Yes, you did miss something, the entire point. I was addressing your double standard when it comes to what passes for foundation when making an argument and its reductive influence on discourse.

As for the Rodriguez case, I’ve met the victim’s parents and step-parent on more than one occasion and I can tell you that they would’ve preferred it if more money and time had been spent by the criminal justice system on Mr. Rodriguez before he snatched their daughter from a shopping mall parking lot.

Sure, plead out the car thefts and the petty drug busts. But our more heinous crimes deserve full-length adjudication if the evidence supports it. I’m STILL waiting for somebody, a JD holder perhaps, to tell me where the evidence was lacking for a first degree murder conviction here.

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What a coincidence. I read your comment, and now I feel like I just sat through a few hours of talk radio. (I thought we were speaking about criminal trials here, not GW. I missed something . . . .?)

(BTW – the state announced this morning that the current total for defense fees – just defense fees alone – for Alfonso Rodiguez stands at about $995,000. That’s what I meant about taking a case to trial being expensive.)
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Bobby, look up “facile.” superficial: proposed a facile solution to a complex problem. Readily manifested, together with an aura of insincerity and lack of depth: a facile slogan devised by politicians.”

I say, old bean, did “we” catch a matinee of “The Queen” before tapping this one out? What’s with the royal, “we” all of a sudden? ” Or do you have multiple personalities? If so, let’s meet ‘em.

“We just have to remember to explain things slower sometimes.”

Not slower, Bobby. I don’t care how many WPM you can manage. How about just, at all. I think it’s safe to assume that everyone on this forum has “experience.” One hopes, to borrow your purple syntax, that it is deept and wide-ranging experience. The wisdom of the mob, and all that rot. But it is still subjective and limited.

Anyway, yes, counselor, I’ll take the concensus opinions of the world’s leading climatologists over some lawyer practicing in the “crim justice area” when the question before us is the validity of global warming theory. On that subject, I feel safe in stating categorically that, yup, they’re vastly more learned on this complex problem than you are, or Dick Cheney or our imbecile president.

But, hey, if I get a DUI, you’ll be the guy I call, not a climatologist. What’s your hourly?

But not you, barrister: “If it please the court, your honor, most people…” Cue the gavel. You’ve tried a lot of 1st degree murder cases, have you? I’ve covered a few. Every single one, a guilty verdict.

If you’ve got foundation, and as a lawyer you’d understand that concept from first year, don’t hide it under your copy of Black’s. It’s a term that kinda’ explains itself. But, anyway, if you’ve got it, yes, do include it next time, old boy. What am I, The Amazing Kreskin (OK, not a mind reader but a “mentalist”)? Don’t just blurt out these ridiculous categoricals, “most people,” as though they carry any weight on their own. Especially when you decry others for citing widely reported concensus among credible experts as a bulwark against you’re, “nuh, uh, is not” style of forensics. I can get get that level of discourse on talk radio.

Fry the bastard.

Take a deep breath and see if you can cobble something together more cogent than : “f— you, kokonutz.”"

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Yeah, that was overbroad and ill-supported. I should have said:

“Like the vast majority of crime victims and relatives of victims and witnesses with whom I’ve dealt while working as a lawyer in the crim justice area – numbering in the hundreds – on both sides of the fence, the prospect of going into court and reliving the experience to a jury while being picked apart, denigrated, ridiculed, and basically called a stupid, biased liar by one side or the other is less than appealing.”

Not facile at all, LJ, merely written without citation to direct authority. Sometimes we know things through experience, and forget that others don’t have that experience and so don’t have foundation to support the conclusion we’ve drawn. We just have to remember to explain things slower sometimes.

And, LJ, I’ve yet to encounter here that person “vastly more learned” than I of whom you speak. Smarter, maybe, but that’s not the word you chose, and I assume your word choices have some basis. If my response to the statement that “all major climate scientists in the world believe X” was, in your mind, facile, then I remain comfortable in that judgment.

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But when it suits your facile position on a subject, you presume to speak for “most people.” Get thee to a logic 101 class. You could just audit.

Take a deep breath and see if you can cobble something together more cogent than : “f— you, kokonutz.”

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A major, expensive, painful trial would occur under my tenure when the defendant wouldn’t plead guilty to a charge only slightly less serious than the charge for which I was going to try him – and, when the agreed-upon sentence was close to a sentence he might get imposed if he was found guilty.

And, yeah, the family MIGHT have found a trial cathartic. Given that this deal was run past the family before it was made, though, it’s more likely that they approved it, and, like most people, decided that the prospect of reliving that night in front of a jury, and then being picked apart by a defense lawyer in cross, was something less than appealing.

And, I guess I’d be saving the resources of the police and county attorney’s office (which might be consumed in a weeks-long trial) for work on 500 or 1000 other criminal cases.

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I thought you had your thong in a knot about this very disconnect at the top of this thread. You catch a case of misology over the weekend? Right, like reason has ever been one of your stronger faculties.

Or is this just a function of your linguistic inadequacy? That’s more likely it. “Catharsis,” oooooooooo, three syllables. Tell you what, budminor, get yourself a dictionary, or, try http://www.dictionary.com, and improve yourself. It’s not everyone else’s job to get dumber.