Defense Articles

If you need to trace a cell phone number to see who is behind the unknown calls you are getting or to trace the recent calls on your wife or husbands cell phone you will need to do a reverse call search. Private investigators and law enforcement agencies have been using a search service for years.

A few years ago reverse call services were not available to the public. You had to hire a private investigator or detective to do the research for you. But now the same service they use is available to the public for a very reasonable fee.

So can you get this information for free? Sometimes you can if you are lucky. First thing you can try is to enter the cell phone number in Google or try phone:(insert number here) and see if you get any results. Most cell numbers will not return any info. Unless the person has posted their name and number on a board or website somewhere you will not find anything.

Free search services will give you the same result because they use a free data base to run their directory. If you try one and come back with nothing you can bet all the other ones will not give you any results either because they usually share the same free data base.

Paid directories are a different story. They pay for a data base feed that keeps their search feed up to date and current. As soon as someone buys a new cell phone it will go into the data base and show up in the search. This is why they charge a fee to use their site and it is also why it is worth paying for the service. Plus you can run a preliminary search for free to see if the number is listed before you decide to join. The only ones I have not been able to trace are the prepaid over the counter cell phones.

Depending on what site you join you will have access to the persons, name, location, full address, plus you may get access to court, finance, bankruptcy, marriage, job history, criminal records and even run people searches to find lost friends. All this for a small membership fee. Here is a little tip I learned the hard way. Pay the difference and go for the full year of membership instead of the one time search fee. Once you discover for yourself just how much info you can dig up on someone you will end up spending hours on their site.

Experts have been using reverse call lookups for years. They get paid a large fee for their service and all they have to do is enter a phone number and print out their results. Now you can do the same thing at home. All inquires are discreet and no one will ever be able to tell if you ran their number.

So go ahead and trace those unknown cell phone numbers and see who the mystery caller is. Want to turn the tables on them and ruin their day? Call them back and let them know you now have their home address and name plus you know where they work. I can almost guarantee this will stop any prank caller.

Running a free criminal background check is much easier than you would think, and I’m going to give you some tips right now on how to do it.

Now, a free criminal background check is not going to be as thorough as the paid version, but you can learn a LOT. Here are some quick easy tips for you.

First of all, you are going to want to check with the National Sex Offender Registry. What’s that you say? The prospective date, nanny, or employee that you want to check up on could not possibly be a sex offender?

Let me tell you. No sex offender in the world comes with a warning label tattooed on their head, and the reason that many of them get away with doing what they do is that they are charming and charismatic. It is free and easy to run a records check through the National Sex Offender Registry, so there is no reason not to.

Now, many local counties, cities and states have their own version of sex offender registries these days so you should check those also.

Next, check to find out if the county where the person you are running a check on has court records available online. If so you can do a criminal records search for free from the privacy of your own home. If not, you will have to go to the county courthouse.

You will want to do criminal records checks AND civil records checks.

Civil records checks can tell you a lot. They can tell you if someone has declared bankruptcy, if they have been sued, if they have filed a lawsuit, if they have been divorced in that county…

And by the way divorce filings and proceedings can tell you a lot about a person as well.

In some states, a person’s driving history is public record. You can find out if someone has frequently been cited for speeding, for example.

These are just a few ways that you can find out a whole lot about a person’s character and background, for free.

“You try to get them off?”

“Well, not sexually.”

“What if you win and your client goes out and committed the same crime again? Wouldn’t you feel awful?”

“Hey, recidivism pays the bills.”

“You kidding?”

“Yes, I’m kidding. I actually represent only poor people.”

“Why?”

“A number of reasons. My father claims I discriminate against the rich.”

“So you’re a public defender?”

“Sort of. My actual title is ‘bar advocate.’”

“Huh?”

“Actually, it’s a ridiculous title - it basically means I’m court- appointed.”

“Oh, I thought those were the worst attorneys.”

(And then I wait for the inevitable … )

“No offense.”

“Trust me, you’re not the only one who has that misconception. But the fact is, some of the best attorneys in the state are court- appointed.”

“Have you ever represented anyone charged with murder?”

“A couple times.”

“You actually try to convince a jury that a guy who has killed is innocent?”

“Well, now I do appeals, so a jury has already found my client guilty. I then try to convince a higher court to overturn the conviction based on something that happened during the trial that shouldn’t have.”

“So you try to get them off on technicalities?”

“Otherwise known as constitutional protections.”

“Tomato; to-mah-to.”

“More like tomato; garbanzo.”

“Wait a minute. Tomatoes aren’t the same as garbanzos.”

“Exactly.”

“I just don’t see how you can represent these people. I mean what if someone killed one of your relatives? How would you feel about that?”

“That depends. Are you throwing in-laws in the mix?”

“I mean if ….”

“Hang on a second. How about I ask a question here? What if you committed a crime? Wouldn’t you want to be represented as best as possible?”

“I’m not a criminal so that would never happen.”

“Ever get pulled over for speeding?”

“Sure, but that doesn’t make me a criminal.”

“Well, if you were going really fast, that could have been reckless endangerment. And if you hit someone, that could have been vehicular homicide.”

“But I didn’t.”

“So, it’s not that you’re not a criminal; it’s that you’re lucky.”

“What?”

“Now, did you pay those speeding tickets that you got?”

“Didn’t have to. I got them thrown out. A buddy of mine knows someone.”

“But you were actually guilty of speeding.”

“Yeah, but that’s not a big deal. Your clients do horrible things.”

Don’t you think representing them is immoral?”

(Pause.)

“Sorry, I was just waiting for you to follow that up with ‘no offense.’ To answer your question: No, I don’t find it immoral. In fact, I think representing indigent criminal defendants is paradoxically the most moral thing an attorney can do.”

“Wait a minute, you’re trying to say that representing these scumballs is moral?”

“Unquestionably. There’s a number of sociological reasons and there’s the need to keep power in check. There’s also the principle that for every guilty person not defended properly, precedent can be set that might lead to an innocent person going to jail. But the reason that I represent these ’scumballs,’ as you say, is simply because everyone’s a scumball _ some people just have nicer clothes.”

The 11-woman, one-man jury in Oklahoma County decided that Mary Heath was a battered woman — a woman who’d put up with years of sexual abuse before she shot Donald Heath as he was bent under the hood of her car, making repairs on Interstate 35 in front of Frontier City. The 4′11″ woman then rolled her husband’s body, all 6′7″ of it, into a ditch beside the road and left. Three hours later she called police and told them that she’d found his body. She confessed the next day, telling authorities she had no cause to kill him. But four days later she changed her story, saying she and Heath had struggled at the scene. What’s more, a few days earlier she’d burglarized her relatives’ home and stolen the weapon used to kill her husband. McKenzie, who took the case pro bono, admits it looked grim for his client’s future. “She made a lot of judgment errors,” he says. Charging Heath with first-degree murder, the state refused to cut a deal, though McKenzie had offered 25 years. She’d never made any police reports about abuse and her two children living in the home said they’d never heard any evidence of abuse between the two adults. Still, she was acquitted of murder and convicted of first-degree manslaughter, receiving a sentence of only 10 years. McKenzie, who had never tried a murder case, says a combination of factors contributed to the outcome, but the jury’s animosity toward Donald Heath was the clincher. “I think they ended up not liking the victim,” he says. “I think they thought he should be killed.” The case also hinged on the fact that the evidence related to the burglary was not admitted. Too, the jury make-up was in Heath’s favor. “I just had the perfect jury,” McKenzie says. Some past recipients of the Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association’s Clarence Darrow Defense Award include Mack Martin, Robert Ravitz and John Coyle. People John A. Gaberino Jr. will be sworn in Friday as the Oklahoma Bar Association’s 1998 president at 9:30 a.m. in the Oklahoma Supreme Court Courtroom at the State Capitol Building. Gaberino says his goals as OBA president this year are to emphasize service and education, both to the public and bar members. As a graduate of Georgetown University and a director with the Tulsa firm of Gable Gotwals Mock Schwabe Kihle Gaberino, the new president plans to expand the services provided by the OBA’s Management Assistance Program and to expand the Mentor Program. William Jay Manger has been sworn in as an Oklahoma City municipal judge. Manger, succeeding Judge Patrick Delaney who retired in September, received a Juris Doctor degree from Oklahoma City University School of Law in 1976. Business Parman & Associates has opened its fourth office in Hays, Kan., with Stacey Seibel as managing attorney. Parman & Associates is a 10- year firm that focuses on business and estate planning with offices in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Kansas City and Hays. West Law will provide electronic access to court docket materials from more than 180 federal courts and 250 state courts with CourtLink, available in March. For more information about CourtLink and a demonstration, visit www.courtlink.com Leigh Jones welcomes your comments and contributions.

A memorial service will be held Tuesday for prominent defense attorney Phillip McKay Sutley, who once convinced jurors to spare the life of a nun’s killer.

Sutley, 66, passed away suddenly Thursday in the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse in Baltimore. It is believed that his death may have been caused by a heart condition.

Born in Baltimore, Sutley graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in 1962. He served in the Army before attending the University of Baltimore School of Law, from which he received his degree in 1967.

He discovered his passion for criminal law in law school, said his son, Stuart Sutley.

“As a young guy in law school he thought [criminal law] was the place to make a difference,” Stuart Sutley said. “He always believed everyone deserved the right to a fair trial.”

Just last year, Phillip Sutley convinced the Court of Special Appeals to order a new trial for Carlos Joseph McClellan Jr., who had been convicted of first-degree murder in 1992. In the post- conviction proceeding, Sutley argued that the first jury had been instructed incorrectly on the meaning of “reasonable doubt.”

His highest-profile case came in 1993, when he defended Melvin Lorenzo Jones against the death penalty. After Jones was convicted of killing and sexually assaulting Sister MaryAnn Glinkain at her convent in Northeast Baltimore, Sutley pleaded with jurors to spare his client’s life. He invoked the words of Pope John Paul II and said that inhaling poisoned gas was “an agonizing end” that no one deserved.

Jones received a sentence of life without parole.

Sutley was known for caring deeply about his clients, and offered his legal expertise to those who could not normally afford an attorney of his caliber.

“He was committed to providing representation for people whether they could afford it or not,” said Judge Irma Raker, a longtime friend. “He didn’t abandon them if they lost and went to jail — if there was anything he could continue to do he did.”

“We have heard from so many of my father’s clients in the last few days that they felt he was a friend and trusted him,” said his son Stuart.

Sutley was also highly regarded by his colleagues, and known for being prepared for every case, large or small.

“I knew Phil since the days of law school,” said Judge John Grayson Turnbull Jr. “He was an absolute gentleman in the courtroom and was always prepared and considerate to his clients.”

His civility was not limited to judges and clients, however.

“He was respectful to everyone at the courthouse,” said Stuart Sutley, reflecting on a recent phone call he received from a courthouse security guard who told Stuart of how his father always took the time to exchange pleasantries with him.

When Sutley was not practicing law or acting as a board member on the Board of Governors of the Maryland State Bar Association, he was pursuing another passion — hunting big game. Sutley traveled all over the world, hunting in areas such as the Arctic Circle, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. In his home state, Sutley hunted around his antique log cabin, which sits on 30 acres in Western Maryland.

“He loved the outdoors, and being with fisherman and hunters,” said Raker. “He was fun to be with.”

Sutley was the son of Dr. Percy Sutley, who practiced at Union Memorial Hospital, and Cathryn Sutley Swann, who survives her son.

Raised in Ruxton, he graduated from Friends School in 1958. He was recently recognized by Friends School as one of its all-time great athletes and inducted into its Hall of Fame.

Sutley went on to become an All-American lacrosse player at the Johns Hopkins University.

“The conversations [we had] would degenerate into nothing but lacrosse,” retired Judge Charles E. Moylan Jr. fondly recalled. “He was a key member of three outstanding [Johns Hopkins lacrosse] teams.”

Moylan first met Sutley while working as a prosecutor in the 1960s.

“I remember fondly what a superb trial lawyer he was,” said Moylan. “He would represent his clients vigorously, but he was someone you could deal with on a civil and cordial basis.”

In addition to his mother and son Stuart, Sutley is also survived by his wife Deborah Jennings, an attorney at DLA Piper; three other sons, Benjamin, Zachary and Christopher; daughters-in-law Elizabeth and Traci Sutley; sisters Sandra Sutley Kull and Sally Sutley Ross; brothers-in-law John Kull and Dan Ross; and seven grandchildren.

To win in court, an attorney must present a coherent defense theory _ something for which many lawyers gave low marks to Simpson’s defense team.

Attorneys also must remember to speak plain English to jurors who may not understand legal and technical terms.

Expert witnesses hired by prosecutors can be a special problem for underfunded defense lawyers. Michael E. Tigar of Austin, Texas, defined an expert witness as “someone who wasn’t there but for a fee will gladly imagine what it must have been like.”

The idea, Tigar said, is to come up with your own theory and try to get the prosecution’s expert to admit that it is consistent with the physical evidence.

If all else fails, there always is “jury nullification” _ persuading at least some jurors to vote for acquittal simply because they disagree with the law.

Because jurors are sworn to uphold the law, attorneys cannot openly urge them to override it. But Tony Serra of San Francisco said lawyers sometimes can get the result they seek by expressing moral outrage, particularly in cases involving self-defense, government informants or claims that the defendant was entrapped.

“These are the cases where you bring Shakespeare into the court,” Serra advised. “The beauty of the jury is their morality. Tap into it.”

And one of a defense lawyer’s most important jobs is to humanize the defendant in front of the jury.

“From the moment you walk into the courtroom you are the defendant’s only friend,” Tigar said.

“Seize the defendant, grab hold of the defendant and underscore the defendant’s humanity,” added Michael Kennedy of New York. “If you’re embarrassed about it, find another line of work.”

The institute is sponsored by the OU College of Law, in cooperation with the College of Continuing Education. Co-sponsors include the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, the Oklahoma County Public Defender, the Tulsa County Public Defender, and the Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. For more information, contact the Continuing Legal Education department at 325-2891, ext. 2891, or send e-mail to andersond30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays from May 8-20. All participants must attend the orientation class on Monday. Training will include the history and myths associated with sexual assault and domestic violence, why women stay with a partner who is abusive and profiles of rapists and abusers.

“Volunteers provide emotional support, information, referrals and accompaniment through medical and legal procedures to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence,” said Susan Stewart, YWCA volunteer coordinator. “Our volunteers provide thousands of hours of hand-on service each year. Without the volunteers, we would not have been able to provide these much needed services.”

For more information, call YWCA Crisis Services at 947-4506.

Planning estates

Henry G. Will, chairman of the board for Conner & Winters, will be the speaker for the Oklahoma City Estate Planning Council at 7:30 a.m. May 18 at the Hilton Northwest.

There is a $15 fee for the breakfast meeting. Call Cheryl Moore- Smith at 848-2020 to make reservations.

Bell may appeal

An attorney for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. says he anticipates the company will appeal a federal jury’s finding that Bell violated state antitrust laws while competing with other phone companies.

After listening to five weeks of testimony, the jury on Monday ordered Bell to pay nine competitors more than $7.4 million in damages.

Bell attorneys said the company has done nothing more than compete vigorously to retain pay telephone customers.

“What tells you the market is competitive is how fast we’re losing pay phones,” attorney Rick Ford said. “Our pay phone revenues are going down like a rock.”

Southwestern Bell had a legal monopoly on pay telephones within its Oklahoma service territory before deregulation in November 1996.

After deregulation, other pay telephone companies were allowed to compete. Companies compete by offering business property owners commissions in exchange for the right to place pay telephones on their properties. Commissions are based on the amount of revenue each telephone produces.

It has also increased the number of so-called “moral waivers” to recruits with criminal pasts, even as the total number of recruits dropped slightly. The sharpest increase was in waivers issued for serious misdemeanors, which make up the bulk of all the Army’s moral waivers. These include aggravated assault, burglary, robbery and vehicular homicide. The number of waivers issued for felony convictions also increased, from 8 percent to 11 percent of the 8,129 moral waivers granted in 2006.

Waivers for less-serious crimes, including traffic offenses and drug use, have dropped or remained stable.

The Army enlisted 69,395 men and women last year.

While soldiers with criminal histories made up only 11.7 percent of the Army recruits in 2006, the spike in waivers raises concerns about whether the military is making too many exceptions to try to meet its recruitment demands in a time of war. Most felons, for example, are not permitted to carry firearms, and many criminals have at some point exhibited serious lapses in discipline and judgment, traits that are far from ideal on the battlefield.
The military automatically excludes people who have committed certain crimes. They include drug traffickers, recruits who have more than one felony on their record or people who have committed sexually violent crimes. A felony is defined as a crime that carries a sentence of a year or more in prison.

Bill Carr, the undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, said the military granted waivers selectively and scrutinized a recruit’s full record, the nature of the crime, when it was committed, the degree of rehabilitation and references from teachers, employers, coaches and clergy members. In many cases, Carr said, the applicant may have committed the crime at a young age and then stayed out of trouble. To his knowledge, Carr said, recruits who are issued moral waivers are not tracked once inside the military.

“If the community backs them, we are willing to take a hard look,” Carr said, referring to the waiver process, which includes local, state and federal records checks.

The majority of moral waivers are for serious misdemeanors, most often committed by juveniles. As Douglas Smith, the public information officer for the Army’s recruiting command, said, “We understand that people make mistakes in their lives and they can overcome those mistakes.”

Fewer than 3 in 10 people between ages 17 and 24 are fully qualified to join the Army; that means they have a high school diploma, have met aptitude test score requirements and fitness levels and would not be barred for medical reasons, their sexual orientation or their criminal histories. The Defense Department has also expanded its applicant pool by accepting soldiers with criminal backgrounds and medical problems like asthma, high blood pressure and attention deficit disorder, situations that require waivers. Medical waivers have increased 4 percent, totaling 12,313 in 2006. Without waivers, the soldiers would have been barred from service.

In the last three years, the percentage of moral waivers for all new enlistments in the four branches combined have decreased by 3 percent, with spikes in the Army and Air Force. Since 2003, a total of 125,525 moral waivers have been issued. The Marine Corps issues far more moral waivers than the Army — 20,750 in 2006 — but only because it has a stricter policy on drug use. It requires waivers for one-time marijuana use while the other services do not. Rules on waivers vary according to service.

“The data is crystal clear; our Armed Forces are under incredible strain, and the only way that they can fill their recruiting quotas is by lowering their standards,” said Rep. Martin T. Meehan, D- Mass., the chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. He has requested more detailed data from the Defense Department on the use of waivers.

“By lowering standards, we are endangering the rest of our armed forces and sending the wrong message to potential recruits across the country,” Meehan added. “Our men and women in uniform represent the best and brightest in American, and we need to keep it that way.”

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said the clock for the statute of limitations begins to run at the time of discovery of an alleged 4th Amendment violation and that a plaintiff must bring a charge against the officers within the proscribed period.
Andre Wallace was 15 in 1994 when Chicago police arrested him on a murder charge. He confessed during questioning, which he later claimed was coercive and violated the 4th Amendment.

At trial, Wallace testified that he killed John Handy in self-defense. Wallace was convicted and served eight years in prison before various challenges to police tactics resulted in the suppression of the confession and all other evidence and Wallace was released.

Wallace filed civil rights damages claims against the officers nine years after the alleged false arrest, but the 7th Circuit rejected the damages claim because the Illinois statute of limitations of two years had expired.

The Supreme Court agreed to review Wallace’s argument that the statute of limitations for a civil rights claim of false arrest should begin at the time that a prisoner is released rather man at the time of discovery of an alleged police violation.
The 2nd, 6th, 7th and 10th circuits have rendered subsequent opinions that Crawford is not retroactive. But the 9th Circuit found that Crawford represented a sharp turn in jurisprudence and should be applied retroactively to all cases in which hearsay evidence was admitted without the defendant being able to directly confront the witness.

Thirty-six states have filed amicus briefs against retroactivity.

The case before the court-like many cases of hearsay testimony-involves sexual assault of a child. Hearsay evidence is also popular in domestic violence prosecutions.

In Crawford, the Supreme Court set a higher standard for hearsay evidence, limiting its use in a criminal trial only if the person who made the out-of-court statement is unavailable to testify and the defendant had a prior opportunity to confront the witness about the hearsay evidence.

The states said Crawford had already had a profound impact on prosecutors and making the decision retroactive as Bockting seeks to do would further expand the number of cases that would have to be retried.

In Ayers v. Belmontes, 05-493, the high court will decide whether a jury must be directly told to consider a capital defendant’s potential for reform as a mitigating factor.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that jury instructions don’t go far enough in allowing the introduction of mitigating factors to reduce the penalty against the defendant.

Fernando Belmontes, who had a juvenile and adult history of violent crime, entered a home for a burglary, found a young woman at home and bludgeoned her to death with an iron bar. Belmontes stole her stereo, sold it for $100 and bought beer.

At trial, the 9th Circuit ruled, that the jury didn’t take into consideration the mitigating factor that Belmontes had shown improvement during an earlier incarceration at the California Youth Authority.

The Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether juries should receive more specific instructions to include the possibility of future reform as a mitigating factor.

In U.S. v. Resendiz-Ponce, 05-998, the Supreme Court will decide whether an omission of an element of a criminal offense in an indictment is a 5th Amendment violation that invalidates the indictment.

Juan Resendiz-Ponce, a Mexican citizen, was indicted for attempting to illegally reenter the United States, but the indictment did not explicitly allege an overt act beyond submission of a false identification card at the border.

Without any other act than submitting a false ID, the 9th Circuit Court found the indictment invalid and reversed the conviction.

Resendiz-Ponce had earlier been deported for illegal entry. He returned and was convicted again of kidnapping his stepdaughter, whom he had impregnated, and ordered deported.

Despite his history, the 9th Circuit said the government made a fatal error in failing to identify an overt act of an illegal attempt to reenter the United States.

Maria Durant is a partner at Dwyer & Collora LLP in Boston. She received both her B.A. and her J.D. from Suffolk University. In 1998, she served as a special assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Mass. She currently serves as a hearing committee member of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers and is a member of the Boston Bar Association’s criminal law steering committee.

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1. What are some of the special challenges of defending a politician that wouldn’t come up defending a private citizen?

“The special challenges include specialized laws that don’t apply to ordinary citizens. Here in Massachusetts, there are conflict of interest laws that regulate a whole range of behaviors including whether or not they can receive gratuities in return for official decisions. There are strict guidelines for elected officials. You can’t have the appearance of impropriety. You must have trust from your constituents.”

2. Tell me about your most challenging case.

“They are all challenging. You are dealing with clients at difficult times in their lives.”

3. How do you separate potential ideological/political conflicts in defending a client?

“That never enters into the calculus at all. I don’t bring in my own ideological and political views. A case requires me to look at the law and how [the politicians] conduct behavior and advise my clients to the law as its been interpreted. I have represented Republicans, Democrats and Independents.”

4. Tell me about defending Abramoff.

“The victories are those that are not public. Those that are public I am not going to comment on.”

5. How can such high-profile cases receive fair trials?

“I think it’s an incredible challenge on the attorneys that represent them. It’s important that the case is not tried in the press as so often happens these days. The attorney does his or her best job by staying focused on the case at hand and litigating in the courtroom, not the press.”

6. How should defendants balance legal troubles with their job responsibilities? When should a politician step down?

“I can’t answer it in a vacuum. Public and personal factors that would lead me advise one way or another. Every case is different.”

7. Why do you think we are seeing more corruption cases on both sides? Is there really an increase in corruption, or are politicians being held more accountable?

“There are not more corruption cases coming up now. In my experience, there has always been a fairly steady run of corruption cases…. In Massachusetts, I handle matters that raise questions about conduct and behavior of public officials. Those don’t receive much press on the national level, which is a good thing from my clients’ standpoint, but I don’t see it as major shift.”

8. How is defending a politician now different from 10 years ago?

“Prosecutors today are more creative in their use of federal statues to prosecute. The same conduct 10 years ago may not have been prosecuted using federal statutes. In terms of the challenges of representing public officials, they’re really much the same. You need to make sure you don’t try your case in the press. Stay focused on the client. There are issues that are hot button issues today; ten years ago, there were different issues, but I don’t see a tremendous difference from the standpoint of a defense attorney. Certainly there are different tools being used by prosecutors about the country. Those tools open up a Pandora’s box in terms of potential punishment.”

9. How can politicians stay out of trouble?

“First and foremost, they can stay out of trouble by knowing the rules and guidelines that govern their conduct. I run into politicians that engage in conduct that has been commonly accepted for many years. They don’t realize that just because it’s accepted doesn’t mean it doesn’t violate the unique laws that pertain to them….”

10. Who would you have loved to defend?

“I have thoroughly enjoyed defending everyone I have defended. All have come to me with unique situations in difficult and troubling times. I have been very fortunate to represent individuals that genuinely care about their constituents.”