Monday, August 05, 2019

Cool story about a jailhouse lawyer

Check out this NY Times story about Calvin Duncan, a jailhouse lawyer, who convinced the Supreme Court to hear a case about whether juries could convict without a unanimous verdict:
“For 23 years, I was a jailhouse lawyer,” said Calvin Duncan, a former inmate at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. “That was my assigned job.”
He had a 10th-grade education, and he was serving a life sentence for murder. The prison paid him 20 cents an hour to help his fellow prisoners with their cases.
He got good at it, and he used his increasingly formidable legal skills to help free several inmates. He knew how to spot a promising legal issue, and he was relentless. Seasoned lawyers sought his advice.
One issue in particular consumed Mr. Duncan. He could not understand how a Louisiana law that allowed non-unanimous juries in criminal cases could be constitutional. He would not let it go, working on about two dozen failed attempts to persuade the Supreme Court to address the issue.
The justices finally agreed in March to decide the question. They will hear arguments in the case, Ramos v. Louisiana, No. 18-5924, on the first day of their new term, on Oct. 7.
 This is so true:
Mr. Duncan visited Professor Mattes’s law school clinic not long after he was released. The students were in their third year, tired of studying and perhaps a little jaded.
Mr. Duncan asked to see the law library, and he marveled at the vast and pristine collections of cases, codes and treatises.
“All of a sudden, he stops and he turns to the students,” Professor Mattes said. “He gets very serious and he says: ‘You guys need to know how incredibly lucky you are. Because what you have here is power.’”

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Assault Rifles. I watched security camera footage of the Ohio shooting. Shooter starts and 20 seconds later is engaged by cops. In that time he killed 10 people and wounded more. He was running into a bar where hundreds of people had just fled when he was gunned down.

Here is a link:

https://nypost.com/2019/08/05/video-shows-moment-cops-kill-connor-betts-during-dayton-massacre/

The time has come. 1) ban high capacity magazines, that should be the easier route and 2) ban assault weapons.

There is no legitimate reason to have them around.

Anonymous said...

I would go further. We need to amend the constitution to rewrite the 2nd Amendment.

Anonymous said...

We don't need to rewrite the second amendment, we need to accept the English language, the consequences of the civil war, and the modern American state.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The second amendment was all about the "militia" referred to state militias. This was because there was no effective standing federal army. And if the British invaded New York, New York needed a way to arm and protect itself. Those days are gone. We no longer have a need to create state militias. Also, the idea of a free state is gone thanks to the civil war anyway. The "states" aren't "states," they're provinces.

Get real people. The second amendment never had a damn thing to do with your right to keep a gun at home for your personal use to begin with.

Anonymous said...

Ok, that's what you think. The Supreme Court says otherwise. And, because as Moscow Mitch said over the weekend he saved the Court for another generation your view is not likely to prevail.

Anonymous said...

That the supreme court disagrees is Exhibit A "activist judges re-writing the constitution," as the far right likes to say.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Its about "[a] well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free state." How do people just read over those words as though they aren't there? The second amendment is there to make sure the "free state[s]" can keep their "well regulated militias." Florida does not need you to have a Glock 9mm in your night table in order to keep "[a] well regulated Militia."

Anonymous said...

Well I wrote the initial comment...I would not want to give up my glock, but I would be okay if it only had a ten round clip. I think we should stop viewing this as a all or nothing proposition.

Anonymous said...

558
U go out of your way to cite the prefatory clause, but miss *woops* the creation of the actual right to bear arms, which belongs to "the people."

Anonymous said...

@6:58

Had the framers intended the second amendment to be about a personal right to bear arms, they wouldn't have "gone out of [their] way" to write: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Instead, they could have just said "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms[] shall not be infringed." But they didn't do that. And that's because they didn't mean it that way.

Funny enough to all of this, I own a gun, I enjoy owning a gun, and I would like to continue to own a gun. These facts, though, do not render me incapable of reading, or of assigning the meanings to words that were intended to be assigned to those words.

Anonymous said...

And corporations are people too!

Anonymous said...

And judges just call balls and strikes.

Anonymous said...

954
Sorry i read the people to refer to the people, not militias...thanks to you for educating me! Here i was sitting here thinking i was a person

Anonymous said...

@722, fine. You disagree. I get it. But you still haven't explained what you make of this part of the second amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,"? Is it your position that these are merely decorative words that can be ignored in their entirety? Or do you have some other explanation for them?

The way I read it is that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" is contingent upon "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State." Since the "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," part is an anachronism (fancy word for "doesn't really apply to modern life"), then the part that follows is also an anachronism and doesn't apply to modern life either.

Anonymous said...

I think it means that if you are part of a well regulated state militia, you get to keep and bear arms. If you are not, you don't.

Anonymous said...

@12:07, seems like a pretty reasonable reading.

Anonymous said...

1006
If the drafters wanted to create a right limited to members of a militia, they could easily say the rights of members of militias to bear arms shall not be infringed. They didn't. They said the people have the right. I am a person. I get the right. If the people already have arms, forming armed state militias is that much easier... the people already have the arms they need to be an effective militia. Only an elitist like you thinks "the people" doesnt refer to the people.

Here is the short version of my argument: the people means..... wait for it..... not militias....but.... the people.

Anonymous said...

Lets say the 2nd amendment was written with the prefatory clause and the operative clause reversed:

"As the people being armed is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of militias to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Are u saying this hypothetical 2nd amendment provides for an individual right of the people to bear arms, despite the clear reference to militias in the operative clause?

Arent you compelled to answer yes? And if you so concede, isnt that an absurd reading of my hypothetical 2nd am?

Anonymous said...

Justice Stevens reminding of that Chief Justice Burger said the National Rifle Association’s lobbying in support of an expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment is: “One of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special-interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/john-paul-stevens-court-failed-gun-control/587272/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=politics-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20190717&silverid-ref=MzEwMTU3NDc4MzA4S0