glossing over the chinks
November 8th, 2007
Legal, Opinion
The chinks in “system” are often glossed over with rhetoric. Take the situation with family court Judge Martha Davis. Having found two and half pounds of marijuana on her property, the local Windsor County prosecutor Robert Sands allowed her to enter a court diversion program.
Not knowing the motivation behind his move, Gov. Douglas stepped in and ordered cops to refer “large” marijuana cases to top Vermont or federal prosecutors, stating “Every other state’s attorney indicated they would have handled it differently.”
This is a “gloss”. The legal system in our country, and Vermont is no exception, is one of the things we should fear most. It is a self serving incestuous guild that has no real checks or balances and pretty much makes things up as they go along. It’s more about the “brotherhood” than about providing an even handed system of justice.
The reason for this is fairly simple. One hand washes the other, with no accountability. I seriously doubt that “every other state attorney would have handled it differently,” despite their assurances otherwise. Judge Davis, an attorney, would be a well known member of the local bar. She would of course give special deference to those in her guild, some more than others. While in some states Judges are “elected” (with campaign support by the local bar), we appoint ours; the pool of candidates is from the local bar (after all – if your not a “lawyer” you can’t possibly do “law”). So a good political network is part of the “job”, maybe most of the job. Just who your enemies and allies are, and theirs, and theirs… can weave a very complex web. So we handle the process a bit differently because quite frankly if we don’t - it could come back to bite us. After all, no one is without a few skeletons in their closet and a few powerful friends we would prefer not to have as enemies.
My own small experience is a prime example.
A local contractor stopped work requesting additional money for the job. The reason was equally simple, he made a mistake in ordering a set of custom windows (he did the measuring, he held the tape measure) that he had to eat. I objected to paying more for his mistake – so he stopped working before the job was finished – and then filed a lien. Vermont law clearly states that final payment can be withheld until the “job” is finished. Since the law is written down in back and white, I raised the issue (without an attorney) in the local district court. Apparently, the Judge was unfamiliar with the law, and when brought to her attention (by actually having her look the statute up herself!), her demeanor suggested she might hold me in contempt! On the other hand, when my contractor and his attorney presented “evidence” as to what I “owed”, a duplicate invoice was part of the official record - and was carefully submitted to the court. But charging twice for the same item is generally known as fraud. When this was brought to the attention of the judge, is was called “an oversight”. Vermont justice? Or business as usual.
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