Approaching the courthouse doors, I was puzzled to see a small line at the attorneys’ door. “That’s odd,” I thought. “There’s never a line here.” And the line wasn’t moving very fast; in fact, as I and a couple of others approached, it was clearly getting longer.
As the line moved forward and I got close enough, I felt anger rising as I realized why there was a line.
(Update 2015: Negative stories about police tend to disappear from the Internet a lot, so as you read this, you’ll see some links have been deleted.)
The courts don’t work well when…. Hmmm. Wait. Since the courts don’t work well, period, I’m going to have to try another approach to this one.
The ability to shove people through a pretense of a legal system — ah, good: more truthful and it fits my point. The ability to shove people through a pretense of a legal system is impaired when those holding the positions of attorneys, jurors and court personnel cannot quickly arrive to take their respective slots in the courtrooms.
For years there have separate entrances to the courthouse in Fresno for attorneys. Many other courthouses have a similar arrangement. The idea is, you flash your bar card (or, if you’re a real person, your badge) and you are waved on through. We make it to our places that much faster, without waiting in long lines like the hoi polloi; the flow of personnel needed to pillory the public is unimpeded.
No longer.
When I spotted the metal detector, I realized there was no point in showing my bar card. Somewhere, the absolute power which corrupts absolutely had gained a stronger foothold in another petty official. (From what I was told, that would be the presiding judge of the Fresno courthouse.) From now on everyone would submit. Everyone would empty their pockets into bowls. Everyone would remove their belts, or suspenders, and pass through the metal detector, or be “wanded.”
Everyone, that is, except the Deputy District Attorney who passed behind me as I struggled to triple-check my pockets after setting off the metal detector for the third time. (Turned out to be the collar stays in my shirt.) The Deputy District Attorney, hauling a small rolling carton ostensibly full of files, flashed a badge and was — just like in the old days! — waved through without so much as a pat-down.
Me? I’m a defense attorney. We’re “officers of the court” when the court wants something from us; vermin otherwise.
If you’re like the “attorney” standing nearby as I went through this procedure, you’re probably thinking, “So what? What’s the big deal? There are dangerous people out there. Judges and other people get shot in the courthouse every day!” Well, they don’t actually.
The courts, though, really do have nothing to fear from treating us all as potential murderers. Because as the other attorney showed, we have become a nation of submitizens. Each time the government implements another of these “safety procedures,” citizens are further dehumanized; pushed further down the road to becoming submitizens. And we do it, increasingly, without protest. If the government wants it, it must be good, or at least okay, right?
Apparently, there is a belief that if we treat everyone like a criminal from the moment we spot them, the commission of crimes will decrease. If we have the police treat everyone like a potential murderer, there will be less murders. (But who will protect us from the police-officer murderers? Like this one, or this one (2015 update: link disappeared), or these, or this one who tried and failed, or these who were supported and applauded by numerous other officers, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one (Update 9/26/2016: link broken), or this one, or this one (Update 3/2017: Link Broken), or this one (update 2015: link removed), or this one, or this one, or this (2015 update: link removed)…need I go on?)
If the presiding judge’s apparent belief that a metal detector on every corner is some misguided attempt at making people safe, perhaps the judge would do well to read some of the writings of our Founders. Aside from learning that the government is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people, the judge would also encounter these words:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 1, p. 270 (1818)
If murders and assaults with weapons by attorneys were a frequent occurrence in our courts, I could almost understand what is happening. There is no evidence, however, that this is the case.
There is every bit of evidence that this is another case of “because I can” petty tyranny. And we attorneys — at least defense attorneys! — should be standing up to these abuses of power.
When even we defense attorneys become submitizens, what remains of the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Lets see…
After a DA took his piece behind 13 and due to threats to shoot hisself over a love affair….
And another defense attorney brought mace into the courtroom on accident..(keychain spray, and it was me..)
And then there’s another suspected wacko defense attorney who was making threats and acting a fool after he picked up a plethora of charges…
It just might be a good thing this new security.
By the way.. they do wave me through. No badge or anything, just good looks I guess.
In the United States:
The above information comes from The National Center for Victims of Crime (http://tinyurl.com/92wtfp)
For whatever reason, in spite of this information, we do not allow police officers to do random searches of people walking, driving, sitting, or otherwise utilizing public spaces (yet, anyway) to determine if they carry illegal weapons, stolen property, or any other evidence that they have committed, or are about to commit, a crime, without PARTICULARIZED information that THAT PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL they wish to search has committed, or is about to commit, a crime, AND actually probably has the evidence on them. Even then, they’ll usually need some kind of a warrant.
The fact that some few individuals (even including you) may have carried weapons into a courtroom does not justify a search of EVERY human being who enters the courtroom. Allowing broad police powers in violation of the Fourth Amendment would prevent a lot of crimes, solve many others and arguably put more criminals in jail. But, for some reason, the Founders of our Nation didn’t think that was good enough.
It’s probably because of this pesky little thing we have, but no longer regard with much respect, called “unalienable rights.” And, although we had them long before there was a United States Constitution, even the United States Constitution recognizes this. (Note: The United States Constitution doesn’t “give” us these rights. It RECOGNIZES them; the document writers and ratifiers knew that we already had these rights and did not believe the document gave these rights. In fact, the Bill of Rights came about only because opponents to the Constitution feared that the government would forget that these rights pre-existed the document. So they insisted on the Bill of Rights as a reminder that “these are lines you cannot cross, Government.”
How prescient. How quaint. How missed.
Endnotes
Yep, it is the same in every county I have practiced — I guess they have more fear of attorneys smuggling guns in Southern California! We have separate lines usually, or you can cut, but still everyone (including DA’s I think) goes through the metal detector.
On the plus side, I am sure speedy in airports now!
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