Finally, an antidote to the facists out there like Nancy Grace. You should check out Jami Floyd and her show "Best Defense" on Court TV. She's apparently an ex-Public Defender from the Bay Area (although that appears to be a very small sliver of her bio - she still has it in her bones), but not afraid to say that someone's guilty. She's empathetic to the defense, what they have to go through in presenting their case and fighting the obstacles that get in the way of an effective defense, and she's entertaining.
Check out her webpage on Court TV's website, and check out her show sometime on Court TV. It's apparenlty on different times in different places (and I'm always at work then regardless), but she even has a segment on the show called "The Exonerated," about people who have been convicted, sentenced, served a large amount of time, and later exonerated. Nancy Grace would probably call that section "The Released Murderers," or "The Technicalities" (innocence being a mere technicality to her). Definitely worth a look for those looking for both sides of the story to be told.
Disclaimer - She linked to me while ago, I figured it was only fair to check her out and see what she's about, and talk about her if she and her show were worthy - they certainly are.
7 comments:
Yeah, I stumbled across her blog a few months ago and was expecting the same Court TV nonsense.
I like the segment she does called "The Last Word".
Include Wendy Murphy on ur most awful list as well. She is
just atrocious...incredibly unreasonable and biased.
I rarely watch TV, and certainly not most of those talking heads like on CNN/FOX and the like. I only watched her because it came to my attention when they linked to me. Then I saw her, and she really is good. She explains the law well, and very fairly.
She's a good host, I wish more were like her. I'm sure that the list would be too long to name if I went through all the people who butcher it when trying to describe what's going on - either through ignorance or malice.
Thanks for the "heads up." I'll check out the show.
Prosecutors who abuse their power are a disgrace and a danger to the American criminal justice system, and it happens much more often than it should.
Most prosecutors are responsible and follow the law. But too many do not, and the wrongful conviction of innocent defendants, sometimes by prosecutors who bend the law (often by hiding evidence)to gain those convictions, is a plague on the American criminal justice system.
There is significant documentation of such improper convictions, in a series by Maurice Possley in the Chicago Tribune, in a study by Columbia Law School, in the book "In Spite of Innocence," and in the marvelous work of Barry Scheck and his colleagues in the Innocence Project.
Too many prosecutors abuse their power, and they almost always get away with it. They almost always fiercely resist any objective review of their performance. And, even if a conviction is overturned and the judge specifically says there was “prosecutorial abuse,” they are rarely censured and never punished (Prosecutor Nifong being the huge and encouraging exception).
My fury over this issue led to my second novel, “A Good Conviction,” which tells the story of a young man wrongfully convicted in a high profile Central Park murder, brought about by a prosecutor who knew the defendant was actually innocent and hid the exculpatory evidence that would have led to a not guilty verdict.
Several prosecutors and criminal appeals attorneys helped me with the legal aspects of a Brady appeal in New York State, and all of them agreed that what I portrayed in my story was both realistic and all too possible.
Steve Cohen, the former federal prosecutor who was so instrumental in the infamous Palladium case (he’s now Chief of Staff to Attorney General Cuomo), read my book and told me at dinner that it was the most powerful case against bad prosecutors that he had ever read, more compelling even than John Grisham's "The Innocent Man."
Dan Slepian, network producer of many crime and legal news shows, says … “Having spent countless hours working with detectives, courts, attorneys, and wrongly convicted inmates I was most impressed with how well researched and accurate your narrative was. You really nailed it. In addition, it was a great read.”
Judge (ret.) Leslie Crocker Snyder, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, first sex crimes prosecutor in the U.S., says … “A Good Conviction is a well written, well paced, and fascinating tale of prosecutorial abuse in the Manhattan DA's office. Makes one wonder how many other times something like this has occurred and just how high the abuse is actually sanctioned.”
Michael Radelet, one of the authors of In Spite of Innocence, a study of over 400 cases of persons wrongly convicted of crimes carrying the death penalty says … “A Good Conviction is an unusually gripping story of an erroneous conviction and the passionate fight to correct that injustice. Weinstein's account of what a bad prosecutor does to Joshua Blake provides a frightening and realistic parallel to many of the true life cases we documented in our study.”
You can find "A Good Conviction" at amazon.com ...
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Conviction-Lewis-M-Weinstein/dp/1595941622/ref=sr_1_1/103-7341421-1865416?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180587686&sr=8-1
LEW WEINSTEIN
Short version of the link.
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Conviction-Lewis-M-Weinstein/dp/1595941622
Wow, your getting anonymously famous PD dude! you got people on tv talking about you now. I'm going to watch all the guests on her show now, to see if I can pick you out if you are ever on. If you start ranting against Nancy, it will probably be a giveaway.
The Kountry Klub Keystone Kops of the racist community, Farmers Branch TX are close to gestapo. Loyal to their well-entrenched "good ole boy" system, they are at the beacon-call of several powerful "pillars" of the countryclub who are amalgamationsof Tony Soprano, John Gotti and Jack Ruby all blended...."take on deer hunts to exotic ranches, take em to titty bars for urban exotic whitetail hunts, treat em to gifts of guns gold clubs, paid-for rounds of drinks", these cops are just plain meanies and they have direct ties to convicted felons who are flagrant criminals but they are criminals with clout,,,lotsa money. Once on the FBPD poop list, these so-called suspects have been denied the right to volunteer and provide exculpatory information thus steering cases into a grandjury mode without prima facie facts which would have summarily prevented false charges from being filed. A crooked pseudobrotherhood of shame. Remember, Farmers Branch current Chief said he will be dead before FBPD will ever "allows a chink to become a cop here"....(this was said whle a Vietnamese candidate was being interviewed!) and this is the same community that has voted to harrass and evict Hispanics. Blacks are as rare as hens teeth. A book and a movie are both in the works on this little cess pool of a Dallas hate-suburb. THe author needs to survive his current plight to be free to write the facts. DO YOURSLEF A FAVOR, AND TAKE ANY DETOUR YOU CAN TO AVOID ENTERING FARMERS BRANCH TX.
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