Re: [at-l] Joel Shiver: My introduction (L-O-N-G)

[JoelShiver@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/27/99 11:22:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Slyinmd writes:

> Irony is someone who makes their living off of someone elses misery. 
>  
>  Sly

Sly, if that is a personal critisism of me, you ought to have kept it 
private.  But, since you posted it to the list, I'm gone respond on the list. 
 Now, I don't mind criticism because if its from someone who knows what 
they're talking about, I can learn something.  And if its from someone who 
does not, then I maybe can help them learn something.   But please, let's not 
clutter up the list with stuff such as this.

If that is to mean that you take some offense at lawyers, you need to 
understand this.  I am a public defender.  I do not take any money from my 
clients.    I receive a salary from the state, no matter how many hours I put 
in or what.  And that salary is $ 42,000 per year, and it's taken me 8 years 
for it to get to be that much, and I pay nearly $300.00 a month on my law 
school loan. I am not in this business for the money.  I'm able to provide 
for my family.  Although I am not able to provide everything my children 
want, I try to help them understand that material things are way down on the 
list of things that are improtant about living life.  They don't have the 
fanciest clothes, or fanciest toys, but they do okay.  We don't have nor do 
we need fancy cars or a big house.  I live in a cozy doublewide trailer in 
the woods.  And, I'll tell you something else, there is a waiting list a mile 
long of people who want to work at my job.

You also need to be aware that there are people out there fighting in various 
ways to help preserve the freedoms you enjoy.  Those battles do not solely 
occur on the battlefields, and the "soldiers" aren't always dressed in 
fatigues.  More than likely, you see somebody dressed in fatigues in our 
towns, it's probably police and you are their enemy. Don't make the mistake 
of thinking they wouldn't get you if you gave them half a reason to.

I help people, most of whom don't have a pot to pee in, who have been charged 
with criminal offenses.  Most of my clients are guilty.  I plead probably 90 
% out.  I'm there to make sure they don't get run over just because they're 
poor.  But some have been the victims of dishonest policemen, or other 
circumstances that makes the charges against them unfair or inappropriate or 
victims of mistaken identity.  You never been accused of anything you didn't 
do?  You've never mistaken a stranger for someone you know?  You believe that 
all policemen are honest and ethical?  Look at what just happened in LA, for 
God's sake.  It happens more than people realize, and it happens on the 
streets of even our little towns every day to a lesser extent.  Cops 
overestimating your speed increases the fine )and makes a bigger strike 
against your driving record).  Speed traps are probably the most innocuose 
examples.   I do know some police men and police women which I feel to be 
utterly honest and beyond reproach.  But I have caught others in pretty nasty 
lies against people.  Now you got me started, but I'll just back off.

One other thing, there a many, many people in jail who are completely 
innocent. Just look at how many have been recently released (after spending a 
big part of their lives in jail for something they didn't do) because of the 
new technology in DNA evidence able to prove they didn't do it. Too bad we 
don't have a similar test for eyewitness identification.   What is scary is 
that as our rights erode, victims of the drug war, we are all placed at 
greater risk of being inocent victims of that war.  Its a thin line that 
separates us from the other side of the law.

And I love lawyer jokes.

Now, Sly, whaddaya say about that?

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    /      \    Joel Shiver
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