An Aggressive Message From Wisconsin

I got an invitation from a producer at CNN to write a comment for their Web site on the state Senate recall elections Tuesday. So I took them up on it. Here’s the start of what I said:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin (CNN) — Wisconsin — so polarized, so evenly split, so politically inflamed — sent a message to the nation Tuesday night.

Republicans will say it is a message that vindicates the strong action taken by Gov. Scott Walker and Republican majorities in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature to hold down spending and strip formerly powerful public employee unions of all but a bit of their power. The Republican actions became a national sensation in February when Democratic senators fled the state for three weeks and tens of thousands of people protested daily at the state Capitol.

Democrats will point to their victories in ousting two Republicans from the state Senate and to how much better they did on Republican turf than in the November 2010 statewide elections. They showed that momentum has swung their way, they will say.

As a pretty impartial person, my reading of the dominant message is: We live in polarizing, sharply split, inflamed times when it comes to politics. And that’s only getting more intense. . . .

For the rest of the comment, click here.

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When the Witness Woofs

When a New York teenager had to testify against her father, claiming he raped and impregnated her, she shared the witness box with a helper.  According to The New York Times, that helper was Rosie, a specially trained golden retriever who comforts and encourages traumatized or stressed individuals.  Rosie has a highly developed sense of empathy, and will nuzzle, snuggle or lean against someone who is experiencing stress or trauma.  Psychologists sing the praises of service dogs like her, and courts in several states have ruled that witnesses who are especially vulnerable, such as children in sexual abuse cases, may be accompanied by canine helpers.

As you might imagine, approval of Rosie and dogs like her is not universal.  Everyone agrees that Rosie is adorable, but therein lies part of the alleged problem.  Defense attorneys fear that Rosie gives credibility to the child witness that may or may not be justified.  One of the public defenders in the case, David S. Martin, protested that each time the child witness stroked the dog’s fur, “it sent an unconscious message to the jury that she was under stress because she was telling the truth,” adding “There is no way for me to cross-examine the dog.”  Although the lawyer for the prosecution in this case refused to comment about Rosie for the article, Ellen O’Neill-Stephens, a Seattle prosecutor who is a proponent of dog-helpers in court, said “Sometimes the dog means the difference between a conviction and an acquittal.”

The past several decades have seen a great deal of discussion about the difficulty of dealing with child witnesses in a criminal trial, and there have been many judicial experiments – some effective and some not. 

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Custody Concerns

A custody dispute that has recently been in the national news illustrates the convoluted nature of custody law which has led in this particular case to a very troubling outcome.  (I submit that this case is also Exhibit A as to why the public has such a bad impression of law and lawyers, but that is a topic for another day).

The New York Times reports that mother Trisha Conlon was thwarted in her efforts to obtain a custody order keeping her 13 and 14-year-old boys out of the home of her ex-husband and his current wife Kristine.  Why did Ms. Conlon request this order?  Because the current wife, Kristine Cushing, killed the two daughters she had with the father (and Trisha’s ex-husband), John Cushing Jr.  The killings occurred in 1991.  Mrs. Cushing was found not guilty by reason of insanity allegedly caused by an adverse reaction to Prozac.  She was hospitalized in a mental facility for four years, and was monitored for almost ten years after that.  In 2005, the state of California gave her an unconditional release.

Ms. Conlon learned that her boys were in the same household with Mrs. Cushing in 2007, but her ex said not to worry, he and Mrs. Cushing were splitting up.  They didn’t.  She recently discovered (with the help of a lawyer and a private investigator) that the boys have been in the home with Mrs. Cushing since 2008 – hence her request for a new custody order.

The Court Commissioner deciding the case declined to alter the existing order, which places one boy with each parent during the school year, and keeps them together in one or the other household for holidays and vacations.  The Commissioner’s reasoning was that, since the boys had been spending time with Mrs. Cushing since 2007 (even though their mother did not know of it), there is not now any significant change in circumstances that would warrant a change in physical placement.  Mrs. Conlon is appealing the decision.

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