» Entries tagged with "capital"

A Disgrace

It appears that at some point the fame finally got to L. Kirk Nurmi, former lawyer for celebrity capital defendant Jodi Arias. After he came out with a tell-all book about representing his famous client called “Trapped with Ms. Arias,” the equivalent of wiping his ass with ER 1.6, Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice got right to the root of the problem: Did Arias consent to Nurmi’s disclosure? Did Nurmi obtain consent after disclosing to Arias what he would be revealing? Given what Nurmi has to say about Arias, it seems inconceivable, and even if it was conceivable, there remains the problem of Arias being disturbed, as Nurmi claims, such that she would be incapable of consenting as lacking the capacity. Because she’s friggin’ disturbed. And yet, there it is, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Death Penalty, Ethics

Who Needs Lawyers Anyway?

I came across a fascinating post about the unauthorized practice of law after Mauricio Hernandez at the Irreverent Lawyer wrote a post of his own discussing it. It was the sort of thing that took a little time for me to digest before writing about it. For those too lazy to click through, the original article is about a woman with a very strong background in criminal law who moved here then took and passed the Arizona bar before becoming a capital staff attorney in Maricopa County. Ignoring some off-putting personal attacks that may or may not be deserved and a bizarre part in the closing paragraph that tries to make it a red-state-blue-state political problem, it’s a thought-provoking piece about the flagrant unauthorized practice of law by a … Read entire article »

Filed under: Courts, Ethics, lawyers, Practice in General, Professionalism

Prosecutor of the Year

A wonderful article from the Arizona Republic discusses prosecutorial misconduct in capital cases in Arizona. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but one little part in particular knocked the wind right out of me. It discusses Noel Levy, a former “Arizona Prosecutor of the Year” who seems to have done his best over the years to put people in prison or on death row using every sketchy prosecutor tactic in the prosecution playbook. One particular case involved Ray Krone, who was sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. Krone was convicted and sentenced to die based on a videotape about bite mark evidence that the defense didn’t have time to review. At Krone’s second trial, Levy got another conviction but only a life sentence. Krone, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Arizona Cases, Death Penalty, Prosecutors

The Conveyor Belt

There’s a dead person. That’s what starts the conveyor belt. People don’t just die anymore. Unless you’re a hundred years old with cancer and dementia and doctors gather around remaking about how incredible it is you’ve held on so long, death is murder. People are murdered by their greedy next of kin. They’re murdered by corrupt businesses. They’re murdered by drugs that are fun or helpful, occasionally the drugs that stop the murderers themselves from suffering. People are always murdered by an enemy of some kind. The enemy can be disease or lightning, but if it isn’t, the enemy is a person. When it is, we often still look for a person to blame. The person we find is guilty. The person must die too. The person needs … Read entire article »

Filed under: Death Penalty, Government Rants, Practice in General

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