Bad "Journalism" Drives Me Crazy

Let me just say from the outset that I have not been following the daily ins and outs of the George Zimmerman trial.  All of the surrounding back and forth on the death and evidence of murder and witness blah-bity-blah is not something I have followed closely, nor have I read any of the trial transcripts to get a feel for any of the motions arguments or cross-examination specifics from either side.  So I am in no way making any comment on the lawyering involved in the trial or the evidence therein.

That said, here is my beef of the day on something that just hit me the wrong way this morning.

If you are a "journalist" and you are covering a trial in a court of law, then this is an actual legal beat that requires you to at least have some familiarity with trial procedure and common legal practices if you are going to report on them in any way that is accurate and informative to the public.  If you do not have this familiarity with legal procedure and courtroom practice, then please for the love of all that is holy befriend a lawyer who specializes in the particular type of law that is being practiced and ask them rudimentary questions that might, perhaps, inform your writing so that you do not mislead the public.

If it is a criminal trial, ask a lawyer who actually practices criminal law regularly.  If it is a civil action, ask someone who specializes in that type of work.  Legal work is complex, and specialized knowledge is crucial in understanding nuance and details, even on routine and simple matters.

Case in point, this from People magazine, which admittedly is not exactly a hardcore journalistic outlet, but still ought to hold itself to some standards:

A judge on Thursday will rule on whether to allow the jury in the Trayvon Martin case to consider additional charges against defendant George Zimmerman – which would allow him to be convicted of lesser crimes if he is acquitted of murder. 

Prosecutors are asking the judge to let the jury consider manslaughter and aggravated assault when they begin deliberations on Friday...  (emphasis mine)

These are decidedly not additional charges. That is an inaccurate representation, one that is played up prominently in their title "George Zimmerman Trial:  Judge Considers More Charges."

These are not more charges -- they are lesser included ones, which is a whole other thing.

Sensationalism may get you more clicks, but inaccuracy leads the public to think the prosecutors are piling on extra stuff when, in fact, they are hedging their bets and trying to spread their possibility for a conviction out for what is called lesser included offenses.

In legal reporting, precision in your language matters a great deal.

This is not, in fact, adding more charges, but is in reality a more interesting tell on the part of the state's attorneys: this is something that a prosecutor who is unsure of his potential for conviction and the strength of his case does to try to give the jury some hook, any hook, even a far lesser one than that on which you indicted the defendant, on which to convict.  In the ego-driven legal world, asking for lesser included charges to be considered is a sign of weakness that lawyers generally try to avoid if they are on very firm ground, but which they will seek with blustery conviction when they feel like they may be on shaky ground.

In other words, instead of adding extra charges, they are giving the jury a menu of lots of possible charges.

It gives the jury the potential to choose from a list of charges that begins with intentional murder at the top and goes all the way down to an accidental death that the defendant may not have intended based on actions that were randomly dangerous and reckless but that maybe he didn't intend to have result in a death when he did them.  It lists every possible charge from the highest to the lowest all thrown out in a possible pile to give the jury something...anything...that they might throw at Zimmerman if they think he is in any way wrong in what he did, but where the jurors may be uncomfortable with calling it murder outright.

Pettiness At SCOTUS After The Health Care Decision?

This analysis and insight from Jan Crawford is some of the best that I have seen on the recent SCOTUS decision on the health care law.

Eons ago, I did a wonderful book chat with Jan about her well-written Supreme Court tome, Supreme Conflict.

It is worth a read again, for folks trying to parse the current SCOTUS health care decision (link found via the wonderful folks at SCOTUSblog) in contrast to Jan's recent health care law article, if only for her behind-the-scenes glimpses culled from the papers and notes of former justices and interviews with sitting and retired justices as well as staffers that proved surprisingly candid and full of intrigue on closed door back and forths.

One of the key things that I came away with after having read the book is how much stock Justice Anthony Kennedy puts in being considered "one of the cool kids" on some level, and how he likes being the justice who gets courted for his super-important, primo vote in a close case. 

Even more interesting, how much more important it is to Justice Kennedy that he is thought of this way by folks outside the rare air of the Court and upper levels of the judicial system itself, and that his judicial legacy is a prime consideration for both him, as a justice and historical figure, but also for a number of his clerks who jealously guard his legacy even after they no longer work for him -- as their legal career trajectory is tied in ways to his importance within the legal community.  This has always been the case for federal clerks at the Court, although some justices cultivate that mindset more than others and for different reasons. 

The ones who engender that loyalty because they are fantastic bosses and thoughtful, challenging jurists have always been the ones that interested me most -- Justices Stevens and Marshall spring to the fore of my mind here, because both had and still have incredibly loyal former clerks who loved their bosses as much as human beings as they did as judicial scholars.

The ones who demand fealty and petty enforcement, though?  Those are the ones to watch closely, especially in an after-decision public relations knife fight.

This passage, from Jan's current article, is a key one in that regard:

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

"He was relentless," one source said of Kennedy's efforts. "He was very engaged in this."

That bit was clearly culled from someone close to the court.  I have to wonder if it was someone on Kennedy's staff, or someone on Roberts' staff trying to paint Kennedy as an irritant, it's so hard to tell here.  Or is it some other justice or staffer from one camp or the other trying to curry favor and/or put someone else's nose out of joint at the same time?  Or all of the above?

Shakespearean in its petty scope and "juvenile behavior by adults who should behave better in the national interest," isn't it? 

Then, add that to this petulant little nugget:

Creativity As A Spiritual Practice

The above clip is Julia Cameron talking about her theories on the intersection of creativity and spirituality.  For her, creative impulse comes from God -- or whatever spiritual entity or impulse you have within you if that gives you some sort of squicky feeling, so don't get squirmy about this just yet.

What she means is that this comes from our inner voice, our deepest selves, our soul motivation, and it is an expression of that which is best in us.

But it is what Julia says in this clip and in her Artist's Way books about needing to fortify and nurture this creative spirit that most applies to me at the moment, I think -- because it is something I've always taken for granted while I push myself until I'm flat out dry. In the above clip, Julia says this:

When someone who is officially on a spiritual path picks the toolkit up, it often works very well because they are already willing. You know, on a spiritual path, you go through dark nights of the soul. And I think my toolkit is very helpful for walking through difficult times: it refills the well that is being fished out of when you are trying to help so many people. One thing that I think is important is that it says "be a little bit selfish." And I think that is wonderful advice for people who are in the field because they run the jeopardy of being burned out from over-giving, so this creates a balance....

Parsing SCOTUS Temperament

As any attorney who has spent time actually practicing law in a courtroom can tell you:  know your judge.

That includes knowing their moods, peeves, pet issues, case law trigger arguments, even the schedule of their favorite sports teams and recent win-loss records before you ever walk into the courtroom for an argument or a hearing.

If you know their legal practice histories, what motivates their intellectual passions, what pushes their judicial buttons?  You can almost always find a way to more effectively drive the argument in court.

Why bring this up?  Because Adam Liptak in today's NYTimes concentrates up front on Justice Sonia Sotomayor showing evidence of...gasp...empathy in her opinions because she considers individual and constitutional rights versus the powers of the state in a couple of recent dissents from denials of certiorari at the SCOTUS.

Who hasn't considered the human angle in a case as they went through the factual basis background?  I mean, honestly?!?

Justice Alito does as well, he just considers it from the "worst of human action" perspective and empathizes with victims, and turning away from the vast powers of the state as infringing on individual liberties as also being a potential threat.

Perspective, here, is everything.

In Justice Sotomayor's case, she's merely continuing a strain of jurisprudential analysis that Justices Stevens, Marshall, and Brennan continued before her.