Mackenzie's Weblog

First impressions on Castle Rock

I've taken some time to read through the opinion released yesterday in the Castle Rock case. Partly I want to share, but this is also a convenient way to put down my mental notes which will, I think, help my case note. My response today is policy-based. I'll move on to the legal issues later. For more reading, Mike and Norm each have put down some thoughts.

My biggest problem with the case has to do with the policy implications. The Court goes through an exercise of demonstrating the history of law enforcement is one of discretion. The Court also describes the nature of crime as an offense against society rather than as an offense against the individual, and quotes Blackstone to back up the point. Slip Op. Majority at 16.

Ironically, the Blackstone quote highlights the importance of the criminal law.

criminal acts, "besides the injury[they do] to individuals, . . . strike at the very being of society; which cannot possibly subsist, where actions of this sort are suffered to escape with impunity." Id., quoting Blackstone.

It seems to me, though, that the danger of instability against which the criminal law protects us is not from the initial crime. The danger is from the prospect of "self-help." When there is no protection from the law, individuals will tend to exact their own punishments and protections.

That's a small criticism, really, as the law saying that the state has no liability for failing in a particular instance to carry out a general duty is fairly well-established. (It's also usually very surprising to non-law types.) The main problem I have is that the state extended a special promise above and beyond its commitments to the general public. The peasant came to the sovereign to ask a boon, and the boon was granted, or so she thought. Her trust in the state was betrayed, so why should she or anyone else trust the King?

I've heard a lot of people talk about women who murder their abusers. I can't count the number of times I've heard the phrase, "Why doesn't she leave?" This comes even from people I had thought knew better, or at least could acknowledge their inexperience. This is a small part of the answer to these questions. She doesn't leave because she knows that nobody else can protect her, and staying is safer than leaving. Even the life of a slave is sweeter than death. Likewise, she kills her abuser because she knows that it's the only way to protect herself.

Here's a little secret: the criminal and protection order statutes serve to protect the lives of abusers, too.

The Court would have you believe that none of this is of any concern. The 10th Circuit acknowledged the danger of rendering a protection order meaningless and the Court dismissed such concern as "mere hyperbole." Slip Op. Majority at 11. I can tell you from experience that survivors are acutely aware of the limits of the system. The Court has just eliminated an option, and that is a terrible disservice to all of us.

And so it begins

The case for my Note came out today, Castle Rock V. Gonzales. You can see it here, if you like.

The result is more or less what I expected, though I would prefer it to be different. I will have more first impression commentary later, when I'm not working and have had the opportunity to read the full opinion.

Friday Photoblogging!

Fridays I try to make into Catblogging days, but I'm afraid I just don't have too many more pictures of them. Don't worry, they will come, but today I have a special treat.

Regular readers will be aware that we've been waiting with breathless anticipation for the orchid to bloom. For more information, see here and here.

Well, the time has come. Without further ado, I present the first few blooms of the Colmanara "Jaguar" Orchid:

Beautiful, isn't it?

I also did a little hiking last weekend and took some photos. And yeah, in case you're wondering, that's snow.

Bliss

Today the world was kind to me. (Caveat: it is likely that only legal types will know what the hell I'm talking about.)

My Health Care Commission job requires me to look up a bunch of caselaw relating to statutes from a different state, one which is actually quite far from here. I was frustrated because the law school library doesn't have the appropriate regional digest or Shepherd's. The statutes for that state are the non-annotated variety. This makes the research very much a pain. I spent yesterday slogging through about 75 dicentennial and general digests.

I went to the state law library in Cheyenne today, though, and they not only had a copy of the annotated statutes, they let me check out the volume I needed! This will save me a ton of time.

So here's a special nod to the state law library. You guys rock.

Whole Lotta Learnin' Goin' On

I'm not going to be one of these bloggers who apologizes for not posting. Summer is a slow time.

I had a pretty good time at work today. There are more people in my little corner of the governmental building in which I work, so things feel a bit more homey there. Not to mention the fact that a good friend of mine is working a cubicle near mine, so that's nice. We're both very busy so we don't talk much, but it is comforting nonetheless.

Not only that, but I've got some clear direction on my little project as of today. I had an idea before, but now there's a game plan. This is quite nice and I feel quite energized. I was almost sad to leave today.

One other thing I'm doing is learning about all the powerful, useful, time-saving features of MS Word. I learned a few things last semester about some tricks, but apparently, there's a lot more. I've found Legal User's Guide for several versions of Word, including 97/2000, 2002, and 2003. I recommend everyone take a look, because some of the things are really quite helpful and, more importantly, time-saving.

Boring!

I'm with Heidi. Not much exciting is happening. I'm learning the Dvorak keyboard layout. I'm not up to full speed yet, but I can already tell that it will help my wrist a great deal.

Job

I have been asked by an acquaintance to find possible people to do a temporary job. The School Finance Litigation area of the Wyoming Attorney General's Office needs some help getting ready for an upcoming trial. Specifically, they need people to help with data entry. The work is in Cheyenne, and it is supposed to last through July or so. I don't know much about it, but it seems that this job wouldn't even be restricted to law students. For more information, email me and I will put you in touch with the contact person.

I am post-dating this entry so it will stay at the top of my page for a week, though I'll take it down if the positions are filled before then.

[UPDATE: It appears that they've got all the people they need for now, so I'm moving the post back to where it belongs. If something changes, I'll let you know.]

Mirrormask!

Neil has the skinny on the new film Mirrormask. I will see it. Perhaps not here, as there is sort of a lack of smaller films around here compared to places like Denver. But I will. Also, he'll be doing a signing tour for his new book, Anansi Boys, this fall. I'm there. I have a couple other things of his I'd like signed, too, and since he's said he doesn't mind that on his tours, I'm bringing them.

For those in Laramie, there's a new yarn shop, In Sheep's Clothing. I'd provide a link, but they don't seem to have a web presence. They're next to the Chocolate Cellar. I was extremely happy to see them and will religiously support them with my yarn dollars. Why, just today I bought a little skein of alpaca for a small project.

At the moment I'm reeling from an amazing dinner. I had salmon with steamed broccoli and cauliflower. It was awesome. I used my new bamboo steamer. It's new, so it's been my new thing lately. I must admit, it's a hell of a lot healthier than when I bought my deep fryer!

Quick Hits

-- I just found out that the FAA keeps up-to-the-minute accident data posted here. I think I'll end up checking it frequently. As of today, it looks like those little Cessnas crash a lot!

-- There's something mind-boggling about cases like this. This guy may have made up with upwards of $100k per year in his practice. That is a phenomenally large amount of money, and it highlights the utter greed. I mean, if he were doing fairly well settling these cases, and if he was on contingency for most of it, then he had to be doing moderately well. There's no excuse for what he did, and the only reason is greed. It absolutely incenses me. (Link from Legal Ethics Forum.)

-- Mr. Conrad at jurygeek frames the tort reform debate in a non-standard way: as jury nullification. I've not heard that argument before, and it's quite fascinating. Additionally, he says a few things that are bound to wind up some conservatives:

What the tort reformers, who are by and large conservatives, fail to realize is that tort reform is socialist. We limit the individual responsibility of tortfeasors in the name of "public good," while forcing their victims to bear the costs of the injuries the tortfeasors caused, because society thinks it is too expensive to give them justice.

I've never heard it framed that way, but it makes more sense the more I think about it. I actually think that one of the largest problems with the civil system is that there are not enough awards. Particularly with the contingency system, there's a strong motivation for lawyers not to take small cases. We should somehow make it so lawyers never have to say, "sure, you'd win, but it would cost more than paying your hospital bills yourself."

-- This article really irritates me. The voyeurism of celebrity-watching is bad enough, but it is the height of presumption to tell someone who dissolved a marriage five months ago that she needs to "move on." Don't these people have something better to do?

-- I don't know if it was me or if the outage was temporary, but a number of blogs have restored their full feeds. Rock On!!

The powers of my flowers

It's been a long time since I mentioned my orchid. I realized there were some major advances in the field, and wanted to post a little update. With any luck, this will be the last pre-bloom post. You'll recall that my orchid is a Colmanara, and as such the flowers will look like this when it is damn good and ready.

The stalk. Note the tallness.

Here's the lower part of the plant. You can also see part of my African Violet to the left. He's doing VERY well, also.

Here's a shot of the base. Note the large bulbous organ, which serves as a moisture retainer. You can see all the lovely root growth, an indelible sign of health.

A slight close-up of some of the branches of the flower stalk. It appears there will be multiple flowers per branch.

That's about it. I'll be back with more when the blooming happens. I'm quite proud, of course.

On a completely unrelated note, a number of blogs I follow have spontaneously been set to only give the first 50 words or whatever on their RSS feeds. I'm not sure if it's purposeful (a new trend?) or if Blogger just kind of does that from time to time. Either way, if you have a blog I beg you to have full text RSS feeds. Thank you.

Becoming a Tea Snob

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a tea snob. I've heard a lot of criticism about the inability to get a decent cuppa in this country. Most recently from Neil. I don't have the background of what it's like to get served excellent tea in other countries, but I do know that my preferred tea preparation seems to be, generally, what has been recommended by some Brits. I prefer decent loose stuff, and "boiling just a second ago" water. I've even solved some of the filtration issues (some claim that filtering and storing water alters the taste) by having a filter on my faucet. This means that I always have freshly filtered water.

So, yeah, I guess I'm a tea snob. But I still will take my cheapo Lipton "tea dust in a paper bag" to work and school. It's not a great experience, but it's still tea. And even though it's almost impossible to get water hot enough (at school I nuke it myself, then pour it into my cup with the bag), I still feel like maybe I have more control over tea than coffee.

There's not much of a point to this post other than to encourage everyone to seek out and find some good tea that is made properly, at least once. Oh, and my weigh in on the whole bergamot oil issue: I'm of the camp that believes it tastes like ass. But if you like it, more power to you. I'm not going to try to foist my view on the world. In the meantime, check out these teapots, about which I learned from Neil's blog, linked above.

Mary, Mary, Quite all hairy...

I've come to believe in a newly developed method of cat reproduction. The years of spaying and neutering have taken its inevitable evolutionary toll, and now the cats have found a way around it.

The sneaky bastards have come up with a reproductive strategy that appears to be part dandelion and part Cousin Itt (but without the slick sportscar). You see, what we think of as "hair" (or, in some circles, "fur"), is not really hair at all. They are small seeds containing bits of genetic material.

Here's how this works: The feline leaves prodigious amounts of this stuff out in the world. Then, one way or another, it gathers together into a cat-nucleus (see photo). For some cats, it gathers because the people use a collection method to deliberately do so. This is often called "brushing," and was the procurement method used by this scientist for the sample below. Other cats simply deploy their seed willy-nilly, and it becomes gathered together by a device specially invented for that purpose, called the "vacuum cleaner." This is a mechanized, industrial strategy. A third method is to allow natural air movements to sort of allow the stuff to accumulate in corners, around vents, that sort of thing. I don't know that there's a lay person name for this technique.

In any case, the "hair" is now gathered together. In order to make it grow into a new crop of cats, all that is needed is an environmental supply of some kind of food, and small imitation mice. Soon enough, cats are everywhere. I've heard that if you plant the seeds next to Catnip, you get one of these.

This is the only explanation I can come up with for the whole idea of cat hair, at least as it pertains to my carpet.







(I will name it Steven.)

Saturday Snowblogging!

That's right, I missed Catblogging yesterday. I didn't even realize it until I was in bed, and I wasn't about to get up and post. Sorry.

Today, though, was strange so far. I woke up to find this view outside my window:

That's right, it's exactly what you think it is. On top of that, the power would flash off periodically. I couldn't quite figure out why. Then I went to the Post Office to get some waiting mail. (Incidentally, that's one of the down sides to my new job: I can't do anything in town that I need to do, particularly since so many things are closed on the weekends. I'm just glad the PO has Saturday morning hours.) It was unpleasant because the wet snow would get into the hole inside my beat up sneakers and make my feet wet and cold. And there was snow on my car windows approximately the density of a four-inch thick lead blanket that I had to get off.

When I got into town, I saw what must have been happening with the power. I didn't have my camera, but there were many, many branches on the ground. I'm not just talking about little branches, I'm talking Governator-Leg-Thick type branches. I even saw a couple entire trees knocked down. I guess they weren't prepared for the weight of all that horrifically wet snow.

So it looks like the little hiking trip for which I had wanted to gather people together isn't going to happen. It's a little chilly for that sort of thing, and I'm guessing it's even worse in the mountains. Maybe next weekend? It's still going to be a bit rainy, but it will at least be warmer.

[UPDATE: Mandy has her commentary here, and Linus took care of the picture angle here.]

Office Space

Today was a feast of office set-up. I started yesterday with a cubicle containing a computer and a telephone which wasn't plugged in. Today I had all kinds of accomplishments. Besides work (who wants to hear about that?), I got a trash can (definite improvement), a table (I'm not sure I need it, but there it is) and my phone is hooked up! My computer yesterday already allowed me use of my new state email address, which I'm not really using because it'll be gone in a couple months.

So, here's a little photo of the present condition of my workspace (Click for a larger image, and drag the window to be larger if it's too small):

You can see my laptop, which I was using because of my use of MS One Note, which is useful in note-taking types of situations. You can also get a glimpse of my music player and my suit jacket. The table to the right is new.

Overall, I've settled in nicely. Download a short video clip of my astounding use of spacial storage resources here. Don't worry, I only used some of my free lunch time. I have more of it since I'm bringing my food. I can't afford to eat out often, and home is a wee bit too far too go for food. I did find a carpool partner or two, about which I'm quite pleased. It's nice to have someone to talk to on the trip. I drove today and it went by really quickly.

First day

Well, my first day is down. I'm going to post tomorrow with some descriptions of my workspace and stuff, but tonight I'm just too wickedly tired. I'm about to go to bed. I will say that the people seem really cool and funny and down to earth. I like that. I was in on a conference call in which I learned a lot about the actual practice of law. I also found out that a classmate of mine is hall from me (is it a hallway if it's made of cubicle walls?). It was nice to see a familiar face amid the new environment. Now, I've been up since 5 A.M. (which will be my schedule for the foreseeable future), so I'm going to bed. More tomorrow.