Edward D. Flint Trial Attorney

Best Utah Criminal Defense Attorneys Usually Don't Indulge in Silly Attacks on Elected Officials, but Ed Flint will always make an Exception.

2011-10-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've had some fun poking at elected officials, since they are fair game and deserve a little satire from time to time, and I've especially relished comparing photographs of some office holders of today with certain notorious characters who bear strong resemblences to the aforementioned elected person. I have noted that Senator Mike Lee looks a lot like Ross "the Intern" Matthews of Leno fame; that State Rep. Carl Wimmer resembles Ernst Rohm, the Nazi SA leader murdered during Hitler's "Night of the Long Knives;" I mentioned once that my old law school classmate, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff resembles a cross between Martin Borman (look him up) and the actor, Christopher Plummer in a parody photo concocted by the City Weekly rag (which includes Wimmer, that's how I got the idea of Wimmer being Rohm's doppleganger).

But another former law school classmate of mine, Utah State Rep. Brian King (Democrat, Salt Lake) also bears a striking resemblence to someone else of note, namely, Barry Williams (Greg Brady of The Brady Bunch TV series of the early 1970s). Both gentlemen's photos appear above, and now that Williams has hair again, he and Brian look an awful lot alike.

Can you tell them apart? Brian is a good sport, and I don't think he'll be too pissed at me, but I have to wonder one thing: We know that Greg Brady, er, Barry Williams wears a toupe (or had plugs or something done, since he was as bald as a cue ball a few years ago) and is pushing or past 60, but Brian is at least my age (51) and still has a full head of completlely dark hair. I'm like almost totally silver (but still have all my own hair, so eat that, Jon Grimes). And he's in POLITICS!

Maybe Rep. King uses "Just for Democrats" hair coloring.

The Best Criiminal Defense Lawyers in Utah Include the Most Colorful, Outspoken Advocates when Your Ass is On The Line.

2011-10-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

It's sometimes validating and more often with grim acceptance, that I hear what other lawyers and judges are saying about me. After our recent victory at the Utah State Supreme Court in the State vs. Branson Parduhn case, you might think that prosecutors or lawmakers would be upset. In gaining this powerful victory for the poor, those who cannot afford to hire an attorney, or who lose their job while their case is pending, the Parduhn victory gives a giant Jesus-ray of hope.

By this same token, Utah's cities and counties will need to pony up more money for criminal defense costs for indigent defendants. When my partners, Jonathon W. Grimes and Sean Hullinger met with the Salt Lake County Council last week, to give an overview of the ramifications of the Parduhn case, Council member David Wilde, a fellow member of the Class of 1985 at the University of Utah College of Law, asked, "So, you guys work with Ed Flint? He's a very colorful character" or words to that effect, and added that he thought I was "a damn fine lawyer." Other fellow classmate Mark Shurtleff, Utah's thrice elected Attorney General, was a bit more blunt, of course, recalling all of the times I have castigated him for seeking publicity, that "Ed Flint is a name you only hear when your ass is on the line," and probably added under his breath, "or whenever someone is criticizing me in public."

I note with great anticipation that two other elected lawmakers from the Utah Class of 1985 have yet to so comment on their old classmate. Brian King is a Democratic Representative to the Utah House and a leader among the handful of Democrats left in the Utah Legislature. Greg Hawkins is the Salt Lake County Auditor, an office just about nobody has heard of, and even fewer can accurately describe what the hell they do at the County Auditor's Office. Neither Brian nor Greg have mentioned me (or, at least it hasn't gotten back to me, yet) or my lawyering skills, although I have mentioned them from time to time.

But I digress. All of these classmates of mine, and many other elected officials are going to have to deal with the cold, hard reality that ALL persons accused of crimes in Utah are protected by the US Constitution and the Utah Constitution, and that if that person is too poor to afford a lawyer OR the defense resources needed to adequately represent him, the government has to pay for it.

And that's a hell of a good job of lawyering when our client's ass was on the line.

The Most Colorful and Outspoken Utah Lawyer Blasts Italian "Justice" System

2011-10-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

So, Amanda Knox is finally vindicated and released from an Italian prison for a murder she could not have committed. Millions of eyes focused on the outcome of this tragic comedy of an Italian opera, mostly curious about the pretty American girl seemingly being mistreated by foreign idiots who don't seem to have a clue about justice. And you would certainly be correct in that assumption.

Of course, you have the family of the murder victim, some upset because the victim has been "forgotten" in all of this (bullshit number one) and others because "justice" was not served, meaning that they didn't get any more pounds of flesh for their loss (bullshit number two). The reality is quite different, in that a drifter was also convicted and confessed to the murder. Problem is, although it appears he acted alone, Italian police and prosecutors wanting some publicity, self-aggrandizement and feeling the need to play God with people's lives, pressured this guy to also blame the dead girl's roommate, and made up some ridiculous story of kinky sex partying turned bloody.

Somehow, most of us in the good ol' US of A believed she'd be freed by the appellate court, regardless of evidence or legal rationale, because the whole episode had become an embarassment for Italy. None of us could understand how she could be tried at the same time for slander or how a jury could be a combination of citizens and judges, but that's the way they do it over there.

And the way we do it over here is so much better . . . that Florida executed a man despite witnesses recanting testimony and claiming they were threatened by police and prosecutors if they did not falsely testify in the man's orginal trial; that Texas just had to let yet another death-row or life-in-prison inmate out because he was wrongfully convicted years ago; that Utah also has begun, finally, to allow prisoners who can prove their innocence to actually do so, be freed and be compensated for their wrongful incarceration.

The Italians may be deficient in their methods, but much like the economy, homelessness and medical care, we need to improve our situation here at home before we spend too much money and effort overseas. So the Italians eventually got it right, and all is well. Tourists can return to Italy, and to Utah, since all's well that ends well.

Well.

MOVING DAY!

2011-08-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

We have moved.

You can now find the most talented trial lawyers in Utah at:

175 West 200 South

Suite 3003

Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

(801) 363-5297

email: mail@fghlawyers.com

This blog is likely to change or roll over into a new blog, for the new office, and the new website, and the even newer outlook we have for the future. Or, I may keep this blog separate from the one we will use for advertising purposes, so I can continue to swear and bad-mouth local politicians in print.

Many thanks to all four of my readers for having clicked on some 8,000 pages of this blog in the past year. You have been very busy, making it look like people actually pay attention to this drivel. Since we will all be packing and unpacking for the rest of the week, my attention is a little diverted and I currently have nothing pithy or snarky to say. Here, that is. Follow me or friend me on Facebook under "Ed Flint" to see my latest knee-jerk reactions to jerks without knees, my lengthy arguments with atheists and right wingnuts, and my odd alliance with a number of Tea Party folks, where we have the common goals of preserving our Constitutional rights and limiting government intrustion on our personal liberties. Watch out for falling obscenities and go slowly around sarcastic roadsigns.

And go UTES!

Former Utah State Legislator Kevin Garn Revisited by Ghosts of Hot Tubs Past

2011-07-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

Just moments ago, news broke of the murder of a woman associated with former Republican legislator Kevin Garn, who tearfully admitted to having spent an evening naked in a hot tub with this same woman when she was only 15 years old. I recall his resignation at the end of the legislative session some two years ago, where Garn received a standing ovation from his comrades, much to the chagrin of everyone with any morals, which clearly does not include the Legislature.

The story of this woman, Cheryl Maher, that emerged was both salacious and evidence that the priviledged members of society live in a different universe than the rest of us. Ms. Maher alleged, and Rep. Garn admitted, that in the mid 1980s, he induced the then 15-year-old girl to remove all of her clothing and join the totally nude Garn in his hot tub. He denies any inappropriate touching, but Geeeezus, unchaperoned naked underage girls in hot tubs seems to be an obvious indiscretion.

Over many years, Garn communicated with Ms. Maher, and ultimately paid her a $150,000 bribe to keep her mouth shut, and officially, to compensate her for the emotional distress of having the visual memory of hot tubbing with a naked old man. However, she reneged and blackmailed Garn for more money. That's when he up and quit the Legislature on the last day of the session, and admitted this wrongdoing.

Then the local media actually got off their asses and did a little research on former Mormon Bishop Garn, discovering that he also had a DUI a few years ago. Ms. Maher faded away from interest until today.

Now, word is that an intruder entered Cheryl Maher's home and murdered her, then killed himself. Details are elusive right now, but I doubt that Garn paying more money to her would have made any difference.

Snarky Salt Lake Lawyer Notes "Twins" Separated at Birth

2011-06-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

I've made the comparison before, that newly minted US Sentator from Utah Mike Lee (second from top picture) looks remarkably like Ross "the Intern" Matthews (top picture) from Leno/Tonight Show fame.

But, doesn't Utah politico and State Representative Carl Wimmer (bottom picture) look an awful lot like Ernst Rohm (he's the Nazi)? I have learned, to my chagrin, that just because Sen. Lee looks like Ross the Intern, it does NOT mean that the Senator supports gay marriage. And I am certain that Rep. Wimmer is NOT affiliated with the S.A. but the physical resemblence is notable.

Who is your doppleganger?

Best Utah Criminal Defense Lawyers Comment on Current Legal News

2011-05-26T00:14:00.000-07:00

So much to say, so few readers who care.

MITCHELL GETS LIFE IN PRISON: No surprises with the life sentence for kidnapping Elizabeth Smart nearly 9 years ago, but the issue on my mind is the criticism of his defense attorneys for doing their job. I’ve tired of people asking me how I can represent people who I know are guilty, because they never listen to my answer: I am defending the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Utah and rule of law. So, when the Federal Defenders assigned to represent Brian David Mitchell objected to his private, confidential pre-sentencing report, as is their sworn duty, the information got leaked to the press, who made a huge deal out of the objection: that Ms. Smart is not “permanently” severely emotionally damaged, therefore, Mitchell should be eligible for a lesser sentence.

Without going into great detail on this, two main points need to be addressed:

1. Leaking confidential information (of course it was someone with the government, either at the US Attorney’s office or a court employee) is criminal, is an obstruction of justice, is unethical and just plain wrong. If Assange is a bad guy for leaking information, somebody here is just as wrong.
2. If the defense attorneys fail to put on every possible defense at sentencing, then Mitchell has years of appeals on this very issue, notwithstanding his guilt or his deserving of punishment. They did their job right, with fidelity, so that Ms. Smart can get on with her life and justice can be completed. The Federal Defenders deserve our gratitude for finishing this case.

JOHN EDWARDS TO FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES. It seems that when a guy cheats on his cancer-stricken wife, he’s either charged with some crime or runs for President. I lost all respect for Edwards long ago, and if he directed the use of campaign money to cover up his affair, he needs to be held accountable.

TUCSON SHOOTER RULED INCOMPETENT TO STAND TRIAL. Firstly, I refer to the Brian David Mitchell story, above. Mitchell was ruled incompetent for years by State courts, but the Federal system has a different standard, the prosecutors utilized the testimony of lay witnesses to show Mitchell’s delusional behavior was a show for the cameras, but not the way he acted otherwise, and got past this issue. The Feds can also force-medicate a defendant to cause them to become competent, so the murderer of 6 who left a congresswoman brain-damaged and a dozen others hurt, will eventually face justice.

IMF DIRECTOR INDICTED FOR SEXUAL ASSUALT. His defense attorneys need to decide on a defense: originally, supporters of disgraced former international banker Dominique Strauss-Kahn alleged he had checked out of the hotel hours earlier and was already at the airport when the assault occurred. Now, they appear to be alleging that there was sexual contact, but it was “consensual.” Almost as bad as:

CASEY ANTHONY MURDER TRIAL in Florida, where she stands accused of killing her own little girl so she could party like a single gal. The defense opened this case by alleging that (a) the toddler drowned in her grandparents’ swimming pool accidentally, and Casey and her father colluded to dispose of the body, and (b) Casey is a screwed up woman because her dad molested her as a child. I see a death penalty result in this case.

DEBRA BROWN INNOCENT VERDICT APPEALED BY ATTORNEY GENERAL MARK SHURTLEFF. You might recall that I offered to lay off the criticism of my old law-school classmate, “Market-Myself” Mark Shurtleff, as he is undergoing some difficult and painful chemotherapy for prostate cancer. I would really, really like to not be critical of the man while he’s suffering, but the self-promoting alleged top cop of Utah can’t resist the TV cameras about anything, and he pissed backwards on his promise that he would NOT appeal the ruling that set this woman free after 17 years of imprisonment, for a crime that she could not have possibly committed. Some have opined that the real reason is that the state is on the hook for about a half million dollars in reparation payments to Brown for her wrongful incarceration. But the AG appeals everything, and has no scruples, no morals and no sense of justice. He’s a windbag politician of the worst variety.

And a punk.

The Very Best Lawyers in Utah and the Best Criminal Defense Team in Salt Lake

2011-05-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Justice comes in many forms. Conversely, abuses of justice are as disparate and numerous.

A woman was convicted of a murder 17 years ago, and has spent that entire time locked up. She has always maintained her innocence. She eventually caught the attention of The Innocence Project, run by folks like Barry Scheck who seek out those wrongfully convicted of heinous crimes to find ways within the legal system to reverse their fortunes and overturn their convictions. In the case of Debra Brown, her factual innocence had to be proven by “clear and convincing evidence” to a judge, a standard only exceeded (but rarely observed by juries or judges) by the “beyond a reasonable doubt” requirement for finding a defendant guilty of a crime.

Judge Michael DiReda, new to the Second District bench in Ogden, but a long-time well-respected prosecutor in Davis County for years, made a very brave ruling for Ms. Brown. Judge DiReda ruled that the newly discovered evidence and review of the old evidence showed that it was factually impossible for Ms. Brown to have committed the murder in question. Absent a vehicle to make her case (the Post Conviction Remedies Act, or PCRA), lawyers working for free, and a judge brave enough to follow the law and make the right decision, despite the looming political pressures on judges to rule the way the government wants, then Debra Brown would remain in prison and rot there for the rest of her life.

As shocking as it may be that a woman was imprisoned for nearly two decades until her innocence could be proven, I am seldom surprised by what happens in the murky world of jurisprudence. We have seen a huge chasm grow between the conscientious, fact-based rulings of some judges and the plugged ears, closed eyes and shut mouth rubber stamping of the government's position by others. After the skewering of Judge Robert Hilder a few years back when he was seeking appointment to the Utah Court of Appeals (an appalling spectacle by Utah State Senators), it seems many judges who have higher aspirations have shied away from making any decision or issuing any ruling that could run afoul of the loudest, most obnoxious and politically powerful special interests: The NRA, the Eagle Forum, the land developers, the highway construction contractors, and now, the Tea Party.

But I will give additional kudos to Judge DiReda, who correctly ruled on a case of mine last week that possession of the painkiller Lortab without a valid prescription is a Class B Misdemeanor, Schedule III violation, not a felony, as the Weber County Attorney's Office had charged my client. Sure, the law is convoluted and difficult to understand if you only give it a cursory read, but that's why we're lawyers. I spent three years in law school earning a doctor's degree, and the last 26 years immersed in the law, so taking the time to dissect and fully understand the very laws that are the ultimate issue of my client's case, well, HELL, that's my job. And it was the job of the prosecutors, too, but they punted, fumbled and dropped the ball.

I've always wondered, if you can muff the punt, can you Mott the Hoople?

Best Utah Criminal Defense Lawyer Team Thanks FOX "News"

2011-04-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

Only in America. Today, President Barak Obama announces he is running for re-election as this nation's 44th President. He has no challengers, so far, from the Democratic Party, and as of today, none from the Republican Party, either. And for this we can thank FOX "News" --- for employing all of the loudest, whiny, hypocrites that would otherwise be frontrunners for the R-Party nomination.

Former Arkansas Governor, Baptist preacher and Mormon-hater Mike Huckabee is the only one among the FOX Network flunkies that admits that it's all about money. When FOX is paying you a couple million dollars a year, and you have a built-in audience to peddle books, gold and reality television shows, it becomes pretty difficult to give up all of that bling. It doesn't help these FOX talking heads are all idiots without any original thoughts and all are trapped in the jingoism of hate and blame politics.

In an actual campaign, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin would actually have to answer questions from reporters and voters. Palin already failed at that once before, and can't seem to untie her tortured toungue, even as a paid "consultant" for a major television network (Libya is a "squirmish" not a war). Beck would lose his lucrative endorsements if he ran for office.

Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have huge followings of lost sheep, and fleece them regularly, to the tune of millions of dollars per year. They only work part-time, and compared to the rigors of the Presidency, hardly work at all. Even George W. Bush worked harder as Cheney's mouthpiece than Hannity or lardass, er, Limbaugh. It's a much easier job being a pundit. All you need to do is criticize the opposition relentlessly, regardless of fact, reality or decency. You don't have to build up anything, just tear down everyone else.

Other than these FOX mouthpieces, the R-party has few options: Newt Gingrich is a festering, pus-filled boil than nobody likes; Tim Pawlenty is Gomer Pyle and Rick Santorum is, well, just look up Santorum in Google or the Urban Dictionary.

What the R-party has left is Mitt "Shifty" Romney, a politically inclined business robber-baron who flip-flops more often than a beachside sandal vendor in Maui, or Jon Huntsman, Jr., the former US Ambassador to the People's Republic of China for the current Obama Administration. And both these guys are Mormon, and Pastor Huckabee sure as Hell won't stand for that.

He'd rather have a Kenyan in the White House than a Mormon.

Get a DUI in Utah, Get 1-888-DUI4UTAH for the Best Utah Lawyers

2011-03-23T08:39:00.000-07:00

Over 14,000 people are arrested for DUI in Utah each year. In 2009, some 1.4 Million persons were arrested for DUI nationwide. Extrapolating the two figures (I knew that advanced algebra class in High School would come in handy some day) you see that about 1% of the nation's DUI arrests were in Utah, and comparing that to the latest US Census figures, Utah has just under 1% of the total population of the United States.

You might think that Utah is just on pace with the nation. However, Utah's legislature continues to throw in additional penalties and requirements for those convicted of a DUI. For example, the national average for a first DUI fine is $1,200, but in Utah, the mandatory minimum fine is now nearly $1,400, and as high as $1,900. Additional charges vary from one state to another, but in Utah, you will be hit with the costs of an assessment (about $150), minimum "treatment" of a Prime for Life 16 hour class (from $200 to $300), a "Victim Impact Panel" (about $45) where you sit and listen to persons who have themselves been injured by a drunk driver, or have family members who were killed or injured by a DUI driver, and depending on the court, you may have to pay for your private probation service ($50 or more per month) and all sorts of urinalysis and ETG testing (from $12 for a cheap "pee on this stick" test to the more expensive four+ panel screens, and the outrageously expensive ETG test for alcohol), and even more "educational classes" if you were really plastered.

Of course, your car insurance becomes impossibly expensive, you may not be able to get cheap life insurance or you may lose your job, not to mention the wages you lose when you go to court, classes and probation. Utah also suspends your driving priviledges for 120 days on a first offense, with no limited driving allowed (many states, like Colorado, let their drivers with a first DUI have a limited "daytime only" permit so they can keep their jobs -- but not Utah).

So when you get a DUI in Utah, do you just roll over and let the government screw you, or do you hire a lawyer? Sometimes the lawyer screws you, too, and getting double-screwed has led some people to believe that it's just easier to go plead guilty and take your lumps. But typically, you, the non-attorney type, don't have a clue how to evaluate a DUI case or look for vulnerabilities in the prosecutor's case. Many lawyers (including yours truly) don't charge for a consultation, and will give you a fair idea of what will and what could happen with your case, should you choose to fight it. So, what is a fair price for a DUI defense?

Locally, I know of attorneys who charge nearly nothing ($500 to $1,500) for a first DUI defense, and then proceed to do nothing, as well. No research, no digging, no investigation, no subpoenas for records. Just plead you out at the first hearing. You get what you pay for.

At least two attorneys charge $6,000 for a standard DUI defense. One does fantastic work, and has really made himself into the "Guru" of Utah DUI law, and earns every penny of that fee. The other guy, not so much. Nationally, a decent trial attorney that takes a DUI to a jury trial can charge, and outside of Utah actually be paid, up to $20,000 for such a case. This doesn't even include the extra costs usually necessary to have a chance of winning, like your own investigator ($1,000 or more) and expert witnesses to attack the field sobriety tests and the chemical test, breath or blood or urine. The cost of experts is usually around $500 or more to do a preliminary review and report, and depending on their specialty, between $100 and $250 per HOUR to prepare for and testify at trial. The last time I won a DUI jury trial, I had an expert testify that the breath testing procedures were not done "scientifically" and are not reliable. That client was happy he paid the extra $1,000.

Utahans are generally cheapskates and look for the lowest prices on everything, including legal representation. Unlike generic shredded wheat, a generic legal representation doesn't fill you up. It does, however, taste bad.

Who Are the Best Criminal Defense Lawyers in Utah, and Why do They Think Mark Shurtleff is an Idiot?

2011-02-21T22:08:00.000-08:00

While I urgently flip through the local news channels for stories about revolution in Libya, protesting teachers in Wisconsin and our own clowns in the Utah Legislature continuing to whittle away individual liberties and constitutional rights, my lovely bride of 18+ years urgently asked me to Google something for her. You see, an actress named Brittany Underwood has been fired from the daytime soap opera, “One Life to Live” and dammit, she wants, nay, NEEDS to know why. Right now.

Before dutifully running off to the computer in the basement, I did catch a story on Channel 4 news. It seems that the Box Elder County Attorney’s Office paid a private law firm over $1 Million to assist them in prosecuting a 20 year old murder case. A million bucks. Now, every lawyer in Utah who practices criminal law, both defense and prosecution, knows that the Attorney General’s Office assists county prosecutors when they have a tough case, particularly when the big case is in a little county.

We currently have such a case in a sparsely populated county, and the AG sent its best (actually its ONLY) attorney that prosecutes these kinds of cases to assist the local county prosecutors. My erudite and mysterious partner, Sean Hullinger, made the journey, armed with the law and the facts on his side, only to discover that being right doesn’t always translate into being victorious. The judge refused to suppress the evidence, despite the SCOTUS ruling authored by Antonin Scalia, who is oft times revered locally as some sort of saint.

Even the most populous and wealthiest (in terms of total tax revenue) county gets help when needed from the AG. Twenty years ago, I sat in on most of a murder trial where the prosecution was co-counseled by a Deputy Salt Lake DA and an Assistant AG. So why would Box Elder County pay a private law firm a Million dollars? Don’t look to ABC4 for answers; their in-depth investigative journalism is more shallow than a kids’ plastic wading pool.

And while we’re on the subject of the AG, my old law school classmate Mark Shurtleff is pushing hard on two pieces of legislation that may make it easier for law enforcement and prosecutors, but which clearly erode our Constitutional rights. HB 59 seeks to permit cops to arrest an individual for a Class B Misdemeanor NOT committed in the officer’s presence. Another measure sponsored in the State Senate would require special Grand Juries to convene regularly, replacing the current standard of “only when no other means is feasible” to “always unless the Grand Jury is infeasible.” The idea being that the “Star Chamber” of secrecy and removal of any right of confrontation of witnesses or evidence is a great way to run the criminal justice system.

This is truly sad. Despite our flaws, and regardless of how much fun we poke at our little State, the fact is that Utah is far more progressive, reasonable and protective of individual rights when it comes to criminal justice, than most other states. Our State Constitution provides greater protections from unreasonable search and seizure under its Article I, Section 14 than does the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. Our indeterminate sentencing allows for rehabilitation and re-integration in society, rather than having convicts rot forever in prison (see Texas, Florida and even California).

Grand Juries indict people based on little or no evidence, a one-sided presentation by a prosecutor, and in total secrecy. The Mortenson husband and wife who were indicted by one of these special kangaroo grand juries for the murder of the man’s father, turned out to be totally innocent, when the real murderers were discovered after they had spent over four months in jail, and were awaiting trial for a murder they did not commit. Indeed, they were actually victimized by the killers, but did not seem hysterical enough, and that caused the Utah County Attorney to suspect them. Since he couldn’t have passed muster before a judge at a Preliminary Hearing, where the accused have the right to argue that the total lack of evidence against them means the case should be dismissed, he instead sought, and obtained, the corrupt services of a special grand jury.

Folks, if you trade your liberty for a false sense of security, you will lose both, and deserve neither, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin. And to paraphrase Glenn Beck, “that’s what Hitler and the Nazis did.”

What do Utah's Best Criminal Defense Attorneys, Orrin Hatch and Hosni Mubarak have in Common?

2011-02-10T08:58:00.000-08:00

Orrin G. Hatch: From Carpetbagger to Teabagger in only 35 years.

On the web today at MSNBC, Mark Murray writes: "Move over Kay Bailey Hutchison, Kent Conrad, Joe Lieberman, and Jim Webb. The latest U.S. senator to announce that he/she won't run for re-election in 2012: Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R)." So many US Senators are announcing their retirements, so many world leaders are not running for “re-election” when their current terms expire, but that trend stops cold dead in its tracks with Orange Hatch.

But the irrepressible senior Senator from Pittsburgh, er, Utah, has a $2.5 Million war-chest, and has cozied up to the Tea Party movement in an effort to outlast even the late Strom Thurmond in the Senate. Hatch has already outlasted Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian strongman, who is announcing today that he’s resigning after nearly 30 years as dictator. Mubarak succeeded Anwar Sadat who was assassinated in 1981 as revenge for his peace deal with Israel.
Oddly enough, my life crossed paths with Sadat, Hatch and Patricia Hearst in early 1978.

My senior year at South High School in Salt Lake City, I managed to be one of two winners of the highly contested William Randolph Hearst – United States Senate Youth Program scholarship, which included an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, DC and a week of meeting with the world’s movers and shakers. We met Helen Thomas while she was still a respected journalist (and people still read newspapers), met George McGovern, then VP “Fritz” Mondale, generals at the Pentagon, spies at the CIA (when the freeway exit sign still read “Shoe Factory”) and I got to ask a question of Thurgood Marshall at the Supreme Court.

We lunched with our Senators (Hatch and Jake Garn) and visited the White House, where we fully expected to meet with President Jimmy Carter, as every sitting president had met with the Hearst Delegates, as we were known, since John F. Kennedy met with the first group, which included a scraggly kid from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. But something was oddly different when we got to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Instead of the President of the United States, we were met by Roslyn Carter, the ever-gracious first lady, who shook all 102 hands of the nation’s future old people, and the buzz started around the group: President Carter was preparing to receive a guest. Anwar Sadat was coming to meet the future Nobel Peace prize winner to formulate his own Nobel Prize winning peace agreement with Israel. And that was too damned important, so we got the consolation prize. Our hosts for this event, Mr. and Mrs. Randolph A. Hearst, the parents of then-imprisoned Patty Hearst, were miffed and insulted by the snub.

Of course, the rest is “history” or sociology or Islamic studies or whatever you want to call it, and several months later, the resulting Camp David Accords has provided the foundation for peace and stability between long-term rivals, and to Sadat’s demise at the hands of his own trusted officers. Mubarak lost part of an earlobe in the machine gun attack that killed Sadat, and today he loses all of Egypt.

But back to Orrin Hatch, the guy who originally was from Pittsburgh, moved to Utah and practiced anti-trust litigation with my old friend Lowell Summerhays, then ran for US Senate on the strength of accusing Frank Moss of having been in Washington too long, at 18 years. When Hatch runs again next year, he will have served 36 years of chameleon principled politics, and will be something like 112 years old.

Ahh, but we still have that lunch together in ’78.

Best Utah Lawyers Are Excellent Jury Trial Advocates and Are Successful Attorneys With a Record of Results

2011-02-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

Figuring out what people, the consumer-public, want in any service or commodity is the stuff that successful businesses are built upon. Often, it is pure fantasy, puffery or outright misleading, which is the stuff upon which advertising executives have built their fortunes. Super Bowl ads are a prime example, and this Sunday, the new ads that cost millions to run and can make or break some businesses (think about the E-Trade talking babies which started out as a Super-Sunday TV ad) will be grabbing as much attention as the Packers and Steelers.

I've offered up my own instructional learning curve in internet advertising in this blog before. The title of the blog, the content, the regualr viewership, all point people towards it when they conduct an internet search, like with Google. A colleague of mine captured the URL domain name of "bestutahlawyer.com" and I am convinced that this alone has driven a large amount of traffic to his site and has increased his bottom line. Other friends bought domain names (when they were still available) that included their type of practice (DUI, drug crimes, sex offenses, etc.) along with the geographical identifier (Utah, Salt Lake) and the word lawyer or attorney. Likewise, people searching for that service in that geographical area are finding them at a greater rate, simply because the of the name of their domain.

So, when I headline a blog like this with phrases akin to these other lawyers' website names, I also drive search traffic to this blog, and I include several hyperlinks back to our firm's web pages, which in turn, increases the website's ranking and frequency of visits.

And more to the credit of the wizardry of the internet than to anything I actually write, this blog had 841 page views in January, 2011, the best month ever in the nearly three years since I began this thing. Thank you all very much for reading this drivel, although I am sure many of the visitors did not return, read other pages of this blog, or link to the main website.

So, the fickle nature of humanity aside, the lawyers here at FGH are confident that we can supply our clients with competent, experienced and respected representation. We all try cases to juries, we all press the system to preserve individual rights, and we all have families to feed and shelter, so I'm sure you will continue to see odd titles and some unusual content here well into the future.

And Mark Shurtleff, too.

Looking for the Best Lawyer in Utah, You Just Found the Best Legal Team in Utah

2011-01-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

So many oddities occur in Utah that most of us locals just don’t pay attention anymore. Every other day, another person is arrested and charged with stealing public money from whatever agency, police department or school district that unwisely trusted them with the keys to the till. A 13 year old girl runs away with a 31 year old man, and both are killed in a shootout. Bad enough the local stories make us locals sick, but some of our Utah embarrassments inevitably go viral.

Yesterday, after getting home from the office late, I vegetated in my room in front of the TV, avoiding the news, and got more than a few eye-fulls and ear-fulls of Utah. Beginning with Jon Stewart, who did not mention anything about Utah in his broadcast, but in his signature “Moment of Zen” at the end of his show, the video was of Utah’s own space alien in Congress, Jason Chaffetz. The former BYU place kicker and rising star in the teabagger era was answering a reporter’s query about R’s and D’s sitting next to each other during President’s State of the Union speech. The heat-packin’ Representative said that “he didn’t have a date” and was grateful that he “didn’t have to sit next to Rep. Weiner (D. NY).” I can see that Chaffetz being that close to a weiner could be uncomfortable for him.

Within minutes, I watched Stephen Colbert spend an entire segment of his show featuring Utah State House Republigoof Curt Oda of Clearfield, who has proposed legislation permitting residents to lawfully and humanly kill “feral” animals. Bashing them in the head or decapitation are included as defined “humane” methods. Colbert opined that this is proof that there are fun things to do in Utah.

The Utah follies continued with Jay Leno’s monologue, where he mentioned the bad press a local girls middle school basketball squad have received since beating another team 108-3. Although this is the typical score of prosecutor victories in Federal cases, it seems unseemly for girls to pour on poor sportswomanship.

Finally, the show “Ancient Astronauts” on the History Channel last night displayed a photo array of ancient pictographs in Utah, probably Anasazi stuff from the Moab area, as “evidence” of extraterrestrials visiting Earth in ancient times. The beauty of Southeastern Utah is also featured in a popular new film, “127 Hours” about the outdoor extreme sports enthusiast who cut off his own arm to free himself from a boulder in a tiny slot canyon. That advertisement flashed by about the same time as the sleeping pill kicked in, but I’d had enough by then.

Best Utah Criminal Defense Attorneys Suit Up, Show Up and at Least One Can't Shut Up.

2011-01-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to all of you who read this blog. Blogger stats show that this blog has had 4,059 page views since July 1st 2010.

Who'd a thunkit?

Keep reading; bookmark this blog; become a regular follower. Trust me, every now and then, I say something remarkable.

FGH Lawyers Are Excellent Trial Attorneys, But Sometimes Ed Flint Should Just Shut the Hell Up.

2011-01-11T19:45:00.000-08:00

In this past month, every time I think of composing another entry for this blog, something new and either exiting or gut-wrenchingly awful happens. So let’s deal with the most current and pressing issues:

Arizona shooter: He’s a nutcake, out to gun down someone, much like John Hinckley, Jr. attacked President Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. Innocent bystanders that were not the assassin’s target are collateral damage. Hinckley was found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, and has been confined to a mental institution, but has recently been allowed to visit his family in Colorado without supervision. Federal charges already filed against the AZ guy, but his behavior may result in a similar finding; Arizona state murder charges may result in the death penalty.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) Arizona: Still recovering from the gunshot wound to her head, her story is more than being the victim of a crazed gunman. Her husband is an accomplished astronaut with NASA and was scheduled to command one of the upcoming final shuttle missions before the STS program is permanently retired. His brother is currently on the International Space Station, and issued a statement from space that echoed Rep. Giffords statement from last year, that words spoken by public figures can and do have consequences. A nine-year-old girl murdered by this domestic terrorist was ironically featured in a book, “Children of Hope” along with a child from each State, all born on September 11, 2001.

Westboro Baptist Church: These are the “Christian” folks from Kansas who loudly protest at war heros’ funerals, with signs saying the soldier deserved to die because the US permits homosexuality and other sinfulness, and that everybody is going to Hell, except themselves, of course. They plan on protesting at the funerals in Tucson, and the Arizona Legislature quickly adopted a law today keeping such free speech confined to at least 300 feet away from the funeral and burial sites (time, place and manner restrictions on free speech). These hypocrite bastards hide behind their tax-exempt status as a “church” to spew hatred across the nation, obtaining tax-free donations from other nut-jobs, traveling all over the country in style to deliver their message that God hates us all. After the protest, they probably all go to local strip clubs, bars and pre-arranged swinger parties.

Brian David Mitchell: Similar to the aforementioned assassins, Mitchell tried to dodge responsibility for brutally kidnapping and raping an innocent victim, but the jury didn’t buy the insanity defense, and he will be headed off to prison. Maybe the supermax in Florence, CO or to rot in Marion, IL.

Sarah Palin: Yes, her use of a crosshairs target on political opponents, and rhetoric of “don’t retreat, reload” and even stating that if the Democrats kept control of the House in the November elections, teabaggers should “consider 2nd Amendment” responses, were widely disseminated, but neither she nor the other right-wingnuts’ verbal abuse can CAUSE another to act violently and unlawfully. Grateful to hear that her reality show is being canceled; a long-time friend volunteered to ally with the moose and caribou, which probably would have increased her ratings. I might have watched that episode!

Glenn Beck: So he now endorses civility and restraint and advocates toning down the vitriolic rhetoric in political discussions. Then he also claims leadership of this new “Movement” toward decency in the free exchange of thought. Yeah. Beware when he starts hawking overpriced gold coins to his viewers to support this new cause. Beck’s best “movement” is best flushed down the toilet.

Beau Babka: Long-time cop, sometime politician is charged with two counts of felony misuse of public funds for repeatedly buying gas for his personal vehicles with his Cottonwood Heights City credit card. He only had another year to be eligible for retirement. I’ve seen CHPD officers repeatedly walk out of the local 7-11 with coffee, soda, food items . . . without stopping to pay. I’m told that 7-11 corporate policy is to let the cops have a few free drinks and snacks, as it keeps the police in and near their stores, perhaps discouraging robberies, but the local 7-11 is a franchisee owned by an immigrant, and a shakedown by any other name is still a shakedown.

Julian Assange: Yes, he’s a smug, effete and smarmy punk. No, he has not committed treason or any other actionable violation of US law. No, his leaks of “classified” information have not harmed this nation or compromised our armed forces or revealed any of our spies. Yes, the condom broke, and it carries a fine of around $750.00 in Sweden, and yes, it is obvious that he is being treated differently because the “powers that be” are ultra pissed at his Wikileaks leaks. Will Interpol seek extradition of Dick “No Pulse” Cheney for paying bribes to Nigerian government officials while he was dictator of Halliburton? It will never happen.

Mark Shurtleff: My old law school classmate, the Attorney General of Utah, just brings it on himself. While he’s undergoing chemotherapy at the hospital to treat his recently discovered colon cancer, he’s on his smart-phone, “Tweeting” about every detail, in dramatic fashion, describing the IV drip of “poison” into his veins. The only thing that shut him up was the drugs made him too sick to hold his phone any longer. Give it a break, Mark; I hope you recover, and it’s great that you’re the most “wired” AG this state has ever known, but you’re not all that goddam important!

So what does it all mean? Sean Hullinger, FGH partner, candidate for Utah County Attorney and former spook with the CIA sees likely legislation adding billions of dollars in security for all members of Congress, their staffs, and other public officers in the wake of the Arizona murders. Many of us see increased efforts at security resulting in decreased individual liberties and further erosion of Constitutional guarantees, using the shooting and the security breaches of Wikileaks as excuses to further destroy personal rights. All of us see a sad trend in public officials breaching their fiduciary, civic duties in misusing public funds and abusing their positions of trust and authority.

Happy New Year!

Utah's Best Criminal Defense Lawyers Bid Farewell to Some, Godspeed to Others.

2010-12-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

As the year fast approaches its demise from the calendar, we here at Flint, Grimes & Hullinger want to extend our less than fond farewells to some of our least favorite people. Highest on the list is outgoing Salt Lake County District Attorney Lohra Miller. The November referendum on her one-term train-wreck mal-administration of justice both outed her from power and prestige, and ushered in what we all hope is a term of reason and integrity with Sim Gill as the new DA.

Of course, I can’t fail to mention that FGH partner Jonathon Grimes came in third in this three-way, and without ever dipping even a toe in a hot tub. Jon polled over 8,800 votes of a little over 200,000 votes cast, and happily, failed to screw up Sim’s ascent to the top law enforcement job in the state’s most populous County, with a mandate to protect most of its 1 Million inhabitants, and lock up the miscreants of local society.

But this entry will be my last public criticism of Lohra, now that she leaves elected public office. Exercising my First Amendment right of free expression through critical analysis (or outright slander, permitted under the NY Times v. Sullivan precedent), as with any responsible journalist or attorney, is generally reserved for those who place themselves in the public spotlight, namely, elected officials. Beyond a little name-calling, I have reveled in attempting to expose hypocrisy, nepotism and downright dirty deeds of those entrusted by the electorate with representing all of the people’s needs. Frequently, Lohra Miller has been the mangy, rabid dog I like to kick around, but upon leaving elected office, I consider her off-limits. So farewell, Lohra, and none too soon.

Senator Bob “The Fossil” Bennett is done, against his will, at the end of the year, and though I won’t miss him a bit, I’m intrigued at the prospect of his replacement, Ross The Intern, also known as Mike Lee. Like a TV comedian, I can always trust the good people of Utah to elect morons worthy of constant mockery and criticism.

With the Brian David Mitchell trial wrapping up in Federal Court, for the kidnapping and sexual abuse of an innocent little girl whose bravery and recovery are so remarkable and praiseworthy, this prophet of doom child molester may soon be long gone as well. Off to Federal prison where he can preach and sing hymns, when he’s not otherwise occupied being somebody’s bitch. Farewell and good riddance.

On the other hand, some of the objects of my derision deserve a break from critical analysis of their every move just now, and in the Christmas spirit, I want to wish Mark Shurtleff a speedy recovery and a long and healthy life. My old law school classmate was recently found to have a malignant tumor on his bowel, discovered during an appendectomy and determined to be cancerous. He expects a full recovery, but still limps a little from his last medical disaster of a shattered leg from a motorcycle accident. No amount of free speech criticism can change the fact that our Attorney General is a decent family man, and can fall victim to the frailties of human existence; no different than me or you.

So get well soon, Mark, because you’re a great target for my punditry, and you may only have two more years for me to kick you around.

Utah's Best Criminal Defense Attorneys Don't Win Elections, Do Win Cases

2010-11-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

All is well in Salt Lake County today, as the final election tally confirms Sim Gill as the new District Attorney. I was a little worried with so many absentee and mail-in ballots that had to be counted, but Sim actually extended his lead by a thousand or so votes. The newspaper didn’t report how many more votes Jon got as the Libertarian candidate, but the important thing is that Lohra Miller is soon to be just a bad dream.

More like a nightmare, but she shot herself in the foot, while it was in her mouth, so many times, that re-electing her was a long-shot, even in the Republican sweep across the nation, and locally. One interesting result is that another of my old law school classmates was elected to a major office. Gregory P. Hawkins, winner of many a “Tootsie-roll Award” at the Utah College of Law (now the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah) was elected Salt Lake County Auditor, unseating the Democratic incumbent Jeff Hatch, by a few thousand votes.

Hawkins joins the Attorney General, “Market Myself” Mark Shurtleff and Salt Lake County Councilman David Wilde as duly elected government officials from the Class of 1985. Greg Hawkins previously tried to unseat Orrin Hatch ten years ago, but lost in a primary election, and also ran for Lt. Governor, and was likewise eliminated. As immutable as ever, Hawkins was “Tea-Party” before it was even named, being somewhere to the Right of Attila the Hun.

Conversely, the whole teabagger movement was dealt a blow in Alaska, arguably the origin of the species (who generally oppose the idea of the Origin of the Species articulated by Charles Darwin) by re-electing Lisa Murkowski as a write-in candidate for the US Senate, over teabagger, Joe Miller. Another Miller bites the dust, and rightly so, as even Alaskans know that a Berlin style wall and murderous enforcement of our nation’s border with Mexico are the thoughts of a nutcake.

Maybe Alaska voters have started a new trend of moderation, to supplant the teabaggers, but it’s hard to say. The right wingnuts in Arizona support their zealous anti-immigration law, yet the voters there also approved of medical marijuana. Yet Californians voted down the total legalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana at the same time.

Maybe Utah voters should consider legalizing adulthood.

Utah's Best Criminal Defense Attorneys Make Election Splash of Bathtub Proportions

2010-11-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

Utah’s best criminal defense attorneys make a splash in the Election, but fail to surf the same tsunami as the general public. Today, I am grateful that Sim Gill was elected to the office of District Attorney for Salt Lake County, and that Jon didn’t screw that up; at the same time, Jon’s 8,808 vote tally, nearly 4% of the total votes cast, speaks volumes about the local political and prosecutorial climate. And in Utah County, Sean Hullinger, our newest partner, received 11,603 votes for Utah County Attorney, almost 14% of the total, where the incumbent Republican was running otherwise unopposed.

No Ralph Nader, Green Party, hanging chads, lawsuit-decided election for DA, but a victory for Sim Gill over Lohra Miller in excess of 16,000 votes. This last number is of vital importance, as the “R” Party made a concerted effort this year to get new blood registered and sending in votes by mail. By their own estimates, they are anticipating up to 15,000 ballots by mail to be added into the total vote counts. And since the Repubs did the door-to-door registration, it should come as no surprise that most of those mailed in votes will count toward “R” candidates.

It helps that what used to be called “absentee” ballots are now available to any voter, and that the Fuller Brush-esque efforts of motivated get-out-the-vote registrations this year included conveniently pre-marked for Republican ballot samples (so that Grandma on the respirator can vote, too). When you live in Utah and identify yourself as a Democrat, you start off as an endangered species, sliding precipitously toward total extinction. But thinking a Libertarian can actually win an election seems more an effort in futility rather than contributing to the long-lost notion that everybody has a voice.

But my Libertarian friends, and law partners, keep trying. Rob Latham garnered 9,818 votes for Davis County Attorney, about 16% of the total, where the Republican was running unopposed by a Democrat, and perpetual Libertarian candidate W. Andrew McCullough captured 11,714 votes, about 2% of the statewide total for Governor (where the Republican incumbent Gary Herbert was also running unopposed by any serious Democratic Party contender).

The winning candidate that could still lose this election is the politically unaffiliated Jim Matheson (who ran as a Democrat, despite his record) who prevails over the upstart Morgan Philpot by fewer than 11,000 votes, well within that 15,000 yet-to-be-counted mail in votes figure. Karl Rove said, “Ohio’s in the bag” in 2004, and he was right. Perhaps Philpot is in the mail-bag.

FGH Partner Jonathon W. Grimes Makes a Splash in the Race for Salt Lake District Attorney

2010-10-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

So there’s this new poll published in the Desicated, er, Deserted News. It shows the race for Salt Lake County District Attorney is pretty tight, just two weeks before the election, and that Sim Gill holds a 41 to 36 edge over the incumbent Lohra Miller. The poll also reflects the 14% of these “most likely to vote” subjects are yet undecided. And in the biggest surprise to date, the DN poll shows

JONATHON W. GRIMES, LIBERTARIAN, 7%

And they even spelled his name correctly! (He’s a “Jon-A-Thong” and not the more commonly spelled, aka: biblical name).

Now this is amazing, incredible news, since Jon has done absolutely ZERO campaigning, has not attempted to raise a dime for campaign financing, has no signs, no billboards, no advertising in any media. Jon has spoken at a few Libertarian Party forums, but is never invited to any debates, is never interviewed by any reporters or invited onto any of the local political radio shows. Nope, not even any of the numerous local NPR stations have even called him up for a look-see into his philosophy or agenda.

This leads me to a startling conclusion: Salt Lake County voters are so fed up with incumbent screwballs, professional politicians and smarmy promise-makers that a significant number are willing to vote for a Libertarian candidate for DA that they have never heard of before. And twice that many haven’t decided yet, despite being nearly on the election’s eve.

Which causes me to reflect on the overall mood of Utahans, and the nation’s voters in general. The “Tea-Party” rise seemingly wholly within the Republican Party’s existing membership and framework is sign of this discontent, what with right wingnuts like Mike Lee in Utah, and that witch in Deleware, the pervert running for Governor of New York and that nut-job in Nevada running against my favorite Elder, Harry Reid. The teabagger movement has missed the point.

Libertarians seem to be the broadest spectrum within the biggest political tent. Jon is fond of saying that, “a Libertarian is just a Republican who likes to smoke pot and look at dirty pictures.” But that seems to best describe the teabaggers. Another attorney friend once told me that he believes that by our very nature, criminal defense attorneys are true Libertarians, regardless of which party we may claim as our own, or even how we vote. This is because we fight to preserve the Constitutional rights that we see politicians fighting to erode.

And, because we oppose government intrusion in people’s personal lives. We believe that government is there to provide basic services and physical protection from foreign invasion and local anarchy. Of course, most of us would also appreciate lower taxes on the working class, lower taxes overall, fiscal responsibility, balanced government budgets, and the list goes on and on.

Here’s a Jon Grimes example: the issue of “gay” marriage. Jon told me that every human being that wants to be in a permanent relationship is entitled to a legally binding “civil union” to protect their rights of inheritance, enforcing last wishes, obtaining insurance, financing a mortage, etc. You can call it a “Marriage” or a contract or whatever turns you on, but if you want that legal status turned into a “solemnized” rite or ritual, with religious connotations, then you do that on your own. Mixing the religious notion of marriage with the civil, governmental function of a contract between two adults, is beyond the realm of where government should go.

I wonder if the 7% knew that?

New Website, Old Complaints

2010-10-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

OK, while I’m slightly in the mood to blog, I need to pitch our new website: http://www.fghlawyers.com/ which has been up about a week as a “Beta” while we continue to tweak and supplement the content and appearance. Your comments are welcome here, or at my new email address: ed@fghlawyers.com or the next time you see me.

I had wanted to mention that my 18th wedding anniversary came and went a couple days ago, and that I decided to NOT buy a toilet for our “porcelain” anniversary. Then yesterday, we had another one of those great days where our motions hearing went very well for us, and we’re just waiting for the transcript so we can draft the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and Order in that case.

But I am reminded that plugging the new website is good for business, yet based on the comments of a few new clients and our new paralegal, writing scintillating blog content, critical of certain elected officials and not pulling any punches about the realities of life and vagaries of justice, is likewise good for business.

However, “Market-Myself” Mark Shurtleff, Utah’s Attorney General and my former law school classmate, hasn’t really said anything too self-serving or outrageous lately, and his comments against creating legislation banning violent video games displays a reasonable side I did not know he has. Certainly, his AG policy to fight every Post Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA) petition, without regard to truth, justice or the American way of not punishing innocent people (or due process or other former Constitutional rights we used to have in this country), is damnable, but predictable. I will grant that if the Assistant AG’s actually had to review all PCRA petitions for their veracity, they might actually have to work for a living, but every once in a while, the petition is not frivolous nor is the cause adverse to the interests of real justice.

And have you noticed that Lohra Miller, the (R) Salt Lake County District Attorney up for re-election (against (D) Sim Gill, the current Salt Lake City Prosecutor, and some hack named Jonathon W. Grimes (L) who apparently is one of my law partners), is also fairly quiet and not holding as many news conferences as one might expect? Hell, the election is just weeks away, and the DA race seems to be one big whimper, especially if compared to the gubernatorial race. But throughout Salt Lake County, and in most of Utah, simply uttering the name “Lohra” conjures up bad, scary images. It’s like her name is now synonymous with “Bad Government” or “Embarrassment” and if another prosecutor somewhere else in the State pulls some stunt or prosecutes selectively, you might hear the defense attorney utter something like, “that’s a Lohra” way of doing things.

I definitely did not see anyone encouraging people to “Just ask a Cop” about who should be elected District Attorney this time around, although, for all the police officers who have shot people in Salt Lake County the past four years, the “Lohra” way of doing things has been quite sweet for them. It may be a down year for the Millers, with Lorenzo losing most of his municipal justice court prosecutor contracts, and Lohra possibly losing her $150,000 per year salary, they may have to start working for a living, too.

Possibly at the AG’s office.

The Last Blog Before the New Website: The Costs of Practicing Law in Utah

2010-09-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

THE COST OF BEING A LAWYER IN UTAH

1. State Law License. Issued through the Utah State Bar as agent for the Utah Supreme Court. Dues of about $385.00 per year per attorney. Application for admission to the Bar and fees for taking the Bar exam vary, and may require paying multiple times or for multiple jurisdictions.
2. Federal Law License. Issued through the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Annual fee of $15.00 per attorney. License permits practice before the Federal District Court and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Utah.
3. Admission to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. One-time admission fee of $15.00 per attorney and requires current Federal District Court license. Permits Appellate practice before the 10th Circuit Court in Denver and the US Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) for the 10th Circuit.
4. State Business Entity registration and annual fees. Firm organized as a Professional Limited Liability Company (PLLC). One-time Articles fee, and annual fees of about $75.00 per year.
5. State Registered Name. Use of other than the registered business entity name or the individual, actual name of an attorney requires one-time registration fee of about $50.00 and renewal every 2 or 3 years of up to $50.00.
6. Internet Domain names (URL). Purchase and registration of names associated with web advertising or informational sites. Purchase prices of between 5.00 and 25.00 and annual renewal fees of about the same for most domain names. We have about $600.00 per year in registered domain names.
7. Local Municipal Business License. Salt Lake City Corporation original license application fee and inspection fees of about $400.00 and annual renewal fees of about $125.00.
8. Permits for advertising. Window advertising one-time application fees, bond and permit fees of about $150.00 to place advertising in business windows, plus the costs of the window painter.
9. Optional Professional Association dues and fees. Membership in the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is $150.00 per year per attorney. Membership in the American Bar Association is about $415.00 per year per attorney.
10. Mandatory Continuing Legal Education fees. Each attorney is required to complete a number of hours of specific and general courses to remain licensed. Fees for these courses range from free to $75.00 per hour, plus costs of transportation, hotels, car rentals, per diem for meals, etc.
11. Payroll taxes, FICA, Workers Compensation, Unemployment, premises liability insurance, County Assessor personal property tax on all of your office furnishings and equipment, Errors and Omissions (Malpractice) insurance, fees and bonding for Notary Public, and other required fees and taxes.
12. Printing costs for cards, stationery, photocopies, printing; costs of office supplies, folders, pens, paperclips, staplers, desks, chairs, furnishings, computers, all other office related materials.
13. Payroll to employees, contractors, others, and benefits, such as Health Insurance. We paid over $15,000.00 last year just to insure me and my family (I paid an additional $24,000.00 for my share that’s not paid by the evil and treacherous Regence Blue Cross of Utah).
14. Rents, telephones, mobile phones, internet, other utilities. About $3,500.00 per month, or $42,000.00 per year based on 2009.
15. Costs of transportation, including gasoline, car depreciation or reimbursement or deduction of actual milage, parking, etc. at the office, at courts or other.
16. Fees and costs of accounting, tax preparation, etc. $1,000.00 in 2009.
17. Other outside professional fees, such as lawyers, accountants, experts. Varies. Sometimes reimbursed by clients, sometimes not, sometimes paid for business related matters.
18. Court filing fees, transcripts, etc. Varies, but we paid over $3,000.00 in 2009.
19. Advertising. Internet, phone book, billboard, radio, TV, other media. We paid about $60,000.00 for advertising in 2009 ($5000/month).
20. Personal expenses for court-appropriate clothing, costs of commuting to office, lunches, paying back student loans that were necessary to pay for the education that was required before you could even attempt to become a lawyer, etc. Newer and younger lawyers typically borrowed upwards of $100,000.00 or more in student loans to get where they are today.

If there is anything left, it is income to the business owners, who pay mandatory FICA/Medicare taxes, and pay State and Federal income taxes BEFORE getting what’s left, to pay for personal costs of living, like rent/mortgage, car, insurance for home, car, health, life; home utilities, groceries, doctor bills, kids’ clothing, school supplies, and every other small, medium or large cost of living. Average gross, pre-tax income is about $60,000.00 per year for all employment and professions; some lawyers make more, some less. If you and/or your family have additional needs, like medical and prescription costs, or you pay child support, alimony or take care of an elderly or special needs relative, you need to make more take-home pay, or just plan on losing everything and going bankrupt every 6 years.

Vacations are just dreams; leisure time has to be done on the cheap, where going out to dinner and a movie can easily exceed $100.00; nice furniture, newer cars, appliances, televisions, cable or satellite are luxuries.

So, my fellow criminal defense attorneys: when the client or prospective client, who owns a boat, a Harley-Davidson, has a 401k, stocks, a house, cars, and a regular income (even a fixed income, like disability or retirement, is an income), complains about the cost of legal representation that may be the difference between prison or freedom, pause for a moment, don’t blink, and remember how you got here, and how that guy ended up on the other side of your desk.

What we do as defense attorneys is a vital, urgently needed, professional service that the client can’t do for himself. Of course, we need to be compassionate to the client’s needs, and every one of us should perform at least 40 hours of pro bono services every year. But never sell yourself short.

Good Things Come in Threes

2010-08-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

They say that both good and bad things happen in “threes” like the three consecutive deaths of celebrities or winning the trifecta at the race track. Today was one of those good days, and it may have included more than three great things.

First, early this morning, the three partners (not Stooges) of Flint, Grimes and Hullinger all showed up in court for a limited appearance on a new case. We got everything we wanted and then some. The judge even commented that “Mr. Flint is a great lawyer” and she said it with a straight face, too.

Secondly, we mowed down the morning appointments without any serious complications, which left us in a great mood, so we decided to go to “Steak” conference and feast at a fine restaurant that serves up red meat. A nice place, not the one nearby with sawdust on the floor and that gawdawful country music that makes you want to barf up your sautéed mushrooms.

But we ran into some problems. Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse doesn’t do lunch, and Spencer’s didn’t open until 11:30, and we had limited time before a vital afternoon hearing. We tried Donovan’s, but they also don’t serve lunch. The chef was hanging out there, and gave us each two $25 off cards, but those don’t provide any immediate sustenance, so we ended up at the New Yorker for some awesome oysters, escargot and I had the Cobb Royal salad, with lobster meat. Fantastic!

Then third, and best of all, our 2:00 p.m. hearing on Jon’s Post Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA) Petition went very well, and the judge denied the State’s Motion to Dismiss and set it for an evidentiary hearing in September. If all goes well, our client will be both released from prison for a crime he did not commit, and avoid deportation to a country he left at age 4, which would be as foreign to him as Utah County is to the rest of us.

If you count the little victory party afterwards at the family’s local café, we exceeded the rule of threes. But all good things come to an end, as the Home Teachers will be here in a few minutes.

Best Salt Lake City, Utah Defense Attorneys Explain the Complexities of Sentencing

2010-08-04T12:34:00.000-07:00

OK, you paid me (or another reputable attorney) a pant-load of money, but you ended up making a deal or being found guilty at trial and now you face sentencing. What's the big deal? How hard can that be?

In many cases, the sentencing phase of a case is the most important aspect of the whole case; the difference between going home and going to jail or even prison. This is especially true in Federal Court, where sentencing guidelines and legal grounds for objections, and evidence to convince the judge to go with a shorter, less onerous sentence, is quite complex and involves extensive effort. If your lawyer just shows and up and tries to bullshit his way through, then you will probably wind up spending years or decades in Federal Prison.

State Court and local Justice Court sentencing is not as formal, and Utah has been one of the most progressive of the States in its institution of indeterminate sentences. For example, even if the judge sends someone to prison, even on a sentence of lets say, 5 years to life, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole gets to make the final decision on just how long that person remains in State custody. The Board even has the authority to parole a person BEFORE they've served what should be the bare minimum sentence. So on a 5 to life, you would think that you MUST serve at least 5 years before being eligible for parole, but the Board can actually let you out earlier than that.

For those convicted of lesser violations, for example, a Class A Misdemeanor, sentencing is all-important to prevent loss of job, children, opportunity as well as freedom. Today, I made my pitch to a District Court Judge to not send my client to jail, even though she was being sentenced on four Class A Misdemeanors. The client could have gotten four years of jail, but careful planning, letters of support, educational and other records, and my somewhat artful arguments convinced the judge to let my client serve probation and wear an ankle monitor for a month, instead of being locked up.

A quality legal representation is wall to wall, beginning to end, and the last (and often the most important) part of a case is the sentencing phase. A "great deal" doesn't seem so great while your sitting behind bars.

Obama Considering Republicans for US Attorney Position

2010-07-23T09:29:00.003-07:00

This is why I went with law instead of Politics.

Ever since the White House dropped David Schwendeman from consideration for the post of US Attorney for Utah, speculation and rumors have identified several Republican names as the potential nominee of President Barak Obama for the job. I previously opined in this BLawg that Obama had the necessary cojones to appoint a Democrat, as is the perogative of the President to appoint from within his own Party.

Interestingly enough, the Obama Justice Department just decided this week to forego any prosecution of anybody, like Alberto Gonzales, for firing several US Attorneys during the George W. Bush administration for not being true "Bushies" and either prosecute that administration's enemies or not prosecute its friends. It was allowable politics, not anything criminal. Presidents have always appointed these federal prosecutors, who serve at the will or whim of the President.

But now, the rumor mill points to Obama nominating a right-wing, closed minded neo-Nazi, also known as a Utah Republican, to this position. Back in the Clinton era, the Senate was mostly controlled by the R. party, and our own Orrin G. (Orange) Hatch was the Senate Judiciary Chairman. Clinton had judges and other nominees that were tied up in confirmation proceedings that Hatch controlled, and the solution to getting most of the people he wanted, was for Clinton to kiss Hatch's ass and let the Pittsburgh transplant have his way in Utah. After all, Clinton came in third in Utah, behind the first President Bush, and behind Ross Perot, in the 1992 election. What difference would it make to Clinton if Utah remained locked in the dark ages?

Now, names like former Iron County Attorney Scott Burns, and former Congressional candidate John Swallow are being circulated in the rumor mill as the President's choice, despite the huge number of qualified Democrats (or even qualified Independants) that could fill this vital position.

I liked Scott Burns when he ran against Jan Graham for Utah Attorney General back in the '90s, mostly because he had actual courtroom and administrative experience as a prosecutor, whereas Jan had never tried a jury trial in her career. But my old law school classmate, the current Utah AG, "Market-Myself" Mark Shurtleff, didn't have much actual lawyering experience, either, when he won the AG post a decade ago.

But that's an election, not a political appointment. And as much as I detest boy scout Shurtleff, he was elected and re-elected twice by the people. The US Attorney job is by its nature a political animal, and a left-over of the spoils system. Bush utilized it by appointing inexperienced graduates of religious-right-wing law schools, primarily from Liberty University, to hundreds of positions in the Justice Department. Utah was stuck with Ralph Tolman for years, because he was a loyal Bushie.

The sad reality is that Obama doesn't care if Utah is consumed by the fire of the Tea-baggers and Republinazis.

Clarence Thomas Welcomed to Utah??

2010-07-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

That reality is stranger than fiction is an axiom to live by in Utah. Today, at the swearing in ceremony for the new Utah Supreme Court Justice Thomas Lee (brother of Ross the Intern, also known as US Senate candidate Mike Lee), an honored guest was featured. Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was on the Fifth floor of the Matheson Court building today to do the honors, and swear in his old law clerk.

At the reception that followed, refreshments were served, including Oreo brownies. You just can’t make this stuff up.

What Makes Utah's Best Attorneys the Very Best Criminal Defense Lawyers in Utah

2010-07-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

It’s easy to become a bit jaded. You win a few battles and you begin to get a little cocky, a little too sure of yourself. It’s an important character trait for a trial lawyer to be self-assured, but that can lead to mistakes, and that leads to disaster.

The other day, I helped a client with a dispute involving one of the many State licensing boards for professionals (other than attorneys). They had revoked his license because he had failed to reveal several traffic and equipment violations over the past 19 years (no kidding, going back to 1991). The called him dishonest, even though he obtained his official record from BCI, which did not include any of the “misdemeanor” traffic citations for stuff as benign as “failing to register a towed trailer.”

I wrote up an objection to their draconian decision, and put together a memorandum detailing how traffic violations are lost in the system, not reported as official offenses, erased from the drivers license records after a few years, and barring the obvious criminal violations like DUI or evading the police, few people consider “expired registration” as a serious deal, especially if you paid the fine and the case was closed. The administrative agency agreed and vacated their order depriving him of his license, and canceled the scheduled hearing to argue the matter.

So that’s a big win for us, and for our client. He was facing losing his livelihood, his very career, so the victory is that much sweeter. And we frequently get these kinds of results for our clients, with cases dismissed or even intervening early, and convincing the prosecutor to not file charges in the first place.

I got an email the other day from an old friend, who became my client a dozen years ago when he was accused of a serious criminal offense. Charges were brought as a Second Degree sex felony; one that would have landed him in prison for years and on the sex offender registry for life. It was an involved case, and I conducted a five witness Preliminary Hearing where we had the alleged “victim” and several others testify, under oath, about what supposedly happened. And we caught them lying.

The best part was we could prove they were lying with official government records from the fire department, paramedics, Poison Control, the 911 system and other sources. When we disclosed the proof of the State’s liar witnesses, the case evaporated, charges were ultimately dismissed, and my friend’s arrest and case history were expunged. My friend is now a professional, himself, and offered this:

Here is your free promo: “Dear potential Ed Flint clients....if it was not for Ed 12 years ago, my first name would be "Bitch Inmate #6578" as opposed to Doctor. :) Send you my bill later."

For this, I am grateful. And I am constantly reminded that my clients depend on me to do the job thoroughly, completely, and correctly. Because if I just rest on my past success, I am doomed to future failure. Since my clients rely on my success, they suffer the consequences should I goof off. So, I do the work, make the preparations, and when required, press the button.

Much better than being someone’s bitch.

Salt Lake's Most Outspoken Lawyer Comments on the Primary Elections Results, Tea Baggers, and Ross the Intern (and a Swipe at Mark Shurtleff)

2010-06-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

I happily, if not painfully, presented myself yesterday at Butler Middle School to vote in the Primary Election. Perhaps more important that my vote against Jim Matheson (Democrat, Utah Second Congressional District) were my votes for the Canyons School District bond and the Cottonwood Heights Recreation Center bond. Those were the only items on the ballot.

The shocking truth is that Utahans don't vote. Utah has the ignominious record of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation during the last mid-term election, and second lowest in the general election two years ago. I mentioned to a client yesterday that I needed to go vote, which was met with a vacant stare and a query as to why. Shocking. Growing up in the Cold War, learning to "Duck and Cover" in elementary school, buying savings stamps toward U.S. Savings Bonds to pay for the Vietnam War (and picking up a little color card with Lyndon Johnson's visage prominently portrayed - we used our erasers to make devil horns and beards on him) I was ingrained with the belief that exercising one's right to vote is part of what makes us a free nation and a civilized people. I have tried to never miss an election, big or small, since I turned 18.

A mild surprise winner yesterday was Tea Party Republican Mike Lee, the self-acclaimed "Constitutional Expert" for the Republican nomination to replace Deep-Throat Bob Bennett in the US Senate. Coming from at least 12 points behind, Lee got his supporters to actually get out and vote, and his opponent, Tim Garglevoice, did not, and fell short by a small fraction. Both aired ads attacking the "Obama Liberal Agenda" with disparaging pictures of the President, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the chief demons of the Tea Bagger revolution. Somehow, going back to the way things were run a few years ago, will "Stop the Insanity" and repeal health care for all Americans.

Now, I pay over $1,850.00 PER MONTH to Blue Cross just to have health insurance. I itemized over $23,000.00 in medical expenses on my Schedule A for 2009, and I really like the idea of all Americans receiving affordable health insurance and medical care, regarless of income or pre-existing conditions. But these guys are all Hell-bent on taking that all away from us.

Which brings me to this musing: Mike Lee is a dead-ringer for Ross "the Intern" Mathews of Jay Leno (The Tonight Show) fame. I suppose that means that Lee supports Gay Marriage, but I could be wrong. But you can't deny the strong resemblence. Twins separated at birth?

And earlier this week, our own Attorney General, "Market-Myself" Mark Shurtleff, got a dishonorable mention from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for his Twittering about the execution by firing squad of murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner. Shurtleff had aspirations for the very same aforementioned Senate seat, but was outed by his now infamous breakfast with Rick Koerber. Interesting that I was a classmate of the classless Shurtleff, and have recently befriended the oft-maligned Free Capitalist (despite my Socialist leanings).

If there were any more reason needed to get out and vote, it's idiots like Shurtleff, Lee and their Tea Bagger buddies. Remember that my two law partners, Jon Grimes and Sean Hullinger, are the Libertarian candidates for Salt Lake District Attorney and Utah County Attorney, respectively. Get off your ass and vote in November.

Salt Lake Criminal Defense Attorney Edward Flint Discusses Capital Punishment and the Idiot Mark Shurtleff

2010-06-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

A few minutes after midnight today, the State of Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner. The method of execution was firing squad. Death was nearly instantaneous, far more emotionally painful to others than to the condemned; far greater a controversy outside of Utah, than here, where some 81% support use of the firing squad, according to a local TV poll. And, far greater a deterrent to Gardner than to other potential murderers.

Our little law firm now has three partners: myself, Jon Grimes and Sean Hullinger. Jon is the Libertarian candidate for Salt Lake District Attorney and Sean is the Libertarian candidate for the post as Utah County Attorney. Both oppose the death penalty generally, as implemented in the US today, because it remains unevenly and haphazardly employed. Just look at Texas and Florida. The disproportionate numbers of ethnic minorities, socially backward and impoverished that are executed, should cause one to at least ponder the inequities of its application.

The numbers of death row inmates whose wrongful convictions have been overturned, primarily through DNA evidence and the efforts of volunteer teams of lawyers and law students, shows us that using the ultimate punishment of ending a convict’s life is, and has been, absolutely unjustified. The State of Illinois determined a few years back, after several condemned prisoners were exonerated, that the specter of killing an innocent person dictated the need for commutation of all death sentences, and an abandonment of the death penalty. Many States have banned executions, others have used it sparingly, but nonetheless, the United States now bedfellows with China, Iran, North Korea and several other nations we frequently accuse of human rights violations. Not the company we should keep.

But perhaps the greatest abuse in this most recent execution was perpetrated by our own Attorney General, “Market-Myself” Mark Shurtleff, my old law school classmate. Shurtleff had the brass nuts to Twitter “Tweet” the play-by-play of Gardner’s execution. First, he reported, "A solemn day. Barring a stay by Sup Ct, & with my final nod, Utah will use most extreme power & execute a killer. Mourn his victims. Justice.” Shockingly, he then told anyone willing to subscribe to his moronic musings, "I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims." WTF?

As if that were not macabre enough, Shurtleff concluded his twit tweets with an invitation to his live, streaming press conference after the deed was accomplished. Now back in the early 80’s at the Utah College of Law, I could not have imagined that the tall, geeky, skinny guy with glasses in my class would grow up to prove he had no class, and worse, had power, prestige and the gall to use a somber moment to further aggrandize himself. But true to his personality, Market-Myself Mark Shurtleff has continually sought the limelight and publicity (except after his ill-fated breakfast with Rick Koerber, but that’s all sewage under the Jordan River bridge, now).

Should anyone be subjected to the death penalty in civilized society? From a strictly fiscal analysis, I oppose the death penalty because it is far more expensive than just LWOP (Life WithOut Parole), with most of that cost coming from the ranks of government lawyers, prison costs and a tiny, insufficient portion paid to defense lawyers to mount the minimally required appeals. Essentially, the taxpayers have forked out extra housing and guarding costs for 25 years for Gardner, along with the costs of lawyers, judges, courthouses, personnel and the like of nearly $3,000,000 to execute Gardner, but only about $50,000 of that went to court-appointed defense attorneys. Most of the legal representation for death row inmates comes from private donations and pro bono legal services. More evidence of the unfair and unequal application of “justice” that universally plagues the legal system, and is simply outrageous in cases of capital punishment.

Ronnie Lee Gardner committed his courthouse murder just weeks before Shurtleff and I graduated from law school. I remember the day very clearly. I was presenting my class project in Professor John Flynn’s Jurisprudence class: an MTV-style music video account of the view from the eyes of a condemned man, from the point of arrest, through trial and concluding with a loud BANG, as the scene faded to black and the credits rolled. The class gave me a standing ovation, but the professor only gave me a B- such are the vagaries of law school grades.

Prophetic or just the fried brain of a tired 3L?

Ed Flint Turns 50; Earth Wobbles on It's Axis and Volcanos Erupt with Joy!

2010-05-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

FIFTY. 50, the big “FIVE-OH” the end of the second period of the hockey game, the beginning of the downhill slide into oblivion. Over the hill, elderly, a senior citizen. I even got the invitation from AARP in the mail today. Happy Birthday. My friends took me to lunch today at David’s Kitchen, the best Chinese joint in town, and bought a fancy cake from Gourmandise, and gave me a lovely card, made from recycled waste paper and utilizing only renewable energy, blah, blah, blah.

Jon said, “You are old, you die soon, this is not threat” and Sheri added, “No, I think you still have several weeks left.” Sean Hullinger added, “You don’t look a day over 60.” Ah, with friends like that . . .

Not believing that I have reached my expiration date, despite the poor health and the latest report from one of my many doctors that my Triglyceride level is an unacceptable 334, and normal is below 125 (I have no clue what these numbers mean; maybe I can set another record, to go along with my 859 blood glucose reading at the hospital the day I found out I have Type II diabetes, or the ENT’s pronouncement of my case of sleep apnea being the worst he’s ever seen), I am not ready to wheel myself into the old folks’ home, and no, I don’t wear Depends.

Nearly 18 years ago, on October 5, 1992, when I still had dark hair (at least I have ALL my hair, Jon) and I sort of eloped with my lovely wife, we stood in the old District Court building, where the City Library now stands, in the Courtroom of Judge David Young. I had called him up earlier that day and asked him to perform a marriage ceremony for us. The Judge politely declined, as it was his 50th birthday, and his staff had thrown him a party, but I persisted, reminding him that my partner at that time, Paul Christensen, had once dated his little sister.

Judge Young said, “Be here at 3:30.”

So, we pulled the kids out of school and got all dressed up, and took our newly obtained marriage license downtown to the courthouse. Judge Young’s courtroom was all decked out in black balloons, black crepe paper and banners, and a big sign, announcing that he was “Over the Hill.” He even wore a silly bow-tie that declared, “I’m 50.” A bizarre and truly memorable experience. Do you remember your second marriage ceremony in that kind of detail?

Dave Young performed a traditional ceremony, and when he got to the ring exchange, we were lacking the rings, as this was truly an elopement. He said, “Remember these words when you exchange rings,” and proceeded with the ring ceremony, anyway! Great stuff. Judge Mike Murphy even peeked in to see what was going on, and seeing me, he just shook his head and turned around. I bring that out in some people.

Years later, Dave Young got voted out of office and was slimed by many a detractor, but those who dealt with him knew, as did I, that he was OK. I stood chatting with Judge Young and Bill Morrison, several years later, at Michael Wray’s closed casket “viewing” and as he walked away, I remarked, “you know, Judge Young married me.” Without skipping a beat, Bill said, “I didn’t know Judge Young was gay!” Classic Bill.

So, today, having reached the pinnacle of ancientness and decrepitude, I thank my friends and family for giving me a day to remember. As long as I can maintain my memory.

Salt Lake Lawyer Ed Flint Continues Relentless, Pointless Attack of Mark Shurtleff - Part Two

2010-04-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

And now, for your blogging pleasure, Access Legal presents Round Two:

My former law school classmate, and current nemesis, the Attorney General of Utah, is back to his old self again; “Market-Myself” Mark Shurtleff, the Harley-Davidson challenged idiot ideologue, is fighting to ensure that no Utahan, no American citizen or legal resident, will ever be required to buy health insurance. Gomer Shurtleff has joined several other Attorneys General from other racist, backward-thinking, and big corporation loving States in suing the United States in an attempt to thwart the new health care law before it ever gets off the ground.

Goofus and his fellow renegade A’s G (isn’t that more correct that “AG’s”?) argue in their Complaint, filed in the US District Court in Tallahassee, Florida, claim that the new law infringes on State’s rights which are reserved and protected by the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, part of the original Bill of Rights. They argue that it imposes an unfunded mandate on the States that we just can’t afford in these tough economic times, what with needing to bail out banks and insurance giants and all.

But the argument that is the most telling is in Count Two, alleging that the new law violates the “Constitutional Prohibition of Unapportioned Capitation or Direct Tax.” These are right wing-nut “code words” (Glen Beck was right, there are code words) used by the tax evading idiots that ignore the existence of the 16th Amendment, authorizing Congress to levy income taxes, and all of the case law since then. Bottom line, since the very first tax evasion case, the Supreme Court has and does uphold the 16th Amendment (naysayers allege it was never properly ratified) and that Congress can now pretty much tax who or what they want.

The 16th Amendment, in its totality, is this:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Only persons earning above a certain level are required to buy insurance or pay a tax of up to 2% of their income as a penalty. Those below that income figure qualify for Medicaid, a government-run health insurance program. So, the “tax” of either buying insurance or paying a tax penalty is clearly on incomes that qualify for the insurance exchange to purchase coverage, or pay the tax if they decide to go without. It is just another form of income tax, as clearly authorized by the 16th Amendment.

So, the tax evader nutcake argument is adopted by Marky-Mark and his ilk, although it has been thoroughly discredited, and repeatedly overruled by the courts. Shurtleff and the rest of these “Attorneys” General are disingenuous at best, and downright crooked at worst. Oh, hell, they’re just plain crooked.

I defended a tax evasion case, prosecuted by Shurtleff’s own office. His very able Assistant AG, Mark Baer, skillfully utilized the argument that everyone has a duty to pay their share, and everybody on the jury pays taxes, so why should this one guy be allowed to not contribute his portion? Yeah, the jury took about an hour to find him guilty.

Quoting the Wall Street Journal (now owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News, that bulwark of bullshit), Shurtleff’s latest email states, “Democrats may have been able to trample the rules of the Senate to pass their unpopular bill on a narrow partisan vote, but they shouldn't be able to trample the Constitution as well."

Now there’s the pot calling the kettle “cast iron” if you get my drift.

Salt Lake Lawyer Ed Flint Continues Relentless, Pointless Attack of Mark Shurtleff

2010-04-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

If “Market Myself” Mark Shurtleff, Utah’s duly elected Attorney General, and former law school classmate of yours truly, thought for a moment that the Salt Lake City Weekly (aka, “City Weekly”) was targeting him for their derision, as he states in his latest email/blog/press release, he should know that they’re not the only ones. Mookie writes in his latest epistle:

“City Weekly founder and senior editor, John Saltas, and his tabloid have been on a vendetta using every opportunity to defame and slander me with the yellowest of journalism.”

The Mookster was pissy over the cover of a recent edition, depicting the AG as a Nazi in a remake of an old poster, the kind they used to paste on building walls and telephone poles, where Shurtleff looks like a cross between Christopher Plummer and Martin Borman. I liked this pic so much, I made it my screensaver.

But unlike Mookie, I have decided to overlook the Anti-Mormon Weekly’s biases, because they mention me, by name, in the latest edition.

The article is about the abuses and lack of civility of Justice Court Judges in Utah, or, as my friend Charlie Schultz calls them in this story, “revenue courts.” Charlie is also a former classmate of mine at the University of Utah law school, and we both remember Mark Shurtleff as that tall, skinny guy with glasses that we would routinely launch spitwads at during a boring class (meaning: “all classes”), and as I have previously reported, Shurtleff is still tall.

I landed on Mookie’s mailing list when I first started BLawG attacking the AG for his website/blog/press releases of an arrest of a young man on internet enticement charges, complete with a camera crew to record the “perp walk” to the police car and the trip to jail. We got that case the next day, and along with the ACLU and a bevy of others, castigated the highest elected law enforcement official in the State for trying his case in the media. Primarily, it was not that Mookie sought to deprive our client of his civil rights, but to self-aggrandize, to be in the limelight, without regard of the individual consequences.

This is Mark Shurtleff’s way of doing things: grab for publicity and push your personal, political agenda in the press, and always portray yourself as the “good guy.” If Shurtleff is our savior (small “s” intentional) then the folks down at City Weekly get my vote for messiah (also lower case, as it should be).

AMEN!

Mark Shurtleff, Lohra Miller and the Utah Republitards See the Shadow of Reality; Scurry quickly back into their hibernation holes in the ground.

2010-03-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Heeeeeee’s Baaaaaaack! Resurrected from the land without television, “Market Myself” Mark Shurtleff is pushing his agenda down Utahans’ throats again. This time, in treasonous collaboration with the pinko-commie Attorneys General of several other States, he’s suing the Federal Government to stop the enactment of compulsory health care. Now, I’m sitting here in my nicest Hawaiian shirt, celebrating President Obama’s signing of the watered-down health care bill into law, when I hear of the latest scheme to defraud the taxpayers of Utah from the perpetrator himself: the Attorney General of Utah. Because Marky-Mook emailed me.

It’s bad enough that the ultra-timid, spineless schmuck Jim Matheson is too big a coward to actually stand up for something, anything, without analyzing how it will affect his re-election chances. And Bob “Deep Throat” Bennett also emailed me this morning, asking his fellow Republicans to join him in continuing to fight against every American’s right to access to health care; problem is, I’m not a Retardican, nor have I ever been one.

As a life-long, dyed in the wool, pro-union, pro-labor Democrat, I equate my politics more with Senator Harry Reid (D- Nev.) the Senate Majority Leader. The closest thing in my life to a Republican is the occasional white shirt in my closet. Republicans seem to have a lot more in their respective closets. Just today, the Trib reported that Kevin Garn, that bulwark of Conservative Republicans who just recently resigned as the Utah House Majority Leader after a secret naked hot-tub session with a 15-year-old girl from a quarter-century ago, resurfaced, despite his paying the now adult woman $150,000 in hush money, that Bishop Garn also got popped for a DUI in Salt Lake City in 2006.

A fitting bookend to the former state Senate leader, Sheldon Killpack, getting busted for DUI just before this year’s legislative session. Maybe I am just looking at Republican politicians in Utah through shit-colored glasses, but these same legislators gave Garn a standing ovation when he resigned from the House over the hot-tub scandal, and when added to the behavior of Shurtleff and Salt Lake County District Attorney Lohra Miller, I fail to find any social, redeeming value in the Republican Party. (That is, I am applying the “Miller Standard” for determining obscenity to Miller, the DA, and inevitably concluding that neither she, nor Mookie Shurtleff, have any right to be seen in public).

But, there is a breath of fresh air out there. A gleaming tower of probity; a wholesome alternative to the usual cadre of politicians; a superior candidate for District Attorney:

Jonathon W. Grimes.

Think of the new direction, the total change and the massive news coverage of Salt Lake County voters electing a Libertarian candidate to the major office of District Attorney.

Maybe if we get the “Colbert Bump” . . . . .

Jonathon W. Grimes Announces his Candidacy for District Attorney

2010-03-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

Jonathon W. Grimes announces his candidacy for District Attorney today.

On Friday, March 19, 2010, local criminal defense attorney Jonathon W. Grimes, a partner in the Access Legal law firm, filed his application as a candidate for Salt Lake County District Attorney in this year’s election. Jon is running as a Libertarian, and anticipates the support of the Utah Libertarian Party, and it’s quadrennial candidate for Attorney General, Andrew W. McCullough.

These in-between elections feature the county-wide election of many offices, and this year, a State-wide special election for Governor, since Jon Hunstman, Jr. left that office to be President Obama’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, those commie-style neocapitalists that own all of America’s debt.

The County definitely gouges candidates for the filing fee. Jon put a $767.00 application fee on the company card today. That’s about $2.50 per vote, based on showings of Libertarian Party candidates in the past, but it is a small investment for the opportunity of debating Lohra Miller. The fact of the matter is, I am happy to pay Jon’s filing fee, but I’m supporting Greg Skordas.

Jon was previously registered as a Republican in Utah; they must not have known he was a registered Socialist voter in Oregon, while earning his Master’s degree in Eugene. I’m sure it for a good reason, like voting for the least electable Republican in the primary election, or maybe, he was just “Head-tripping” them, to use the phrase of my favorite dead friend. Jon once described a “Libertarian” as a Republican who likes pornography and smoking pot, both things that are an anathema to Jon, but are things he vigorous defends as personal liberties of all American adults. Too much government is as bad or worse than the anarchy of too little.

Look for a website soon, and links from this blog and our law firm website. Then, look for stories about Jon in the news, and watch, listen or attend any debates or speaking engagements.

Criminal Defense Lawyer Battle Heats Up, Bones Broken but Spirits Remain Intact

2010-03-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

On Law and Basketball.

Last week, on the first day of March, the two-year anniversary of Access Legal moving downtown to our current 9-room operation that takes up the entire front of the first floor of the Executive Building (which was a fine, sleek and modern building, back in the late 50's or so, when it was built), my partner, Jon Grimes, went to play basketball. Mondays and Wednesdays, a number of men and occasionally, a few women, mostly criminal defense attorneys, get together to play a little 3 on 3, or even full teams, full-court. A mix of young and old, talented and just there for the exercise and camaraderie, with a solid showing from the Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association, which is the taxpayer-funded law firm that has the exclusive contract for indigent defendants in the District Court and a few Justice Courts, in Salt Lake County. It was the first time Dave Mack, a quarter-century veteran lawyer, came out to play.

And he broke Jon’s hand. I wasn’t there; I had to give up playing basketball for good after my neck fusion surgery, because I can’t look upward anymore, without pain and causing a headache, and if I get hit just right, my neck will snap and I will be a quadriplegic. But from all accounts, including Jon’s, it was a clean play. Dave just tried to swipe the ball from Jon’s hand, pushing the ball against Jon’s pinky finger, bending it all the way back to touch the back of his hand, and in the process, snapping Jon’s fifth metacarpal bone. Jon sees the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow, and if the bone is not healing correctly, and few spiral fractures do, then Jon will need surgery and the installation of a plate and screws, just like the ones in my neck.

Now, we have joked that this whole, ongoing dispute between LDA and private counsel has gone too far, that LDA would send an assassin, a heavy, to physically assault Jon. But, that is not what happened, though the thought may have crossed Patrick Anderson’s mind more than once. Dave Mack, for one, feels horrible and asked me in court today for Jon’s cell number so he could call and apologize. However, apologies are not necessary. I once belted Jon in the teeth, fighting for a rebound, and I apologized, only to hear him retort, “It’s OK, I have a whole other row.” Clearly, love and basketball means you never have to say you're sorry.

I began playing basketball with the old “Fat Lawyers League” 25 years ago, with Jon’s brother Ken, who is not now, nor has he ever been fat, and some other friends from law school, including Steve Cook, who was a bit fluffy around the middle (we called Steve “the Dancing Hippo” for his not so graceful underhand scoop shot) and Chris Kerecman, who was tall, thin, athletic and a gay Republican Catholic from Utah Valley. Later, Mike Chidester joined us (he went to undergrad with these other guys in Cedar City at the old SUSC, now SUU, and had gone to Michigan Law when it was the number one school in the country) and a few other friends.

Basketball is a simple game, without the absolute need for special, expensive gear, like many other sports, and a pick-up game can be found on every playground during summer months. I have played with total strangers in Alaska, and close friends in Utah, and I even coached a church league team back in the ‘80s. Fights and injuries are well-known to church ball, regardless of the sect, and I am certain fights break out at the CYO as often as the MIA (do they still call it that?). I was accosted, while coaching, by then sitting District Court Judge Homer Wilkinson, who shook his fist in my face and threatened to punch me in the nose . Now, that’s the kind of fellowshipping that you just don’t get from a night of parchisi or baking cookies.

One day, back around 1987 or ‘88, Ken brought his "little" brother Jon to play. Little Jon, at age 13, was already as tall or taller than most of us, and unlike most of us, had some talent. He went on to play on his High School team, and is proud to have gotten in a fight with Shawn Bradley, who stands over a foot taller than him. Ha! That’s how I always felt trying to guard Jon!

So, this new group likes to calls themselves “The Sharks.” Kent Hart, the Executive Director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, has no defense, but can swish a 25-footer; others in their group are of varying degrees of talent. I wonder if they would consider inviting Judge Andrew Valdez of the Third District Juvenile Court? The old Fat Lawyers played the Valdez brothers (Andy and James) in a 3 on 3 league 20 years ago. The absolute dirtiest West High elbows and tripping player I’ve ever played against. I watched hizzoner (before he was a judge) throw Steve Cook to the asphalt pavement, and stand over him, taunting, “how do you like that, big shot lawyer?” Oh, those were fun times.

So, I really miss playing basketball. That was one court where I always had a great time, despite my fun past-time resulting in ankle surgery and contributing to my back problems. And the broken noses, bone chips, ruined knees, shoulders, and now a hand, were our trophies of, I want to say “manhood” but it’s more like reminders of our stupidity.

Utah's Actual Best Attorneys Actually Work Hard

2010-02-25T13:16:00.000-08:00

I find myself working twice as hard today, for half as much money as I made 20 years ago. But I love what I do, and I didn't become an attorney to get rich, but to serve others. OK, that's a small part of it; the main reason I went with Law instead of, let's say, Astrophysics, is because I like the sound of my own voice, and I frequently impress myself. As an astronomer, I would be giving tours of a planetarium; as an criminal defense trial lawyer, I have the opportunity to convince a jury to be strong, bold and conscientious, and find my client "Not Guilty." But it is never easy.

Whatever happened to my old classmates? The Utah State Bar Membership directory lists many of my classmates who both graduated from the U law school in 1985, and became members of the Utah bar, at least for a time.

Peter Barth works as an attorney for Smith’s Food and Drug (a nice gig, but boring as hell), Suzanne Benson, John Donahue, Charles Sampson, and Larry Hurless have passed on (they say Larry’s ashes were strewn in the rubble of the old Joker Lounge). John Braithwaite works for an insurance defense firm, Glen Cella left his public defender spot in Davis County some years ago and enlisted as a JAG somewhere, and Stephen C. Clark is now with an old money firm, after spending years leading the local ACLU. My old basketball pal Stephen R. Cook still works mostly out of his basement, and some guy name of Gregory J. Curtis was in my graduating class, but I don’t know if he’s the politician who was in the news the last few years.

Cory Duckworth is a vice-president at UVU, Mark Egan works for Chevron in Houston (a job my partner, Jon Grimes, turned down because he could never actually work for the “bad guys”), and James Esparza still has his sole practice, though I don’t see any of his TV ads anymore (he looked too much like Pancho Villa). Many others are with large firms or large corporations. Mark Gavre was an Assistant Professor at the U before going to law school, with a Ph.D. from UCLA, and I even took a class from him as an undergrad. Dr. Vickie Gregory also holds a Ph.D in clinical psychology, earned before law school, and currently provides expert witness services on many complex cases, particularly sex abuse charges.

I've previously mentioned Greg Hawkins, who ran for both US Senate and in the 2000 Utah Governor's race, and Ed Munson, from Brigham City, whom I first met in June, 1977 at Boys State while I was in High School. I have no idea where some of my classmates are today, who did not stay in Utah or take the Utah Bar exam, like Mr. McGee, the class clown, or Tim Nuckles, my Trial Advocacy partner (we tried a mock case before Judge Tyrone Medley during 3rd year) who put on his resume that he was head of the Estonian-American Student Association, of which, he was the only member. Kelli Sager became a big-time entertainment lawyer in LA, I even saw her on national TV some years ago. And where did Bill Lackerman end up? An Air Force General?

A few of my class actually needed some additional credits to graduate, and are listed as being in the class of 1986, but we all started school together: Filia "Phil" Uipi is still a real estate broker in addition to being the lawyer some of you may have seen in the video they show to a room full of defendants at Arraingment, and was elected to the State Legislature twice, from the Olympus Cove House District, as a Republican. Cy Castle has harrassed people in prior jobs with the DA, with the Bankruptcy Trustee, and now with the US Attorney's office.

More from '85: Janice Frost is now a District Juvenile Court Judge in the 2nd District, Ron Wolthuis is the Justice Court Judge in Midvale, Richard Halliday was the South Salt Lake Judge when he passed away a few years back. Several of my comrades have passed on, others have just faded away, and are no longer active on the Utah rolls, because their jobs don't require an active Utah license. A few have been disbarred. Others have created boutique law firms, just doing consumer bankruptcy, or only undertaking arbitrations and mediations, like Karin Stone Hobbs, who oddly enough, I had worked with several years before law school, as a telephone solicitor.

Brian S. King is currently serving in the Utah House of Representatives as one of the effective and trustworthy Democrats, while Chris Kerecman continues working for major credit unions, currently in California, after working for the first President Bush in Washington, DC. Some of my classmates went on to work in their family non-law-related businesses, including construction, shipping and advertising. The top graduates of the class of ’85 all appear to be well-settled in jobs with firms, but other than the occasional TV appearance by “Name Withheld to avoid a lawsuit” (once described by a fellow classmate as “a void surrounded by a sphincter”) on some school district issue, the other Order of the Coif grads are rather nondescript. One thing I am certian about: they all make more money than me.

Among the other 129 graduates (of 151 who started) in my class, Jeannine Pappas White still works part-time for the Utah State Bar, sorting out consumer differences, Dave Wilde still publishes his local verdicts and settlements for personal injury cases, and some tall, skinny guy with glasses became the Attorney General of Utah. And Mark Shurtleff is still tall. "Market Myself" Mark Shurtleff has been the topic of many of my epistles, and he will be again soon.

Now, this is just a sampling of my classmates who passed the Utah bar exam at one time or another, and it does not include those members of the U Law 1985 group that got the hell out of Utah and stayed out, or those who never sat for the Utah exam. I don’t know why you would spend three years after regular college, a ton of money, and the general bleeding of one’s soul to graduate from law school and then not practice law. I saw other 1985 graduates of other programs (BYU at one end, Harvard and Columbia at the other) who hold positions on the Utah Supreme Court, the Judicial Conduct Commission, are elected officials, judges, and so forth, but their schools did not get my tuition money, so I really don’t care about any of them.

Next up: the latest crap from our Legislature that will make life more complicated, and will keep me employed fighting against it for some time to come.

Lawyer Liars Like Legally Lifting Loot Locally

2010-01-04T13:10:00.000-08:00

ARE LAWYERS SYNONYMOUS WITH LIARS? Yup. But not all of them, just some:

One guy, who advertises as heavily as he is heavy, claimed in one web blurb that he has conducted over 2000 DUI trials in his eight (8) years as an attorney. Simple math: a year is 365 days; subtract 104 Saturdays and Sundays, and at least 10 Monday or other holidays when Courts are closed, that’s a maximum of 251 days per year that the Courts are even open. Then take the 2000 alleged DUI cases that went to “trial” and divide by 8 years of law practice. That’s 250 per year, or, a trial EVERY DAY but one day a year, for eight years.

I gotta call BULLSHIT on this one.

And how many are jury trials? He conveniently does not disclose that figure, but I know from going to the same courts as this guy, that he is usually pleading someone guilty or is there for sentencing, not trial and not any kind of suppression of evidence or other dispositive motion.

In calendar year 2009, I tried four (4) jury trials, two of which were DUI cases. One was an appeal from Justice Court, the other was a Felony, and the other two cases were felonies not related to drugs or alcohol. I had well over a dozen cases dismissed by prosecutors prior to trial, and a handful of evidence suppression hearings that we won, resulting in dismissal of the case. I don’t waste my time with “Bench Trials” in most cases, since that is usually a capitulation of guilt, and most judges find most defendants guilty most of the time, when there’s no jury to balance the power of the court.

That’s the truth in advertising in my law firm. But when it comes to advertising claims, not all lawyers are very truthful in their claims.

One attorney comes to mind. This attorney promises the prospective client that they are in good hands, and will be taken care of, and that the tens of thousands of dollars the client’s family is coming up with will be money well-spent. The client becomes exasperated trying to get questions answered and progress reports. The lawyer assures the client and reassures the client. Suddenly, the lawyer demands another huge chunk of money, and when the client balks at this, the lawyer files a motion to withdraw and bails on the client, in the middle of their case. And the money? Gone, no refunds.

What is even more distressing to me is that this lawyer has NEVER TRIED A CASE TO A JURY, and has limited experience in criminal defense work. Yet, the lawyer convinced the client to pony up a ton of money, on representations that the lawyer is experienced, intelligent, competent and aggressive. More BS.

Clients are then stuck with the specter of coming up with more money, either for the first lawyer to continue to bungle the case, or to hire a replacement attorney. If they can’t come up with more money, and are indigent, they get sent to the public defender, who is already overworked and underpaid. Or, they end up taking a piss-poor deal, because that’s the best a non-trial lawyer can do for them.

Now beginning my FOURTH DECADE as a trial lawyer (that’s right: the 80’s, the 90’s the 00’s and now the 10’s) I have always included JURY TRIAL in my fee contract, AT NO EXTRA CHARGE. The result is that I go to trial more often, I have a track record and a quality reputation as a trial lawyer, and particularly with my ability to sway a jury. Jurors and jury trials are unique and require mastering communication skills beyond what you learn in law school. Actually doing it (a jury trial) is exiting and satisfying, especially when the verdict is NOT GUILTY, which happens in about three out of every four of the cases I take to trial.

So I urge people to investigate, to ask questions and do some follow-up work, when they are hiring a lawyer. The best way to resolve your criminal charges is with a truly experienced and well-respected attorney. Ask them to name their last five cases that went to JURY trial (not Bench trial), and to explain terms like “Voir Dire” or a “Motion in Limine” before you plunk down your debit card. You can look up the cases easily enough to see if the lawyer is a liar lawyer or not. Ask where they went to law school and when they graduated, and what kind of work they have been doing for the last 5 years.

Finding the right legal representation is not rocket science or brain surgery, although if you are making a rocket or need brain surgery, you may want to consult with the appropriate expert. In criminal defense matters in Utah, the right legal representation is the one that can answer your questions correctly, not the one who charges the most, or the one who makes inflated claims without proof.

The right representation for you is here.

Salt Lake Criminal Defense Attorneys at Access Legal get Cases Dismissed

2009-12-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

It’s freezing outside. But we're HOT! Several of our clients are spending Christmas a little happier than before.

That’s because we got their cases dismissed.

Less than a week ago, I was set for a Preliminary Hearing in Farmington for a client accused of a serious crime that would have kept him in prison for many years, if not for the rest of his life. Having had a conversation with Rick Westmoreland, the Deputy Davis County Attorney that called me a few days earlier, I was certain the hearing was on, as I told him that we were not going to fold.

About an hour before the hearing, the prosecutor’s office called my office and said that they were filing a Motion to Dismiss. I went to the scheduled hearing broke the news to our client, and then stood with him as the Judge announced the case is dismissed.

Today, as I write this blog, I am supposed to be in Logan. However, I have a bad back, and all that sitting, driving up there and back, can be pretty painful (not to mention time consuming). The prosecutor Emailed me yesterday with a Motion to Dismiss and Order for the Court to sign. We finalized the deal by email, and I decided that I did not need to drive back and forth to Logan just to hear the Judge announce, “Case Dismissed.”

We get a large of number of cases dismissed every month, so as happy as I am for my clients, it’s just not that big a deal around the office anymore. We will probably add these victories to our web pages, it makes good copy.

I still have a few more hearings before Christmas, so I plan on getting a client released from jail with a sentence of time served (he was looking at 11 to life) tomorrow, and on Monday, I plan on having an Order to Show Cause dismissed in Summit County, for a client that did not violate his probation, and I would not cave in, so he gets a better (more correct and fair) deal.

And we have a case that involves the same deputy stopping four of our clients, all with out of state plates, immediately sicking his drug sniffing dog on the car, and then detaining, searching and arresting our clients (when he found between a very small amount, and an amount that would exceed food storage recommendations, of marijuana). Gerry D’elia, a veteran criminal defense attorney in Park City, has seven clients all busted by the UHP in a similar manner. It seems that they all had out of state license plates, too!

In fact, in Gerry’s case, the UHP ran a three day sweep in November of last year, where they stopped 147 passenger cars, according to their own dispatch records. Oddly enough, 146 of those 147 cars stopped had out of state license plates. Who’d a’ thunkit?

It seems that law enforcement, in Summit County for sure, and the rest of Utah, based on all of my recent marijuana arrest cases that started with a traffic stop, have decided that if you stop every car with an out of state license plate, you are bound to turn up somebody possessing something, or with a warrant, or some other reason that the cops testi-lie about, justifying the stop and search. Yup, the key to smuggling dope across Utah is to switch it over to a Utah license plated vehicle and driver while going through Utah.

So, this Christmas season, have love in your hearts, money in your pockets, and a really good lawyer when you need one. Here’s some other law blogs to read; see if they are as interesting.

http://ryanfirm.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://secondcircuitcivilrights.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog\

http://bar-maid.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://www.ipswhatsup.com/?expref=next-blog

http://sdfla.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://wrightsel.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://dennerlaw.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://federalcivilpracticebulletin.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://timzerillo.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://thenambypamby.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

http://atexasdefender.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

See what I mean?

A Happy Fu@#ing Thanksgiving to Mark Shurtleff, drunk cops that shoot people and drive drunk, and the rest of the hypocrites.

2009-11-26T23:35:00.000-08:00

Happy F@#king Thanksgiving.

It has been a faith challenging year for me. I had thought my battle with the evil insurance company and its most uncivil minion attorney over my neck injury was the most stressful year of hell anyone could experience, until I got that phone call last February. It was my ex-wife (we divorced in 1991) telling my that our daughter was in the hospital, broken bones, car wreck, about to go into surgery, but expected to survive.

Only hours later did I learn that Stephanie had been horribly beaten and then kidnapped by her boyfriend, who drove her and their dog into the back of a parked cargo truck at 62 mph, police chasing closely behind, in an effort to kill her, himself, and the dog. They all survived, but with life-altering injuries. He will be sentenced on Monday, November 30th at 8:30 am before Judge Terry L. Christiansen at the West Jordan District Court. He faces life without parole. I will be there. You can count on it.

Phone calls like that are every parent’s nightmare, and today, Thanksgiving day, was one of those days. We had just prayed gratefully to God for our lives and home, despite our many health problems this year, finished a fine meal that my lovely wife and I worked very hard to prepare, and sat down for the traditional football fare, when the phone rang. It was for grandma, that is, my mother-in-law, who lives with us. Her granddaughter was dead.

A shock to the senses that no person can prepare for, as these phone calls only happen when there is a sudden tragedy, and a girl two weeks short of her 19th birthday dying on Thanksgiving morning is the kind of thing that will haunt her family every year on this holiday.

So, I turn on the news, and learn that the young man trapped in the Nutty-Putty caves on the West side of Utah Lake, the medical student with the young wife, daughter and another child on the way, the one that last night they said it looked like they were going to get him out alive . . . was dead. The rescue had failed, and he died 120 feet under the surface, upside-down, hopelessly stuck in a space smaller than his body.

And that family will now remember this season in a different, perhaps less thankful way.

So here’s my congratulations and commendations to a few people we’ve heard about the last few weeks who have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving:

First, we have off-duty cop Rudy Chacon getting off the hook for shooting a guy in the back, in a bar, after he, the cop, had been drinking. Not only did his police buddies investigating the shooting fail to get a blood alcohol test for nearly 6 hours from quick-draw Chacon, allowing him to burn off enough of the booze in his body so that he tested an innocuous 0.01 BAC, but our illustrious District Attorney, Lohra Miller, exonerated him and declared the shooting justified.

Hell, Lohra’s exonerated every police shooting of a civilian since she took office, and the number of police shootings has tripled since the last DA. Chacon had nothing to worry about. Cops in Salt Lake County have a free pass to shoot people, even if they are drinking, in a bar, off-duty, and shoot a guy in the back. Happy Thanksgiving, Rudy! And Lohra and Lorenzo, I trust your T-day was a rip-roaring fun day of boozing and hot-tubbing, so a Happy Fu@#ing Thanksgiving to you two, too.

Next in line to give thanks is the Ogden City cop who crashed his car while driving drunk, and got a plea deal to straight reckless driving, no reference to the alcohol that 14,000 other common folk in Utah get busted for every year (that’s right, Utah arrests over 14,000 people per year for DUI). What a deal! Small fine, no license suspension, no supervised probation with expensive testing, classes and a 10 year criminal record.

This guy should be thanking someone on his knees. Maybe being on his knees is what got him the deal, but that story belongs to a different Ogden cop. The “Trolley Square shooting hero” cop who it turns out, got a BJ from a 17 year old child he met while investigating a criminal complaint at her home. He lost his job, got two months of jail, but when my clients who are in a position of trust and authority over a minor get the same BJ, it means major felony prosecution, prison and life on the sex offender registry. So Happy F$#king Thanksgiving to Ogden’s brave police officers.

But even more cops have reason to be extra grateful this season. The Hurricane (rhymes with LaVerkin) cops who tasered a naked man who was having a manic episode, killing him in front of his family because he wouldn’t obey police commands to sit down, was also exonerated. The Washington County Attorney determined that the use of a Taser on a naked man seeking help was a proper method for police to use to, er, uh, “help” the man.

The State’s Medical Examiner issued an autopsy report, verifying that the Taser shock caused an otherwise healthy family man (except for the bipolar disorder and his manic episode) to have cardiac arrest. Even the weapon’s manufacturer, Taser International, issued a new warning to avoid shooting people in the chest area. But, you give a cop a new toy, he has to use it on somebody, and then you have to back him up and whitewash over his abuses. After all, the city’s financial resources could be depleted if somebody gets killed wrongfully. So the obvious answer is to make every kill a righteous kill. Problem F@$king solved!

Now, no Thanksgiving tribute would be complete without a reference to my old law-school classmate, the Attorney General of Utah, Mark Shurtleff. “Market-Myself-Mark” has been uncharacteristically silent, with hardly any press conferences or self-aggrandizing media groveling that he is famous for, ever since he caught flak for having breakfast with Rick Koerber, a Utah County businessman, who was under investigation at the time by Shurtleff’s rival for attention, Francine Giani, the head of the State’s Commerce Department.

Now without going into much detail here, I really do consider Rick a friend, and unlike Rep. Carl Wimmer, won’t downplay that fact because the guy is accused of wrongdoing. But as much as I enjoy poking fun at Mark Shurtleff, I don’t think he did anything wrong, here, and I was surprised that a man who loves to see himself on TV as much as Mark does, would crawl into a shell and hide for months, and ultimately drop out of his effort to unseat fossilized US Senator Deepthroat Bob Bennett.

Shurtleff should have been in front of the cameras selling his side of the story, that Giani is an even bigger megalomaniac than he is, and her Securities investigators were corrupt. The silver lining for Shurtleff is that Bennett’s efforts to unseal records, letters and details about Shurtleff’s interactions with Koerber, with the US Attorney (who is now prosecuting Koerber) and Shurtleff’s shady, but legal, campaign donations from many a business that he has had a hand in helping out of legal jams, all this stuff, is now off the table and back in the closet where it belongs. Happy happy to you, too, Mark!

And speaking of US Attorney for Utah Ralph Tolman, a young lawyer with practically no experience as a lawyer when GW Bush anointed him as Utah’s top Federal prosecutor, Tolman has announced his resignation, effective at year’s end.

The writing is on the wall; Obama apparently has bigger balls than Bill Clinton when it comes to actually appointing a Democrat to this political job. It helps to have 60 Senators, unlike Clinton, who had to kiss Orrin Hatch’s ass every time he wanted any judicial or Justice Department appointment approved. That’s how Utah got such fine Federal judges and prosecutors for all these years: Hatch tested and approved. So happy FT day to you, Ralphy boy; I’m sure you can land a job with Rush Limbaugh or Fox News.

And my last group of grateful winners are the Utah State Legislators who have proposed several huge changes to the expungement laws, making it nearly impossible to clean up your record, even after years of clean living. Simultaneously, these same R’s on the Hill are vehemently opposed to a voter initiative that would require them to be ethical and accountable. This measure, they say, would infringe on their constitutional rights!

Happy F-ing Thanksgiving to the hypocrites, liars, cowards and corrupt SOB’s that control our State. You’ve given yourselves much to be grateful for. And don't answer that phone; it could be reality calling.

Access Legal, Mark Shurtleff, the New York Yankees, and a Rabbi all walk into a bar together, and don't get mentioned in this blog at all.

2009-11-03T20:09:00.000-08:00

If ever there were a worse time for apathy about government, it is Election Day today, in most Utah municipalities, and in two governors’ races that apparently, spell doom for the Obama administration, and its Liberal agenda. Sad.

Why are we not more interested in the ever expanding abandonment of our most basic civil rights by government actions, Court approval, and citizen indifference? Take this past week, just in tiny Utah, a State with only one percent ( 1%) of this great nation’s population, found a way to make national headlines for several huge abuses by Big Brother.

A pizza delivery driver is pulled over by a cop for speeding, or some other, silly, non-threatening, traffic violation. The guy is frustrated, he’s probably going to be fired from his job for this, blurts out, “Hey, what if I gave you a couple of pizzas.” Of course, I know that cops don’t have senses of humor unless they are cracking open a skull or tasering some old lady, but this cop decided it would be hilarious to arrest the idiot for bribery, a serious felony. Who spit on his last Pizza Hut home delivery?

Right on the heels of this fascinating moment in the spotlight again, Utahans just can’t get enough of seeing themselves on the major networks, and four boys from Utah County pulled into a McDonald’s restaurant drive-through in American Fork, and rapped their way right into criminal prosecution. The boys, being high school age boys, learned the hamburger giant’s television commercial “rap” song and “rapped” it into the microphone, when the grease-covered kid on the other end asked for their order.

Now, it also seems that the boys were video recording the whole event, as they had pre-planned the silly stunt to create a You-Tube video. What they got instead, was a pissed-off night shift manager who told them to leave, so they did. But Goober and Barney back at Mickey-D’s had a better idea, and jotted down the boys license plate, and called big Goober and big Barney, from the American Fork police department.

With crack police work (they were smoking crack?) the cops deduced the boys could be found at a local high school, participating in a school-endorsed function, instead of being on the streets, breaking out widows of cars at dealerships along the old Highway 89 through downtown American Fork. No sir, these punks were in school, where the cops cited each with Misdemeanor “Disorderly Conduct.” And then went on TV to justify it!

But it’s wasn’t over for the week of police misconduct. The good folk at the Walmart photo shop in West Jordan decided that a customer’s photographs of her five-year-old daughter, in a Little Mermaid costume that looked like a full dress from Little House on the Prairie, was actually child pornography. You know, because the little girl in a costume at Halloween time, is clearly suspicious.

And the West Jordan Police Department agreed, and stated in a sworn affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that the photos they observed were “Probable Cause” to believe these parents are pervert pedophile predator parents. Say that fast five times.

What is worse, a Judge signed the damned search warrant, and the AFPD took these folks’ computer, rummaged through their house, and verbally accusing these parents of the sexual exploitation of their own daughter. For pictures of the child in an extremely modest costume at Halloween. Did he read the affidavit or look at the pictures?

Ahh, who cares, anyway? If it’s not happening to me, it’s not my concern.

Then the cop in Stockton, out in distant Tooele County, that most unique suburb, this cop has the balls to give a traffic citation to the Mayor’s 20 something adult son. Within minutes, the Mayor is seen with the Police Chief, demanding the officer be fired. The Chief agrees to suspend the other half of law enforcement in Mayberry, without pay. Hell, cops get administrative leave WITH PAY when they shoot people in the back in Salt Lake County, and then Lohra Miller always rules their use of deadly force was justified. Just ask a cop.

But tiny Stockton is but another suburb within a fiefdom, surrounded by chaos. And the citizens of Stockton wanted to vote the Mayor out of office today, but many of these fine townfolk had already mailed in their ballots. And they were not allowed to take back their already cast votes FOR the Mayor’s re-election. A horrifying situation, but rectified with a count of the votes, and the challenger won 75% of the total vote tally.

Well, at least the folks in Stockton had something to vote for, or against. Does this mean Obama’s vision is already lost? Damn.

Edward Flint Discusses Trial By Jury

2009-10-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

Trial by Jury. An impartial and fair jury of one’s peers, reaching a unanimous decision one way or the other, guilty or not guilty, is a hallmark of American jurisprudence and a right guaranteed by the Constitution. A jury gives the accused a chance, an option, a fundamental opportunity to be judged by the people and not the powers that control government. It is the great equalizer.

In the past week, a very well-publicized trial resulted in an acquittal of a man accused of kidnapping, but who many believed was wrongfully singled out for both prosecution by the State, and for persecution by the family of the two children found in his house --- because he is gay. The organization that I belong to, the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, had a dozen or so of its members contribute their time and talents, many without any fees charged, to assist in the defense of a man we believed was truly innocent and was being railroaded by a megalomaniacal prosecutor’s office, hell-bent on prosecuting someone without examination of all the evidence. Hell, the DA and police didn’t even try to gather evidence in this case.

And the reason that this story attracted so much attention was that the family of the children literally beat him (and his gay partner) nearly to death, and have never been made to answer for their vigilantism, their hate-crime, their own culpability of a long pattern of neglect of the very children this man was accused of kidnapping. The large team of many lawyers, investigators and police procedures experts found 14 witnesses never interviewed by the police; found several neighbors, including the former occupant of the accused’s house, who reported that this large family had frequent late-night-until-dawn parties where these same two little children were found roaming the street, barefoot and unsupervised. The children had a long and documented history of frequenting that neighbor’s home, seeking food, shelter, a band-aid for their boo-boos, and all of this evidence pointed at the quite innocent and harmless presence of these two babies at the man’s house at 6 o’clock in the morning, when the large party finally broke up.

A correct and just ending to this saga delivered unanimously by this jury is that the man is not guilty of kidnapping, but only of choosing a bad place to live. Not all kidnapping cases are alike, and also headlining the news this past week is the ongoing saga of Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped from her own bed over 7 years ago, and the case has yet to go any closer to trial, as the competency of her alleged kidnappers remains at issue. This week, Elizabeth testified in a Federal Courtroom as to her 9-month ordeal of repeated sexual abuse and unlawful detention by a religious wacko who had taken her as his plural bride.

“Sister” Smart is heading to France to serve a mission for the LDS Church, and it became necessary to take her testimony now, due to her impending unavailability for the next year and a half. Elizabeth Smart, an accomplished harpist, has played the harp at the White House, and at my daughter’s wedding tea, at the Grand America some four years ago. An elegant affair, insisted upon by my wife, amounted to serving three dozen women and girls with little cookies, pastries and punch, for about $40.00 a head. Expensive, but you should see what I paid for the silk couture gown.

The marriage did not last long, and nearly four years and three new boyfriends later, my absolutely stunningly beautiful daughter had gravitated to an abusive relationship. In February, 2009, the boyfriend brutally beat her, punching her in the face so hard as to break her occipital (eye socket) bone and her nose. Then, he prepared to duct tape her to a chair and torture her with electrical wires, as she begged for mercy. Instead, he decided to force her into her own car, the one she had just bought from grandma and had barely gotten it registered and insured, and take her “for a fast ride.” He even shuffled his dog into the car, apologizing to the dog for what he was about to do.

It did not take long for the car to attract the attention of the police, who started to follow him, and eventually, he hit the gas pedal to the floor and rocketed down a quiet residential street, while she tried to bail out the passenger door. He grabbed her and held onto her, and she was dragged, part in and part out of the car, until he collided with a parked cargo van at a minimum impact speed of 58 miles per hour. This entire episode was caught on the police dashboard camera, and I saw the video, for the first time, during the closing arguments at trial, yesterday afternoon.

I saw my broken, bleeding little girl, completely conscious, moaning in agonizing pain, with her left arm so badly broken, it “felt like jello” according to the officer, and her left leg pointing in the opposite direction that God intended. She cried out, “God, please don’t let me die,” over and over, so clearly heard as the video played. My only daughter, the mother of my only grandchildren, had escaped death, but now she walks with a cane most of the time, suffers the arthritis of an 80 year old, and has permanent titanium rods in her leg and arm, plates and screws in her forearm and ankle, and a plate in her face, to reconstruct her cheekbone.

These were the facts, and this was the testimony and evidence in this trial for aggravated kidnapping, causing serious bodily injury. This is the proof, and the jury unanimously found Andrew Lebeau Guilty of this crime. The maximum punishment is life in prison, without the possibility of parole (LWOP as we defense attorneys call it), although the judge has the discretion to give a lesser sentence. I will be at his sentencing on November 16th and I will ask the judge to impose this maximum sentence.

The great oddity for me was being called as a witness for the prosecution, and seeing the view of the courtroom from the witness stand, so very different from where I have stood, and will continue to stand (or sit, as my back may require) so many times. I was, as is the case with witnesses, excluded from attending the trial proceedings, other than my time on the witness stand, and once the testimony was concluded, I was permitted to stay for the closing arguments.

The day my daughter was born, 25 years ago, I was standing at the window of the nursery, along with other proud parents and grandparents, while the nurse had to take a small blood sample from her heel. She burst out bawling, and the folks next to me said, “don’t you just want to hold her and comfort her when she cries in pain like that?” And I replied, apparently prophetically, “no, I will be doing that for the rest of her life.” But that cold February night, I was not there for her; I thank God that He was there for her.

And so, the point is, that my faith in the Constitution, in the rights of the accused, in the jury system of criminal trials, is not shaken in the least. Our Nation is blessed with the rule of law, though frequently corrupted by man, and always defended by those of us who know that our rights are precious, though our people imperfect. One man receives a fair trial and is justly found not guilty, and another man receives a fair trial, and is found guilty. Justly, properly, and by the unanimous agreement of a Jury of his Peers.

Salt Lake DUI and Criminal Defense Lawyers of Utah Access Legal Get Noticed, Published and Promoted

2009-09-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

NEWS FLASH!

Access Legal gets published.

Actually, Jonathon Grimes gets the byline, and steals much of the credit, in the latest edition of the web-pubication, "The Defender" which is the quarterly magazine of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, (UACDL) where Jon pens a fantastic article about the current brouhaha over public versus private representation of indigent defendants. You will need the free version of Adobe Acrobat to read the pdf formatted article.

Jon dives deep into the abyss of how private attorneys, like us, can no longer seek taxpayer assistance for the costs of expert witnesses, investigators and subpoena fees for our indigent clients in Salt Lake County, because of a recent attempt by the Legislature to make it nearly impossible, by making the Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association the exclusive representatives of criminal defendants who can't afford a lawyer.

Now Jon wrote the article, but he fudges a bit in making the story of how we successfully defended another client last year, whose family paid his legal fees, but he was indigent. Jon describes in "first person" that he filed a motion to get the government to pay for the cost of the investigator, and it was granted. It was really ME that drafted, filed and argued that motion in court, but a little creative lie-sense, er, license, is just fine by me.

Not to be outdone, Access Legal has another article being published by our website managers, FindLaw, all about the recent developments in evidence law from the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Melendez-Diaz, where the Court ruled that prosecutors must bring the actual lab tech to court to testify about the results of laboratory testing, and not just use an affidavit to get the evidence in front of the jury. This could have far-reaching consequences to every criminal prosecution, especially to DUI cases, where Utah law currently allows affidavits as proof of many elements of the offense.

But the most written about and talked about issue in criminal defense in Utah today is, that Her Majesty, Lohra Miller, the Salt Lake District Attorney, announced last week that her office will start charging defendants (except the indigent defendants with the LDA) for copies of the police reports, witness statements, and other information in the prosecution's files, known as "Discovery." Of course, this has met with immediate criticism, from the Salt Lake Tribune, the ACLU, and the aforementioned UACDL.

Charging for discovery is nothing new; other states have similar policies,
and have run into many of the same problems. The Utah case law on fees for discovery is minimal, and the whole thing smells like an opportunity for prosecutors to cheat justice, and make it easier to win cases.

It's not the first time prosecutors have withheld exculpatory evidence in order to bamboozle a jury. The most famous, or infamous, local case was the prosecution of a local doctor for murder, because he gave dying patients a little morpheine to ease their pain. As it turns out, the state's prosecutors at the Utah Attorney General's Office (yeah, old Market-Myself-Mark Shurtleff again) had sought out a doctor to testify against the defendant, but that doctor instead said that he believed that Dr. Weitzel did not commit any crime at all.

OK, enough doom and gloom; let me brag about my boys, who also are getting published: Ben, the starving artist, continues to sell a few paintings in Minneapolis, and get a little recognition now and then. He's 29 now, which makes me feel really freakin' old. The "little" one, David (5'11' and 250 pounds), just turned 15 and likes to make movies. His latest project is certainly a PG-13 spoof, replacing the subtitles of a recent Hitler movie with his own creative lines. Where does he get THAT from?

Salt Lake Criminal and DUI Lawyer Duo Interpret, Translate, and say it Like it Is.

2009-09-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

Although we try to be real, most things are never quite as they seem. Computer generated images (CGI) fill movie theaters and give magazine covers the perfect photo of the less than perfect celebrity. Government spokespersons’ statements put spin on the original statement of the elder statesman who may have misstated himself. What people say often means something completely different. Sometimes, similar names or phrases have completely different meanings; example: www.whitehouse.gov will take you to the leader of the free world, while the very similar, www.whitehouse.com is a web porno site.

Some statements, however, you can count on. When the LEO (law enforcement officer) advises you that anything you say can and WILL be used against you, believe it. My advice is always, “Never talk to the police; never cooperate with the authorities.” You have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Oh, and the movies and TV series that show a suspect talking to the cops (and the CSI guy, of course) while his lawyer sits next to him, and tersely says, “Don’t say anything, you don’t have to answer that” and the suspect always spills his guts and admits everything --- well, that’s just total bullshit.

At least it is in our office. Why? Because we don’t want our clients answering questions or being interrogated and intimidated by the cops under any circumstances, and certainly NOT with one of us sitting there next to him. It happens, on rare occasions, such as in-depth FBI or SEC investigations, but our general policy is that another name for “Snitch” is “Dead.” And a dead client can’t pay for services or refer future business, so, it’s nothing personal. Just business, as the “Wise Guys” say when they take you for a ride, right, Joey Two-twos?

But some statements from the powers that be, clearly have alternate or hidden meanings, and require “translation.” For example, when Lohra Miller, the Salt Lake County District Attorney, announces that the latest police shooting of an unarmed civilian, 17 times, in the back, is a “justified” shooting, what she’s really saying is, “I’m tough on crime, not on cops.”

And when the State Senate slams a fine judge and refuses to confirm his appointment to the Court of Appeals because he’s “made some bad rulings,” what they are really saying is, “the NRA told us to vote against this guy, we don’t know why, we don’t care why, we just don’t want the NRA to quit giving us huge campaign contributions.”

When Karl Rove, that former Hinckley Institute Scholar (like I was in 1980), and well-known purveyor of all things false, evil and corrupt, says, “we must fight against the Obama health plan,” what he’s really saying is, “I am becoming insignificant, and the GOP is continuing to lose ground and has no answers to any social needs, and we can scapegoat Obama because he’s black and has Jewish advisors, and even though we are the real Nazis, we will call Obama a Nazi to drum up the fervor and hatred of the masses of racist retards that gave George W. Bush power in the past, and, and, and, on and on and on . . . . “

Death panels? Yup, look out for the Zyklon-B in the showers, Shlomo. Oy!

So, when I say, “Az men chazert tsu fil iber vi grecht men iz, vert men umberecht” I really mean, “If you repeat often enough that you’re right, you will discover you are wrong.”

Which is just translated, and it means what it means.

Utah's Best Criminal Defense Minds Don't Mind Whose Minding the Store, and Bid Farewell to Teddy Kennedy

2009-08-25T22:28:00.000-07:00

Great things are given anonymously, from charitable gifts to the fellowship of the spirit among recovering alcoholics. But anonymity is also a veil to hide behind, and cast stones at others, like the anonymous comments on newspaper stories (of which I am guilty) and the nameless comments submitted on this blog.

Just in the past 24 hours, I received some anonymous comments on this blog, specifically, an entry that briefly mentions Sandy City Assistant Prosecutor Doug Johnson in relatively positive terms. I noted that I considered Doug a surprise, like a “ringer” on the office softball or basketball team; a guy you would expect to be just another office guy, but in fact, is an experienced journeyman at his craft.

You see, I had just had my ass handed to me in a DUI jury trial, by Doug, who pulled it all together in his Rebuttal argument, and shot me down. It had looked very good for my client up to that last 15 minutes of plaintiff’s rebuttal, but I learned from further discussion with Doug that he had previously been a Felony prosecutor in Florida, even had a small part in some murder cases of note. I realized that Doug was no patsy; he was a seasoned litigator, despite spending his time with crappy misdemeanor prosecutions in Sandy City, where it is impossible for a prosecutor to lose a trial with Judge Sawaya, regardless of how poorly he may present his case.

This was the de novo trial at Judge Adkins in District Court, and I got a fair shot at it, and got beat, fair and square. “Anonymous” is just now reading my blog from February, and commented that “Doug is not all he appears to be,” and some stuff about never really amounting to much in Florida. Maybe it was his ex-wife. Maybe a disgruntled defendant that he convicted, or a pissed-off defense attorney that’s lost two or three in a row to him. This BLAWG blog is different from our website at wwwlutahaccesslegal.com, and here, comments are fine, and I always will allow them on this blog, unless downright defamatory, but the fact is: Doug is a skilled trial lawyer, and he beat me, in a case where I put on a pretty good dog and pony show. So eat that, Anonymous!

Now, I don’t think Doug has ever read this blog, but I know of a few prosecutors that have read it, maybe even follow it. Since July 1st of this year, some 296 new, unique visitors have viewed one or more pages of the Utah Access Legal Blog, staying an average of nearly six minutes, and reading a little more than two, separate entries. Some like to see if I have any new attacks leveled against my old law school classmate, the Attorney General of Utah, “Market-Myself” Mark Shurtleff, or if I’m just pointing out the hypocrites in the Utah State Senate or the vagaries of my 24 years of lawyering in Utah.

So, I try to include new and interesting anecdotes (here’s a quote: “The plural of anecdote is NOT data,” according to Brendan McCullaugh, West Valley City Justice Court Judge), and a few war stories from my addled brain. A great one from yesterday, Jon Grimes convinced the Salt Lake City Prosecutor to dismiss retail theft charges against his client, because we had obtained (by subpoena) the cash register records from the store that claimed it was victimized, and these records showed something interesting: our client was charged $16 for an item, then sent with that clerk to a different cash register and charged $26 for the same item, paying the clerk both times, then was accused of switching the price on the item. The store kept the item and the $42 plus tax paid by Jon’s client. Cited for shoplifting, the client was understandably confused, having paid for the item twice, arrested, and deprived of the item without any refund.

The store people denied this is what happened, but their own register records proved it true, and the case was dismissed faster than you can say, “frame job.” And speaking of frame jobs, we have had a run, lately, on Summit County cases of cops stopping the car with the out-of-state license plates for some bullshit reason, like bumping the fog line (not such a good reason anymore, since the State v. Morris decision) signaling only two seconds when changing lanes, instead of three. The one thing in common is the cop gets his drug sniffing canine out to sniff the suspect’s car immediately, without any real basis for detaining the person longer than is necessary to give them a ticket for whatever paltry driving violation he made up, er, observed.

And when there is video, it’s great fun to watch Fido sniff, and wag his tail, and scratch, and look around, and somehow this activity always constitutes an “alert” (dog made a hard head check to the left, meaning, he looked to the left) or an “indication” (dog scratches ground or car, meaning he either smelled a snausage or is looking for a place to pee). I have a Richfield case where the UHP trooper leads the dog around the suspect car, tapping an area to sniff, Rover sniffs, wags tail, looks happy; they go all the way around the car and on the second counterclockwise rotation, the trooper now does something completely different (remember, this is all on video, recorded by the cop’s very own dash-cam).
When they reach the passenger side this time, the cop makes a hand gesture where he turns his arm at the elbow, flat against his chest, fingers and palm extended, and then makes and up and down motion with his hand an arm. Sure as shit, the dog now sits and barks. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is an “Indication” by the trained canine that there’s drugs in that thar car. Unfortunately, the cop then proceeded to find 33 pounds of high quality marijuana in that thar car, but the point is, that the dog sniff was just a ruse, designed to push into people’s privacy and whittle away our constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure. What about all the times they find no contraband? What about all the times that people are delayed, harassed, searched and accused, but have not violated any law? All in the name of public safety, say the powers that be.

And remember, as long as we continue to passively allow Big Brother to watch us, listen to us, detain us, search us and carve away our privacy, we give up more and more of the rights that so many have fought for, died for, and strive for.

You can take this Constitution from me, when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I just saw the headline: Edward M. "Teddy" Kennedy is dead, after his long and courageous battle with brain cancer. The Lion of the Senate is no more. We miss you already, Teddy. God Bless!

Best Utah Criminal Defense Lawyers Gain Notoriety for Describing State Employees as Inept, and Not Eunice Kennedy Shriver or Les Paul

2009-08-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

OK, the title to this episode is a wee bit provocative, but I can explain. Firstly, I think that Access Legal's team of experienced trial attorneys are clearly among the very best criminal defense lawyers in the State of Utah. It's not bragging if it's true; well, it is bragging, but it's also true.

Secondly, I did describe the Wasatch County School District, Sheriff's Department, Heber City Police and others as the actual responsible parties for making little school children cry and shake in fear, and I did refer to their "ineptitude." At our client's sentencing hearing yesterday, in Provo, for his conviction at trial of making a bomb threat by telephone, the State paraded two cops and the schools Superintendent to the podium (and submitted two letters) to described the crying children, traumatized and upset by being evacuated from their schools last year when the alleged bomb threat phone call was received by a secretary.

But when you think about it, little children get into their lines and orderly march out of schools all the time in fire drills, with no crying or wailing. So the only reason that little Billy and Suzie were crying is that the school personnel and police in charge of the evacuation TOLD THE LITTLE KIDS THAT THERE WAS A BOMB ABOUT TO EXPLODE.

So, I simply pointed out that this was against both common sense and the policies of both the school district and the various police and fire agencies involved. They had nearly two hours to evacuate students from seven schools, so screaming "bomb" to little kids was not necessary. There is an old Supreme Court ruling where Oliver Wendell Holmes describes freedom of speech does not include yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

All of the whining and faux horror aside, the judge followed the recommendations of Adult Probation and Parole's pre-sentence report and gave my client 6 months of jail and 36 months probation. Although we hate to lose jury trials, we can't win them all, and this case was more about preventing a lynch mob in Wasatch County from vigilantism (these were the same cops that followed me out of town after each hearing, and who followed my client from Provo to the Salt Lake Airport after the first day of trial, to bully and intimidate him, and probably in an effort to find which hotel he was staying at so they could call their local cop buddies to set up a phony bust).

How can Joe Sixpack defend himself against the poweful machine of courts, police, prosecutors and even public opinion, when he's accused of a crime? Our client from the foregoing story had that problem, where everybody in Wasatch County knew about the incident, and had already decided to hang him high, without regard to the evidence. As his defense attorneys, we sought a change of venue, and got the case moved out of Heber City and tried the case to a Utah County jury in Provo, with a Provo District Judge.

Many people with a criminal charge are confused and frightened. Some lawyers take advantage of this situation, using scare tactics (you'll go to prison unless you hire me) or making false promises (don't worry, you won't serve any jail time). A truly compasionate lawyer is going to give the prospective client both compassion and the truth, even if it hurts.

Some people equate the cost of legal representation with the quality of the attorney. If they charge the most, they must be the best, right? I had this conversation the other day in court waiting for the judge to come in, with notable local defense attorney Clayton Simms, who confirmed he has the same difficulty in setting a fair, reasonable price for a particular service, that similtaneously keeps his business afloat, but doesn't imply that he's either too cheap, or too overpriced. Brother, I know that feeling; I've been self employed in this business now for over two decades, and it still perplexes me.

It is true that people do equate higher price with higher quality. The human psyche seems to view the Volvo as better than the Kia, the Ritz-Carlton as better than the Holiday Inn, and the $15,000.00 lawyer as better than the $7,500.00 lawyer, when it is for the same, exact service. One man described a wide range of price quotes he received to take on his criminal defense, with a low of $10,000.00 and a high of $1 Million!

On an hourly basis, the highest priced lawyer in the country charges $1,000.00 per hour. Although, I read a few years ago that Kobe Bryant's defense team included whatshername Mackey from Denver, who charged even more than that. And don't forget the $4 Million ring Kobe gave his wife to say he was sorry. Is it any wonder people think lawyers are just well-dressed prostitutes?!

But the average Utah working stiff can't pay that kind of lawyer fee for a DUI or an Agg Assault arising from a bar fight with a broken beer bottle. Utah law firms vary greatly in what they charge for the same service, especially in criminal defense cases. Some charge by the hour, but most firms have gone to the "Flat Fee" contract for criminal defense cases, where one, set dollar amount covers all lawyer time for that case. Most do not include the trial, but Access Legal's flat fee agreement always includes the Jury Trial at no extra charge.

An example: two different lawyers each charge $6,000.00 for a DUI defense. One is young, but very experienced, on top of the law, fights hard, wins trials, and is admired by his peers as one of the very best trial lawyers in Utah. The other is much older, over 35 years of law practice, and never tries cases, doesn't include trial in the contract, but is a fantastic salesman. The clients of the latter end up pleading guilty; the clients of the first lawyer always get their money's worth.

The attorneys at Access Legal are caring, compassionate and experienced, hard-fighting trial lawyers. I can attest to the same for many of our friends, collegues and competitors, including the aforementioned Clayton Simms and the young, rising star of my story (Jason Schatz). Outstanding lawyers, good people. I can't say the same for the lawyer who takes your money and sells you out. You need to be careful about the snowjob and sales pitch, and I encourage you to interview with at least three lawyers before you decide who to hire.

Oh, and the third thing about this blog is that I (again) added the names of recently deceased famous people to the blog title. Just continuing my experiments in marketing, and sick humor. Last I checked, 264 new, unique readers have viewed this blog since July 1st, so THANKS, and feel free to leave a comment, good, bad or nasty.

And without any real punchline or joke to end this blog today, let me direct you to the blog of an oddly inappropriate Mormon Bishop in Provo. What will the Bretheren think about this?!

Best Utah Lawyer and Premier Salt Lake Criminal Defense Attorney Lashes Out Against The Insane Medical Machine

2009-07-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Somebody needs to stop me from watching television commercials.

Does IHC treat more heart patients because they make quicker diagnoses of heart problems, or does IHC make quicker diagnoses because they treat more heart patients? It is a question on everybody’s mind, according to their latest TV spot. Answer: IHC treats more heart patients because their doctors are the quickest to label indigestion, diabetes symptoms and the slightest EKG anomaly as a “heart condition” and slam the patient into Cardiac Intensive Care at the new Intermountain Medical Center (known affectionately as “The Death Star” by many medical professionals), so long as the sucker, er, patient, has adequate insurance.

Yup, I know, ‘cuz it happened to me. You see, last September, I had not slept in three days, had horrible leg cramps, and couldn’t drink enough fluids, despite it all running right through my kidneys like a fire hose. Being overweight, you would suspect diabetes, and once I got to the Death Star hospital, a quick blood test revealed that my glucose level was 859, about 10 times normal. In fact, the endocrinology specialists told me I hold the record for the highest glucose level of a conscious person, and higher than some dead persons.

So, problem solved, right? I have Type II diabetes is the obvious answer, and they start me on insulin and treat my immediate problem of dehydration with an IV drip. But, to be safe, they do a heart check. The Electrocardiogram, also called an EKG. The very well-respected specialist announced there was an anomaly, and told me that I must have had a mild heart attack sometime in the preceding 24 to 48 hours. I would need to have a little tube with contrast dye inserted in the main artery in my thigh, and woven up to my heart, to inspect my arteries for what surely must have been some major plaque blockage, and I had to sign off to allow them to go straight into heart bypass surgery, or a lesser remedy like a stent or balloon, or whatever was necessary TO SAVE MY LIFE!

Of course I agreed. I woke up from the anesthesia and was told I needed to stay flat on my back so I would not rupture the entry point on my thigh or cause a blood clot, and it was very painful and difficult to do this, as my legs were cramping seriously from dehydration, and it took two adults to hold me down. But the good news was, no clots, no plaque buildup, and no need for any kind of repairs. No bypass, no stent, no balloon. I had fairly clean arteries, reasonably low cholesterol, and a strong heart muscle.

Despite this finding, the cardiologists kept me in Cardiac Intensive Care for two more days (at a cost of over $22,000.00, mostly paid by Blue Cross, but my share was a couple of grand) and assured me that I had experienced a heart attack of some sort, needed statin and cholesterol reducing drugs from now on, and so forth and blah blah blah. I found it odd that they did not want me to schedule a follow-up with their Cardiology specialist office, so I concentrated on the diabetes diagnosis, and learned how to test my blood, shoot up with insulin, etc.

Until January. It was Inauguration night, and I was exited and happy and probably ate something I shouldn’t have, and had some nasty chest pains that wouldn’t go away. Having been warned that I was now a prime candidate for a repeat heart attack, I had my wife drive me to the emergency room where they did a dozen EKG’s and pronounced my heart as fine, and gave me a prescription for a long-lasting antacid. Suggested I eat less spicy food. Difficult to accept for a man that drinks hot sauce from the bottle (my mouth is actually watering as I write this line!). So, I made an appointment to see my wife’s Cardiologist at a different hospital.

This good doctor got all my Death Star, er, IHC records, did more tests, and told me exactly what the real truth is: “That other doctor must have had a boat payment to make or something, because you did not have a heart attack and your heart is just fine.”

Now, I pay Blue Cross $1,702.00 a month to have insurance. That’s over $20 grand a year, just to have insurance for me, my wife and my teenage son at home. Add in thousand dollar each deductibles, the copayments for prescriptions and our share of covered and not covered doctor, hospital and equipment expenses of around another $20,000.00 a year, and I pay about $40,000.00 a year for health costs. Then the best part is this: the Blue Cross premium payments are considered income, so I have to pay both halves of self-employment tax plus federal and state tax on twenty thousand bucks I never saw or held. And the Schedule A itemized deduction is reduced by a percentage of my income, so I can’t even deduct all these costs on my tax return.

So when I hear Orange Hatch and Deep Throat Bennett and their ilk lambast efforts at providing health care and affordable insurance to everyone in America as “Evil, Socialized Medicine,” I say:

HELL YES! GO SOCIALISM! MAKE THE DOCTORS WORK FOR THE TAXPAYERS! OVERTURN THE HOSPTIAL-PHARMACUTICAL-MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL COMPLEX! OBAMA FOR DICTATOR AND HILLARY FOR SHREW IN CHIEF, LENIN AND MARX WERE RIGHT, AND . . . okay, maybe I’m getting a little carried away.

So the next time you think it’s outrageous that a lawyer charges several thousand dollars to keep your sorry ass out of prison, remember that the real enemy wears a mask and gloves, and accepts all insurance plans.

Utah Criminal Defense Lawyer and Salt Lake City's Premier DUI Attorneys Experiment with Advertising, and Despise Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News

2009-07-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

You really can teach old dogs new tricks. As I near the big "Five-Oh" and I don't mean the Jack Lord, "book 'em, Danno" variety, I learn something new every day. My current curriculum centers on internet advertising. And, by being one of the hundred or so people that has read one of these blog entries so far in July, 2009 (yeah, I was surprised, too), you have participated in my advertising experiments.

The whole story begins, as it were, at the Hinckley Institute of Politics, headquartered in Orson Spencer Hall on the campus of the University of Utah. Many of my Political Science (aka: "pseudo-science") classes were in OSH, along with the Professors' offices, and the Hinckley Institute, where once or twice a week, everybody was invited to "Coffee and Politics." They even served orange juice for those who were morally opposed to coffee as much as they were to Orrin Hatch and Dan Marriott.

Preceeding my turn at learning at the feet of greats like Francis Wormuth and J.D. Williams, by just a few years, was a young politico named Karl Rove. Now, I don't know which classes he took to learn how to be a master manipulating, soul-less, evil, lying, Machiavellian, neo-Orwellian MoFo, but I must have missed those courses. While I munched on fresh doughnuts (free food for poor students can never be turned down), I failed to notice the smell of sulpher, the way Hugo Chavez claims to have caught wind of it at the United Nations after a speech there by George W. Bush. Maybe it was Professor Wormuth's chain smoking that overwhelmed it (you could smoke in the hallways and in the professors' offices, just not in the classrooms back in the 70's).

So I really did walk the same "path" as Karl Rove, just as I really did sit in the same seat as Ted Bundy did in Law School. Neither one seems to have had any real influence on me . . . . yet.

Which leads me, in the most convoluted fashion, to Rush Limbaugh, that maven of the ultra-right, who calls Judge Sotomayor a "racist" and vows to derail the Obama Presidency any way he can. Another SOB that I don't think I have anything in common with, that it turns out, can teach me a great deal about influencing people through the media. Today, a conservative old friend used his recently awarded MBA to instruct Jon and I about improving our website. And his example was: Rush Limbaugh's website!

The point being that ol' Rush, when not popping Oxycontin or blasting people suffering from horribly disabling illnesses for expressing their support of stem-cell research (Michael J. Fox), has put together some absolute gems for visitors to his web page. Not the content, but the format. Not the words, but the images. Not even the message, but the method of delivering the message. Yup, I learned something useful from Rush Limbaugh, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, may he rot in Hell.

Oh, and Fox News; that's just an example of what I NEVER want to be: a distorter of truth, an enemy of justice, a mouthpiece for the rich and powerful, and a betrayer of the stewardship and duty that a professional, whether journalist or attorney or politician or whatever, has to the public.

And their advertising is educational, too.

Salt Lake Criminal Defense Law Firm Opines on Intelligent Latina Women, Serial Killers and The Say Hey Kid

2009-07-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I frequently enjoy embarassing Judges by asking them silly questions, or setting up a joke. Judge Judith Atherton of the Third District Court in Salt Lake City is a multiple-time target of my brand of humor, and I kid around with those Judges that know me well enough to realize I'm just having a little fun. No reason to be humorless in this business, and the good ones, like Deno Himonas and Robert Hilder will have comebacks waiting for me.

About two weeks ago, I had a driver's license suspension trial de novo before Judge Denise P. Lindberg. Now, I don't remember what the "P" stands for, but I know that her story is a compelling one: she escaped Castro's Cuba and became a US Citizen, got a lot of fine education, and ultimately made it to the bench, appointed by former Governor Mike Leavitt in 1998. So, of course, after the hour-long hearing was over, I had to ask her a question.

I said, "Judge, I have been curious to ask you about . . ." and before I could finish my sentence, Judge Lindberg blurted out, "Judge Sotomayor?"

Why, YES, says I. And then the kicker: "As a wise, Latina woman, experienced judge and having a compelling life story, don't you think that perhaps on some issues, you might be better prepared in making a decision, than say, some old, white guy?"

She smiled and put her head down a bit, then towed the Republican line and responded, "I don't think that her (Sonia Sotomayor's) comment was appropriate . . . but I think she will make a fine Supreme Court Justice."

And I concur.

So, moving right along, I was listening to the usual idiots on drive-time radio today, on my way to the jail to visit a client, when the great unwashed and largely ignorant voice of the masses commented that the recent passing of Billy Mays, the TV pitchman, had been misunderstood by an aquaintance, who didn't understand why nobody mentioned his wonderful Major League Baseball career.

Goofus went on to say, well, because Willie Mays, the Hall of Fame centerfielder for the Giants, had died several years ago. Huh. Then who was that guy walking arm in arm with President Obama today at the MLB All Star game? Yup, it was the NOT late, still GREAT, Willie Mays.

So much (yet again) for those with a conduit to the people, who speak of things they know not, and just can't shut up.

And finally, Serial Killers. They keep popping up every so often, the latest one in the Carolinas. But the most famous serial murderer with a local connection has to be TED BUNDY.

I mentioned in a previous blog that I sat in the same seat as Ted Bundy did in law school. This is absolutely true.

I assured the veracity of this claim to fame withing a few days of starting at the University of Utah College of Law in August, 1982. I went into each classroom, while they were unoccupied, and sat, in turn, in each seat, about 80 or so in each of the lecture halls at the school. Like a mad game of musical chairs, sans music, I made sure that I could be proud of a school where the 3L student intramural flag-football team was named, "The Bundy Bottom-Biters." So controversial was this expression of First Amendment free speech that the Chrony would only refer to that team as the "BBB's" when publishing league scores.

And as I recall, that was the class that Judith Atherton graduated with.

Utah's Very Best Criminal Defense Lawyer is not the Late Michael Jackson, or Billy Mays or even Steve McNair.

2009-07-06T20:56:00.001-07:00

I hate to admit to a little Schadenfreude now and then, but today I read in the Salt Lake Tribune, that great rag of Yellow-Jello Journalism, that a paralegal that had been working for a competitor, was just sued by the Utah State Bar, which is seeking an injunction to keep her from the unauthorized practice of law, for her alleged conduct in running an immigration fraud. Although I am sorry to hear that many immigrants were left both penniless and SOL with the ICE, it is all too familiar a picture to me.

Some 15 years ago, I agreed to help a couple of paralegals I knew who wanted to incorporate and do freelance legal research and writing for various law firms, while enjoying the benefits of Subchapter S and a corporate veil. One of these guys was a Columbian or Venezuelan, who then started advertising his company as an immigration processing service. If it were only true.

He, too, played on the desperate nature of illegal immigrants and their desire to stay in this country, their language difficulties, and their cultural naivety. He would tell them that “for just $500 more, I can bribe the Immigration Law Judge to give you a Green Card,” and having just come from countries where the way to get things done when dealing with government bureaucracies was exactly that, payola, they were duped into paying thousands of dollars for nothing. Then they were left worse off than before, when he convinced them to file for an immediate deportation hearing, since that resulted in most of them being deported.

And just to make my life more enjoyable, he told them all that “Abogado Edwardo will represent you in your Immigration proceedings.” I knew nothing of Immigration law in 1994, but when these folks were being ripped off right and left, I volunteered to learn quickly, and I hired an associate with knowledge and experience in the area, and we tried to clean up the mess left by six months of fraud run amok. We shut this guy down (I threatened to break his legs) and tried to render services for very little pay, since most of the clients had already lost thousands to the aforementioned charlatan.

The effort resulted in some amusing stories, including “The Day of the Three Jesuses” (when we had three angry clients in a row, all named Jesus) and the time our office assistant, Marguerita from Madrid, instructed clients to fornicate their documents, due to a difference in the way Castilian Spanish and Latin American Spanish is spoken (“to gather” in Spain is the same word as Mexican and Central American Spanish speakers use for, well, the “F” word).

It all goes in my book, “The Case of the Well-Hung Jury” that will include stories of a client committing suicide in the middle of a jury trial, a judge who retired during the lunch break and left dozens of lawyers and witnesses behind that were there for a Preliminary Injunction hearing, and some of the stupid things I’ve heard, and said, in many courtrooms over many years. A bestseller, I’m sure. My mother-in-law will read it, as long as she doesn’t have to pay for it.

And, as an update: It works. Adding a famous dead person’s name to the title of anything posted on the internet, including this blog, results in it being indexed by Google and the other search engines, so that when you enter search terms with that name, you will be referred to the blog or other net posting. I attached a Google Analytics marker to my blog here, and discovered that more than 3 people actually view it. Probably by accident.

For more, see our website at www.utahaccesslegal.com or send me an email to: ed@utahaccesslegal.com or add a comment to this bLAWg.

Utah

2009-07-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

Utah's Premier Criminal Defense Law Firm and Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Billy Mays

2009-06-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Quickly, right now! Go to www.utahaccesslegal.com and increase our Google ranking! If that was too subtle, then try this: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays, Gale Storm, and the Elections in Iran, the Coup in Hondouras, and Sonya Sotomayor's nomination by President Barak Obama to the Supreme Court.

You don't see anything in common here? In advertising, there is only one common thread: get the customer to pay attention to the advertising, thereby potentially increasing your business. And when Google (and the others, including the new Bing by MSN, and Yahoo, Ask.com, Dogpile and the rest) "index" web entries, they can gain more notariety by using common phrases and names in their titles and their texts, that are frequently searched by various net surfers.

So, you see, with the deaths of famous people, many folks will be entering search terms that include that famous dead person's name, and if a web story, news article, business advertisment or a private blog uses that name in their title or text, they will come up on searches. This blog is as much an experiment in seeing how "wiki" manipulation-prone the web services are to this ploy, frequently used by others, and now by me! At least, this one time.

The plan here is that once this blog entry is published, someone may search for Michael Jackson and Law firm at the same time, and even though our law firm has NOTHING to do with the late "King of Pop," we should come up in some searches because of the magic words in the title and text of this entry.

And although I really wanted to discuss how I sat in the same seat as Ted Bundy had in law school, or ate doughnuts in the same classroom as Karl Rove while majoring in Political Science at the University of Utah, I will save that for the next, non-experimental blog.

So, enjoy the fireworks this weekend at Sugarhouse Park, as it may be the last time they do the 4th of July show there, if a new sponsor fails to step up with the money to pay for it all, and be careful. Celebrating our freedom can be a dangerous proposition.

Utah's Best Defense is Found in the Hardest Working, Most Caring Defense Attorneys

2009-06-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

Federal Court is like State Court, but simultaneously, very different; the procedural rules, evidence rules, basic ways of witness examination, and much of the way a trial is conducted, is almost identical. But the similarities end with Federal Sentencing Guidelines versus Utah’s fairly soft indeterminate sentencing system. And despite some recent changes in the harsh impositions of lengthy prison sentences, mandated by both the Supreme Court and Congress, the Federal system is like Robinson Crusoe on Mars when viewed side by side with Utah’s methodology.

So, it is with great satisfaction that I can report that our client, so ably represented by Jonathon W. Grimes of Access Legal, was given a relatively short sentence of 40 months, when the Government was seeking to lock him up for 96 months. I previously blogged about this case on April 15, 2009. Here’s how it ended up, today in Federal Court:

Our client is a young Asian man, previously convicted of a felony, and therefore, is barred by law from possessing firearms. Nonetheless, he had a 9mm handgun (www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SKPB_enUS327US328&q=9mm+Taurus) with him when he was in Evanston, Wyoming, (www.evanstonwy.org/) nearly a year ago, in July of 2008. When a local redneck, a big, slobbering racist punk got into a shouting match with our client, was very threatening and acting violent, and then called our client an “Asian Ni**er rapper” – well, shoot, them’s fightin’ words; our client pulled out his gun and fired three shots in the air, but not at Bubba or his woman and trailer trash in training.

Now, I always thought that shooting guns in fights was normal for Wyoming, and if you are a five-foot-four, 135 pound Asian guy and a six-foot plus, 250 pound good ol’ boy is threatening you and slaps a racial slur in your direction, you might just reach for your equalizer. But, he wasn’t supposed to possess any gun at any time, due to his prior felony conviction, so regardless of why he did what he did, when he drove into Utah and was stopped by the cops, he was in deep trouble. Wyoming charged him with “Attempted Murder” in their State Court, and the Feds indicted him for being a felon in possession of a firearm, which is what he plead guilty to several months ago.

The Office of the U.S. Attorney ( www.justice.gov/usao/ut/index.html ) for Utah prosecutes Federal offenses in Utah, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Kendall wanted Judge Waddoups to send our client up the river for an extra long time, by using the Wyoming allegations to more than double his normal prison sentence, under the Federal Guidelines. They are allowed, under the rules, to introduce hearsay evidence at the sentencing hearing, of what supposedly happened in Wyoming, and argued that the defendant “attempted to murder” Bubba the Redneck, and therefore, under the Sentencing Guidelines, should do 96 months of prison instead of 37, as his Pre-sentence report had calculated, based on the same Guidelines.

Essentially, the Government wanted to try him for Attempted Murder, with no jury and no complaining “victim” and only a cop, reading from a police report, based on what Bubba the Redneck claims happened in Evanston last July. And, under the rules, that’s what went down at the hearing today. However, Jon had thoroughly briefed the issue in his Objection to the U.S. Attorney’s attempt to increase the sentence by cross-referencing the Wyoming allegations, and successfully argued the point to the judge, that the defendant was only trying to scare the Racist pig into leaving him alone, not trying to kill him, or even wound him. Just frighten him.

Judge Waddoups agreed that the Government failed to provide sufficient evidence that our client attempted to kill anybody, and declined to increase the sentence by any more than just 3 additional months, due to the severity of the crime and the defendant’s past criminal history. With credit for the time he has spent in jail until today, he should be out in about 29 months. If the Government had its way, he would sit in Federal prison for the next 85 months. A huge difference, and a great relief to his young wife and family.

What Jon did today was win a mini-trial, and our client was, in essence, found not-guilty of Attempted Murder, despite the best efforts of the U.S. Attorney. Judge Clark Waddoups correctly and thoughtfully ruled that the Government was attempting to prevent a defendant from confronting his accusers, deprive him of due process, and impose more than double the normal penalty, based on non-adjudicated allegations, presented in hearsay fashion. Sorry to say, other Federal Judges would not have been as insistent on ensuring a defendant’s Constitutional rights, and would have rubber-stamped the prosecution’s increased penalty scheme.

God Bless Jonathon Grimes, Judge Waddoups, the Constitution, and the United States!

Salt Lake City, Utah Criminal Defense Dynamic Duo Flint, Grimes and Ass

2009-06-05T10:35:00.001-07:00

OK, Jon's away from the office taking care of case in BFE, Sheri is up in Heber, serving subpoenaes for a trial at the end of this month, while nobody is here to stop me, I am going to diss our competition. First, let me explain the title. We incorporated, finally, this year, and assigned the dba name "Access Legal" to our new Utah Professional Corporation called: FLINT, GRIMES AND ASS. Now, that is exactly how we submitted the name, how it appears on the Articles of Incorporation with the State of Utah Division of Corporations, with the IRS and the State Tax Commission, and that is how we wanted it to read. It is not a mistake.

The question on everybody's mind is, "who's the ASS?" And, I suppose the answer is, "ME." Because I feel like taking out some self-rightous anger on our competitors, again. Let's start with legal education and training. Jon and I both graduated from the University of Utah College of Law, now known as the S.J. Quinney College of Law because Mr. Quinney gave $10 Million to the school to improve its facilities, library, faculty, and so forth. I haven't given them a penny since graduating in 1985, but I'm still proud of graduating from a top-tier, highly ranked, reputable and fully accredited law school. Can't say the same for some of the bozos out there advertising that they are your legal salvation and the greatest thing since deep-fried twinkies.

Currently, the U (Quinney) law school ranks 45th in the nation, according to the US News and World Report rankings, which are accepted as the most comprehensive law school ranking system in the country. When I started at the U Law School in 1982, it was a top 20 school, and there were only half as many law schools in the country as today. There are other ranking services, and they all come in about the same, listing Utah and BYU (J. Reuben Clark law school) in the 40 - 50 range among over 250 law schools in the nation. How do you know what school a lawyer graduated from? Go to the Utah State Bar Membership Directory and just type in the lawyer's name in the box, press enter, and you should see all the details of that lawyer, include active status, address, phone numbers, email, admission date, and, the name of the law school attended. I was surprised to see what kind of "legal education" some of my competitors have.

One embarrassment to the legal profession in the news this week is a guy named Graff in Cedar City who is accused of running off with about a million dollars of client money, leaving the families of persons killed in a tragic plane crash with nothing. I looked him up, and he graduated from Willamette law school in Salem, Oregon. Willamette is a "Tier 4" school according to the Newsweek rankings, placing it among the lowest ranked schools in the nation.

Other lower or no-repute law schools that I have noticed that some of our competitors attended include Valparaiso in Indiana, Washburn in Kansas, Drexel in Philadelphia, California Western and Western State, both in Southern California, and of course, Liberty University of Lynchburg, Virginia, made famous by the George W. Bush Justice Department giving jobs to its "Christian" philosophy law graduates over all other applicants. These are the folks that brought us waterboarding approvals and the firings of US Attorneys for not being "Bushies."

Some of the other schools in the lower tiers include the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan, John Marshall in Chicago, Duquesne in Pittsburgh, and (surprise!) the Universities of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. When I went to law school, many states had NO law schools at all, including Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Alaska, Hawaii, and even Nevada. The University of Utah let students from those states that were qualified enough to be accepted in the first place, pay in-state tuition, while their home states picked up the difference as part of an agreement with the U, since those states had no law schools and wanted their local citizens to obtain quality legal training.

Back in the stone age (early 1980's) I was recruited by Pepperdine law school, which is on the beach in Malibu, California. It was unranked, brand new, unaccredited anywhere but California, meaning you had to pass the California bar exam first before even being allowed to take the Utah test, and the tuition was 20 times more than the U. I only applied to one law school. If the Utah College of Law had not accepted me, I may have taken a different direction in my life. I also credit Ronald Reagan with helping me make the decision to become an attorney. I had a great job working for the Federal Government part-time while I was an undergrad student at the U. But there was a moratorium on taking the civil service exam, so about 400,000 people were working part-time, no benefits and no job protection at the time. Once Ronnie fired the Air Traffic Controllers for striking, he got the idea to fire every other Federal employee he was allowed to fire, and so, in December, 1981, I got my Bachelor's degree on December 17th, and my pink slip on the 31st. Out of work during a recession, I applied to law school, and here I am today!

West Valley City, Utah and its Roaming Polynesian Gangs and Lying Police Officers

2009-06-04T18:47:00.000-07:00

While in Judge Keith Stoney's Courtroom the other day, Hizzonner was perplexed that my client claims he doesn't drink at all, yet the West Valley City Police officer had arrested him for "Public Intoxication." He asked if it was a regular practice of West Valley cops to charge non-drinkers with being drunk in public -- I think the question was directed to the Prosecution --- but since I was at the podium, I answered, "In my experience, it happens frequently."

But the show was just getting started. The whole case centered around a citizen who alleged that he was trying to break up an argument that my client was allegedly having with his sister, outside of a West Valley bar. For some unknown reason, a large group of Polynesian men (my client, his sister and I are all very, very "Howlie" white) then beat up the good citizen, sending him to the hospital. Other witnesses verified that my client and his sister had left the scene before the Polynesians beat up the good citizen, but for some reason, the West Valley cops got the idea that my client had something to do with the beat up guy, and went to his apartment at 3:00 in the morning, pounded on the door and demanded he open up, in the name of the law, and immediately arrested him. The West Valley City Prosecutor's office filed criminal charges against him of assault and public intoxication.

At this point of revelation to the judge (by the prosecutor, who was trying to justify amending the charges to "disorderly conduct" to facilitate a plea bargain), Judge Stoney asks, from the bench, "Are you telling me that roving gangs of Polynesian men are going around in West Valley City, beating up random people?" And again, since he asked the question, I answered it: "Yes, it happens." Stoney had to grin and put his head down a bit, to avoid letting the entire courtroom see his reaction, and then quickly added, "well, it doesn't happen that often, despite what the media might report."

I don't know about media reports, but come on! West Valley City has areas that are self described as "Little Tonga" or "Little Saigon" or "Little Tiajuana." My old Glendale Park neighborhood where I spent ages 5 through 18 is the same, and when my children were little, we would not let them play in the front yard at Grandma's house, for fear of drive-by shootings. Now, my grandsons only have to worry about stepping in dog poop when they play in my Cottonwood Heights backyard, like Nathan, the two-year-old did yesterday. Amazing thing, my wife's new dog. If dog crap was a commodity, we could be rich, since this little Chihuahua mix, I swear, produces more poo out of her than she consumes food in through the front end.

By coincidence, the new dog's name is "Pu'a" which is Hawaiian for something, but I haven't got a clue. Flower, according to the "foster mom" when we adopted the dog last Saturday from No More Homeless Pets, through its partner, PetSmart. They match up dogs and cats that have been rejected or even abused, and have ended up in animal shelters, awaiting execution, er, euthanizing, and that's where this sweet, little brown 2-year-old doggy was at: about to be killed because she was "too shy" to be adopted. Well, she took a few days to cuddle up to me, but she's not shy about my wife, and is truly inseperable from her. After losing her cat of 17 and half years last week, to kidney failure, she really needed a little buddy, and adopting an otherwise unwanted animal is how we have ended up with all our pets over the years, including the golden Lab mix that is my youngest son's companion dog, the fat and happy Saimise mix cat we call Achilles (because he's always at your heels) that we rescued from a crack house, and even the old kitty that just passed on, that was an unwanted runt in early 1992, that was about to be drowned by the humans that couldn't get rid of her.

Speaking of Polynesia, we just returned from a very nice stay in the Islands, where we saw at street in Hilo called "PeePee Street" (where it intersects with Pe'ePe'e Circle) and docked in Nawiliwili Bay at Kauai, and found that you really can have words and names with 3 a's or 3 u's in a row, and the State fish is the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a and no, it's not delicious, it's protected. You wouldn't eat Seagull in Utah, would you? Don't answer that, it was rhetorical.

More Mistakes, More to Follow

2009-05-21T14:37:00.000-07:00

As I have stated before from this bully-pulpit, Broadcast and print news errors are a pet peeve of mine. When I was a student of the late Roy Gibson at the University of Utah Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, we had it drilled into our cub-reporter brains that, if you don't know, ask, and if you aren't sure, check it out, and if you can't figure out how to pronounce it, you best not try until you have found out the correct way. We used the Associated Press Stylebook as our Bible, and we were subject to editing by someone other than a "spellcheck" program (1978, we had electric typewriters, but no computers). We learned by red ink. Today's psudojournalists don't really seem to care if they get it right.

Some of the latest examples of the total lack of journalistic competence and editing appeared today in Newsweek, one of the great, iconic current affairs magazines, when they identified President Obama's newly appointment ambassador to China as "Jim Huntsman." Those of us who live in Utah, know Governor JON Huntsman, Jr. as an oddly progressive Republican who has advocated liberalization of liquor laws, supports civil union benefits for gay couples, and enjoys heavy metal rock and roll concerts. Huntsman has nominated a more diverse selection of judges to Utah's Courts than I can remember, including a number of criminal defense attorneys, instead of just aging prosecutors or political hacks within his own party. He deserves to have his name published correctly.

Earlier this week, when I heard my competitor, Tyler Ayres, on his weekly radio program, answer a direct question about state seat belt laws: "Question: Are the seatbelt laws primary or secondary" and Tyler answered, "They are primary, and have been for several years," well, I knew he was wrong, so I looked it up. And now the Salt Lake Tribune quotes the Highway Patrol, confirming that Tyler was wrong.

The correct answer is that the law is only primary for children to be in proper child restraints and persons who are under 19 to have a seat belt on while driving or a passenger in any motor vehicle on a Utah road. In plain language, the cops can not pull you over for not wearing a seat belt if you are over 19 (read: look at least 25 or older). But if you are stopped for another reason, they can cite you for the seat belt violation, too. That makes it a SECONDARY law for all persons age 19 or older.

But, I couldn't call the program to set him straight, as I was driving, and did not want to get into a wreck because of dialing my cell phone. Of course, texting while driving will now be violation, and if you kill somebody because you were texting while driving, the penalties are severe. In fact, there are a whole slew of new laws passed in this Legislative session, and Jon and I are on top of the changes, which you can find summarized in the UACDL Newsletter.

This is a work in progress. I will continually add more mistakes of journalists and broadcasts over the next several days. Meanwhile, you should browse our website at www.utahaccesslegal.com/ and look for mistakes to rub in my face!

And those radio program hosts are idiots. Pick any of them, whether funny, banal, political, geezerly; they all continuously say stupid things, state erroneous information as fact, and I find myself screaming at them during morning and afternoon drive time (yet I continue to listen to their drek, a sure sign of my own senility, or of an addiction of some horrible proportion). Spend any ten minute period listening to (fill in the blank with: "Bob and Tom," or "The Breakfast Bunch" or "Carter and the Coach," or "The Freak Show" or "Radio from Hell," and list goes on and on depending on your own tastes, or lack thereof) radio program. Then there are the political nutcakes, like Rush, or the way out there crazies, like Dr. Laura. Of course they say stuff that is flat-out wrong or has no basis in reality, but they are really "entertainers" and not true journalists. They are going to say stuff that improves ratings, thereby increasing advertising revenue, and ultimately improving their own fame and fortune.

It is the apparent studpidity of what used to be "The Fourth Estate" that has me bitching out loud and Roy Gibson spinning in his grave.

Salt Lake City, Utah Law Firm Supports Truth in Adversting

2009-05-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

I like my competitors; I learn a great deal about advertising from them. Some of it is good information, helpful to consumers and the public in general. Some of it is evidence of the most base rationale for practicing law, that of making money regardless of the lack of ethics, class or truth of the process thereof. At Access Legal, we make the effort to put truth first in our advertising.

For example, a recent Ethics Opinion from the Utah State Bar re-emphasizes that Attorney advertising must be truthful, particularly with client testimonials. If you look at our website, we have both a “scrolling” verdicts feature, listing recent jury trials and other courtroom results, and we also have a page devoted to several written endorsements from four clients and one letter from a prosecutor (who won the case) stating that we handled the case with the utmost of professionalism and civility, a factor he had seen lacking among other attorneys.

Our client testimonials are used with the permission of the clients, and state the clients’ actual names and the nature of their charges and the results we obtained. Every word is accurate and each client was happy to endorse us with their real name and real details of their cases. I have not seen this on any other law firm website or other advertising. Most state very generically things like, “charges of assault were dismissed,” or “client’s charges were reduced.” Our website tells you the publicly available information that you can look up yourself to verify: the name of the case, the case number, the court and judge, and what happened. Isn’t this the information you really want to know, as a consumer or potential client? (We won’t list your case if you don’t want us to, even if it is a major courtroom victory).

The standard fee agreement at Access Legal includes Jury Trial, at no additional charge. Few attorneys offer this feature. What we have committed to do is take your case, whether easy or difficult, whether it is resolved in one trip to court or dozens of complex hearings and a trial before a jury of your peers, for a set, flat fee. The benefit to our clients is clearly that if the case bogs down or the prosecutor is unreasonable in making a decent settlement offer, the client doesn’t have to come up with thousands of dollars more to pay for the attorneys to take the case to the jury. We have dozens of cases set for jury trial and most of the time, the prosecutor caves in and offers a decent settlement that is satisfactory to our client. Sometimes, we even see prosecutors just outright dismiss the case, rather than fight with us any further.

And then there are those cases that do go to trial. Not charging extra to go to trial is a two-edged sword. We win most, but unlike Perry Mason, we don’t win them all. Losing a jury trial is nothing to be ashamed of, but I always get concerned when clients listen to their neighbor/friend/fellow inmate or see on a TV show (Law and Order is the worst) a person winning at trial, and are absolutely convinced the same thing will happen in their case. These unfortunates quit listening to the professional they have paid to advise them, and insist on going to trial, even after long discussions of how the evidence will play out and their small likelihood of success. And these are the trials that we lose – the ones that should not have gone to trial in the first place.

So remember, when the jury comes back and says, “Not Guilty,” we all go home happy. But when the Jury comes back and says, “Guilty,” I still get to go home.

Utah Criminal Defense Trial Warriors Review This Week's Lawyers of Note

2009-05-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

My old law school classmate, "Market-Myself" Mark Shurtleff, the Attorney General of Utah, has been in the news again (are you surprized?) for accidentally tweeting on Twitter his intention to run against Senator Robert Bennett in 2010. Question: what do you call a Utah Attorney General who claims to be a devoted public servant, savvy on internet and modern electronic communications, who, while on a taxpayer-paid junket to Israel, sends a message via Twitter that he thought was private, confidential and not for public knowledge?

Answer: A Twit. Well, Mark is a twit under any and all circumstances, but I seriously doubt that this was a mistake. The Harley-Davidson challenged Shurtleff (does he walk with a limp, now?) was faced with another Republican on the verge of announcing his run against Bennett, and how better to scoop that story than with this one? Face it, Shurtleff has become a master at manipulating the press into publicizing everything he says and does. It was nice to see that he was attacked by a Conservative-Republican group for his "Liberal" viewpoints. Even in this, he gets more press.

Now, Utah College of Law, Class of 1985, has already had another of it's alumni run for United States Senate against a sitting incumbant Republican Senator. My classmate Greg Hawkins challenged his old boss, Orrin Hatch, in 2000. Mr. Hawkins, as we (and Professor "Tommy Tort" Lund) called him, was regarded as "immutable" not because he was incapable of change (that, too) but because he could never be "muted" and frequently won the "Tootsie-roll" award for his classroom commentary. Hawkins passed the bar exam early and gave me the advice that as attorneys, we are professionals and shouldn't fret if there were no jobs at law firms for us, because we could practice law without working for someone else. Greg then promptly became a Seminary teacher at the West High School LDS Seminary in Salt Lake for the next decade. Having been kicked out of Seminary my Sophomore year at South High (Brother Nelson got pissed when I cracked open a beer in class), I could only take Mr. Hawkins' advice rather than follow in his footsteps.

I was reminded of Mr. Hawkins when I was in Brigham City yesterday, lunching at the famous Maddox Restaurant on chicken-fried Bison steak, homemade soup and fresh-baked rolls, made from local flour. Jon Grimes, http://www.utahaccesslegal.com/Bio/JonathanGrimes.asp, my law partner, had been in Brigham City on Monday, and remembering how great the meals are at Maddox, he dropped by for lunch only to learn that they are closed on Mondays! I gloated with every bite.

I recalled another law school classmate, Ed Munson, who grew up in Brigham City, whom I first met at Boys State in 1977, when we had a civil business dispute case against each other back in 2000. Munson was substituting for Randy Skanchy, who shortly thereafter became a District Court Judge, and he mentioned being in Brigham for "Peach Days" when he heard of our old pal, Hawkins, running against Hatch. Surprise!

The old City/County Building in Brigham City is one of those beautiful, historic government buildings, and the Justice Court is housed in what used to be the District Courtroom. The First Judicial District has a brand, new modern building across Main Street now, so going back to the old building yesterday was quite a treat. There is a Seth Thomas giant pendulum floor clock, inside a glass case ten or more feet tall and about six by six feet square, donated by the Swedish company Autoliv http://www.autoliv.com/wps/wcm/connect/autoliv/Home which manufactures car airbags at a plant nearby and is a major local employer. Tak sa mycket, Autoliv!

So, having traveled this week to Park City, Logan, Ogden and Brigham City, and Jon to Provo, Lehi and Farmington, plus our various local, Salt Lake area cases, it's nice to take a rest and remind all three of my loyal readers that, if you don't like long, stupid stories, why the hell are you still reading this blog?

Utah Access Legal Alpha Dog Ed Flint Dishes Out the Whole Truth about Local Lawyers

2009-04-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

Everybody loves a little gossip, some tidbit of top-secret personal information about a celeb or politician. I plan to write a tell-all autobiography some day, entitled, "The Case of the Well-Hung Jury" filled with stories from my life and career. Just like this "bLAWg" at least my mother-in-law will read it and tell me that I am a great writer (being a decent lawyer is important, too). So, here's some random thoughts that have been going through my little mind.

The “dish” on Utah lawyers:

Good guys:

The ones who read my blog. Yesterday, Glen Neeley said he reads it once in awhile and thinks it’s funny (once in awhile). Glen has about 5 different blogs (it boosts your Google ranking), and a few other lawyers have simple (read: free on Google blogspot) blogs to say the stuff that you really can't say on your website advertising. I saw Loren Lambert's blog today; ROFLMAO! I hope that's the correct geek speak for it.

The ones that are super intellects and could be making big bucks for big industry, but practice criminal defense in Utah. My partner, Jonathon Grimes, of course, who turned down a job with Exxon-Mobil when he graduated law school because they “are big oil and are the bad guys.” And our pal, Mike Eward, whose office is across the hall from us; I was noticing all the “Summa Cum Laude” ribbons on his various diplomas and had to remind myself that God commands me to not covet my neighbor’s assets.

The ones that work tirelessly to preserve our Constitutional rights. Kent Hart, the Executive Director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is always helping members of the association with finding resources, case law support, research information, and runs the UACDL smoothly and efficiently.

The ones who try cases to juries. There are more and more defense lawyers that are doing what I have been doing for decades, namely, taking a case to the jury when the prosecution is unwilling to negotiate in good faith or where the client is being railroaded by the system. But, most of these guys are my direct competitors, and I've already named a few of them, and it's already hard enough making a living as a criminal defense attorney in Utah unless your name starts with a "Yen" and ends with a "gich" so I won't name names.

Bad guys:

The ones who never take cases to jury trial but still pretend that they are somehow effective, honest or useful.

The ones that say anything to get a prospective client cough up a bunch of money. Save your salesmanship for the jury, or move to California, you bloodsucking bastards.

Collections attorneys. Period. Go forth and multiply with yourselves.

Insurance lawyers. Scum of the Earth. They will all burn in Hell. They should all be afflicted by flesh-eating viruses and die slow, painful deaths, living just long enough to see their own family members fighting over their estate.

Lawyers who are just quirky and their quirks:

There are still dozens that refuse to embrace any technology, and don’t have cell phones or use the internet at all. Steve Cook, come join us in the 21st Century!

One defense attorney, easily recognizable from his catchy advertising, never wears socks under his penny-loafers. “If it were me . . . I’d wear socks.”

Some lawyers intentionally dress oddly. One journeyman from the Legal Defender Association wears Deseret Industries plaids in bright, 1970’s colors on Fridays. One high-profile, highly paid defense attorney wears the ugliest, most worn out shoes you have ever seen. One old duck wears a large, feminine-looking brooch on his lapel and has a blue-tooth miniature cell phone stuck in his ear at all times, while carrying around large, three-ring binders for each client case. Initials in order are CBC, EKB and LNL.

One of our friends frequently asks prospective clients to meet him at Denny's to discuss their case. Some people may be a little put off by this, but a man's gotta eat! Another uses a downtown condominium as his office, and clients see his unwashed dishes and unmade bed next to his living room office.

Lawyers fit every imaginable sub-category, from the very best to the very worst. Utah is a tough place to ply our trade, with too many lawyers, and too many law schools for our population and income base. And Utahans generally are looking for the cheapest bargain basement price rather that competent, hard-working and effective legal representation. You usually get what you pay for, which may explain the high prison and jail population.

How we market ourselves clearly makes a difference in how successful we are in maintaining our businesses, earning a living, feeding our families. How we serve our clients and the Constitutions of Utah and the United States we a sworn to protect is something that frequently remains known only to ourselves and other observant defense attorneys. The average Joe can be misinformed, misled and misrepresented while the culprit that takes advantage of him keeps on pretending to be a defender of the faith.

You have to earn trust and respect; Integrity is something that other people see in you, not something you advertise about yourself.

Salt Lake City, Utah Criminal Defense Law Firm Access Legal Gets Results Every Day

2009-04-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

When you spend your career in the defense of persons accused of crimes, you really are defending the Constitutional rights of all persons in this State and nation, from being destoyed by overzealous prosecutors and police. Results for our firm come in various forms, from cases being dismissed by the prosecutors, to Jury Verdicts of Not Guilty. Sometimes, very positive results for our clients come in small, even esoteric forms.

Today, for example, Jon was prepared to politely but firmly state to a Federal Judge that the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are both extreme and unfair, and violate the due process of a defendant, despite the fact that these same methods have been repeatedly upheld by Courts of Appeal and the United States Supreme Court. Our client had plead guilty to being a felon in possession of a handgun, and could get as little as 24 months in a federal prison or as much as 108 months (that's 9 --- yeah, NINE YEARS!).

And we're talking about a hard core, nasty prison, like Florence, Colorado or even the Federal pen in Phoenix, not some tennis camp without locks on the dorm rooms, like Bernie Madoff or other "white collar" criminals do their vacations, er, uh, sentences at. Now, if stealing billions of dollars from retirees, charities and pension funds is punished by a few years at a "facility" with no fences, no guard dogs, handball courts and other luxuries, why does a person with a prior conviction that had a gun on himself for protection from gangbangers get 9 years in a dungeon?

Because Federal Sentencing guidelines allow the use of hearsay, non-adjudicated facts and witness statements that were never subjected to cross-examination. For our client, that meant that cops from another state could mail in their hearsay police reports accusing him of crimes that he has never been to court for, let alone convicted of; to provide allegations without the possibility of the defendant's lawyer even asking a question or two about the information, like how they got it, how reliable it may or may not be . . . you get the idea.

Jon had already submitted his written brief on this issue and fully expected the judge to simply pick a number between 24 and 108, based on both the unadjudicated, unexamined hearsay statements, and any other reasons he may have in deciding what sentence to give. But, the new guy at the Federal Courthouse in Salt Lake City, Judge Waddoups, agreed that it just is not fair to allow all these allegations without an opportunity for the defense to question the witnesses making the allegations, and submit their own versions or testimony. So he postponed everything until an evidentiary hearing can be completed in June. He also stated that his current thinking is to sentence in the 30 to 36 month range, so unless the United States Attorney's office can provide some witnesses or better, sworn statements that are adverse to our client, the government will not likely be successful in locking him up for all those extra years.

You kinda had to be there to get the full feel for it, and if you were a crimnal defense attorney or even a prosecutor, you would see how this small victory is important and could really benefit our client.

Now, other strange victories happen, too, without much fanfare. We have a client accused of a serious, violent sexual offense, but the prosecutor lacked some vital information that we discovered, and provided to him, which is leading to a probable reduction of the charges from 1st Degree Felonies involving up to life in prison, to a possible deferred plea or Misdemeanor plea to charges that don't require sex offender registration. When a law firm actually cares enough to do the work, instead of just pleading out cases and pocketing fees, the client benefits, his family benefits and society benefits. The defendant gets his life back, keeps his job, his house, his dignity, pays taxes instead of the family going on welfare, and best of all, the Constitutional rights of one person are preserved, which preserves these same rights for all the rest of us, too.

Statewide Utah's Very Best Criminal Defense Attorney Duo Do It Best

2009-04-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

When one of us gets sick, the other has to pick up the slack for a few days, and gets to see more miles on the tires. Jon is out with pnumonia this week, so I had to pick up some of his cases, and others had to be rescheduled because I had to do some road work, too. Tuesday was Richfield for a UHP bust that netted 30 pounds of marijuana. Food storage, I cried, and accepted the challenge.

Since there were two defendants, the secondary defendant needed a different attorney that was not part of my firm. I looked around, but on short notice Monday afternoon to travel early Tuesday, the first two I asked were not available. Too bad. It's a great case, and I feel strongly that we will eventually get the evidence suppressed for a bad bust by the overbearing Trooper and his butt-sniffing companion (a dog, not his Captain).

So, my old law-school buddy Charles A. Schultz volunteered and will now end up earning a very nice fee and got to enjoy five hours of my company on Tuesday. Charlie commented that he was a little surprised that I convinced judge Wallace Lee to reduce the pair's bails from $50,000 each to $10K for my guy and $5K for his defendant, where the two did not live in Utah and had no local connections. Fact is, the prosecutor agreed, probably figuring that if these folks go to the trouble of hiring private counsel from "up north," that they are serious about showing up and resolving their felony charges.

Today I had to drive to Duchesne in blustery early Spring weather. The first half of the trip was kind of like the Utah State Bar: lots of flakes floating around and a few slippery slopes. Past Strawberry, it was sunshine and high winds, and Starvation Reservoir was a brilliant emerald green color (as compared to Jordanelle's slate gray-blue and Strawberry's dark, Navy blue). A spectacular site from the Freedom Bridge, and a lovely drive in my new Toyota Tundra. Oh, and the client was happy, too.

We got him sprung from the pokey and back on track in a drug possession case. I got a chance to chat with Bruce Savage, a respected defense attorney with decades of experienced, from Park City. Bruce kind of looks a little like a cross between the movie critic Gene Shalit and the farce comedian, Rip Taylor (the confetti guy), and if you put the two of us in an elevator together, you have to be careful about the maximum weight limit being exceeded. Brilliant as ever, we whispered back and forth like junior high school girls, only instead of talking about the Jonas Brothers, we talked about bad cops and evidence suppression. I was just as exited about the subject and the girls are about the Jonas Brothers, but we had to contain our excitement, so as not to piss off Judge Lynn Payne.

A female baliff/Sheriff's deputy brought over a note to us that said, "you are being recorded" and glanced at the microphone on the defense table. Quickly thinking about how many crooked cops and idiot prosecutors we had just dissed, I wrote in large letters on the other side of the note, "GOOD!" What are they gonna do, hold me in contempt? Well, maybe. It's not like it will be the first time a loud mouthed defense lawyer got a free, all-expenses vacation (in jail) as a reward for pushing a Judge's buttons once too often. And nowadays, they make you pay $40 a day for sitting in their jails.

Tip of the day: the State's internet crimes task force is watching everyone who uses Limewire file-sharing service for receiving illegal child pornography. When they track down persons they belief downloaded the illegal images, the do a "knock and talk" which means they show up at the person's home, announce that they are cops, have no warrant and tell the person that although they suspect he has been downloading illegal kiddie porn, he does not have to talk to them and does not have to let them in. Those who let the cops in have forgotton every Vampire movie ever made: A Vampire can't enter your home unless he's invited in (Remember "Fright Night?")

But, once inside, like just as the Vampire won't leave until he sucks the life-blood out of you, the porn police don't leave without your computer, and then, you may be sunk. If you just tell them, while they are still on the front porch, "No, I will not talk to you, so leave," they will leave. They don't have enough evidence to get a warrant, or they would be inside your house already, and you would be in handcuffs. So, tell them to FOAD, as nicely as possible, and then, after they leave, call an attorney immediately, and quit playing with fire. Child porn is illegal for a reason, just like cocaine and methamphetamine. It is not a victimless crime, and mere possession can land you in prison, so find another hobby.

Utah's Best Lawyer is Better than the Other Best Lawyers in Utah

2009-03-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

In past blogs, I've described our firm's ongoing fued with the West Valley City prosecutor's office, and their description of Jon and I as, "pains in the ass." The result has been great for our clients, as we get as many cases dismissed by WVC as all the other prosecutors statewide, combined. About half the cases we represent that are filed by the West Valley prosecutor are ultimately DISMISSED before trial.

Sometimes, we can even "call it in" as we experienced last week, when I was home, sick with some intestinal bug, and Jon had to handle all the Salt Lake District cases that morning, a daunting task, what with 90 or 100 or more cases on each calendar, and rude LDAs hogging up valuable pulpit time. So, by the time Jon made it to the West Valley calendar at Judge Barrett's courtroom, it was already half past eleven, and the client was not there. A quick inquiry to the court and clerk, and Jon was told that in his absence, the client's name was called and he stood up to the podium, and announced that Jon Grimes and Ed Flint were his attorneys.

The West Valley prosecutor immediately told the court that they were Moving to Dismiss the case; our client was told his case was over, he could go home. By the time Jon showed up, he had already "WON" the case.

And, Jon continues to win in ways rarely seen. As I have described in previous entries, winning a case at Preliminary Hearing is most unusual, and I can only recall two occasions in the past 23 years that I have succeeded in having the Judge dismiss a Felony for lack of evidence of probable cause. Jon has already equaled this feat in the past year, and today, he surpassed my decades old total with another victory before "Judge Judy" Atherton in Salt Lake Third District Court. Our client was charged with multiple felonies, including an aggravated assault on a police officer (clearly over charged), and when Jon cross examined the "victim" cop, he got him to admit that he really didn't think the defendant was trying to run him down with his car, but just trying to get away.

Now the client has one less felony to deal with (he still has the felony fleeing from police, but that's workable), and Jon got to bask in the fleeting glory which is bestowed upon us occasionally in this profession. Whilst he was pulling local duty, I got to drive to Logan and back today, both dodging the idiot "Utah-drivers" that seem to be everywhere, and trying to help a client stay out of the pokey in Cache Valley.

Had I not been pressed for time with an attempted murder case in Salt Lake this afternoon, I might have sojourned the extra 26 miles north to Preston, Idaho, to buy some Powerball lottery tickets. Like most of you, my best hopes for a decent retirement rely on either winning the multistate lottery or having a dream case worth a million bucks drop into my lap. Neither is likely, but you don't win the lottery unless you play.

And you can't win a jury trial unless you try cases to juries. Every month, Jon and I have around 5 to 8 cases set for jury trials. Every month, about half get continued to later dates, usually because older cases bump us off the schedule, sometimes because one side or the other needs more time to prepare. The other half either get dismissed (more and more frequently for us) or the prosecutor finally caves in and gives our client a great plea bargain that is acceptable and fair, or, we go to trial. In the last 12 months, Jon and I have tried eight (8) cases before juries, plus two bench trials (as described in previous blog entries, one was Jon winning a bench trial in front of Judge Keith Stoney in West Valley Justice Court, the other was me winning Jon's speeding ticket in Salt Lake City court in a case where we intentionally made no effort to defend the case, anticipated losing, so we could appeal the authority of the Justice Courts -- and we won, anyway!).

That's 10 trials, which is about 10 trials more than most attorneys try in a year, and that was a slow year. My record is 13 jury trials in twelve months in 1997-98, and my low is ZERO, which has happenned a couple of times. All together, Jon and I have tried about 130 jury trials in our combined 29 years of practice. My longest jury went three plus weeks; many take only a day. I have had some end in mistrial, hung jury, dismissal, settlement and even a suicide. I've had split verdicts, guilty verdicts and not guilty verdicts; I have used expert testimony, investigators, rebuttal techniques and other times I have relied on just cross examination of the government witnesses without needing to put on any testimony or evidence, and still argued successfully for aquittal.

The point is, EXPERIENCE coupled with quality performance, a high degree of skill and a firm desire to serve our clients well means we really are you best choice when you need a criminal defense law firm in Utah.

And lastly,

My gratitude goes out to the fine doctors, nurses and staff at Intermountain Medical Center and at the Woodlands Care Center who took such fine care of my daughter while she was recovering from her near-fatal injuries from four weeks ago. She now is at home, continuing her recovery, but remarkably, has healed enough that she could go back to work, if there was work for her to go back to, and it did not involve standing or lifting. My thanks to all the court personnel, clerks, bailiffs, judges and attorneys who have expressed their support and kind wishes for my daughter's recovery.

The wheelchair is tempory; the titanium rods, screws and plates are permanent, as are the physical and emotional scars. We pray our gratitude to God for saving her, and pray for her continued recovery. Life is precious and fragile; never forget that.

Ed

Utah, Land of Contradictions

2009-03-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

In the last two and a half weeks, I have borne witness to the bizarre and quirky, the oxymorons and the legislative morons, and the very worst and very best that life has to offer.

Utah, according to today's news, is the "happiest state" in the USA. We have sunshine most of the time, beautiful scenery, low unemployment, and happy people. Why are the people so happy? It could be that Utah is also number one in the country for the per capita purchase of internet pornography. A Harvard study confirms that Utahans buy up online smut at more than three times the level of neighboring states, which may suggest that those persons who protest the loudest about certain societal issues are actually the biggest offenders; like the Rev. Ted Haggard attacking homosexuals, while at the same time he was carrying on several gay sex relationships, or Republicans in Congress who accuse others of fiscal irresponsibility while they ran massive budget deficits every year of the Bush administration.

What the porn story really means is that Utahans apparently don't just get their porn for free like most of the rest of the country. But even more pornographic AND perverse, the Utah State Legislature is in session, seeking to ruin as many lives as possible in only 45 days.

While acting somewhat reasonably in passing a liquor reform law, doing away with private clubs and the "Zion Curtain" rules, the price was forcing a DUI revision that increased Drivers License sanctions to the point of gettin' Medieval on our asses. The Utah Senate passed, with only one no vote, a bill (SB 272) that would have increased drivers license suspensions for first time DUI offenses to ONE YEAR, with no provision for any limited driving, and any person under age 21 would lose their driving privileges for at least one year, or until age 21, which ever was lengthier. This bill is being fought vigorously by the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers through its Legislative Committee where myself and my partner Jon Grimes are members, and I have emailed my Representative and others with our concerns of how this would affect the state.

Draconian punishments and long-term license supsensions may make a Legislator look tough on crime, but the reality is that persons convicted of DUI or other offenses will not be able to work to pay fines, or be able to get to their mandated treatment or community service obligations, resulting in more people spending more time in jail while their families lose their homes, and go on food stamps, Medicaid and welfare. Parents of juveniles who are not allowed to drive until age 21 will be forced to drive junior everywhere: school functions, work, etc. The state will lose, according to its own fiscal report, about $2 Million dollars a year in driver license fees and other revenue.

While Utah's Legislature is shooting itself in the foot which is in Sen. Buttars' mouth, whose head is firmly within his own void surrounded by a sphincter, other things are happening, too. A man tried to kill himself and his girlfriend by driving a car at high speed, while being chased by police, into a parked 2-ton truck full of welding supplies. The young woman, a mother of two little boys, tried to escape, but could not, and was badly injured, suffering numerous broken bones and undergoing three surgeries so far. While recovering, she has tried to stay on top of things as much as she could, like completing her tax returns, replacing her cell phone that was destroyed, and trying to get veteranarian help for her dog, that was also injured in the car crash.

To this end, the owner of a local Liberty Tax Service brought her returns to her in the hospital to sign and get an instant refund, and waived his fees. The local manager of Cricket cell phones personally had a new phone delivered to her and helped her get the service reconnected quickly. And the Vet at Cottonwood Animal Hospital agreed to do the surgery on the dog to save her leg from amputation, and will take payments for the bulk of the fee, when other animal clinics wanted over $2,000 up front (or much less to euthenize the dog). These small favors to a person in need don't go unnoticed, which is why I mention them here. Because the girl is my little girl, and God did not take her from us, and she will be around to raise my grandsons, despite the best efforts of a crazy son of a bitch to kill her.

And so it goes.

Access Legal Client Wins "Lottery" Twice, Two County Attorneys Struck by Lightning in the Process

2009-02-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

Although we hear stories of how a person can win the smaller, scratch off lottery more than once, and even more incredibly, some people have been struck by lightning more than once and survived, in the world of Criminal Defense law, it's equally rare for one client to win two different cases in exactly the same fashion, several years apart, and in different places with different judges making nearly identical rulings under eerily similar circumstances.

I know, it's true that only law geeks and trial junkies can really appreciate this, but I fall in those catagories, so gawd help me, I'm telling the story:

Yesterday, February 20, 2009, in Price, Utah before the Hon. George Harmond, District Court Judge, I argued a motion to suppress evidence where the Highway Patrol trooper pulled my client over after following him for several blocks, when he saw the defendant's vehicle go over the right side white stripe, called the "fog line." The trooper speaks with my client for a few minutes, getting his license and proof of insurance, tells my guy that "your eyes look bloodshot" and "I can smell the odor of alcohol." (All of this is neatly on the video tape, since UHP have cameras in the cars).

He has him get out, pats him down, finds a small, glass pipe with burnt residue. Handcuffs my client and asks about weapons in the car (in custody and no Miranda), and my guy admits he's got a loaded .45 ACP in the center console. The search also turns up a small container with a little Methamphetamine and a cut down piece of a drinking straw in it, and some illegal Wyoming bottle rockets. Defendant is then required to take Standard Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs) and does OK on some, so the Trooper has him do some Non-standard tests like Rhomberg and finger-to-nose-touch and then announces he's under arrest for a multitude of sins.

So many issues to address, I prepare for all of them: Search and seizure, Miranda, non-standardized tests resulting in lack of probable cause, etc. But Judge Harmond, at the end of 2 and 1/2 hours of hearing, simply states, "we don't have to go that far."

Now, it is at points in time like this that a Defense Attorney knows what is going to happen next, but decorum requires he keep it cool and wait for the announcement. Like last Wednesday, after putting on a good trial for the Jury on a DUI case, when they jurors came in from deliberation, they would not look me or my client in the eye, so I knew we had lost that case. But in Price, yesterday, the judge saying "we don't have to go that far," was the opening line of "Defendant's argument that the police stopped and detained him without reasonable suspicion of a violation of the law, in the totality of the circumstances, was not meritorious and violated the Defendant's constitutional rights against unreasonable government intrusion, searches and seizures."

Here's where the Defendant wins big; sing along with me, "Everybody have fun tonight, Everybody Wong Sun tonight!" (only mild apologies to Wang Chung for this pun). Because all of the government's evidence was obtained after the trooper conducted an illegal stop, the doctrine of law that arose in the early 60's case of Wong Sun v. United States means that ALL of the evidence is now INADMISSIBLE and is Suppressed.

The State can't use the gun, can't use the methamphetamine (both felonies), can't use the paraphernalia, can't use the video or the field sobriety tests, they cannot even use the bottlerockets in this case. Gutted like a fish!

Now the lottery and lightning part of the story. This defendant was also my client about 3 years ago in Duchesne County, where he was pulled over by police for a minor violation, discovered to be in possession of methamphetamine and a cut straw, a loaded handgun, paraphernalia and, yes, bottlerockets from Wyoming! And in that case, at a suppression of evidence hearing before the Hon. Lynn Payne, District Court Judge, the exact same finding was made: that the officer did not have enough reasonable suspicion of a criminal violation to stop and detain my client while he investigated to find evidence of crimes like DUI, possession, etc. Judge Payne ruled that ALL of the evidence was Suppressed for exactly the same reason, under exactly the same doctrine.

My client is either the luckiest guy in Eastern Utah, or has the best lawyer in Utah. Probably a little of both. And our prosecutors in these cases each got struck by lightning because their arresting officer screwed up and the defendant's lawyer actually worked the case to find the screw up and win the case

Last word is about these prosecutors. Gene "Straight-shooter" Strait is the Carbon County Attorney; I've known Gene for 20 years, since he was the Price City prosecutor, and Judge Harmond had the County Attorney job. Good, honorable, smart guys, who understand and live the principle of the rule of law over the reality of what the cop actually found. In Duchesne, it's County Attorney Steve "My Left" Foote, who was ruffled by losing such a solid case because of the "technicality" of the officer screw up, but you can count on him to be fair and keep his word. These guys make have been struck by lightning on this defendant, but they are professionals and so far, have not asked the cops to tail me out of town!

One other prosecutor to mention is Doug Johnson from Sandy City, who won the DUI trial that I defended on Wednesday. An appropriate nickname for him might be "The Ringer." Doug's friendly to counsel but then put on his game face at trial style where he handles only misdemeanors, nearly all in Sandy Justice Court, and rarely has a jury trial, has lulled some of us (me, OK, I admit it) to think he was "just" another city prosecutor. Turns out, Doug is a skilled felony and murder prosecutor with years of experience in Jury Trials as a prosecutor in Florida, and the Sandy City gig is for comfort, not prestige. Congratulations, Doug, on your impending marriage, and next time we try a case to a jury, I hope to return the favor.

Utah Lawyers Tell Clients and Others the Truth at Access Legal

2009-02-16T21:27:00.000-08:00

It's a holiday today, but we all worked for a good part of the day. Jon visited a young man at the jail, charged with a serious felony. Sheri came in and answered phones and caught up on paperwork for a few hours. I tried to "Frankenstein" four broken computers into one, working computer, but had no luck, so I put the pirate flag back up over my monitor for now.

Clearly not within my expertise, but the "geek" that started the job never finished it, and now he doesn't answer his phone and nobody has heard from him in a week. The guy just got back from Iraq after his Guard unit was called up last year, and I would cut him some slack, but he was a flake before the war, according to those I've spoken with, and now that I think about it, the last time I went this long with a broken computer in my room, the same guy kept promising to fix it "this weekend" or "real soon."

Out in the world, people with capablities frequently bite off more than they can chew, and find themselves overwhelmed. I did this myself, when I tried to represent myself in a personal injury claim. I got nowhere until I retained a qualified, experienced attorney of the highest repute, one who actually cared about me and worked the case hard (Never hire the guys on TV, I've even testified against one of them for Malpractice before. Call me, I will refer you to three or four different firms that will actually work hard to get your case done -- we don't take Personal Injury cases anymore because they really are time-demanding and I find them very distracting from our criminal defense practice).

Same thing for my competitors in the Criminal Defense field. There are several very good, highly qualified and experienced attorneys who will work hard for you, every step of the way. And there are those who discovered that their fine salesmanship has brought them more work than they can do themselves, so they have to advertise that "work may be performed by other attorneys in the firm" which is like when the police say "anything you say will be used against you," and you can count on it. You pay the big bucks for the guy you saw on TV or even on his own website, telling you that he's one of the best lawyers around, but you end up in Court with a young associate that seems to be more interested in how quickly you plead guilty.

Another example of this shoddy lawyering came to my attention today, when I spoke to a man who plead guilty in West Jordan Justice Court in November to a DUI reduced to ARR and to unlawful possession of firearms while intoxicated. That is usually a more serious violation of the law, but clearly West Jordan wanted to keep it in their Justice Court so they could reap the monetary reward of the fines and fees assessed by the Honorable Cash Register Kunz, Judge.

But the lawyer also reaped a windfall by only going to court twice with this poor fellow, then convincing him to plead guilty. That's maybe 4 hours (probably less) of attorney time for $3,500.00 that the guy paid! What the ?? Now the guy called me today because he just learned that, despite what he was told by the lawyer, he is not getting his guns back, they are being kept and either destroyed or sold for profit by West Jordan Police. Sadly, he got screwed twice. Too late now to appeal his case, he loses both his money and his guns, has a record for 10 years, and probably will hate all lawyers forever.

At Access Legal, we charge almost exactly the same for a DUI defense in Justice Court, but few cases settle quickly, as we force the prosecutor to provide additional evidence that most lawyers don't bother with (which sometimes wins the case, like a video or additional chemical testing), and we frequently have an expert review the case to determine if we have Constitutional defenses that could result in dismissal of the case, or suppression of evidence and testimony at trial, making the case harder to prove. Finally, if we can't find a settlement that our fully informed client both understands and agrees to, we try the case to a Jury, where we win about three out of four.

Many other lawyers, particularly those who don't have the same passion for law that Jon and I have, wonder aloud why we spend so much more time on the same cases that other lawyers shove through the system quickly, efficiently and profitably. After all, if you only spend 4 hours on a case and make $3,500.00 for your time, that works out to be $875.00 per hour, which would allow you to actually only work part-time, and make a million dollars a year! If you spend the time the case requires, you may spend 4 to 5 times as many hours (about $150 -200 per hour) and if the case is tried to a Jury, between preparation and an all-day trial adding up to 15 more hours to your total, well, you might be lucky to cover your office overhead, but you, the attorney, won't make a dime.

So why do we do it? I already mentioned that we love this stuff, right? Because we fight so hard, we frequently uncover problems overlooked by so many other attorneys, and the prosecutor ends up dismissing their case. We get around 30 cases dismissed each year. Because www.utahaccesslegal.com/PracticeAreas/Verdicts-Results-Dismissals.asp, or more when we're on a hot streak, we force prosecutors to decide how to spend their time: in constant preparation and trial or clearing the huge caseloads they all have. Frequently, they choose to give our client a great bargain at the last minute, to avoid trial, and when they don't, we try the case.

This week, I have a case set for trial on Wednesday. A DUI case at the West Jordan District Court against the Sandy Prosecutor, Doug Johnson, a very good lawyer and fine opponent. We have a Motion in Limine (to exclude evidence that is unreliable) set tomorrow afternoon, and it is possible that if we win that, Doug will make a great offer to our client that we can feel comfortable in recommending to him. But if no great offer materializes, I will try this case to a jury on Wednesday, and report back to you after it's over.

Because this is what we do.

Utah Criminal Trial Lawyers Win Again and Again, Without Trial

2009-02-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

Been a little busy, fighting the evil empire and all, so let me bring you all up to speed:

Last Tuesday, our video was installed on our website, with corresponding publication to YouTube for the masses to view. So view it, already! Compare to other law firms' video attempts and please comment here or on YouTube.

Last Monday and Tuesday, I was heavily engaged in battle with a fire-breathing dragon (aka: Traveler's Insurance Company and its attorney) in a binding arbitration of my four-year-old injury claim from being rear-ended by a 26,000 pound truck. Decision to follow.

On Thursday, my partner, "Little Jon" Grimes was off to fight the Orem Police Department and Prosecutor for losing/destroying a video tape that they alleged showed the defendant, our client, perform a lewd act in a store. We contended that he simply forgot to zip up his pants completely and the store clerk freaked out. The video would prove one of us right, the other wrong. We have been seeking the tape, by subpoena even, for many months, and somebody destroyed it. Hmmmmm. They dismissed all charges!

Jon barely had time to gloat over his victory when a client dropped by the office to talk about his domestic violence charges by his ex-girlfriend. The case was filed as a Class A in District Court, and we had demanded a Jury Trial (as we always do). I noticed that West Valley City had not supplied us with any discovery (the police report, witness statements, etc.) so our secretary, Sheri, called the WVC Prosecutor's office and they started faxing over page after page of reports. We had a good defense, an alibi and numerous text messages from the alleged victim that tended to show that she had it in for our guy, and would stop at nothing to screw up his life. While we were chatting with our client and his mother, we received a call from the West Valley Prosecutor, stating that they were filing a Motion to Dismiss the case!

Indeed, we have been a thorn in the side of the West Valley Prosecutors. Jon and I have each won our most recent trials in West Valley Justice Court. I won a Jury Trial for a DUI with a .139 BAC breath test on October 30th, and a few weeks later, Jon won a case in front of Judge Stoney, something that very few attorneys can say they have ever accomplished.

In fact, Jon's case had been amended by the Prosecutor to "Infractions" to deny him the opportunity to try the case to a Jury, since Infractions cannot carry any jail penalty, only a fine, and there is no Constitutional guarantee of trial by Jury. The Prosecutor even boasted that he had NEVER lost a bench trial. But that day he did, and Jon won.

So despised are we by Ryan Robinson and his crew in WVC, that he even told us one day, while chatting before court downtown, that every year, he and his assistant prosecutors look back at their cases for the preceeding year, and there are always four or five that were real "pains in the ass," and that last year, all of those cases involved Ed Flint and Jon Grimes! It makes this old veteran grin to know that he is a pain in Ryan's ass. We don't plan on letting up.

Now, on to all the other local prosecutors, the District Attorney and various County Attorneys, and our old buddy, the Attorney General. If we are pains in their asses, we must be doing a good job for our clients.

Sleep well, kids.

ARRRGGHH!

2009-01-22T09:21:00.000-08:00

Peeved again.

Today, I listened to Diane Sawyer, a former Nixon White House employee, state on Good Morning America, to their entire ABC audience, that Calvin Cooledge took the oath as President of the United States after President James Garfield was assassinated.

Now, this is partly true; Garfield was assassinated in 1881 and Cooledge took the oath as President in 1923, definately "after" in time. But it was Warren G. Harding that was the newly deceased President, and Cooledge was his Veep, and I can't believe that ABC news or Diane Sawyer could make this error.

Then I was looking through the New York Times "Guide to Essential Knowledge" (a Christmas gift of the type I love, like maps and atlases) and the mini-bio of John Glenn said that he "was the first person to orbit the Earth." Not only wrong, but "Essential Knowledge" did not even have the mini-bio of Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet Cosmonaut that won the space race and was first to orbit the earth, almost a full year before Glenn, who later went up on the Space Shuttle as an 80-year-old US Senator. "All the News that's Fit to Print" along with all the errors that seem to matter not.

Going back to the beginning of this entry, the Presidential Oath brouhaha was because during the Inauguration, Chief Justice Roberts misstated the oath, transposing the word "faithfully" to the end of a sentence, and President Obama repeating the interposed words instead of the 35-word oath enumerated in the Constitution. Some idiot on FOX (and they have the market cornered for idiots, like Hannity, Huckabee and Karl Rove) said that we don't have a President because the Oath was incorrect. Then they all rejoiced.

So, Obama summoned CJ Roberts to the White House to do a mulligan and re-do the oath correctly, to avoid any conspiracy theorist from filing a lawsuit that Obama is not the real President. All fixed.

Except, the news jockies that continue to refer to John Roberts as the "Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court." Again, WRONG. Roberts is the CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES. And if the exact wording of the Oath of Office is a big deal to reporters, the exact title of the judge that screwed it up is a big deal, too.

Salt Lake Criminal Defense Attorney and the Midas Touch

2009-01-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

I was immediately reminded of the line John Hurt's character mutters in "A History of Violence" when his mafia goon fails to successfully strangle his brother, Joey (Viggo Mortensson): "How could you f**k that up?"

You see, my objective this afternoon was to create a test case by which our firm and our friends on the Legislative Committee of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers would be able to challenge Justice Courts' authority Statewide, and potentially force a Legislative showdown to reform our horribly messed-up Justice Court system.

All I had to do was lose.

Jon (Grimes, my law partner and overall swell guy) got a speeding ticket last August on his way to the office. Our assignment was to take the case to a bench trial so that one of the Salt Lake City Justice Court Judges found him guilty, and then appeal the whole deal up to the Supreme Court for a ruling on the authority of Justice Courts. Although some are better that others, the whole Justice Court system in Utah has devolved into petty little fiefdoms of municipal greed and a few that like to throw people in jail for exasperatingly long sentences. The goal here was to get the highest Court in Utah to rule that the Justice Courts are currently acting without authority or proper judicial oversight, and if the Legislature doesn't fix it, the Supreme Court may abolish it.

To do this, we needed a volunteer to be the test case. This required one of us lawyers volunteering, because it would be unfair to subject a client to the whims of jurisprudence or the risks of pissing off the wrong judge. Jon made the perfect laboratory rat.

So we have been waiting for this trial date for some time, anticipating the day with great fervor. "How shall we lose this case?" we giggle, like gossiping school girls. Simple. Let the City Prosecutor put on his case and do nothing. Jon was clearly speeding that morning (18 mph over), so this will be over in a few minutes at a bench trial. We appeared on the case, joked with the judge that we wanted "Trial by Ordeal" but would settle for a bench trial, and then waited for today.

Still certain that we could lose this case by just showing up, we were concerned when the police officer wasn't there, and we thought that we might be forced to win by default!! Then, luckily he showed up, about 20 minutes late. We were saved. Now we could lose this trial and get on with the real business of the appeal.

Judge Sydney Magid called our case and Jon sat next to me at the defense table. Both sides waived opening statements. The prosecutor called Officer Shane to testify, and the extremely nice police officer promised to tell the whole truth. And he did.

When asked if he had actual recollection of Jon being the driver of the speeding car, he first asked to review his citation and report, to refresh his recollection, but he still could not say with certaintly that the fellow sitting in the defendant's seat was the same guy as last August. Then he also admitted that he had not checked the calibration of his laser speed detector that day, prior to using it to measure Jon's speed.

Crap! We looked at each other in astonishment. Maybe we can still lose this case; most judges would find Jon guilty, anyway. So I did not ask a single question or give any closing argument or provide any additional evidence or testimony, and crossed my fingers that the judge would brand Jon with the Scarlett "S" for speeding, and throw the book at him. We needed a "Guilty" verdict in order to appeal that the Judge has no authority to issue verdicts.

She found him NOT GUILTY. I know, I like winning trials and all, but this was, well, a "test case." We were supposed to lose. I was happy to lose, and I would have asked the judge to throw Jon, a father of five, in Jail for a few weeks, if it would be helpful for the cause. (Better him than me).

We wondered if we should have done something else to assure Jon losing this case, like me questioning the officer, rehabilitating his testimony and firming up his recollections. Maybe we could have put Jon on the witness stand and had him ADMIT HIS GUILT, but we were so dumbfounded by the swift victory that we obtained, that we ended up being chastised by the Judge for chuckling in Court (disrepectful). Sorry.

Just like Midas, though, everything turning to gold upon my touch is not such a great gift. Clearly, Winning this case has set justice back at least six months, while we find another test case to lose.

Maybe I'll get a speeding ticket on the way home.

Utah Men Sing Utah Man

2009-01-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

Who am I, sir? A UTAH MAN AM I!

I know it's been nearly a week since the Utes sliced and diced 'Bama in the Sugar Bowl, to finish another perfect season at 13-0. So many have weighed in on whether there needs to be a playoff system to give the Utahs and Boise States and TCUs (and what the hell, the BYUs) of this great nation a shot at a true, undisputed national title.

President Elect Barak Obama said in an interview that Utah is a fine team and has good reason to claim a stake as the number one team in college football, with a perfect, unbeaten record. Even our old nemesis Mark Shurtleff, my former law school classmate now in his third term as Attorney General of Utah, was giddy upon returning from N'awlens and promptly threatened to conduct an investigation of the BCS system.

But I wanted to see the Fiesta bowl (Texas had to comeback against Ohio State to win a nailbiter) and the BCS title game tonight between Urban Meyer's Florida Gators and the storied Sooners of Oklahoma. I caught the fourth quarter, which was really all that anybody needed to see, and minutes after the Florida victory, my DirecTV signal went right down the toilet with our latest snowstorm.

It's great to have a connection to a winner. When I started at the University of Utah in 1978, I recall we won 3 games, and the QB was a short baseball catcher named Randy Gomez. But we beat BYU that year, a feat that was not repeated for a decade.

My high school football program was embarrasing, and my Junior year, went 0 and 9. It was enough to make me join the Track and Field team, where we did win the State 3-A team championship my Senior year. I was a spearchucker, and in three years of javelin tossing, speared only two humans and one football that were in my way. Actually, one of the humans was playing catch with me, so it was "assumption of risk."

Back to the subject, it's great to be associated with a winning program, and in looking how far our little firm has come from its humble beginnings in a pumpkin patch two years ago, to the touchdown machine it is today, I can state with certainty that we run a winning program at Access Legal. Find out more at www.utahaccesslegal.com or call us at (801) 363-LAWS.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get another orange smoothy.

Utah Access Legal Wishes You a Happy New Year

2008-12-31T17:26:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, and may 2009 be brighter and better for all of us. And if celebrating helps, you can do it again in a month at the Lunar New Year recognized in much of Asia. Many people look back on the year and point out notable news. Here's my take on 2008.

If you lost your job or your 401k tanked, or your home is in foreclosure, be grateful for your health. And if your health sucks, move to Canada or Great Britain, because Congress is not going to make affordable health care a priority until their buddies at the banks and investment companies tell them they can.

If you insist on smoking marijuana, move to California and find a doctor to give you a prescription. Then you can buy it from vending machines all over the Golden State. But beware if you are planning a trip to the Netherlands; they are closing down a number of the "coffee shops" that sell pot, and also closing down large numbers of brothels in Amsterdam. The ideal place to live for a pot-smoking whore-monger is probably Bakersfield, California, where you can smoke your rope and have a relatively short drive across the desert to the legal brothels of Nevada.

But don't bring your drugs with you to Nevada, and especially don't get in legal trouble there. OJ Simpson is doing hard time in prison because he decided to screw up in Nevada, where Judges are elected, and have to put on a good show for the voters. A guy in jail in Las Vegas saw his public defender on a TV comercial saying how he will be hard on crime and make them all do the time if he is elected judge. Gives a man confidence in his legal representation.

And if you want to be a judge in Utah, it may be worse, where the Utah State Senate gets to torture and crucify you if you ever offended their gods at the NRA or the Eagle Forum. I have had friends in the Utah Legislature, both Democrat and Republican. I see now why they chose to leave it. Kinda like swimming in sewage.

But the crap flows uphill. Mark Shurtleff, my old law school classmate whose day job is Attorney General of the State of Utah, is a news-making machine. Whether he crashes his Harley breaking his leg severely, or his task force over-publicizes the arrest of suspects on his web site, he can always find a way to make the airwaves on a regular basis.

There is more; there always will be more.

But instead of harping on the past, let's concentrate on the good things in store for our immediate future. A New President, an improved Congress and an expectation that the old crap needs to be flushed away, may mean a bright outlook for the common man. And if it doesn't work out in 2009, remember that the world ends on 12/12/12 anyway.

Utah Criminal Defense Lawyers Wish You Peace and Joy

2008-12-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Wonderful Channukah and Joyful Kwanzaa and totally secular and unaffiliated Happy Holidays to all, and to all, a good night.

Because, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they are not out to get you. So, you better watch out; you better not cry.

Poverty is coming to town.

And to all my conspiracy theory friends out there (and you know who you are) you should be grateful that you found out early that the US Government is conspiring to destroy all our wealth by devaluing the dollar 90% and forcing all of North America to accept a new currency, the "Amero" that is similar to the Euro, only fictitious. By knowing about it ahead of time, you can convert all of your soon-to-be-worthless US dollars into gold Krugerrands, stuff them in your mattress, and keep vigil over your shack in the woods with your array of new assault weap0ns that you bought after Obama's election (while you still could get them).

But don't get me wrong. Cops still lie and collude and get their stories straight so that when the "Testilie" in Court, it's more believable. And the rest of us should be grateful that in the age of cyberspace and pinhole digital cameras, there are groups that actually CATCH THE COPS in their lying, evidence-planting evil ways. Check this out:

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/12/setting_up_the_vice_cops.php

And be grateful this season that you don't have a Governor that boldly demands huge bribes and then has the balls to publicly disgrace his entire state by dragging it out in public. Maybe I am judging him too quickly, like people who judged OJ (either case) or MJ (pick a case) or anybody else that is accused of wrongdoing. After all, my entire career is based on the absolute defense of the accused, regardless of public opinion, and in spite of what the cops (known to be liars) may say.

Public figures, particularly elected officials, are the exception. Criticism of our elected officials is what makes our country great. You don't (or shouldn't) get punished for disagreeing publicly with the government or our leaders. I have frequently blogged my displeasure with the way our Attorney General, my old law school classmate, Mark Shurtleff, runs his office. And I've been just as harsh on Lohra Miller, the Salt Lake County District Attorney. If you run for public office, public scrutiny is part of your job description.

But it still bothers me when the cops in Heber follow me and my client all the way to the Summit County border every time we go to court. And just because they're out to get me doesn't mean I'm paranoid.

Peace. Shalom.

Utah's "Real" Best Lawyers Defend the Defense of Criminal Charges

2008-12-08T10:16:00.000-08:00

My thought process has become more a random blur of multiple ideas, projects in the works, and deadlines to meet. Part of this is acknowledged brain damage, stemming from getting hit by that delivery truck four years ago. The rest is from watching too much television news.

When I Minored in Journalism at the U 30 years ago, Professor Roy Gibson had us live by the Associated Press Stylebook. Particularly in broadcast journalism, when you were reporting on the radio or television, you were expected to pronounce words and names correctly and get the story right, not just get the story out. For example, the Pacific island of Pago Pago is pronounced "Pango-Pango" and the Chinese insist their capital is Beijing, not Peking. Folks in Tooele or Hurricane, Utah know how to say the name of their town, and any journalist worth his salt would find out ahead of time, so as not to butcher a proper name. (note: "Her-kin rhymes with LaVerkin").

I am sure that the old "Media Man" of yesteryear is spinning in his grave with some of the stuff that goes on today. But the stuff that always irritates me, as a criminal defense attorney, is how incapable journalists are of learning the difference between JAIL and PRISON.

OJ is currently sitting in JAIL and will soon be transported to PRISON. Martha Stewart went to a minimum security PRISON, while Paris Hilton spent a few days in a county JAIL. Persons who are convicted of felonies and receive sentences of greater than one year go to PRISON. Persons who commit misdemeanors and receive sentences of less than one year go to JAIL.

The PRISON has educational programs, activities and work for nearly all inmates. You can earn a college degree while in PRISON; learn a trade or profession, obtain counseling, therapy and work in jobs as diverse as culinary arts to forest fire suppression. In Utah, once you are in PRISON, your life belongs to the Board of Pardons and Parole, and they decide what portion of your indeterminate sentence you will serve.

JAILS are run by county sheriffs. In Salt Lake County, the Sheriff's Office controls the main Adult Detention Center that houses nearly 2,000 inmates, and will also manage the Oxbow jail annex, if and when it is re-opened. The Sheriff has to let prisoners out of JAIL when it becomes too full, even if they have not yet served their time. Many are placed on electronic ankle monitors; others are simply released due to overcrowding and a Federal Court Order that mandates that the JAIL population not exceed a certain set number. There are few educational or rehabilitation options in JAIL; mostly, you just do your time. JAIL is also the place that prisoners stay until their cases are resolved, by negotiation or trial, and until they are sentenced.

We have some clients in JAIL, and a very few in PRISON. When we go to visit them, we don't have to schedule an appointment, and supposedly the guards can't listen in on our conversations. When we're done, we get to leave, and they don't. And in that respect, thankfully, there is no difference.

Most folks don't know a whole bunch about the law, how it works, what is or is not permissible. Nearly every non-lawyer (and a few lawyers, too) that I talk to seems to think that the arresting officer's failure to advise you of your rights means the whole case gets tossed. Not true. Your "Miranda" rights to remain silent or have an attorney with you during questioning only applies to questioning while in custody. If you are in handcuffs and being interrogated, they should have advised you of your rights. Short of that, it probably doesn't matter that they didn't read your rights to you.

But everyone has a right to be fully informed and have all their questions answered. You have a right and I have a duty to make sure you are fully informed and completely confident in your choices when we represent you. That means that you have to be the one who decides whether you want to make a deal or go to trial, and we have to be prepared to support you fully in that choice. But it's really only a "choice" if you know what you are doing, and you really won't know what you're doing if you haven't had all your questions answered. I always hate being treated like a mushroom (always kept in the dark, fed nothing but manure) and it is our goal to ensure that our clients receive the respect and service that they deserve.

And that's what our stylebook requires.

Salt Lake Criminal Defense Law Firm Thinks Utah State Senators have Heads up Butts

2008-11-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

In writing this blog, I have occasionally been a little crude and offensive. I naturally gravitate to the crude and offensive, and must remind my readers (both of you, including my mother-in-law) that I Majored in Profanity and Minored in Blasphemy at the U of U.

And although the U clobbered the Y yesterday in the annual football version of the Heathens vs. the Saints, I remain melancholy this weekend after the trashing of a fine man, Judge Robert Hilder, by the Utah Senate, which voted 16 - 12 against confirming him as a Judge on the Utah Court of Appeals. I have known Judge Hilder for a quarter of a century. He was a year ahead of me at the University of Utah College of Law, and I even had a small personal injury case that he was defending at the time he was nominated to become a District Court Judge over 13 year ago.

Robert Hilder is originally Austrailian, and he has that trademark "G'day" accent associate with Crocodile Dundee, but with more eloquence, like a Russell Crowe (who is actually a Kiwi, but I digress). Hilder has a full life of experience, including a stint as a bouncer at a bar when he was 18 years old. He has empathy for those trying to quit smoking (he was a two-pack a day man) and understands from his own life experience the difficulties of divorce, remarriage, stepchildren, religion, as well as poverty and success.

As any judge, he's been forced to make difficult decisions (and some fairly easy ones, like when he ruled against my client for siphoning away hundreds of thousands of dollars of his parents money). Perhaps one decision he may be regretting now is applying to be an Appeals Court Judge. I don't believe he would have decided that stupid gun on campus case any differently, but had he looked into a crystal ball and seen how nasty and vicious those shmucks on the hill were going to be, maybe he would have waited a while.

It may not have helped, as the Philistines appear to be running the Legislature, and the putz in chief, Senator Waddoups, and his assistant little tiny putz, Senator Buttars (of the "this baby is black" fame) are running the show their way. I previously blogged about Sen. Chris Buttars (Republitard, West Jordan), who tried to pressure a judge into ruling a certain way on his friend's case, stating that the judge owed him, because he, Buttars, confirmed him in the Senate.

The crooked political hack should have been prosecuted for that letter, but instead, he only lost chairmanhip of the Judicial committee, and was allowed to remain on the committee! The fox running the henhouse!

OK, my partner in defending the Constitutional rights of the oppressed, Jon Grimes, will lecture me and seek my redaction of some of the words I have used to describe these mental midgets (Which he finally did, on January 22, 2009!). After a week or so, I may cool down and edit this blog page, so as to not reflect poorly on our firm: we don't want to appear unprofessional, and it would be a disservice to our clients and the public if I act unprofessionally. But for tonight, it's here for the world to read.

Or at least both of my loyal readers.

Newer Post: Salt Lake Criminal and DUI Defense Lawyers Keep Getting Cases Dismissed

2008-11-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

When I chimed in the last time, we had scored three victories in one day. I won a Jury Trial on a DUI case and Jon got the evidence suppressed in a DUI case resulting in a dismissal, and got a Felony Criminal Mischeif case dismissed at Preliminary Hearing when the alleged victim admitted that she could not see who vandalized her car. A good day for the good guys.

Today, I don't have to go to Heber City this afternoon to argue suppression of evidence on a Class A DUI case because the prosecutor has voluntarily dismissed the case. She says it's because she couldn't locate the DWR officer to testify, but in reality, it's because our argument was too strong and the case would have been thrown out anyway, and it would have opened the door for any other arrests made that day at the same checkpoint to also be thrown out.

Checkpoints and roadblocks are unusual and rare because they should be. They are very intrusive in people's lives and transit, and are really just fishing expeditions conducted by police to find violations that they otherwise could not see. But these checkpoint stops must follow very strict requirements and follow them exactly. Ranger Rick did not.

DWR got the roadblock checkp0int approved, but it required that they stop every vehicle and ask if they had been hunting or fishing. If not, and absent any obvious reason to detain the driver further, must waive the car through. Instead, they followed this procedure on passenger cars, but ordered every truck or recreational vehicle to pull into the search area without even asking any questions first. This means that everything they found during this stop, including any evidence of drunk driving and the subsequent breath test, are all suppressed as "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" which sounds like an "Eastern" philosophy, and oddly enough, came from a case called, "Wong Sun v. United States."

So, the real reason the prosecutor did not want to have this hearing is that it would have exposed that every stop, and therefore, every citation and arrest from that roadblock, was done incorrectly and would now be subject to evidence suppression or reversal of any conviction. DWR officers just don't disappear into thin air. He's gone fishin' is not an excuse.

Jon was also successful today. He had a case scheduled for Jury Trial in Park City. Our client was charged with theft, possession of pot and public intoxication. A theft conviction is bad for anyone trying to get a job, but a possession conviction will revoke your drivers license for six months and cost you any chance at certain student grants and loans, or jobs with many government and private organizations.

However, the prosecutor had second thoughts about going up against the formidable Jonathon W. Grimes, and even though people were there for jury duty, the State decided to cut a great deal: our client saw the public intox and theft charges dismissed outright, and the possession charge was handled as a plea in abeyance with 12 months unsupervised good behavior probation and NO drug testing, and a $587 fee to the court (in lieu of a fine).

At the end of one year, absent getting arrested for something, our client will have the entire case dismissed like it never happened, and his life will not be adversely affected by a conviction or some draconian probationary requirements.

Now the day is not yet over, and we could add more victories to our score today, but a "two-fer" is worth a little bragging time.

NEW POST! Salt Lake City, Utah Criminal Defense and DUI Lawyers Score Hat Trick, Win 3 cases in one day.

2008-10-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

NEWS FLASH! We need to add some new victories to our website "scrolling verdicts" feature. Today, Jon and I won three huge victories. First up, Jonathon W. Grimes for the Defendant:

The scene is District Court, Salt Lake, Hon. Ann Boyden, Judge. Our client is charged with Felony Criminal Mischief, accused of causing thousands of dollars in vandalism damages to his now ex-girlfriend. At Preliminary Hearing, she has to admit under oath that she could not see who did this to her car and could not identify the actual culprit, she just thought that it must have been him. Case dismissed.

Second goal of the morning, Jon goes from District Court to Salt Lake County Justice Court, Hon. Peggy Acomb, Judge. Case is set for a Suppression of Evidence hearing. If we don't get the evidence suppressed, then it goes to trial next week. In this case, the Officer had finished giving our client a citation and told him he could leave, but then changed his mind and said, "wait a minute, I want to ask you some questions." The questions led to a search and the search led to contraband. Jon's well researched Motion to Suppress was supported by strong case law that says once the cop tells you that you can go, he can't detain you further without new evidence or information. Result: Case Dismissed.

So, you ask, Jon was a busy boy today; where is that lazy old guy, the Silver Haired, Silver tounged Devil? Well, I was in Jury Trial today in West Valley Justice Court, Hon. Brendan McCullaugh, Judge. Our client was charged with a DUI and blew a .139 on the Intoxilyzer 8000 machine last year. He claimed he has severe acid reflux, causing him to belch up the stinky contents of his stomach, including high concentrations of the small amount of alcohol he had consumed, or which was in his cough syrup. Our expert witness testified that such a burp would skew the whole magic of the machine; their expert said, "Oh, no, you di'n't" and the Jury, after mulling it all over following a full day of trial and 90 minutes of deliberations, found our client NOT GUILTY of both the DUI and a lane travel traffic violation.

We have been very successful lately in getting prosecutors to agree to dismiss cases or give our clients great deals. This is due to the fact that we work these cases hard and prepare every case for trial. We pull out all the stops and seek evidence suppression, limitation of witness testimony, introduction of our experts' opinions, and we actually enjoy our time in Court in front of the Jury. Some cars are built for speed, some for endurance, and some just look pretty. We do it all.

That doesn't mean that all of our clients appreciate us. Earlier this week, Jon had his magic mojo working and had a prosecutor ready to dismiss a case rather than possibly be embarassed by losing an evidence suppression hearing. That's right, the prosecutor was going to dismiss the case, but the client FAILED to show up for court for the hearing. He was tired of going to court so he decided to do what he wanted. The case did not get dismissed, the judge did not allow us to argue the suppression motion because the client was a no show, and now the case is set for trial, and the evidence comes in. No good deed ever goes unpunished. What is even more confusing to me is that the client has paid us to do this work for him, and we had a great result (it does not get better than a dismissal) yet he manages to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.

You won't see the last one on the scrolling verdicts page.

Salt Lake City, Utah DUI and Criminal Defense Lawyers want you to speak with a Qualified Trial Attorney

2008-10-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

During the past several weeks, I have not blogged, but have been swamped with doctor appointments and court hearings, so I figured I had better blab/blog for our faithful readers (besides my mother-in-law, who thinks I am a great writer, we have one or two occasional readers).

Blogs are a great catharsis for some, and just a means of seeing your words in print on the Web for others; for me, this blog is my opportunity to let my personality shine through without the restrictions a business must place on its public persona, like its website or advertising. The drawback is I have a personality that not all persons share joy in, but most find some humor in it. My lovely ex-wife once told me that she would not divorce me if I would just change my personality. My second wife is glad I didn't change it, and we just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary.

Here at Access Legal we take on prosecutors and an indifferent legal system on a daily basis. Read some of the recent blogs below to learn about our ongoing fight with the Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, whose personality may best be described as Machiavellian with delusions of granduer. Other prosecutors are more or less the same as my old law school classmate, "Market-Myself-Mark" Shurtleff, but with less power or media presence.

We have to cope with a legal system that is not user friendly, and cares not to cater to the public. An example: a fellow in Atlanta, Geogia called me with a problem. He was in Salt Lake as a transient last fall, staying at the men's shelter, and while walking around one day was stopped by Salt Lake City's finest Blue Crew for allegedly "trespassing" by cutting across a vacant lot by the railroad station. I have checked this lot; it is not marked as private property nor is it posted "no trespassing," but the cop detained him, searched him, found the remnants of some substance in his coat pocket, and took him off to jail.

The DA failed to file charges within 72 hours and he was released, and made his way back to his native land, where black men can walk down the street without being stopped by every cop for being "B.I.P." (Black in Public). Now, it is clear that the stop was unconstitutional, the search and seizure illegal, and that the evidence will be suppressed and case will be dismissed, if this fellow will just come all the way back to Utah, at his own expense, post bail or sit in jail for a few months, and resolve this case in the "Justice" system. If he doesn't come back to face the music, the warrant remains on his record, he can't get the necessary Homeland Security clearances to work as a truck driver, and he remains homeless, destitute and desperate, instead of employed, clean and sober and paying taxes.

Seems like this is exactly the kind of case that could be remotely handled and reviewed by the DA, but then that would make sense and be just and responsible. And nobody ever said the Justice system was "just" nor has anyone recently described District Attorney Lohra Miller as being sensible and responsible. I failed to convince a Deputy DA to review the case without the man first coming back to Salt Lake and going to Court. Before I give up all hope, I will write to Lohra herself to see if there is some method of reprieve for this man.

Over the last 23 years, I have represented thousands of people, tried over a hundred cases to juries, and seen all sides of lawyers, judges and people involved in the system. If I didn't hold out hope, I would have left this profession long ago.

By the way, the election is only 28 days away. Praise the Lord!

Salt Lake Criminal Defense Lawyers Fight Back Against Evil Empire of the Utah Attorney General, and Draw First Blood in Court Battle

2008-09-17T19:48:00.001-07:00

No theme music; it's not allowed in Court.

The ongoing War between the Constitution, represented by myself and my ever-able partner, Jon Grimes, and the forces of Evil, represented by Darth Shurtleff, the Attorney General of Utah -- now three weeks in the making -- finally made it to Court today.

Background: Three weeks ago, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, my old law school classmate, launched his new, interactive and very expensive official government (paid for with your tax dollars) website, in order to place his visage in the public view 24/7. As he had announced the day before, he smeared pictures of a young man arrested by his internet crimes unit, all over his new website, including a video of the man being led away in handcuffs and his jail "mugshot." Shurtleff held a press conference where he defended his actions in the face of protests from the ACLU, who didn't like the idea of a person being tried in the media by the government official charged with investigating and prosecuting the case. Mark's defense was, "others do it, too."

In steps our law firm, Access Legal, and the young Jedi Knight, Jonathon W. Grimes, who, having been hastily taught by the old, grisled Jedi, Eddie Wan Flintovie, immediately leaped into action to fight the injustice perpertrated on society by Darth Shurtleff. Jedi Jon was there when the jail released the young man 3 days after his arrest, because Darth Shurtleff's office had failed to file formal charges because Shurtleff was so busy giving interviews justifying his actions and accusing the man of being an internet predator, they just didn't have time to get to it.

Finally, the charges were filed late last week, over two weeks after the man's arrest. But here's the kicker: the AG did not file charges of "Enticing a Minor over the Internet" a 2nd Degree Felony. Oh, No! Despite Shurtleff accusing the man of just such a crime, the AG found it only had enough evidence to establish probable cause of "Dealing in Harmful Materials to a Minor" which is a 3rd Degree Felony. OOOOPS! Meanwhile, the AG continues to have the man's arrest video and mugshot and press conference on their official website.

Today was the man's Initial Appearance, which on a felony case is the first time you go to court to actually receive the written charges against you and to determine who your lawyer is (private or public defender) and if you must pay bail to stay out of jail pending trial. The first issue being resolved, our office had called the Court last week to arrange for this morning's first court appearance, so obviously we are his lawyers.

The second issue is more sticky. The State wanted a $10,000.00 bail and wanted him taken into custody forthwith, hauled off to jail until and unless he pays the bail. And here is where Jon steps in.

Judge Ann Boyden was on the bench this morning and Jon quickly countered the State by asserting that since this man has been free for two weeks until charges were filed, and another week before coming to court, and he has counsel who arranged for this court date, that he did not appear to be a flight risk and could be supervised by Pre-Trial Services instead of having to post bail, and Judge Boyden said that she was "not inclined to take him into custody today," and allowed his release without bail, to Pretrial Services. Ahhh, the voice of reason.

And Jon has been kicking glutea and enscribing nomenclature left and right this week in my absense, as I continue to recover from a little health setback. I see a rate increase in the near future.

On a happier note, our friend Andy McCullough makes yet another bid for Mark Shurtleff's job, running as the Libertarian Candidate for Utah Attorney General. With a little support, Andy might break the 500 vote ceiling this year! One of the stalwarts for the First Amendment, Andy gets to place a lawn sign in front of my house every four years.

With a great deal of luck, Andy or that nice lady I've never heard of running as the Democrat candidate, will beat Market-Myself-Mark Shurtleff, and a new dawn of Justice will reign supreme. Until then, we fight in the trenches and the courtrooms.

Silently, without theme music.

Salt Lake Criminal Defense Lawyers Fight Back Against Evil Empire of the Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff - and his Spokesman, Paul Murphy

2008-09-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

New theme music in the background . . . "Shaft, he's a Bad Mo . . . "

The Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, continues to play god (small "g" only) on his official website, but uses his point-man, Spokesman Paul Murphy, to spew McCain/Bush/Karl Rove types of lies and distortions to the public, about my client who spent a fortnight on the front page of the AG's site, J'accused, yet never charged with any crime. (Read this entire series of my blog to get the complete picture).

Finally, "Market-Myself-Mark" has moved on, and in quick succession, found three new items in the course of one day to supercede my client's picture and the AG's attempt to try his case on the net and in the media, denying him his constitutional rights of a fair trial, or even to see the evidence against him.

Yesterday, September 10, 2008, KSL television called our office and asked if we had any comment to add to the story they were preparing for the 10 o'clock news. Since I still am on home confinement after my brief brush with death last week, I turned to my Padouon Lerner Apprentice, Jonathon Grimes, to give the interview. Jon spoke to KSL news on August 29th, the day our client was released from jail for failure of the AG to file any charges within 72 hours, and Channel 5 wanted a follow-up story which appeared on KSL-TV last night.

Jon stated that "I find it a little disheartening that it seems for Mr. Shurtleff, that soundbytes and headlines are more important than actual justice," referring to Shurtleff's endless grandstanding over this case, his dozens of quotes, interviews and defenses of his actions (because Texas does it.). Market-Myself-Mark (MMM), avoiding any opportunity to be cross-examined by a real reporter or take any responsibility for his actions, called on his bulldog, Paul Murphy. (Read more about my experiences with Paul Murphy in my August 30th blog).

Standing in the dark, Murphy said, "Mr. Rich's attorney seems to be doing everything possible to get his client on TV every single night. Mr. Rich is not the first person being shown on TV being arrested."

Now, this comment is disingenuous at best: 1) We've done nothing to put our client on TV, let alone "every single night." KSL called us because they thought it was newsworthy (no other TV station or newspaper has called for comments). If we did not respond, our side of the story would not be heard, and our side is that the AG has no business trying this case in the court of public opinion or featuring our client on his website, especially before any charges have been filed. Oh, and a few minutes later into the Channel 5 broadcast, Mark Shurtleff appears on the screen talking about credit reporting. Now, just who is trying to get whose face on TV every night?

And 2) Duh! Our second point is that the news media showing arrest video is one thing, completely permissible and acceptable, however, the Attorney General, charged with protecting the Constitution and serving Justice, is not in the position to bring his own film crew to an arrest and plaster the arrestee's face and name all over the internet.

Maybe Murphy is hoping to tag along with MMM to higher glory as press secretary to "Governor" or "Senator" Shortshrift.

Getting back to the AG's website and his interactive blog, today's post leaves me scratching my ass: quoting Shakespear, Shurtleff says, "he that filches my name" in his discussion about identity theft. Apparently obtuse, the AG (or his Web-toady, Scott Troxel) have placed the word, "filches," on their website, unaware of the more modern, and well-known meaning of the term (did you see the movie, "Clerks").

But leave it to the AG to bring it upon himself.

Coming up next after "Shaft" it's "The Dukes of Hazzard!"