transforming India, Sawant’s profession is quickly headed to the dustbin of history. (more…)

Twenty-one years ago this past February, Peggy Hettrick, a 37-year-old single woman, was seen leaving a local bar in Ft. Collins, Colorado alone and was later found in a frozen field nearby, stabbed and sexually abused.  The investigation quickly focused on fifteen-year old Tim Masters, a quirky kid who collected survival knives and expressed an unnatural interest in violent, somewhat sadistic imagery.  He lived in a trailer with this father, near the field where Ms. Hettrick’s body was discovered.  No physical evidence or murder weapon was ever recovered.  There was no evidence of any kind that linked Masters to the murder.  However, with the use of Masters’ knives, his grisly collection of gory graphics and the use of a psychological profile, he was arrested more than a decade after the murder, tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1999.  The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but not without a vigorous dissent pointing out that Masters was probably convicted not for what he had done but for who he was when fifteen years old.  Now however, Masters’ writ lawyers claim to have new evidence which cast strong suspicions on another person as the guilty party and the allegations have riveted the city of Ft. Collins and the entire legal community in Colorado. (more…)

Did you know that the Library of Congress maintains an impressive national registry of classic American cinema?    So what made it this year? Here are some selected films that make up the 25 new additions for the year 2007.

The Naked City (1948) - A gritty crime film shot on location in New York City that combined several stories into one fluid production.  It won Oscars for best photography and editing. 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - Spielburg’s compelling sci-fi film which used Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming as the backdrop for alien visitation.

In a Lonely Place (1950) - Humphrey Bogart as a screenwriter with a two-fisted (literally) approach to life.

Oklahoma (1955) - “Oh what a beautiful morning!  Oh what a beautiful day!”

Back to the Future (1985) - Michael J. Fox has to figure out how to get back to the future, bring his future parents together at their high school, explain why his underwear are not white and ultimately save his family from being erased from the memory logs of the universe, all the while fending off the advances of his future hot, teenage mother.

12 Angry Men (1957) - Henry Fonda produced it and had the entire film shot on a cramped sound stage just big enough to hold those twelve men.  Can you name the 12 Angry Men? Let’s go around the table, starting with the jury foreman, assigned by numbers 1 through 12: 1 - Martin Balsam, 2 - John Fiedler, 3 - Lee J. Cobb, 4 - E.G. Marshall, 5 - Jack Klugman, 6 - Ed Binns, 7 - Jack Warden, 8 - Henry Fonda, 9 - Joseph Sweeney, 10 - Ed Begley, 11 - John Voskovec, 12 - Robert Webber.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962) - John Ford’s epic western illuminating the triumph of the rule of law  (Jimmy Stewart) over naturalism (John Wayne) and e-vil (Lee Marvin).

Bullitt (1968) - San Francisco never looked better and the same can be said of Steve McQueen and Robert Vaughn.  Still the greatest car chase in cinema history. 

Days of Heaven (1978) - Terrence Malick’s debut film about life in the Texas Panhandle (never mind it was produced in Alberta, Canada).  Maybe one of the most beautiful films ever shot on location.

For more information on the complete collection, go to www.loc.gov/.

Our culture, workplaces and schools are the breeding grounds for new words and phrases.  2007 has given rise to a whole slew of these expressions whose consistent use has allowed them to permeate into everyday conversation.  Ready?  Here goes.

bromance n.

A strong relationship between two heterosexual men.

astronaut diaper n.

An article worn by astronauts when they’re in pressure suits and can’t get to the toilet.  Another word for them is “urine collection devices.”  The term was exposed to public attention and served as the butt of innumerable jokes on talk show TV when astronaut Lisa Nowak was said to have worn one in February while driving across half the country to confront the “other woman” in a love triangle.  She has denied it.  Isn’t another word for these “grampers?”

bacn n.

Impersonal e-mail messages that are nearly as annoying and as ubiquitous as spam but the main difference being their delivery to the recipient is voluntary since the person has chosen to accept them, i.e. alerts, reminders, newsletters and the like.

boot camp flu n.

A virus that is normally innocuous and non-threatening but which has lately morphed into a deadlier strain which has produced pneumonia and death.  The virus often occurs and spreads among military recruits who are particularly susceptible because they live in such close quarters under stressful conditions.

colony collapse disorder n.

A disease that has killed millions of pollinating bees across the nation, stunting the honey output.  Suspected culprits are a virus, mites and insecticides.

drama-price v.

To lower the price of a house dramatically in order to attract the attention of prospective buyers in an unusually soft market.

e-mail bankruptcy n.

To declare e-mail bankruptcy is to announce to the world that you intend to forego the reading and response to a large accumulation of e-mail.  This is usually done by posting a boilerplate message explaining that old messages will never receive a personal reading or personal response. (more…)

Carlos Perez-Olivo was a flashy, flamboyant lawyer in Chappaqua, New York.  He handled lots of criminal cases, especially homicides, and won most of them with outright acquittals.  Know how hard that is?  In a span of twenty-five years, he made a ton of dough, enough to buy a two-story colonial mansion right next to guess who? — Bill and Hillary Clinton.  But with a guy like Perez-Olivo, it was never enough.  We all know guys like this, be they lawyers, doctors, real estate agents, stockbrokers.  Whatever they have simply is never enough. 

At the high point of this meteoric arc of wealth and fame, a surfeit of greed and avarice took its toll.  In the summer of 2006, he was disbarred by the New York State Supreme Court based on a slew of complaints from four clients who proved that he had misappropriated bail money, failed to follow up on appeals and charged unconscionable fees.  And, of course, with shlock lawyers like Perez-Olivo, it wasn’t the first time he had screwed his clients.  The disbarment opinion noted that he had been “admonished” in 1998 for similar misconduct, enough to get his law license forfeited in Puerto Rico in 2000.  How did he ever continue to maintain his law license in New York while this was going on?  The State Supreme Court did not address that issue.

Without a license to steal, what is a lawyer like Perez-Olivo to do?  Something like this. (more…)

Martin Tankleff of Garden City, New York was convicted in 1990 for the grisly murder of both his parents.  The key evidence against him was an “admission,” as described by police, that he made and then refused to sign, immediately repudiating it.  He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of imprisonment of 25 years to life in prison.  For the last thirteen years, writ lawyers have labored at trying to get him a new trial, citing new evidence which implicated another person who had a strong motive for the slayings of Arlene and Seymour Tankleff and could be placed within the home of the Tankleffs on the night of the murders.  Thirty-one former federal, state and local prosecutors supported him claims of innocence.  The Suffolk County D.A.’s Office, charged with handling the case, never relented in its opposition to Tankleff’s requests for a new trial. (more…)

Back in early July, hack wrote about Avvo, a legal ratings site on the web (How’re we doing?, July 3, 2007).  You can look yourself up and check out your rating which is determined by criteria set by Avvo.  By providing additional information and a credit card number (which is not used by the company), each individual lawyer can modify his rating upward.  But the website didn’t sit well with two Washington lawyers, John Henry Browne and Alan J. Wenokur.  They sued Avvo, claiming their low ratings had cost them clients, opportunities and most importantly, money.  On Tuesday, December 18, Federal District Court Judge Robert S. Lasnik ruled against both lawyers, holding that the ratings assigned by Avvo were opinions rather than facts and as such, are wholly protected by the First Amendment.  Judge Lasnik went on to comment that if Zagat can rate restaurants by number, then why can’t Avvo rate the lawyers. ”Rather than seeing the Avvo ratings for what they are — ‘that and a $1.50 will get you a ride on Seattle’s new South Lake Union Streetcar’ — plaintiffs Browne and Wenokur want to make a federal case out of the number assigned to them.”  Dismissed!

It was one of the harder cases I defended.  David Layton was charged with multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping and attempted murder.  The year was 1995, before implementation of S.B. 7 which meant that each judge had his own stable of hacks from which to choose who to appoint on any given case.  As I have stated publicly right here at hacklawyer before, it’s my personal opinion that the old system worked better, at least with regard to these kind of tough cases.  Judge Pat Pirtle of the 251st District Court appointed me to defend Layton, knowing full well that with its bad facts and attendant notoriety, it was going to be a “pier-nine” brawl.  And it was.  It took a year-and-a-half to prepare, two days of jury selection and two weeks of trial before the inevitable multiple verdicts - guilty on all counts with maximum sentences imposed.  All double 9s.  It didn’t help that Layton’s own sister testified at the punishment phase of decades-old sexual abuse or that both the defendant and his nutcase mother created havoc in full view of the jury right there in open court.  I’m sure that those compassionate features of my brain have worked hard at least, suppressing the unpleasant memories of the case and at best, wiping out salient portions completely.  But Mr. Layton also works hard at not letting that happen.  (more…)

Well, here they are, the 2007 Judicial Hellholes according to the American Tort Reform Association:

1.  South Florida (not some but all of South Florida);

2.  Rio Grande Valley and Texas Gulf Coast;

3.  Cook County, Illinois;

4.  West Virginia;

5.  Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) and

6.  Atlantic County, N.J. (Atlantic City).

According to the Association’s web site, the report highlights those areas of the country where judges apply the law “in an inequitable manner, generally against defendants in civil lawsuits.”  The footnotes cited in support of this conclusion make reference to newspaper articles, editorials, other media reports and some selected case filings.  The Rio Grande Valley and the Texas Gulf Coast made the list for the sixth straight year.  To view the ATRA’s full 2007 “Judicial Hellholes” report, go to www.atra.org. 

In Hicks v. State, slip opinion no. PD-0154-06, Court of Criminal Appeals, December 12, 2007, the Court was called upon to interpret just exactly what is meant by the term “omission” in the context of Section 22.04(b)(2) Penal Code.  This is the injury to a disabled person statute which requires that before one can be found liable for injury to a disabled individual based on the theory that the actor caused the injury by omission, the evidence must show that the actor “assumed care, custody or control of a . . . disabled person.” (more…)