RE DK WOODY ALLEN POST

Just to give an example, from the defense side, of the kinds of things that are possible for talented lawyers in abuse cases.

This is one episode, among many other kinds of crime, for which I had become very famous, strictly locally.

I had to take the deposition of a young female victim in a capital sexual battery case, where the defendant goes away for their whole natural life in prison.

They had recently introduced a local rule whereby these kinds of child abuse discovery matters were even required to be videotaped! Making it more awkward for all concerned.

Anyway, during the course of the question and answer that followed, I managed, very sympathetic, very kind, to get the girl to acknowledge, (true or false), on video camera, that the whole episode the state attorney had filed, of this boyfriend sneaking in and fingering her in her sleep, and was then prosecuting as a life felony, may have actually all been a dream. Certainly the little girl by then wanted to believe such an account was a dream after all herself. Given what I had seen of interrogations of children by state agencies, it is hard to know what the truth really was.

Needless to say, the whole courthouse, state and defense, went wild, when this deposition was made known.

I was fired shortly thereafter, because my long serving boss had just been defeated in a Democratic primary by a gay woman, and straight people were then found wanting in one way or another. I was alleged not to care about my clients. But no reason need have been given, in that I served at the pleasure of the elected official.

Most Americans think of what is called the Spoils System to only be a chronic and recurring problem for all staffing, but only across party lines. 

They think a Dim gets elected, Foxholes are out, and vice versa. Foxhole elected, Dims out.

Sadly, that is not only a pathetic, and partly true, picture of the Spoils System, but also a very, very naive picture of the snakelike real world beneath it.

It is best to think of it as a world in the jungle, a world of cannibals, but also of cannibals with weird plumes.

This post is dedicated to Newt Gingrich.