September 25, 2006
The large abuses of tiny courts ::
legal — tagged crime, due process, legal, new york and social conscience
7:56 am
The New York Times has an interesting piece on the small, rather unceremonious courts of limited jurisdiction in New York State and the types of abuses that go on there. Since these courts lack the high profile of general jurisdiction courts and often have people substantially less qualified presiding over them, they do not get the same level of attention as the Supreme Court of New York. The article, noting first that “[n]early three-quarters of the judges are not lawyers…have scant grasp of the most basic legal principles, [and] never got through high school,” goes on to explain why the underqualified nature of these judges is such a Big Deal:
But serious things happen in these little rooms all over New York State. People have been sent to jail without a guilty plea or a trial, or tossed from their homes without a proper proceeding. In violation of the law, defendants have been refused lawyers, or sentenced to weeks in jail because they cannot pay a fine. Frightened women have been denied protection from abuse.
Given the lack of attention that these courts garner (who really cares how your challenge to that traffic ticket was resolved?) what springs to mind for me is the dialogue between Holmes and Watson in The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, in which Holmes notes that it is places isolated from greater society and hidden from public scrutiny that are ripest for abuses and crime:
But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.
August 11, 2006
Summer, continued ::
personal — tagged buffalo, new york, travel and vermont
9:24 am
So, I finally found a place to stay, starting September 1. It’s a shared house in Montpelier, with two other people. The house is north of the city on Elm Street, and is right on the Onion River. It has a nice little back yard with lots of trees, a garden space, and a little lawn furniture set. I look forward to spending the warmer part of September in the back yard, reading. I’d also like to set up a bird feeder, but we’ll see what my housemates think about it.
I’m particularly looking forward to this because I’ve been semi-homeless since I took the bar exam back in July. I have kept my stuff in storage over at Rick and Sarah’s place, and have kept only a minimal amount of clothes, hygiene supplies, and tech equipment (and of course my bike!) with me. I’ve been staying with friends in South Royalton and have been travelling a lot (e.g., my Pitchfork/Milwaukee trip last week) which has made it seem that my life is more like it’s temporarily transitory than totally up in the air. Now that I have a definite end date of September 1, I’m more comfortable with my life, and feel that I can just enjoy my time rather than get stressed out about getting my life in order. Now if I could just find a job.
The weather has been really beautiful here, too. Last week it was hot and humid, weather akin to, as David Foster Wallace has said, living in someone’s armpit. But after a series of wet days the weather finally broke and we’ve had really cool nights (it got down to the 40’s last night) and dry, warm days in which the temperature doesn’t get much above 70. It’s been perfect for bike riding, and I’ve been taking advantage of it, going on 30-35 mile excursions over mountains and through towns I would have never imagined biking to just a year ago. So it’s a great summer, and I will be sad to see it go.
And yesterday I helped a friend move down to New Haven so she can attend Vermont Law’s joint degree program with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She paid and fed me, and even reimbursed me for mileage on my car. And the best part? She was actually packed before we got there, and we got the van packed in less than an hour. The drive down to New Haven was really no problem either, and we got her stuff moved into her place in even less time than it took to get it all into the van (fewer stairs involved in the unpacking phase). It was a fun trip, and it was nice to make a little money. But even better was making new friends, which I’ve tried (with a fair amount of success) to make a recurring theme in my life this summer.
