Having grown up in Tyler, there are moments when I must admit to finding myself embarrassed of my hometown, and others when I'm quite proud of people there.
On the embarrassed side, this letter to the editor wishing harm would come to the families of criminal defense attorneys struck me as one of the most mean-spirited things I've seen in a while. As evidence there are few people as dumb as an East Texas redneck, the author declares, "You didn't see Perry Mason or Matlock take on a case of they knew the perp was guilty."
Yeah, and John Wayne never got off his horse to take a pee.
But there are still plenty of Tylerites who make me proud, and one of them is 14-year old Temple Mims, the daughter of a local criminal defense lawyer who offered this response mopping the floor with the letter writer, informing her that Matlock and Perry Mason were fictional, and that "My father defends the Constitution of the United States of America."
Yes he does, Temple. Good for you.
Via Skelly. UPDATE: Fark.com picked up this item - see their discussion.
"Out of the mouths of babes!"
ReplyDeleteWay to go, Temple.
And, this is coming from over 35 years of law enforcement.
Aargghhh! The stupid! It burns!
ReplyDeleteThe existence of people like FarkingSean scares me.
Sure it burns a little, Pete, but it smells like the Piney Woods of home. :-o
ReplyDeleteAt least FarkingSean has dozens of Farkers to rebuke him. In Tyler the local paper prints that garbage and the task of responding falls to a 14-year old whose family was attacked.
What makes the older lady's comment a gem IMO is her choice of TV shows for comparison. My father, a civil attorney, used to scornfully joke that Perry Mason was "lucky" to be the only lawyer in America whose clients all turned out to be innocent and truthful. No prosecutor in the history of ADAs ever lost as many cases running as Hamilton Burger in that show - not just fiction, but fantasy!
The initial rant is written by someone who perhaps doesn't perceive the differences between inquisitional systems and adversarial systems. In inquisitional systems, lawyers aren't nearly as important as the state doesn't press the case and the court procures all the evidence available, its duties are to defend the rights of the defendant while finding the truth. Additionally, all of the evidence found is a matter of public record, unlike our system where the prosecution does sometimes withhold evidence. Also any decision in the inquisitional system can be appealed at any time (generally) at next court level by anyone.
ReplyDeleteIt should be noted that if Texas had an inquisitional system for child protection cases, the result of the FLDS initial hearing would have been completely different: the judge would have been obliged to determine who was abused and who if anyone else was likely to be abused and develop any evidence needed to make that determination properly. In the current system, she just trusted the district attorney and CPS to tell the truth, which it appears they didn't (at least in part).
Didn't know that, anon. Interesting. Implicit trust seems to be a problem in a lot of professions.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's hoping that woman doesn't play video games. I didn't think anybody could be that confused about reality.
I don't know guys, I did a search on the paper for Mary ... she's either the dumbest redneck on the planet or the best internet troll in Tyler. Either way, it's worth the laugh to read more of her inane ramblings including we vote for Obama it means we lost the war and she's scared he'll rename the White House (Casablanca maybe?).
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