Law Day

POSTNOTE May 31, 2024:  Yesterday afternoon I listened as the verdict was read: 34 times, “Guilty”.  This morning at my coffee place I took a photo of the empty conference table next to mine.  It has ten chairs, like a dozen members of a jury, shall I say.  Shortly thereafter  were the usual church guys who meet there most every Friday.  One of them opined that Trump couldn’t get a fair trial in New York.  He’s normally loud.  He almost whispered it.  He knew I was sitting there, and while I don’t get into their conversation, I’d guess they think I’m “liberal”.  So it goes.

May 31, 2024

POSTNOTE May 24, 2024:  I published the Law Day section (below) on May 5.

On May 20, the prosecution rested its case in the so-called “Hush Money” case in Manhattan.  The final arguments and the Jury deliberations do not come until after Memorial Day, and I will update further after the verdict, at this space.

I highly recommend following the commentaries of Joyce Vance and Heather Cox Richardson for up to date and crucial information.  Click on their names for most recent links.  You owe it to yourself to follow what is going on currently, which will impact in the longer term.

I am an amateur on the block, but I’ve followed this very closely.  For the interim, I have followed the hearing largely through the expert commentators, including those above.

Most of my work career was representing teachers in a teacher union/contract/law context.  I worked constantly with, around and against lawyers.  As a citizen, only once did I get jury duty, and on that occasion none of my panel actually saw service – no cases for jury during our term of service.  In the 70s, I was a witness at the federal court level in a case that ultimately reached the U. S. Supreme Court, so I became intimately aware of ‘the weeds’ – things like discovery, cross-examination and the like.   Ain’t softball.  The blessings of the rule of law far outweigh the impediments.  (Our ‘side’ won, and the case had national implications for many years.  I must have comported myself okay – in a year-end gathering, the law firm “awarded” me their “Greek Grappler” award, to which was appended part of my testimony.  You take compliments any way you can get them!). The Rule of Law is not Perry Mason!

Re Manhattan May, 2024, I am satisfied to wait for the dozen citizens who make up the jury to deliberate and decide on the case.  And if their ruling makes sense – virtually a certainty – I will accept the ruling whether I agree with it or not.  I will try to imagine myself in a conference room with 11 other people who hardly know each other interpreting the law.  Most of us can translate this into our own lives – imagine any meeting on any issue….

Long and short, these trials (plural) are a master class for not only amateurs like myself, but invaluable to everyone in the legal profession.  The Rule of Law is being tested, and when this is all over assorted codes, etc., will be reviewed and quite likely modified to fit.  That’s what I feel.

Take the time to review what follows.  It’s worth your time.

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LAW DAY

Last Wednesday, May 1, was Law Day in the United States.  It has been so since 1958, when first proclaimed by President Eisenhower and later became part of the United States Code (Public Law 87-20 April 7, 1961).  The American Bar Association  had a hand in its establishment, and again this year has proclaimed it; Likewise, President Biden has signed a proclamation recognizing it.

This years Law Day is in the midst of all sorts of citizen inservice education on how the Law works.  My only editorial comment: we are fortunate to live in a country which still follows the Rule of Law, tedious as it can be.

For many years I was an active member of an organization, Citizens for Global Solutions, which informally expanded the definition of Law Day to World Law Day.  I’m retired now, but still support the essential premise: Law is designed to mediate conflict.

(The group, originally named World Federalists, now Citizens for Global Solutions (national) and Citizens for Global Solutions MN (CGS), advanced the premise that if Law was a good system for working through problems in our country, it would be as useful for the nations of the world as well.)

In the course of developing the archival record of CGS MN.  I came across a very interesting booklet published by the American Bar Association booklet on the Rule of Law.  A pdf in four parts is here: Law Day Am Bar Assoc 1959 (c0ver through p. 17); Law Day (2) Am Bar Assoc 1959 (pages 18-24); Law Day (3) Am Bar Assoc 1959 (pages 25-43); Law Day (4) Am Bar Assoc 1959 (pp 45-52).

If I were to recommend a single page to read, it would be p. 49, “Law in a Treehouse World”.  The entire booklet is a timeless seminar for any novice in the law.

The world is a complex place, so is our country, so is every subdivision of our country.  The Law at minimum helps to bring some sense of order to the inevitable chaos that would exist if there was no Law, or law by fiat of an authoritarian dictator.

 

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