Dec. 15
TEXAS:
Harris County Sues Major Drugmakers Over Opioid Epidemic
Harris County has become the latest government body to sue major drug
manufacturers for their hand in the opioid epidemic, alleging the companies
conspired to push highly addictive medication that harmed its residents.
The lawsuit, which was filed today in Harris County's 133rd State district
court, alleges drug companies including Purdue Pharma, Janssen Pharmaceuticals,
and Abbott Laboratories along with 5 "pill mill" doctors all conspired to get
Houstonians hooked on prescription drugs with devastating consequences.
"The defendants knew that the use of opioids had the potential to cause
addiction and other health maladies," according to the petition. "Driven by
profit, defendants engaged in a campaign of lies, half-truths, and deceptions
to create a market that encouraged the over-prescribing and long-term use of
opioids even though there was no scientific basis to support such use. The
campaign worked, and resulted in an exponential increase in opioid abuse,
addiction, and death."
Houston attorney Vince Ryan filed the suit against the defendants along with
the help of prominent Houston plaintiff attorneys Mike Gallagher and Tommy
Fibich. Ryan has a history of using contingent fee contracts to take on big
industry defendants - a move that was blessed most recently in 2013 by
Houston's First Court of Appeals when used by private lawyers to sue
International Paper to force them to clean up environmental waste along the San
Jacinto River. Several states around the country have also filed lawsuits
against drug manufacturers to help offset $78.5 billion economic burden of
prescription drug misuse and the State of Texas has joined a working group to
investigate the opioid pharmaceutical industry's conduct. Earlier this year,
Upshur County partnered with plaintiff lawyers in Dallas' Simon Greenstone
Panatier Bartlett to file public nuisance, fraud and racketeering allegations
against drugmakers in a lawsuit currently pending before U.S. District Judge
Rodney Gilstrap of Marshall.
(source: Texas Lawyer)
*******************
Money talks in the death penalty debate
Brent Ray Brewer has been sitting on death row since 1991.
John Balentine - since 1999. Brittany Holberg - since 1998. Travis Runnels -
since 2005.
It says something about capital punishment when an individual has been on death
row since before the Internet became commonplace. (In Brewer's case.)
These 4 Amarillo-area individuals (from Potter and Randall counties) are
perfect examples of the financial cost of capital punishment.
No matter on which side of the death penalty debate you fall, there is no
denying the significant financial cost of capital punishment - a cost which is
brought up routinely by death penalty opponents.
However, what are the reasons for these costs? One of the primary reasons is a
fact that death penalty opponents seldom mention - legal costs.
According to deathpenaltyinfo.org, "Each death penalty case in Texas costs
taxpayers about $2.3 million. That is about 3 times the cost of imprisoning
someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years.
('Executions Cost Texas Millions," Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992).'"
A significant chunk of that $2.3 million - a number which is undoubtedly higher
now - is to pay for the legal expenses of those convicted of the most heinous
crimes. (Speaking of heinous crimes, longtime Amarillo residents may be
familiar with Holberg, who was convicted of killing an 80-year-old man in 1996
by stabbing him more than 60 times.)
Take our neighbor - Oklahoma. Again, according to deathpenaltyinfo.org,
"Prosecutors (in Oklahoma) spent triple in pre-trial and trial costs on death
penalty proceedings, while defense teams spent nearly 10 times more. Oklahoma
capital appeal proceedings cost between 5 and 6 times more than non-capital
appeals of 1st-degree murder convictions."
More often than not, the legal costs related to capital punishment are dropped
on taxpayers - for individuals who sit on death row for decades.
The never-ending debate on the death penalty should include an honest and
realistic portrayal - which means all the reasons capital punishment is so
expensive should be examined.
The death penalty is not a major financial burden for taxpayers because death
row inmates are living high on the hog behind bars and eating caviar. A primary
reason is the legal expenses (paying the lawyers and attorneys) which drag on
for decades.
(source: Editorial, Amarillo Globe-News)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Lawyer 'Disappointed' by Death Penalty Decision----Lawyer for man charged with
cousin in deaths of 4 young men shot and buried on Pennsylvania farm says he's
'disappointed' by prosecutors certifying his case for capital punishment when
it's cousin who's 'admitted killer'.
The Latest on 2 cousins charged with killing 4 young men found shot and buried
on a Pennsylvania farm:
A lawyer for a man charged with his cousin in the deaths of 4 young men found
shot and buried on a Pennsylvania farm says he's "disappointed" by prosecutors
certifying his case for capital punishment when it's his cousin who's the
"admitted killer."
Lawyer Niels C. Eriksen Jr. represents Sean Kratz. Kratz and his cousin Cosmo
DiNardo have pleaded not guilty to murder and corpse abuse in the July
killings. DiNardo is charged in 4 deaths, Kratz in 3.
DiNardo's attorneys say he admitted killing the men and told authorities where
to find a body in exchange for prosecutors agreeing not to seek capital
punishment. Prosecutors said Thursday they're "on track" to reach a deal with
DiNardo.
Kratz's lawyer says he looks forward to "challenging the evidence."
1 victim's family says Kratz and DiNardo should be put to death.
(source: Associated Press)
NORTH CAROLINA:
N.C. death row becoming frail, aging----No new death sentences in 2017
North Carolina juries rejected the death penalty in 2017, refusing to impose
death sentences at any of the 4 trials where prosecutors sought them and making
this year the 3rd since 2012 with no new death sentences.
Juries in Wake, Granville and Guilford counties all chose life without parole
instead of death this year. At a 4th capital trial in Robeson County, the jury
said the defendant was guilty only of 2nd-degree murder and he was sentenced to
a term of years.
Only a single person has been sent to N.C. death row in the past 3 1/2 years,
and most of the state's district attorneys are no longer seeking the death
penalty. North Carolina has not executed an inmate since 2006 because of
ongoing litigation over the state's lethal injection procedures and racial bias
in capital trials.
"There are some elected officials in North Carolina who still like to talk
about the death penalty for political purposes, but that's about the only way
it's being used anymore," said Gretchen M. Engel, executive director of the
Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham. "The reality is most citizens of
North Carolina no longer have any use for the death penalty, not after seeing
an innocent man like Henry McCollum spend 30 years there."
McCollum was released in 2014, after DNA testing proved he was innocent of the
1983 crime for which he was sentenced to death. Nationally, 4 more death row
inmates were exonerated in 2017, bringing the total to 160. A Gallup poll
released in October found that Americans' support for the death penalty had
reached its lowest point in 45 years.
Also in 2017, more questions of innocence arose in North Carolina. Michael
Patrick Ryan, who was sentenced to death in 2010 in Gaston County, is awaiting
a new trial after a judge ruled in February that misleading DNA evidence was
used against him and prosecution investigators intimidated Ryan's alibi
witnesses. Scant credible evidence remains against Ryan, who has always claimed
his innocence.
Phillip Davis from Buncombe County was also removed from death row in February
and resentenced to life without parole after the court found that race played
an improper role in selecting the all-white jury that sentenced him to death.
Davis, who was just a few months past his 18th birthday at the time of the
crime, spent 20 years on death row before being resentenced.
North Carolina's death row also shrunk this year because 5 inmates died of
natural causes. Today, 140 men and 3 women remain on death row. Almost 1/2, 69
of them, are 50 or older. More than 3/4 of death row inmates were sentenced at
least 15 years ago, in an era when North Carolina juries sentenced to death
dozens of people a year under less enlightened laws.
At the time, the law forced prosecutors to go after the death penalty in almost
every 1st-degree murder case, even when they believed the circumstances called
for mercy or there were questions of innocence. Defendants on trial for their
lives did not have basic protections such as qualified attorneys or laws
requiring that confessions be recorded.
"If we were to restart executions, we would be putting to death people who were
tried decades ago without basic legal protections," Engel said. "Executions
would do nothing to solve the problems of today. We would be better served to
choose life imprisonment instead and divert the millions of dollars we spend on
the death penalty to law enforcement and corrections officers, who unlike the
death penalty, make our society safer."
(source: The Center for Death Penalty Litigation is a non-profit law firm in
Durham, N.C., that represents people on North Carolina's death
row----bladenjournal.com)
CALIFORNIA:
Defense attorney files rare death penalty motion
For the 1st time in Fresno County Superior Court history, a defense attorney
has filed a rare motion, arguing a death penalty qualification on a jury panel
for an African American defendant will deprive them of equal protection.
Attorney David Mugridge's client, Leroy Johnson spent almost 9 years in jail on
murder charges.
Mugridge says studies show most African Americans are against the death penalty
and he is worried those jurors will be disqualified based on their
predisposition toward life rather than death.
He argues his client will not receive the right to a fair and equal sampling of
all races.
"Theoretically as a defense attorney I'd love to have everybody on the jury be
opposed to the death penalty, the people have the right to a fair and balanced
jury just as much as the defendant does and I just want to make sure it ends up
being fair and trial for both sides," said Mugridge.
Johnson's trial was supposed to start in January, but it could be postponed.
Mugridge also says this has only been done in the State of California once
before.
(source: ABC News)
*************************
Indian American Store Clerk Killer Faces Death Penalty
Indian American Amritraj Singh Athwal, charged with the Nov. 13 murder of
Madera, Calif., store clerk Dharampreet Singh Jassar, is facing the death
penalty after new charges were added to his case at a Dec. 7 arraignment.
Athwal is currently being held at Madera County Jail without bail, Lt. Sheriff
Bill Ward confirmed to India-West. He was transferred from Fresno County Jail
after his arraignment.
In a press release issued after the arraignment, Madera County District
Attorney David Linn announced that he had filed additional special allegations
against Athwal. "The effect of these additional special allegations increases
the potential penalties for Mr. Athwal to life, without the possibility of
parole, or the death penalty," he said.
"We do not take capital cases lightly, however, based upon the facts that have
been reported to us from law enforcement, we believe that either life without
the possibility of parole, or the death penalty, is the appropriate sentence in
this case," said Linn.
"Although prior election propositions and action by the State Legislature and
Governor Brown have stripped law enforcement of effective tools to properly
punish the defendant, my staff and I are fully committed to pursuing the most
serious penalties available under existing California law," stated the District
Attorney.
The press release did not list the additional allegations against Athwal. But
John Bell, a senior administrative analyst in the DA's office, apprised
India-West of the new charges.
Athwal had initially been charged with 1st-degree murder; Linn issued an
additional charge - murder during the commission of a robbery. The suspect was
also charged with robbery: 2 additional allegations involve the use of a
fire-arm while committing a robbery.
Jassar, an Indian national, had just turned 20 and was in his sophomore year at
Fresno State University, where he was studying both accounting and criminal
justice, friends and relatives told India-West. He was killed late night Nov.
13 at the Tackle Box convenience store in Madera.
Surveillance video revealed that 2 men entered the store, stole cash and 2
large packing boxes of cigarettes. As they were leaving, 1 of the suspects
fired several shots, 1 of which struck the employee and killed him, according
to police reports.
The 2nd suspect is still at large.
Athwal's case is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing Dec. 15.
(source: indiawest.com)
***********************
Riverside County leads the nation in death penalty sentences again in 2017
For the 2nd time in the last 3 years, Riverside County has produced more new
death row inmates than any other county in the United States.
California accounted for 28 % of all the new death penalty sentences across the
country in 2017, according to a new report by the Death Penalty Information
Center, a Washington D.C. nonprofit which researches capital punishment.
Riverside County accounted for 5 of the state's death row sentences, the most
of any county in the U.S., despite a statewide moratorium on executions.
A Riverside County inmate has not been executed since at least 1978. No
California inmate has been put to death since 2006.
A researcher with DPIC said the high rate could be an indicator of larger
issues within Riverside County's criminal justice system, a notion the county's
district attorney dismissed as "nonsense."
Robert Dunham, author of the report and DPIC executive director, said research
showed death penalty sentences were an "accident of geography" and that
Riverside County had long been an outlier.
"For every 7 1/2 death sentences imposed somewhere else, 1 is imposed in
Riverside County," he said. "Riverside County has historically been much more
aggressive in pursuing the death penalty than other counties its size and with
its murder rate."
Dunham said that a high rate of death penalty sentences isn't something that
occurs in a vacuum and can be indicative of a prosecutorial culture that "will
do anything to win." He referenced the massive wiretapping operation built up
by Riverside County prosecutors and the Drug Enforcement Administration which
accounted for 1/5 of all the wiretaps in the United States.
"You don't see counties that overproduce death penalties and are model citizens
in the administration of justice as a whole," Dunham said.
Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said he "strenuously" objected
to that sentiment and added his office prides itself on being responsible as it
pursues the death penalty.
"That's just a bunch of nonsense and I would challenge this individual to come
look at our cases," he said.
Hestrin has been more cautious in pursuing the death penalty than his
predecessors, but said his office has pushed hard for death sentences - the
office sought the death penalty 5 times this year and got it each time.
He added that while it's important to monitor the use of capital punishment and
keep prosecutor's offices accountable, it's also important to think about the
victims of these crimes and their families who deserve justice, which sometimes
includes the death penalty.
The 5 people sentenced to death in Riverside County in 2017 were Elias Lopez,
convicted of 2 homicides in Indio from 2014; Johnny Lopez, who was convicted of
2 murders, rape and attempted murder in Hemet from 2013; David Contreras, who
was convicted of 3 murders in Perris from 2012 and 2013; Lorraine Alison
Hunter, convicted of a murder in Moreno Valley in 2009; and Raymond Barrera,
who was convicted of 3 murders near San Jacinto from 2013.
Between the 5 people sentenced to death this year in the county, there were 11
murder victims and 2 attempted murder victims.
"These are heinous crimes. Whenever someone's killing more than 1 person, it
certainly weighs heavily on me," Hestrin said.
Riverside County Public Defender Steven Harmon said he believed the county has
long overused capital punishment, largely due to the inclinations of Hestrin's
predecessors. Hestrin was elected district attorney in 2014 and took office the
following year.
"I must commend Mike Hestrin," Harmon said. "He has taken a far more measured
approach to deciding in which cases he should seek the death penalty."
Harmon, who said he was personally opposed to the death penalty, said the
county also did have a more conservative jury pool filled with "fine, good,
justice-seeking people," but that prosecutorial discretion was the main driver
behind death penalty sentences. Juries can only hand down a sentence of death
if it is pursued by the DA's office.
Dunham said DPIC has studied Riverside County specifically since it's such an
anomaly. From 2010 to 2015, Riverside County was second only to Los Angeles
County in the number of death penalty convictions, though the latter has a much
higher murder rate. He said the county sees death penalty sentences at a 9
times greater rate per homicide than the rest of California.
In 2016, California voters passed a statewide ballot measure to speed up
executions and death penalty appeals. The state supreme court allowed the law
to take effect, but threw out the provision that death row inmates had only 5
years to appeal their conviction.
In California, 746 people remained on death row in 2017.
A competing statewide measure, which would have repealed the death penalty,
failed. In Riverside County, only about 1/3 of voters cast their ballots in
favor of outlawing capital punishment. A long-debated issue in California,
legal challenges to the death penalty have been ongoing since the 1960s. The
state has not executed an inmate in more than a decade and a federal court
ruling blocking executions until a new protocol was developed remains in
effect.
Dunham said it was still unclear what effect the 2016 ballot measure would
ultimately have.
Nationally, the trend seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. 23
executions took place and the report projected there would be 39 death
sentences handed down by the end of 2017, the 2nd lowest in 25 years. Only 2016
saw fewer executions and death sentences, according to the report.
"The long-term trends, nationwide, are that the death penalty is still on the
decline," Dunham said.
The report also indicated that national support for the death penalty had
fallen in recent years, though more than 1/2 of Americans still support the
practice for people convicted of murder, according to a recent Gallup Poll.
2017 also saw 4 death row exonerations in the U.S. and 4 additional death row
inmates had their sentences commuted to life in prison.
Dunham pointed out that part of the reason why many people are sentenced to
death in the U.S. is because people who are opposed to the death penalty cannot
serve on death penalty juries.
"In a capital case, you don't get a jury of your peers," he said. "You get a
jury composed only of members of the community who are willing to impose the
death penalty."
(source: The Desert Sun)
USA:
Death Penalty Decline Signals 'Long-Term Change' in Capital Punishment
With executions and death sentences at near-historic low levels so far this
year, the U.S. is witnessing a "long-term change in capital punishment,"
according to a report released Thursday by the Death Penalty Information Center
(DPIC), a Washington, DC-based advocacy group.
The report, entitled "The Death Penalty in 2017," notes that the 23 executions
in 2017 were the 2nd fewest since 1991, and the number of total imposed or
projected death sentences (39) this year is the 2nd lowest since 1972, the
report said.
"The new death sentences imposed in 2017 highlight the increasing geographic
isolation and arbitrary nature of the death penalty," said DPIC Director Robert
Dunham in a press release accompanying the report.
Just 3 countries - Riverside, CA; Clark, NV; and Maricopa, AZ - were
responsible for more than 30 % of the death sentences levied around the
country.
Nearly 75 % of executions took place in 4 states: (Texas (7); Arkansas (4);
Florida (3); and Alabama (3).
The report notes that Harris County, Tx., which once led the nation in the
number of executions, and did not execute any prisoner or impose any death
sentence this year, is symbolic of the decline.
Dunham said the declining numbers coincide with a sharp drop in public support
for the death penalty across the U.S., now at 55 % - a 45-year low.
(source: thecrimereport.org)
*******************----book review
Federal Judges----The Hanging Judge: An Interview With Judge Michael Ponsor; An
interview with a very rare individual: a federal judge and New York Times
bestselling novelist.
Looking for some stocking stuffers for the lawyer or law student in your life?
I have 2 items to add to the holiday gift guides we've previously published: 2
superb legal thrillers, The Hanging Judge and The One-Eyed Judge, by Michael
Ponsor.
That name rings a bell - do you mean Judge Michael Ponsor? Yes, that's right.
Within the legal profession, Judge Ponsor is best known as a Senior United
States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts, appointed in 1994 by
President Bill Clinton. But Judge Ponsor - a graduate of Harvard College and
Yale Law School, as well as a former Rhodes Scholar - is a man of many talents.
How many federal judges are also critically acclaimed, New York
Times-bestselling authors?
A few months ago, right before I went out on paternity leave, I interviewed
Judge Ponsor about his fascinating authorial and judicial careers. After
briefly chatting about the similarities in our backgrounds - 2 alma maters in
common, plus the whole "lawyer turned novelist" thing - we plunged into the
substance of our conversation.
Here's the (lightly edited and condensed) 1st part of our chat, centered on The
Hanging Judge and Judge Ponsor's writing career. The 2nd part, focused on The
One-Eyed Judge and Judge Ponsor's legal career, will follow next week. Enjoy!
DL: Congratulations on your success as both a judge and an author. Your legal
career, while long and distinguished, is fairly straightforward. Can you give
us an overview of your career as a writer?
MP: I've been trying to write fiction since my 20s. I wrote a complete novel
when I was at Oxford called When the Bough Breaks, about a boy growing up in
the Midwest. It was picked up by New York literary agency, and they were
confident the book would find a publisher. I was ambivalent about law school so
I thought, "Great! I won't have to go! I'll be a famous novelist instead." But
there were no takers. Off I went to law school.
Then, in 1973, when I was still in law school, I had a short story published in
Redbook. I got paid $1,500 for it, a sizable sum at the time. I was still
ambivalent about being a lawyer, so this time I thought, "Great! I can be a
famous short story writer instead."
Again, it didn't work out. Little did I know that the 1973 Redbook story would
comprise my entire published literary oeuvre for the next 40 years, until The
Hanging Judge came out in 2013. My main problem was that I wanted to be a
writer but didn't have anything terribly profound to write about.
DL: And that's where your legal and judicial career comes in....
MP: What boosted me into a higher level of focus as a writer was presiding over
a death penalty case in 2000 called United States v. Gilbert, involving a nurse
at a Veterans Affairs hospital charged with killing 4 of her patients and
attempting to kill 3 others.
The trial went on for more than 5 months. Massachusetts doesn't have a state
death penalty, and this was the 1st death penalty case in almost 50 years. It
was a harrowing experience - morally, to ensure a fair process where the stakes
were so high, and emotionally, knowing that an evidentiary ruling of mine might
either let a killer go free or send a woman to her death after a botched trial.
In the end, the jury found Kristen Gilbert guilty but declined to impose the
death penalty. She didn't appeal - perhaps because, under Supreme Court
precedent, had she "won" on appeal and gotten a new trial, she could have faced
the death penalty again.
I wrote an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe about the experience of presiding
over a death-penalty trial. I tried not to make judgments and focused on
describing the objective challenges - here's a steep hill, here's a swamp, here
lie dragons. My core point - not especially surprising, but powerfully hammered
home for me by the trial - was that if we're going to have a death penalty,
then we must acknowledge the reality that, on occasion, an innocent person will
be executed. The process is brutally human, and human beings make mistakes.
The Globe piece turned out well, and people told me how helpful it was to read.
But I also felt that in such a short piece I wasn't fully able to capture the
atmosphere of an actual death-penalty trial. Ethical restrictions also
prevented me from going into much detail about my real trial. So I thought I'd
pick up fiction again and try to write a novel about the experience from the
viewpoint of a fictional judge, whom I named David Norcross.
DL: At the time, though, you were still a very busy, very real federal judge...
MP: Yes, I was still working full-time as an active district judge. I would set
aside my Saturdays and Sundays, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., to write. I'd basically
nail my door shut to block out distractions. I have a poster on my bulletin
board with a picture of a dog on it, saying that to write successfully you have
to give yourself the same command you give your dog: SIT! STAY!
DL: And how long did that process take, from starting to write the novel to the
final publication of The Hanging Judge?
MP: About 7 years - to write, and re-write, and re-write the manuscript, to
find an agent, to find a publisher, and to see the book published.
It was a humbling experience. If you're a federal judge, you???re used to
having people defer to you. You enter the courtroom, and everyone stands up.
You tell a little joke, and everyone has a hearty chuckle. Publishing fiction
is a good antidote to that: you get treated like dirt!
My agent from years ago was no longer in the business, so I had to find a new
agent. I got shot down by one literary agency after another. On one call to an
agency, I got a young woman who sounded like she was about 18, and she was
talking to me, like, "So Mike [munching noise], we're looking at your book
[munching noise]...."And it dawned on me: she's eating a sandwich while she's
talking to me! I wanted to say: "I'm a federal judge, for God's sake! Can you
at least put your damned tuna fish down!" But I kept quiet, not wanting to be
pegged as a pill. In the end, they didn't take the book anyway.
DL: So how did you eventually find an agent?
MP: It took about a year. My 1st manuscript was way too long - over 180,000
words. One agency told me that if I could get it down to around 100,000 words,
they'd take another look. So I cut out tons of material, including a couple
much beloved characters, got my draft down to 115,000 words or so, and sent it
around again. Eventually it got picked up by Robin Straus, a wonderful agent.
She's been fantastic.
DL: And then what about finding a publisher?
MP: Robin really liked the manuscript and was optimistic at the start of the
process. But it took a little while; we had a number of near misses, nice
letters from publishers that praised the book but passed.
After about a year, it was picked up by Open Road, a new publishing house
launched by Jane Friedman, former CEO of Harper Collins and others. Open Road
published The Hanging Judge in December 2013. They have given the book terrific
support.
DL: And it took off from there - including hitting the New York Times
bestseller list, and selling more than 40,000 copies.
MP: Actually, more than 54,000 copies as of September 30, and it's still
selling. Everyone at Open Road has been very pleased how it has done,
especially for a 1st novel. I'm over the moon, of course.
DL: How would you explain the book's success? Aside from its literary merit, of
course - there are many excellent books that fail to achieve bestseller status.
MP: The book has, I think, 1 unique strength. It takes the reader right up onto
the bench, where I've been for more than 30 years, and lets the reader see and
feel what I've seen and felt as a judge, making tough decisions in a very
intense environment. Anyone intending to practice law, to clerk, to litigate,
or to get onto the bench is bound to find this viewpoint compelling. I gave the
books to a district-court colleague, who liked them and passed them onto to his
wife, so she could finally get a clear idea of how he spends his days.
Apart from the book's inherent merits, such as they are, The Hanging Judge had
some great blurbs from writer friends of mine, including Tracy Kidder, Anita
Shreve, Jonathan Harr, Joe Kanon, John Katzenbach, Elinor Lipman, and the late
Joe McGuiness. This support helped a lot. I also received some strong reviews,
including a great review in the Washington Post and a starred review in Kirkus.
Finally, I did many events - more than 60 readings in 10 months. I spoke at
libraries, law schools, colleges, bar associations, and courts. I got lots of
invitations. People were very interested in the book as a window into our
justice system, viewed through the eyes of someone who'd been, so to speak, in
the trenches.
DL: And I believe Justice John Paul Stevens was a fan?
MP: Justice Stevens sent me a letter that I think I'll be buried with. With his
permission, we used part of his comments as a blurb for the back of my new
book, The One-Eyed Judge.
DL: So you were doing all of these events alongside your rather demanding day
job....
MP: Yes - it was very intense. I took senior status in 2011 and that helped,
but not very much.
Springfield has only 1 active federal judgeship, for an area encompassing 4
counties, 100 cities and towns, and 850,000 people. Because the Senate didn't
confirm my successor until the summer of 2014, some 3 years later, I couldn't
really cut my docket upon going senior in 2011.
I was effectively still a full-time judge when the book came out in late 2013.
I was handling complex civil cases, criminal cases with Speedy Trial Act
issues, TROs, and... a lot of book readings.
DL: Sounds rather stressful. Did you enjoy it?
MP: Absolutely. I'm an extrovert. I like pulling into a library parking lot,
walking in with my box of books, not knowing anyone, meeting new people, and
talking about my books. The people I meet at readings are interesting,
generous, and fun. The crowds would vary in size - sometimes large groups in
packed rooms, and sometimes a handful of people.
I remember one event at the Barnes & Noble in Framingham. It was an evening in
December or January, with terrible winter weather. The bookstore was nestled
somewhere deep within a nest of malls. My GPS croaked on me, and I got
seriously lost. I showed up at 1 minute before 7, for a 7 o'clock reading, with
my bladder as big as a beach ball. 3 people showed up: a former law clerk of
mine, an author trying to pitch me on her self-published book, and a homeless
guy trying to get out the weather.
The homeless man had very interesting questions - not many teeth, but many good
questions. I gave him a free copy of the book.
DL: How long did it take for The Hanging Judge to become a bestseller?
MP: It hit the New York Times bestseller list in May 2014. I still have that
page from the Book Review tacked to my bulletin board.
DL: The Hanging Judge and The One-Eyed Judge are based in part on your
experiences as a sitting judge. Do you have any concerns about the interaction
between your work as a judge and an author? Are you worried that litigants
might read your books and claim some bias on your part, or that lawyers might
read them and think you're writing about them?
MP: I was a little anxious about this at first, but it has not turned out to be
a problem. The plot of The Hanging Judge is nothing like the plot of my actual
death-penalty case. The book starts with a drive-by shooting in Holyoke, where
the murdered target is a drug dealer but a stray bullet also kills a young
hockey mom. They catch the person they think is the shooter, and the ambitious
U.S. attorney charges it as a RICO case in order to invoke the death penalty.
It's nothing like my case of a nurse in a VA hospital.
The main concern I had before the book came out was that I didn't want to look
like a blockhead - for example, by having a reviewer quote a poorly written
passage I should have worked on more. I didn't want to put myself or my court
in an embarrassing position.
To try to head this off, I sent the book out to 5 of my colleagues, including
my chief judge, and asked them to read it. They all got back to me and said
that they liked it. This was a good way of making sure I wasn't wandering into
any area that would make me look clownish or unethical.
DL: Some readers might see similarities between you and your protagonist, Judge
Norcross....
MP: Readers have said they see parallels. One colleague told me, "Come on,
Michael - Judge Norcross is really you!" I told her, "Not true. Judge Norcross
comes from Wisconsin. I come from Minnesota. They're totally different!"
Jokes aside, there are significant differences between Judge Norcross and Judge
Ponsor. Judge Norcross has much less experience on the bench when he gets his
death-penalty case, and he makes mistakes that I wouldn't make. He's greener
than I am. In The One-Eyed Judge, he makes a decision not to recuse himself in
a case where in real life I certainly would have recused.
********************
We'll learn more about The One-Eyed Judge - as well as Judge Ponsor's writing
process, the differences between fiction and judicial writing, and advice for
aspiring federal judges - next week. For now, thanks to Judge Ponsor for his
time and insights!
(source: David Lat is editor at large and founding editor of Above the Law, as
well as the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a
federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell,
Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit----abovethelaw.com)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
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