The State Supreme Court has published a handy booklet that tells ordinary citizens how to guide themselves through the appeals process. It provides a comprehensive summary of a very arcane process and my guess is that a lot of lawyers are poring over it and saying. "Dang, if I had known about this, I could have save the 60K I spent on Law School."
The book may be more notable for what it lacks. You will notice that it is not filled with glossy 8 x 10 pictures of the justices.
That just means appointed-for-life judges don't need public approval to do the work they have chosen. So be it. And they also may have noticed that profiling a decade-long career like that of B. LaWall means there will be no less than eight very different hairstyles denoting the passage of time.
Seriously though, how many ordinary citizens ever encounter the need to understand the appeals process, when 40,000 felonies a year are prosecuted in this county (how many more go unreported?). That's about 1 of every 100 county residents being a felony victim EACH year. There's a lot of value in reducing that number.
If the worst thing the hangman does is remove his mask, be glad.
Posted by: Avid Reader | February 02, 2008 at 12:12 AM