Once again, let's review "judicial activism."

Ted Cruz is a moron. He released a press statement this week regarding the US Supreme Court's determination that it would not hear any of the cases involving gay marriage and in that press release, he called the Court's determination "judicial activism at its worst."

Please. Please stop. You're making my head hurt. 

Judicial activism actually means something. It has a real, legitimate, actual meaning. And that meaning isn't "I don't agree with them." 

In order for a court to be considered "activist," the court must do something. It must act. Weird, huh? It must make a decision on a case. 

The Supreme Court did exactly the opposite of that. It did nothing. Nothing at all. Not one damn thing. Therefore, it cannot be considered "judicial activism" because the Court won't hear the gay marriage cases. 

Here's how judicial activism looks in real life: 

The Adrian Peterson situation and the problem with prejudging

So, as basically everyone has heard, Vikings football player Adrian Peterson has been indicted by a Texas grand jury on child abuse charges. Initially, he was deactivated from the team & prevented from playing in one game this past Sunday; the team owners then reactivated him to play on Mondaywhile the criminal case worked its way through the court system. The Radisson pulled its sponsorship of the entire Vikings team as a result of the indictment. Nike & Wheaties also severed ties with Peterson. On Tuesday, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton weighed in on the situation, calling Peterson's alleged actions "a public embarrassment" & while providing lip service to the idea of innocent until proven guilty, said that the Vikings should have continued Peterson's suspension until the court case was finished. Senator Al Franken also called for Peterson's suspension to be reinstated. Finally, on Wednesday, the Vikings reversed course under the media & political pressure & placed Peterson on the exempt list, meaning he must stay away from the team.

This is all the result of an accusation. Not a conviction. Not a verdict of guilty or an admission of committing a crime. An accusation.

I am SO proud of Minnesota right now!

The Senate passed the bill legalizing same sex marriage.  It passed the House on Thursday of last week.  Governor Dayton is signing it tomorrow.  

I am so overwhelmed with excitement about this that I could pop. 

Yay!

Obama wins!
Now just waiting to see about the marriage amendment and voter ID amendment.

And I'm exhausted...


I worked out today for the first time in forever.  Ever since the car accident, I've been really out of shape so I decided now was the time to get back into shape.  But, I forgot how freaking hard that is!!  I did a lot of squats and lunges and now I can barely move.  I'm like a little old lady, hobbling around.  It's pathetic how out of shape I am...


In other news: it looks like the MN state government shutdown is going to be at an end soon.  Thankfully, I wasn't directly affected by it since the public defenders were considered essential services and constitutionally required to continue functioning.  But, it was still frustrating that we had to deal with this again (there was a partial shutdown in 2005).  The news came out today that the governor and the leaders of the two houses had reached an agreement so apparently the shutdown will end soon.  


Things at work have settled into a pretty steady routine, which is a nice change of pace.  I'm hesitantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and the hellhole of too many cases with no time and me freaking out and crying to revive itself, but I'm enjoying the current state of affairs.  I've got regular office days since January, so I have been able to establish a routine where I met my clients at their first court date w/ an attorney and then I set up a meeting with them on one of my regular office days.  I can also use my office days to review the audio/video before the omnibus hearing so I can actually KNOW if there are any omnibus issues before we get to court.  Shocking!!


The nice thing is that I haven't had to ask for a continuance due to not being prepared in months. When I do need a continuance, it's been for the client's reasons--in the hospital; sick; etc.  Not "I'm not prepared because I didn't get a chance to look at this case..."  It's really been nice to be able to find a groove after like 2+ years of feeling like I'm constantly being pulled apart in 50 different directions.   I still have overwhelming days, but the frantic feeling of "OMG I can't handle this" has subsided.  


I also recently won an omnibus hearing and got my client's case dismissed for lack of probable cause.  That was very, very exciting.  When I saw that, I actually gasped and clapped my hands over my mouth in disbelief.  I was so surprised in a freaking awesome way.    I won against one of my favorite prosecutors, who is super crazy smart, so that was both fun and awesome.  The best part of all was the judge dismissed it for a reason that I didn't even argue.  Ahahahaha!  Excellent.    I think that is the first felony omnibus hearing I've had, so it was pretty sweet to win it.  I'm killing it lately.  I won my first felony trial, then my second one, and now I've won my first omnibus hearing.   Feels good to know I'm not wiping out on these felonies like I worried about when I first started doing them.


It's very weird that I just started doing felonies a year ago.  In fact, it was almost exactly a year ago.  I took over in July and last July was full of panic attacks and crying and looking/feeling like a moron in court.  I didn't think that w/in a year, I'd have a perfect trial record and feel competent enough to work on felonies w/o constantly needing to ask other attorneys for help. 


And I've enjoyed working with the prosecutors in the county attorney's office, too.  It's really nice to be on good terms w/ the opposing side, since I've never understood why some people feel like they have to be at war all the time w/ the other side.  I get frustrated when other attorneys take that attitude because I find it very unnecessary.  I mean, as much as I love what I do and as much as I value the work and the principles behind it, at the end of the day, it's my job not my life.  So, if I win or lose, I still go home at the end of the day and watch "Teen Mom."  I don't need to hate the opposition because they have their job to do.  And thankfully, the county attorneys I work with seem to have the same perspective on things.  So, we can get stuff resolved pretty often and they were very understanding when I first started and didn't know what the heck I was doing. 


All of those things--finally having regular office days; finding my groove at work; and having good relationships with the prosecutors--have really taken a huge chunk of the stress away.  I haven't cried at work in like 4 months or more!

Upheaval

Upheaval is like the trend this June, apparently.  There's a bunch of things currently in the middle of upheaving (is that a word?? It is now...) and it's messing with my brain. 


Thing 1: Impending state government shutdown
(Read more about it here)
In a very short nutshell, the state government has till July 1 to pass a budget for the next fiscal year.  As an aside, I never thought I'd use the term "fiscal year" since that has to do w/ math and economics and business and I'm incredibly slightly deficient in those areas.  At any rate, if there's no budget passed, there's no money for government services and the state shuts down.  Meaning every state employee (including this girl!) gets laid off.  At least, in theory.  In reality, there's a court hearing next Thursday to determine what services are "essential" and need to continue to run even if there is a shutdown and PDs are among those.  You know, that whole "constitutionally required" thing...


So, we all got layoff notices (I pointed out to Hat that since I technically was hired w/ the understanding I would be laid off in July of 2009, it made sense I was finally getting my layoff notice!).  And then we all just kind of collectively shrugged our shoulders because it's pretty unlikely the courts and the PDs would shut down.  So, while nothing has been decided yet, almost no one is panicking about it.  It is still a bit freaky when you think about it though. 


Also, I don't think I've ever gotten a layoff notice before.  It's nice to know that my first one really isn't that serious. 


Thing 2: 
The attorney who left last July and whose cases I took over in the Great Felony Dump of 2010 is returning, along w/ a few other attorneys who took leaves of absences last July in order to save other people's jobs (meaning: my job!).  This doesn't appear to be an issue as far as me getting laid off now that she's coming back (except for in the event of a state government shutdown, of course!).  Rather, it appears that there will now be too many attorneys in the county I'm currently working in.  There would be a total of 5 of us in one county.  This attorney isn't coming back to take the felony caseload back--she's actually going to be doing another attorney's caseload.  


So, that means that someone needs to be removed from the county and moved somewhere else.  And it's either me or the other attorney whose caseload is being taken over by Returning Attorney.  My vote is for other attorney. 


Oddly enough, I seriously doubt if you told me I'd want to stay on the felony caseload about a year ago, when I was crying basically every day and hyperventilating in panic, I would have punched you in the face for even suggesting such a thing.  However, after a year of felonies, I kind of have my groove down now.  I've got a great schedule worked out w/ court administration.  I'm available for court hearings M-W and the first and third Friday of the month.  Thursdays and the second and fourth Fridays are my office days/jail visit days.  Arguments about scheduling have pretty much entirely ceased since about last December.  


I got my formula down for how I handle the cases--meet clients at the Rule 8 hearings, schedule office meetings with them to discuss their cases, work on resolutions and/or trial.  I've got great relationships with the prosecuting attorneys and we get like 99.9% of our cases resolved in a way that my clients are satisfied with the outcomes.  And, somehow, I've gotten the reputation of being one of the good public defenders, so I take that as proof that my clients really are satisfied w/ the work I've been doing. 


And, let's not forget, I'm undefeated in felony trials.  I just have one more prosecutor to beat in trial to complete the sweep (which I told him and said I was going to send him a picture of a broom and say "SWEEEEEEP!!!"  He thought that was pretty funny.)


So, despite how unlikely it may have seemed a year ago, I'm actually enjoying working on the felony cases.  They definitely have more interesting search/seizure issues than most of the misdemeanor cases.  And, it is definitely going to be difficult to get fired up about someone's driving after revocation or no insurance ticket after doing felonies.  Not that I wouldn't do my best, but having had people get sent to prison for anywhere from 15 months to the rest of their life, it's hard to see 10 days in jail as a significant amount of jail time.


At any rate, I've got my fingers crossed that I won't get moved out of my county.  It's the closest county to my house, which is also convenient.  It's nice to do things like what I did today, where I left the office at 3:45 to drive to the jail and visit with a client for an hour and then headed home.  The city that courthouse and jail are located in is right in the middle of the distance between my house and my office.  It's like a straight shot to court/jail and then another 15 minutes in the same direction for the office and vice versa.  So, that's really nice, too.  Fingers crossed I will get to stay!!


Thing 3:
Hat called me today slightly nervous because a prosecutor had left him a message saying he was going to be subpoenaed for a trial.  He wanted me to call her back because he didn't know what it would be about or why and I was an attorney so I would be better at talking to her.  So, I called and left her a message telling her who I was and that I was a PD so my husband had wanted me to talk to her because he was kind of freaked out by her call.  She called back and was very nice and polite and explained that Hat wasn't in trouble and explained why she needed him to testify.  And after I talked to her, she said she might end up just subpoenaing both of us to testify.  


We'd be very inconsequential in the overall case, but it's still a little strange to out of the blue be involved in some stranger's court case (and not as their attorney!).  And I saw Hat's initials in the complaint and that was very bizarre.  I read complaints all day long, so it's very weird to have my husband in one of them, even if it was very brief.  So, we'll see what happens with that whole thing.  I told Hat what the prosecutor needed him for and said he would be fine talking to her if she wanted to talk to him more.  Then he wasn't so freaked out.  


All right, that's all the unheaving at the moment.  Time for bed!

Wriggity-wriggity-wriggity-reboot

So, last Thursday, for some reason, all of South East and South Central MN was in love with reading my blog.  And they were all state workers, according to my stat tracker, because they all accessed it from the domain of state.mn.us.  This was oddly enough on the same day that this bill was introduced in the MN Senate, which would permit counties to withdraw from public defender representation for 2 year periods.  This made me slightly suspicious, as I know maybe 1 person who lives in that entire region and that would be it.  So, I'm not sure exactly what the southern portion of the state was doing with my blog, but I didn't like it.


As a result, I removed the last 8 years worth of blog posts, since I had no idea what they were looking for, and I have rebooted the franchise, a la every-new-movie-that-has-come-out-recently (minus the terrible Megan Fox acting).  So, while I will continue to keep blogging, my archives are now inaccessible.  I have not decided what will happen with the new archives, but the old ones have been removed. 


So, I apologize to anyone who had desperately wanted to read about my life from when I was 20 years old (side note--I can't believe I have been blogging for 8 years!), but that's the status.


In other news, I got first pick in my fantasy baseball draft this year.  Last year I was like 2nd to last and that sucked.  But this year, I was first, so that was cool.  I took Albert Pujols since he kills it every year.  I got a decent lineup, including the following players: 

•  Albert Pujols
• Victor Martinez
• Ben Zobrist
• Jose Bautista
• Elvis Andrus
• Juan Pierre
• Omar Infante
• Brett Gardner
• Mike Napoli 
• Juan Uribe
• Carlos Pena
• Austin Jackson
• Miguel Olivo
• Alcides Escobar
• Carl Pavano
• Jered Weaver
• Heath Bell
• Alexi Ogando
• Matt Capps
• Anibal Sanchez
• Jon Rauch
• Jeremy Guthrie
• Brian Wilson

So, hopefully I'll do well this year.  Last year I came in third, so I did pretty decently for my first time playing.  


Other than that, things have been pretty much the same.  Life at work is returning to normal again after the massively long trial.  I'm finally mostly caught up on stuff and I am working now on staying on top of things, so I'm no longer behind on everything.  So, that's nice.  This week is a pretty easy week--only 1 court appearance so I have plenty of time to work on stuff and wrap up anything that I might still have that I'm behind on.  So, this week is nice and stress-free.  Which is an exciting and awesome change of pace. 


In other news, I've discovered that "My So Called Life" is now available on Netflix Watch Instantly.  Now that I know about this, I will have to watch it.  It's been soooooo long since Jordan Catalano has been in my life.  That show is the reason I have always had a slight crush on Jared Leto, no matter how unattractive and/or weird he's gotten.  


Okay, that's all for now.