It’s the time of the year when things slow down a little bit in law firms. Partners are disappearing with their kids to go to Disney World, or to the beach, while firm managing partners are beginning to doubt their ability to reach monthly billing targets. The dress is a little more casual. On occasions, lawyers look more like they’re going to a meeting with Jimmy Buffett than with a judge or CEO.
The excessive heat this summer may be contributing to many of us questioning how far we can dress down. The summer’s hottest legal story was the Casey Anthony murder trial. Her acquittal shocked most of the country, including me, but then I never claimed to have any expertise in criminal law. The fact that she unrepentantly partied for a month after she knew her daughter was dead, or at least missing, caused most of us to conclude there was no doubt she was guilty as charged, and we didn’t expect the jury to have any doubt either. The problem is that nagging judicial concept: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
It’s one thing for non-jurors to decide a case on the information we get from news commentators, the Internet, or our spouses, but it is another thing to actually sit in judgment. In the Anthony case there was no eyewitness testimony, no murder weapon, and little, if any, motive offered by the state. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that the jury quickly concluded there was reasonable doubt. Needless to say, that doesn’t mean Anthony is innocent. It means the jury was not presented with enough evidence to find her guilty. The prosecution did not meet the burden of proof necessary to convict which is the cornerstone of our criminal justice system.
There have been many other murder stories this summer, and a number of them relate to wrongful convictions. The juries are a problem. The positive is the jury system, as finder of fact, is the best system anybody has devised. It’s not perfect, and that’s why it is often said that our system is based upon the precept that it is better to let 100 guilty people go free than to convict one innocent man.
That argument is hard to dispute, because the thought of having our sons or daughters, mothers or fathers, brothers or sisters put in jail, or worse, executed for a crime they did not commit, is unthinkable. On that there is no doubt. So as the summer struggles through the hot days of August, we will continue to have a preoccupation with our outrage over Casey Anthony, while we will get snippets here and there about innocent people in jail.
Notably, the only thing Anthony was convicted of was lying to investigators. She was sentenced to three years in jail, which she already served. Meanwhile, one of the former boys of summer, Roger Clemens, also went to trial for lying to investigators. It ended in mistrial. If there is a new trial, it will be interesting to see what his penalty will be. Instead of lying to the police, Clemens lied to Congress. Given the American public’s current disgust with that group, instead of a three-year sentence, he might get voted into baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Finally, the decreased government spending – all the rage this summer – will impact many areas, and, no doubt, cause more work for attorneys. The economy will limp along, look for a way to regain momentum, and most lawyers will do their best to serve clients during difficult times. Slow times in law firms during the hot months is simply a season, and as with summer itself, it shall also give way to the next. Eventually temperatures will
dissipate, law offices will become more active, the pennant races will become more exciting, and we will all find our way to the fall.
©2011 Under Analysis LLC Mark Levison is a member of the law firm Lathrop & Gage LLP. You can reach Under Analysis LLC in care of this paper or by e-mail at comments@levisongroup.com.