The economic suffering of working families is nationwide, but I hope that it is not nearly as severe as in my home state of Michigan. It breaks my heart to drive across the Detroit area and see foreclosure signs popping up like weeds in the summer heat.

In 3 of the 4 zip codes in the area, the foreclosure rate exceeds 25% according to government statistics! The City of Detroit is already an urban Prairie with whole neighborhoods of deserted homes and empty lots. Coyotes have been seen within the City limits, along with other wildlife. But coyotes are not the only predators Detroit has seen. The City Fire Department’s pension fund is nearly bankrupt after being duped into investments by a slick Wall Street firm. City business has been up for sale to the highest briber of City Council members and other utility department heads.

It’s not only desperate in Detroit. Near Detroit’s Wayne County is Oakland County, one of the 10 wealthiest counties in the Country. Even in Oakland County the foreclosure rate is skyrocketing and challenges to property tax assessments are creating huge backlogs. Michigan is in a depression and I have to wonder how long before civil unrest begins. Hundreds of thousands of people are jobless, homeless and getting desperate – and who could blame them for being angry about yet another jobless recovery where the same multibillion dollar banking and investment firms who have ripped us all off are now being underwritten by our own tax dollars?

Citibank, which charges the people of Wayne County more in interest rates than some loan sharks, is increasing the salaries of managers 50% and giving out bonuses greater than those given before the recent bust – AFTER receiving billions of dollars of tax money for a bailout! Meanwhile, Detroit is becoming the reincarnation of Batista Cuba where poverty and desperation surrounds a few oases of Casinos and yacht clubs.

I get angry just being a witness to this social injustice which is only tempered by compassion for the people who are jobless, homeless and hopeless.

Are bankers the new slave owners and is a new style of plantation emerging in the U.S.?

When I hear people like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich accuse Judge Sotomayor of “reverse racism”, why do I think they mean “racism” other than the way they want it?

When I hear “Right to Life” people celebrating the murder of a doctor in his church, why do I think they mean the right to take someone else’s life?

When I hear Republicans talk about a “Big Tent”, why do I think they mean the tent they want middle-class families to live in after losing their homes to foreclosures?

When I hear Republicans use the term “National Security”, why do I anticipate hearing something about why we should be afraid?

When I hear Republicans talk about “Judicial Activists”, why do I think of the “Bush v. Gore” Supreme Court decision?

When I hear Republicans talk about gay marriage as a threat to the “institution” of marriage, why do I think about Republicans voting against medical insurance for children and getting arrested in a public restroom soliciting gay sex?

Sure, I’m picking on Republicans – its fun to insult the falsely self-righteous, religious “Conservatives” who “hate their next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace”. But the Dems have their greatest hits too. The Dems have their own particular strain of hypocrisy. It is not usually dressed in religious rhetoric. It’s usually related to being cowardly and compliant in the face of GOP nonsense. Take the Torture issue and Truth Commission as examples… or the Patriot Act or the FISA Act as others…

…Dick Cheney allegedly supports gay marriage (saying that everyone should experience “enhanced relationship techniques”). Yeah, right.

There was an article in The New York Times Sunday (“The Waves Minority Judges Always Make.”) about the effect of a minority judge sitting on the Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court. It is an excellent argument for the need for diversity on the Bench. All judges form opinions based on their life experiences, just as all jurors do. It’s as unavoidable as it is undeniable. Justices Scalia and Thomas have previously acknowledged this. Having a woman like Judge Sotomayor on the Supreme Court will help the Court avoid miscarriages of justice such as their recent decision to eviscerate the protection of women in wage discriminations cases. Even Sandra Day-O’Conner tried to educate her fellow Justices on women’s issues.

Some people apparently lose sight of the fact that the law is as much a means of establishing justice as it is a way of maintaining order. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina put his finger on the real issue regarding the hypocritical, if not overtly sexist/racist GOP attacks on Judge Sotomayor: the Republicans have a base to “entertain”. What an indictment of the GOP! They care more about entertaining their “base” than what is good for the Country. Small wonder that the GOP appeals to its only remaining base: white, Southern, males.

This past Memorial Day holiday I read a few articles written by veterans that prompted more than the usual amount of thought about the meaning of the Holiday – or rather our responsibility on this holiday. One article cited the fact that more active duty US servicemen have died in the past year from suicide than by combat. Mental health professionals speculate that the multiple deployments into highly stressful combat situations (where actual combat was unpredictable and combatants often disguised as civilians) has exacted a terrible toll on soldiers. One thing is not speculation: the failure to recognize and provide adequate treatment to help our veterans has made the problem far worse.

I talked with a friend of mine who had served during the Viet Nam Era. When he was discharged and returned to attend college at the University of Michigan his experiences had already made him feel “different”. His wardrobe of fatigues identified him as a target for the occasional derisive comment, or more commonly, the silent stares. He tried to take shelter one day at the local VFW Hall in Ann Arbor, only to be refused a beer because he had “lost the war”. He spent his entire college experience nearly completely isolated. The only normal college experience was singing “The Victors” when the Wolverines scored a touchdown. There were thousands of veterans like him, not only on college campuses but across the spectrum of life in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Veterans of American wars have always felt changed, if not alienated, when they return home. It’s part of the war experience that the human mind can’t really comprehend. Historically veterans of every major war have had to make it back pretty much on their own, with the notable exception of WWII veterans. When my father was discharged from the service the Country provided him, and every veteran, a college education, a guaranteed mortgage and a Veteran’s Hospital system that rivaled the best medical centers in the Country. Today, veterans can get barely 2 years college tuition from their benefits, VA loans are difficult to get, and the VA Hospital system has been allowed to deteriorate to Third World Country status.

I came to the conclusion this past weekend that Memorial Day was a responsibility to those of us who have not served in the armed forces. It should be an occasion when we all take a hard look at what we need to DO for our veterans and not just express a perfunctory “thanks” as we barbeque and toss back a beer. Take some time this week and write your Representative or Senator and demand that the military budget for HUMAN costs and benefits be increased. It takes maybe 15 minutes of your day, compared to a lifetime that vets have given us.

President Obama gave a remarkable speech last week discussing the issue of National Security. He said some things that have been long overdue, but I wonder if the media will dwell on the substance rather than form. The substance of what the President offered was a blueprint for restoring not only the security of our country, but healing our national soul. Ben Franklin once said that people who would sacrifice liberty for security deserved neither. That was the essential message of President Obama. It reflects the idealism and strength of our Country which has kept us free and safe for over 200 years. Fear mongering is the character and trade of men like Dick Cheney. He is a man whose life is organized around fear. A man who dodged the draft 6 times is a coward. Like most cowards he talks the talk until it comes time to walk the walk. The juxtaposition of Cheney with President Obama offered a clear choice to Americans: are we still the land of the brave and home of the free, or are we sheep following torturers and fear mongers?

I was involved in a trial recently that reminded me of an old movie called “Fear Strikes Out”. It was the story of a professional baseball player named Jimmy Piersall who regained his career after developing a psychiatric illness. It was produced in the early 1960’s during a time when we treated people who had mental illness much more humanely than we do now. You see, in the 1970’s we emptied and closed State Mental Institutions and in the 1980’s destroyed the “social safety net”. State mental institutions were far from perfect, but much more humane and cost-effective than what has evolved since then. Today, many mentally ill people are either homeless or serially jailed, at great expense to tax payers. The result is that people are sometimes confronted and frightened by acutely mentally ill on the streets and jails are overcrowded with people who barely get necessary treatment. It is a cruel and costly system.

I just finished a trial involving the Canton, Ohio police killing a man who was suffering from a mental illness. The father of two was wandering the streets near his home, naked and bloody. He was obviously mentally ill and frightened people, although he had threatened no one and committed no crime. In fact, as the police pulled up, he held out his hands and asked for help. The police, I think reacting from fear, immediately sprayed him with chemical pepper gas, tazed him and handcuffed him. The entire event was witnessed by many people and much of what followed was videotaped. As the the man lay handcuffed and face down on the street, the police beat, kicked and tazed the defenseless man repeatedly. Ultimately, he died from being asphyxiated.

The Ohio jury came to a verdict that I feel reflects the fact that fear, as opposed to compassion, is the hallmark of our society at the moment. They did find the City of Canton, Ohio guilty of failing to train the police officers properly, but exonerated the police who had beaten and killed a defenseless man!

It is sad that people, even trained police officers, in America today have allowed fear to justify behavior that would have never been tolerated even a decade ago. Whether it is torturing mentally ill people or terrorists. We have to ask ourselves if maybe we have allowed fear to “win out”. As the man I represented was being being beaten and tazed as he lay on the ground he kept calling out “I love you” to the police officers who were killing him. I wonder, who was truly mentally ill in this case?

The GOP has established a “Solution Line” for citizens to help prove that they are not the “Party of No Solutions”. This “solution line” ought to make for interesting, if not bizarre, reading. If you feel bored, why not try to put yourself in the shoes of the Republican faithful and send a few questions:

Dear GOP Solution Line:
I am soooo afraid. Is Obama going to put me in one of his new concentration camps? Is Obama going to set me on fire like on the Glenn Beck Show? Is he going to take all my guns and make me a homosexual socialist? The aluminum foil hat I bought at the Convention last fall to stop these thoughts is not working anymore. What should I do?
Scared in Alabama

Dear Scared in Alabama:
We are proposing lowering taxes on the rich as a solution to all your fears.

Dear GOP Solution Line:
I am soooo afraid. I am afraid of paying lower taxes while the rich have to pay more. I thought about becoming a tea-bagger but I got lost and I asked this big black guy from California at the Food Mart (at least I think he was from California because he had a “San Quentin” tattoo) if he could direct me to a tea bag party. He kicked my ass. What should I do?
Black and Blue in a Red State

Dear Black and Blue in a Red State:
We are proposing lowering taxes on the rich as a solution.

Dear GOP Solution Line:
I am soooo afraid. For years I have been a Minute Man guardin’ our border, makin’ sure that Mexicans don’t get across to steal any jobs from Americans. It was a good gig for awhile – I got to fire my guns off every once in a while and confiscate some really primo weed. Lately though, I noticed that most of the traffic is going INTO Mexico – and I’m not just talkin’ bout automatic assault rifles either. I caught my cousin Billie Rae sneaking across and last week sayin’ he was lookin’ for a job and our GOP Congressman moved his office to the “Glory Hole” Truck Stop just on the border. What the Sam Hill is goin’ on?
On Guard in Arizona

Dear On Guard in Arizona:
We are proposing lowering taxes on the rich as a solution.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the economic crisis. It has damaged the security of our Country and has hurt so many innocent people. The people on Wall St. and their conspirators in government have caused this country more damage than Al Qaeda. I agree with President Obama that we have to focus on solving the crisis. But solving the crisis means identifying what criminals did what to cause the damage. People are outraged that the same people at AIG that caused the problem got bonuses. What about the outrage that the same people in government who conspired with them are now in charge of solving the problem?

The worst economic crisis since the “Great Depression” was primarily the result of three government actions. First, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and hundreds of post Depression regulations that then allowed Wall St. investment firms to compete with Banks. Second, the derivatives market was exempted from regulatory control. This allowed Wall St. to create derivatives and then criminally over-leveraged them to cause the whole house of cards to collapse. Third, Wall St. was allowed to carry off-balance sheet accounting and to use “self-policing” to regulate that market. This allowed Wall St. to hide overleveraged phony derivatives from regulators, if they ever decided to look.

It is certain that the present economic crisis is due primarily to the deregulation of Wall St. and the failure to regulate derivatives. It is just as certain that some people on Wall St. are making a lot of money with the tax-payer bailouts. So if we follow the old adage “follow the money”, what do we get? Why did some Wall St. firms get bailed out and not others? Why was AIG allowed to keep bonuses and launder money to Goldman-Sachs, Citigroup and UBS? The map of key players reads like an old Mafia organization map, tracing connections between Wall St. and Government. This is the organization that stole our savings and is stealing our tax dollars now:

Robert Rubin (AKA “The Accountant”): Former executive with Goldman-Sachs and 70th Secretary of the Treasury. He spearheaded the Clinton Administration effort to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act and exempt derivatives. He now works for Citigroup.

Larry Summers (AKA “The Apprentice”): Currently the Chief Economic Advisor to the President, former 71st Secretary of the Treasury and former assistant to Robert Rubin. He assured that derivatives would be exempted from regulations and was a big proponent of allowing Wall St. to “self-regulate”.

Henry Paulson (AKA “The Don”): the power behind the organization. He was the former CEO of Goldman-Sachs and 74th Secretary of Treasury. He organized and coordinated the government response to the Wall St. bailouts with Goldman-Sachs. He made the decisions on who got money and who didn’t. For example, when Lehman Brothers and AIG requested bailouts, Paulson had a “sit down” with current Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein in late Sept. 2008 and decided to let Sachs competitor Lehman Brothers fail, but bail out AIG. Who was AIG’s biggest trading partner? Goldman-Sachs. Too bad you Lehman Brothers, Bear-Stearns investors backed the wrong horse. Maybe you should pay more attention to who is in government than your portfolio. Paulson runs the organization now through his positions on the Boards of TARP and FSOB.

Tim Geithner (AKA “Babyface”): Former assistant to Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and now the 75th Secretary of Treasury. He helped Rubin and Summers destroy the regulation of Wall St. and exemption of derivatives. Recommended by “the Don” Paulson, he is now in charge of making sure the organization takes care of it’s own. Just to be sure, his Chief of Staff is Mark Patterson, formerly of Goldman-Sachs. Patterson strong armed Sen. Dodd into taking out the restrictions on bonuses to AIG and allowed AIG to pay-off lenders at full price such as Goldman-Sachs

Ben Bernanke (AKA “The Banker”): Chair of the Federal Reserve. He withdrew the money and put it into TARP to pay off, sorry, “bail out” Wall St. firms such as Sachs and Citigroup at the recommendation of Paulson. He appointed Neel Kahkari, formerly V.P. of (you guessed it) Goldman-Sachs to head TARP. He negotiated the deal to save AIG and allowed all initial TARP money to be given to Wall St. without conditions.

Sen. Phil Gramm (AKA “The Assassin”): Along with Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, he spearheaded the Senate legislation to kill Glass-Steagall, regulations on trade and accounting and exempt derivatives. While Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee he exacted over 3 billion dollars of contributions to allies in the Government from Wall St. He was in a position to take over as “Don” but failed in the 2008 election. He has since become a lobbyist for… UBS, one of the firms AIG laundered TARP money to pay off.

So can we trust the same men in government who caused the economic crisis (by enabling Wall St.’s thefts of our future) to make sure our money now goes to solve the problem? Or can we expect that they will enrich the same people who stole our money with our tax dollars? Is it any wonder why Goldman-Sachs is now “whole” and has fewer competitors? Is it any wonder why we can’t account for hundreds of billions of tax dollars already given to Goldman-Sachs, Citigroup and AIG?

Is it time to realize that we are being robbed by a conspiracy that reaches from Goldman-Sachs to the Obama Administration to AIG and back again when the next round of pay-offs, I mean bail-outs occur.

It never ceases to amaze me how the cops keep beating the crap out of people while the video recorders in their police cruisers capture the beatings on tape. This time it happened in Connecticut. Here’s the video if you want to watch:

I like how practically the whole thing is “bleeped” out because the cops are cussing up a shit storm as they are pounding on this poor guy Alexis Hernandez (of course he is Latino). And of course, the police department refused to turn over the video until after they were sued under the Freedom of Information Act.

I watch videos like this all the time because I often work on police beating cases. You’d think I’d get used to seeing this stuff by now, but I don’t. I still get angry and outraged by every one of these tapes. And these maniacs are carrying guns. Scary! The cowboy cop, Brian Lawlor, in the video was fired and later charged with third degree assault for which he received nothing a one year suspended sentence.

Amusingly, after the video was released this week, the cowboy cop’s lawyer said that the video justified the beating because he thought the guy was reaching for a gun. Yeah right. They always say they thought the guy was reaching for a gun. Hm, when I watch this video I’m trying to figure out at what point cowboy thought the guy was reaching for a gun? Maybe it was when there were THREE cops bending the guy over his car and beating the shit out of him. Yeah, that must be when the cowboys thought he was reaching for a gun. Right, I must have missed that. Keep the cameras rolling!

The Fifth Amendment to our Constitution provides that “nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb” This language is commonly referred to as the Double Jeopardy Clause. Most people understand this language to mean that the government cannot try to “get you twice” for the same crime. That is a pretty good summary of the broad concept, but there are some finer points to how it works.

Let’s pretend that the government charges you with a crime. You get a lawyer and go to trial during which the prosecutors present evidence to the jury. After the government concludes its case, the defense counsel usually files a motion for a directed verdict. This motion basically asks the court to throw out the charges and enter an acquittal because the prosecutors failed to present sufficient evidence of a crime. This is a very important motion that acts as a check and balance system on the executive branch (i.e., police, prosecutors, district attorneys).

You see, the government has the power to charge a person with a crime, but if they fail to present any evidence of the crime, the judge is supposed to “check” the executive branch by throwing out the case. Without this check and balance system, prosecutors would be allowed to charge you with a crime knowing they didn’t have any evidence and convince a jury to convict you because they didn’t like your hair. That is not the way it is supposed to work. The motion for directed verdict is a powerful check on the prosecutor to prevent him from convicting a person of a crime without any evidence.

In practice, defense lawyers almost always file motions for directed verdict but they are rarely granted. Well yesterday a judge in Arizona granted a defendant’s motion for directed verdict and it seems to have caused quite a stir.

Apparently, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard tried to charge local gun dealers who he accused of arming Mexican drug cartels. It seems that the gun dealers made legitimate sales of weapons to individuals who later shipped the weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Because the gun dealer’s sales were legitimate under state law, the Attorney General basically had no case, but it didn’t stop him from charging the crime. This is a text book example of when a judge should grant a directed verdict, and that is exactly what Judge Robert Gottsfield of Maricopa County Superior Court did. Judge Gottsfield threw out the case, as he should have, because the prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to convict but instead wanted to bend and twist the law to make up a different crime.

By no means am I suggesting that gun dealers should be arming drug cartels, but prosecutors should not be allowed to overreach and “make up the law” to promote their own self righteous agendas. If they want the laws changed to make it easier for them to charge crimes, they need to go to their state legislature to do it. But they should not expect the judges to give them a hand in their endeavors.

Of course the Attorney General is mad as hell because the judge actually enforced the constitution and threw out the case. In an interview reported in the New York Times, Goddard said “It’s not over by any means” and went on to say “We are trying to make sense of it.”

I’m sorry to tell you Mr. Goddard, but it is indeed over. Let me break this down for you. The Double Jeopardy Clause doesn’t allow you to continue your crusade once the Judge granted the motion for directed verdict. The grant of a motion for directed verdict is the same as an acquittal. Once there is an acquittal, your case is over. You get no appeal, even if the Judge’s reasoning underlying his ruling is wrong so says the United States Supreme Court.

You may want to take a look at the Supreme Court’s decision in Smalis v. Pennsylvania, 476 U.S. 140 (1986) in which the highest court of our land ruled that if the trial judge grants a motion for directed verdict for lack of evidence, there can be no further proceedings or appeal by the government. To be more specific, the Supreme Court held that:

The Double Jeopardy Clause bars a postacquittal appeal by the prosecution not only when it might result in a second trial, but also if reversal would translate into “further proceedings of some sort”

In State of Arizona v. Millanes, 180 Ariz. 418 (1994), the Arizona Court of Appeals has already followed the Supreme Court’s decision in Smalis.

So what does this all mean? In short, its over. Thank God for our constitutional system of checks and balances, and even more so for judges like Robert Gottsfield who are willing to “check” prosecutors for trying to skirt our constitutional rights.