Law & Order

When I heard that everyone takes criminal law second semester, I was excited. Images of Law & Order popped into my head and I couldn't wait to read the interesting cases. Though the cases are indeed interesting to read, they're emotionally draining. The details can be graphic, the stories can be tragic, and unlike most Law & Order episodes- you don't always feel like justice has been served in the end.

Last night, I read Commonwealth v. Berkowitz, where, in a nutshell, the defendant knew the victim and proceeded to have sex with her even though she said no several times. The Appellate court reversed the guilty verdict for several obviously ridiculous reasons. For example, they said that since she didn't physically fight back, obviously she didn't mean no when she said it (never mind the fact that she maybe couldn't, or was scared, or was in shock). The court also said that the quickness of the incident proves that the girl wanted to have sex. And of course, they say that since this happened in a dorm room in the middle of the day with a guy that the victim knew, it certainly couldn't have been rape. I went to bed feeling disgusted.

I try to give everything the benefit of the doubt, but if you read the facts of this case yourself, you can see that the Appellate Court was completely wrong and that their reasoning was so illogical, wrong, and sexist (and as feminist as you think I am, I don't throw that word around a lot).

After reading these kind of cases, you would think that I hate criminal lawers. You know, those "sleazy defense attorneys," who make up defenses such as saying that "He wasn't choking her, it was a strong caress" (Rusk v. State). Or you could think that I would hate "overzealous prosecutors," like the prosecutor in the Genarlow Wilson case. (Click the link if you want to read a sad story with archaic laws).

But oddly enough, I still have respect for the field as a whole. There will always be people who give an occupation a bad name, and there will always be trials where justice does not prevail (these cases are in our books and in the news for a reason). The good people don't get the publicity, but they are the people who work long hours on these hard cases, with people's lives in their hands. I get outraged or frustrated just working on criminal law as a 3 unit class; I don't know how people do it for a living without it weighing heavily upon them.

So to crimnal lawyers on both sides of the aisle, the district attorneys and the defense attorneys, I salute you. You play an important part in our system that I don't think I could ever do.

Beating the Grays

I used to think that I had seasonal affective disorder. Not real depression of course, but I thought I was adversely effected by seasons. However, I've learned that seasons don't bother me. I don't even mind the cold or snow that much. I just can't handle dreary gray weather. You can always put on more layers to keep you warn, but there's only so many lights in your apartment that you can turn on to mimic sunlight.

Something I definitely took for granted growing up in Southern California was the omnipresent sun. Although DC is not nearly as bad as most of the Northeast and Northern Pacific regions, I am definitely adjusting to more gray sky days. Strangely, this kind of weather only seem to roll around on Fridays, which makes me even less motivated to do work or do anything productive really.

When I woke up for my eye doctor appointment this morning, it was early but certainly not bright. Perhaps my new optometrist doesn't like dreary weather either because he was cranky this morning, which was then passed to me. I thought it was going to be a long day of moodiness but fortunately things turned around with a stream of really good events today...

• Taking a long walk from the optometrist to the glasses place. Being outside in the cold isn't so bad when you're moving and appreciating the fresh air.
• Finding Alex a great gift for Valentine's Day.
• Just talking to really nice random people today like the customer service woman at Filene's Basement and the woman who works the front desk of our building.
• Turning on TNT to find a Law & Order marathon. Not only did they go through everything I'm learning in my classes right now, they referenced Westlaw! (Only law students can full appreciate this.)
• Receiving a call to find out that I got an interview for a place that I am really interested in interning with this summer.
• Having an opportunity to catch up with Megan and some other frieinds today.
  
• Discovering some new DC eateries to check out, courtesy of Rachel Ray's trip to DC.
• Making Valentine Day Hearts with my roommate to decorate our Holiday Tree. The brightly colored hearts definitely added a lot of brightness to our living room and made me happy.

Since DC's such a great place, I'll accept the tradeoff of an occassional cloud. But I'm telling you, I am starting to think that forced to choose between the two, I would live in Florida over Seattle purely based on the sunlight. That's saying a lot.

Private Lives in Public Service

I don't hold politicians on pedestals. I don't expect them to be the smartest or most charismatic people. I know that they're not perfect and they make mistakes. But there are some mistakes that just really upset me.

Before criminal law today, I went to the LA times website to find this story: San Francisco abuzz over mayor's affair. My aunt and all my Bruin Democrat friends who have met talked very highly of SF Mayor Newsom. I don't know all that much about him, besides his bold move in legalizing gay marriage in California, but I was excited to see that LA Mayor Villaraigosa might actually have some competition for Governor in 2010.

A lot of people believe that what a politician does in their private life is their own business, and we should focus on what they do for the people. While I respect that opinion and somewhat agree, another part of me does believe that certain aspects of politicians' personal lives do matter. Having an affair with your campaign managers wife may not be as bad as lobbying scandals or preying on underage pages, but I think that Mayor Newsom's actions raise large questions about his character. Call me old fashioned or even judgmental but having an affair with the wife of someone who was your campaign manager and deputy chief of staff is a little unsettling to me.

To me, a politician is someone who represents their constituents in the government and to really, the rest of the world. Moreover, politicians also represent ideologies, parties, causes, etc. I don't think I would I would be so let down with this whole situation if I didn't think Mayor Newsom's actions reflected poorly on the Democratic Party (who finally had good things going for them, and who never needs more infidelity), the gay marriage cause (which already has a hard time against people trying to "protect marriage").

I know that many of our great leaders in the past had their own indiscretions that people probably just didn't know about because there wasn't the media that we have today (though they might not have cared, who knows). But I think the inescapable reality is that politicians are celebrities today and we will find out everything about them. Perhaps you can have an affair and otherwise be a very principled person, who makes ethical choices and runs our government well; who am I to say? And though I don't think a politician should be investigated or impeached, I do think that politicians should expect your constituents to be a little upset. We already live in a day in age where politicians "mistakes" have made us have less and less faith in our government. We don't need more people who don't feel like we can't trust.

It might be a lot of pressure to be a good leader and have your private life exposed, but I really don't know if that's too much to ask of people who we entrust with so much power and so much responsibility.

My Own Historian

Today I got an email from the current Bruin Democrats president asking me which candidates for the 2004 election came to UCLA and how often. They're currently doing recruitment for 2008 candidates to come to UCLA and want to show UCLA's history of hosting the big time speakers.

Although I knew most of the dates off the top of my head, I was trying to figure out if John Kerry's frequent visits were before or after he got the nomination. So I went back to the only place I knew I could find it easily: my blog. Type in a search for "Kerry" and lo and behold, I went through my personal archives to find all the dates that he visited.

I have a slight fear of not remembering things, whether its forgetting to do something or an important memory. So that's another reason why I write in here. I don't know when I'll stop blogging, or even slowing down, because it's nice to know that I can go back to this and find out when a big event was, what I thought about a certain subject (man, I used to really love John Kerry), or even how I was just feeling on a particular day. I don't divulge everything in here, but it's something.

Oh, and for memory's sake: today will be the day that I will find out who's going to be America's next Top Chef *insert Kenmore commercial here* and have a fun little get together with my fellow Top Chef addicts.

You've Been Duped

I remember once I told one of my friends, "You could really easily pretend to be a student. Just come to class, sit in a lecture, and leave since they don't take roll. What if I told you right now that I wasn't actually a student and faking it the whole time?"

Who knew that someone would actually carry out this far fetched plan that my crazy mind game up with? (I've always said that I have a criminal mind, but the restraint of a law abidding citizen). When I woke up this morning, someone I knew from college sent me a link to this article: Man, 36, allegedly posed as student.

The crazy part was that I knew the man, Sheldon. He was in Bruin Republicans, I was in Bruin Democrats, so I saw him at debates (not the best picture, but he's the guy on the right in this debate, click to enlarge). I was perplexed by this guy with an accent who was in the Bruin Republicans, part of the Queer Alliance, and was editor of NOMMO, the African American publication which tends to be very progressive. I thought that this was a little strange, but I never thought it was the work of a con-artist who has outstanding felony warrants for grand-theft credit card fraud.

Though some of my friends knew Sheldon better than me, I still feel duped (or as the oh-so-annoying Ashton Kutcher would say "punk'd"). It makes you wonder how many people out there aren't really who they tell you they are. I know one person I knew from high school ended up marrying a guy who had lied to her for months about his identity. What a scary thought.

Avocado Rulings

Seeing as how I really like avocados (mmm, guacamole) and really dislike the state of Florida (2000 election, Florida gators beating UCLA in the championships), Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, Director, Dept. of Agriculture of California has become my new favorite Constitional Law case. I also found out in class today that my professor also loves this case, he's from Southern California too.

In a nutshell, this case eventually reached the Supreme Court after some Florida farmers were mad that California wouldn't take their avocados. California's Agricultural Code prohibits the sale of avocados with less than 8% oil content. Florida did not think that this was fair, because they had met the federal guidelines necessary to sell avocados. They did not believe that California should be allowed to impose higher standards.

The court shot down Florida saying that California and Federal laws did not directly conflict, and upheld's California decision impose different (translate: higher and better) standards. If Florida wanted to sell their avocados to Californians, they could just leave their avocados on the tree longer and reach the goodness that are California avocados.

And if this case wasn't enough excitement for you, check out this LA times article about "A woman's crusade against bar spawns free speech case." Crazy woman, interesting subject. Why do I have the feeling that one day I'm going to be a quirky con law professor telling my students how much I love avocado and crazy lady free speech cases?

Fishy Fridays

I used to be a picky eater. There was a time in my life when my parents actually had to coax me into trying orange chicken and pad thai, two foods that I love today. There was also a time when my parents and super-adventurous-eater brother would eat Vietnamese food for dinner, I would have my separate plate of what was probably really boring food.

My palate has expanded since then. I love cooking and eating all types of ethnic food: Indian (one of my favs), Ethiopian, Malaysian, Argentinian, Cuban, Korean, Greek, Morrocan, and yes, Vietnamese.

But while I have ventured out to try all different types of fruit, vegetables, and types of "land lubber" meat, I still have a fear of seafood. Doing a psycho-analysis of myself, I've come to the conclusion that I am afraid of eating seafood for the following reasons:

1. Seafood smells. It just doesn't seem right that you would eat something that smells bad if taste is so closely linked with taste (or at least that's what they told us in intro to psych).
2. A lot of seafood still retains the shape of the original animal. My favorite kind of meat is chicken breast, because you can't tell that it was a chicken. You can't tell beef was part of a cow. You can't tell that ham or bacon was part of a pig. But a mussel looks like a mussel, a crab looks like a crab, and a shrimp looks like a shrimp. Moreoever, I've seen too many fish come out whole to disconnect what's on the plate from the animal.
   
3. Related to #2, growing up and going to Asian grocery stores, I would see fish, lobster, and other seafood stuffed in murky tanks or lying out in buckets of ice. It was not a pleasant, or sanitary, sight. (Similarly, I didn't used to eat duck because I saw them hanging in the window in Chinatown).

Well, I've decided that its time to overcome my fear ,and I think Lent is a good time to do so since Catholics usually eat fish on Fridays. Although Lent doesn't start for about a month, I'm making resolution now that I'm going to eat at least one thing of seafood every Friday during Lent. I am probably going to start off with the white, less fishy fish (talapia, mahi mahi, cod). If anyone has any easy recipes, please send them along.