OT? Forensic Files

On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 18:45:22 -0400, Roger Oveur posted for all of us to digest...

No one is a criminal until proven in a court. In America one is presumed innocent.

What if you are traveling with say $20k in cash to buy a car in another state. You get stopped and they say they smell marijuana and search your vehicle, find the cash but no drugs. They seize the money with no charges. Are you outright guilty of something?

I rented a car from SFB (Sanford, FL) for a week and found cocaine? under the seat.  Glad I didn't get pulled over in that rental.

I profited financially from this lesson.

You know that I have two lawyer sons, other family members and several friends and neighbors that are lawyers. All are upstanding people.

I do think the joke that the 90% bad lawyers make the good 10% look bad is funny.

The persoanal injury lawyers on TV make the profession look bad. My favorite was the lawyer standing in front of a house saying "we can't guarantee you a settlement" and on the side was an armored truck tossing bags of money in the driveway. Yeah, real professional. It was taken off soon after.

The alligation is your money is guilty of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and property has no rights.

I have a low opinion of these lawyers too.

On Sat, 5 Sep 2020 14:22:39 -0400, Frank posted for all of us to digest...

I do recall you mentioning your lawyer sons earlier. It is like any other job where the crooks make the good ones look bad...

I wonder if Frank gets legal work done at a discount.

And now a company has something called Snapshot. The company can construct a face based on a DNA sample. People aren't all that different DNA wise.

What little work I have had done was done for free.

Both sons do civil, not criminal, work. One works for an insurance company. Because most of their work involves car accidents and medical problem I get a lot of advice on what area doctors to rely on. Just like those few bad lawyers there are a few bad doctors.

In my working days, I did a lot of work with patent lawyers and environmental lawyers. I recall one young patent lawyer told me she started her career as a public defender but gave it up as most of her clients were guilty as hell and she had to defend them and did not like it.

I had some conversation with two public defenders and I asked about that. Both said their goal was "for justice to be done". Seems fair.

At least on TV anyway.

My SIL is a lawyer, both Fla and Michigan Bar and he does something else. He doesn't seem to want to be the kind of lawyer people pay for. He works for a non profit land trust in Northern Michigan.

You say on TV but please clarify. If you mean fictional shows like Law And Order, I can agree. There are other shows on some cable channels that get their stories from actual happenings and real case files from the police. C&I, ID, and the like are more accurate than Dragnet.

That is true but it can be hard on the lawyer working with people like that.

I worked in a group with a business lawyer and he specialized in business as he did not want to deal with individuals down on their luck.

I can see where it would be difficult over time. Not the people I'd invite for dinner with the family.

Good lawyers can do a lot of good. Even an honest personal injury lawyer within some bounds. If you get a splinter on a handrail and need a tetanus shot, fine, pay for it but you don't deserve $2 million.

It is still a fictional show based on real events but they tend to ignore it wasn't the DNA facial reconstruction that got them an arrest or a conviction. The ad "Snapshot" posts may show some similarities in their selected "hits" but I certainly would not want to be arrested on that flimsy similarity.

Many people that have been offended think that when they sue they have won the lottery. They often find the settlement is nowhere near what they imagined and are very unhappy.

Don't know what the situations were but both of my sons have had threats to their lives by unsatisfied people.

I haven't seen any of the remakes but Jack Webb prided himself on the accuracy of Dragnet. His book, 'The Badge', was definite Blue Lives Matter material.