122. Las Vegas juice
The L.A. Times is running a three-day series of investigative pieces about Las Vegas judges. It's not a surprise that Las Vegas is corrupt, but it's eye-opening that the judges take so little effort to disguise what they're doing. Example:
Las Vegas is a town where District Judge Nancy M. Saitta, 55, running unopposed in 2002, raised a political war chest totaling $120,000. She received nearly $70,000 from 140 attorneys and law firms. All 55 lawyers or law firms giving $500 or more had cases assigned to her courtroom or pending before her, according to court and campaign records.
Here's another example:
Las Vegas is a town where District Judge Sally Loehrer, 59, also running unopposed in 2002, collected about $80,000 in campaign funds. Of 54 attorneys and law firms contributing $500 or more, fundraising reports and court records show that 51 had cases pending before her or assigned to her courtroom. On the eve of one fundraiser, according to the reports, four law firms gave her 12 bottles of wine, a 13-inch TV, two DVD players, a gas grill, dinner for four at Zefferino's restaurant, two theater tickets, two golf lessons and a pool float with two beach towels. All four firms, court records show, had cases pending before her.
As one Las Vegas lawyer explained, this kind of thing isn't bribery. It's more like extortion:
"Giving money to a judge's campaign means you're less likely to get screwed…. A $1,000 contribution isn't going to buy special treatment. It's just a hedge against bad things happening."
Not all the corruption is strictly monetary:
But the biggest judicial thug of them all, it would seem, is federal district judge James Mahan, a George W. Bush appointee who trails slime all over the federal courthouse - which, appropriately enough for Las Vegas, looks like something it's not. I assume there must be hotels or casinos in Vegas that look like courthouses, because this courthouse looks like a hotel or casino.
Mahan's M.O., the Times reports, is to wait until business people are careless enough to come into his parlor, when he seizes their businesses, gives them to his buddies (as "receivers" or "special masters"), then stands by as his buddies squeeze the last dollar out of them. A suspicious person might begin to suspect that possibly the judge was receiving kickbacks, maybe in the form of rent or interest on a profit sharing plan.
The story is a reminder of the difference between the unlawful and the antisocial. It's possible that the judge and his cronies haven't committed any crimes. It's actually likely that the judge hasn't committed any crime that could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. But the trail of destruction in his wake resembles that left by a serial arsonist.
Friday, June 9, 2006 at 08:44PM in Crimes of Judging, Individual judges, Judging the judges, Judicial self-interest
Reader Comments (4)
http://www.duiblog.com/2006/06/11#a419
In a recent New Mexico case, an appellate court reluctantly had to reverse a DUI conviction because the prosecution failed to prove that the defendant's blood alcohol concentration was .08% or higher when driving. Instead, they simply offered evidence of the BAC when tested at the police station over an hour later: .08%. Further, the prosecution offered nothing to refute a defense forensic toxicologist who testified that based upon drinking patterns, absorption and elimination rates, etc., the BAC was lower when driving -- that is, below .08%. (This projection of BAC levels backwards in time is called retrograde extrapolation; see "Rising Blood Alcohol in DUI Cases".)
In reversing, however, the court commented in its opinion:
The problem of proof also raises the question of whether a new statute is needed to overcome the difficulty of proof....Difficulty of proof and jury speculation in this very important area of motor vehicle law needs to be removed with timely and reliable testing combined with an effective BAC law.
What did the justices mean "difficulty of proof" and "an effective BAC law"?
Well, first off, you've got to ask why a supposedly impartial appellate court is trying to get new laws making it easier for prosecutors to convict citizens accused of DUI? Why shouldn't the prosecution just offer the same kind of evidence as the defense in this case -- that is, someone from their crime lab to testify that the BAC was over .08% when driving earlier?
But to answer the question.....It is not against the law to have a blood alcohol level of .08% or higher in a police station -- only when driving a vehicle. This puts a burden on the prosecution to prove what the level was when the suspect was driving. To ensure convictions in DUI cases, however, many states have passed laws which legally presume that the blood alcohol concentration was the same when driving as when tested -- even though it is almost a scientific certainty that the level was not the same. The consequence of such a law is that the judge must instruct the jury that they must convict the defendant if the test showed .08% or higher within three hours of driving -- unless the defendant can offer evidence refuting this. If this sounds like a violation of the presumption of innocence, it is. (See "Whatever Happened to the Presumption of Innocence?").
The New Mexico Court of Appeals, then, is basically telling the legislature to pass one of these laws making it easier to convict citizens accused of DUI. In other words, the Court is no longer acting as an impartial panel of judges but as advocates for the prosecution interested primarily in stacking the deck to ensure the flow of DUI convictions. Put yet another way, the court apparently finds it objectionable to reverse a DUI conviction because the prosecution hasn't done it job.
The reason the prosecution didn't offer an expert of its own is simple: under long-established NM law they didn't need to. The Court of Appeals' decision overruled a number of prior cases and finessed a number of others.
Of course, it's not inconsistent with the presumption of innocence to make it illegal to have a BAC of .08% within x number of hours after driving.
"The statute requires proof that a person is dead before you can be convicted of murder. If that sounds like a violation of the presumption of innocence, it is."
No, its is not inconsistent with the presumption of innocence. However, that law, or presumption, is too broad.
Surely, something is wrong with a law that would criminalize the following conduct.
I drive home from work, perfectly sober.
I then have 4-8 shots/beers while watching the playoffs.
I blow above .08 within three hours of driving home.
Surely the criminal conduct is "driving under the influence" not "being drunk sometime after sober driving."
The prosecution should be made to prove that I was above .08 at the time of driving; not sometime after the driving.