Attorney Client Privilege/ Alton Logan Ethical Dilemma

[amethyst221]

The affidavit that addressed this point was prepared decades ago. I don't believe anyone would think the attorneys were lying in wait in the hopes that a falsely averred to affidavit might someday prove useful in freeing Alton Logan.

That wasn't my question. I know AL prepared and the lawyers signed their affidavit over 26 years ago, and locked it away. After the client's death, which by itself did not terminate the privilege, the lawyers brought out their sworn affidavit. I asked if there was anything the CLIENT actually signed, saying that his lawyers could reveal the secret information once he died? Or are we relying on their assertions that this was the case and he gave them such permission?

 

[JBean]

I am not a legal scholar, nor do I pretend to be, so in that regard I would like to ask you two questions. If I understand your above referenced post correctly, you are saying that the evidence, which in this situation would be the attorney's testimony and the affidavit, would only be admissible or actionable after the death of Wilson due to the attorney/client privilege.

Are you saying this a rule of law requiring a court to rule this evidence inadmissible if presented prior to Wilson's death?

As a non scholar, I find it incredible that there is a rule of law not allowing testimony from officers of the court as to a man's innocence, particularly in a case with this much injustice.

If in fact this is an absolute rule of law, what was the reason for all of your points and counterpoints in other posts about principles and their variance among different people as to possible career ending choices in this matter?

Wudge is saying that it became admissible at death because the client gave permission for it to be released upon his death. IOW, the death itself only caused the eligibility because that is the triggering event that the client chose.
The client has the power.

 

[Verité]

After Wilson died, his attorneys had a path, because Wilson (their client) had agreed to it; i.e., a post-death revelation. However, without his agreement, they had no path other than to violate the attorney-client privilege that covered Wilson's disclosure.

The reason that legal scholars have not written about the path you believe was available to Wilson's lawyers is because they, too, know not of it.

First paragraph above brings to mind Stanley Milgram's classic studies on "authoritarianism" performed at Yale University in the late 40s, early 50s.
After the holocaust, Milgram was interested in finding out why so many fine German military blindly followed their Nazi dictates without question.
(Google Milgram's name & you'll find his impressive conclusions. And, folks, please don't criticize me because I'm citing an "old" study; as I've said,
I'll agree with you that history is old, but we don't discard what it teaches.)

Essentially, Milgram found that folks will behave in ways which go against what they know is right when they conform unquestioningly and "follow the
rules" of authority rather than to break rank.

If Professor AL couldn't find the "right path" from legal scholars because "they, too, know not of it," she could have consulted ancient writings, such
as those from Hebrew prophets, i.e. Proverbs, or those of the ancient Greeks such as Socrates, or those which were thousands of years-old from
Chinese master's, such as Confuscius, and so on. . .or, finally, she even could have gone on an ascetic pilgrimage in pursuit of her own inner truth
without the trappings of ego, society, or fame to befuddle her.

And last but not least, since she's given to high drama in the courtroom such as handcuffing herself to a chair to make a point to the jury, she could have
done an in vivo study on the effects of wrongful incarceration by spending, oh, let's say, six months in prison herself to weigh the validity of her decision
to keep her mouth shut about Alton Logan's innocence.

 

[HRCODEPINK]

I am not a legal scholar, nor do I pretend to be, so in that regard I would like to ask you two questions. If I understand your above referenced post correctly, you are saying that the evidence, which in this situation would be the attorney's testimony and the affidavit, would only be admissible or actionable after the death of Wilson due to the attorney/client privilege.

Are you saying this a rule of law requiring a court to rule this evidence inadmissible if presented prior to Wilson's death?

As a non scholar, I find it incredible that there is a rule of law not allowing testimony from officers of the court as to a man's innocence, particularly in a case with this much injustice.

If in fact this is an absolute rule of law, what was the reason for all of your points and counterpoints in other posts about principles and their variance among different people as to possible career ending choices in this matter?

In my opinion, a life sentence is worse than a death sentence. I have never been in prison, or even in jail but I have sat with men whose sentences were commuted from death to life over doubts about their guilt and had each one, who have no contact with each other tell me on separate occassions tell me that if they had known then what they know now they would have refused to sign the papers and would have been executed.

On of the posts here mentioned the fact that A/C privilege does not cover a lawyer when they have knowledge that a crime is going to be committed but after the crime is over then it is okay. I feel that when there is a known innocent in prison then there is a kidnapping in progress. Privilege should have relief in instances like this one. And if you think that is unfair you should check out Virginia's 21-day rule. I can only imagine, since I believe Life to be a death sentence, what these lawyers would have done if they had been in Virginia where waiting would make it nearly impossible to get out EVER. Would they have found a way then, knowing the race against the very short clock? Ignorance would not be a valid claim because EVERY lawyer in Virginia knows about this rule. Every defense attorney hates it and is terrified of it when they do have an innocent client. I wonder what circumstances would be enough for an angel to break privilege.

http://www.vadp.org/21day.htm
http://www.justicedenied.org/21day.htm

 

[cecybeans]

Okay, we've managed to establish that none of us has any respect for the defense team's morals. JB is most likely a horny, egotistical, fame-crazed fool. LBK and HL have blotches on their reputations involving possible evidence tampering and suspected violations of privilege. TM is in some kind of legal halfway house status in CA for funky financial dealings. Lyons made an unfortunate choice to protect someone's client from the DP by keeping quiet about the fact she knew another man was innocent of the crime, although it would have served her conscience and perhaps not the innocent. It makes us feel better to assume we are morally superior, I understand. (Although in this case I’d rather admire the defense team at some point because I’m worried their shortcomings may be grounds for appeal)

I've been fascinated with law my whole life; considered getting my JD many times, read many books about what it does to you (such as One L, Take the Bar and Beat Me about Harvard and Yale respectively) and grilled all of my attorney friends incessantly about how it changed the way they think. I ended up forgoing the opportunity. Going to law school rewires your brain I think. In order to be able to effectively argue both sides of a case you have to be able to suspend your personal beliefs and create a world in which morality is relative, which it often is. And it is has seemed to do so since jurisprudence began - look at Cicero and other great legal minds from ancient Western civilizations. I wanted the luxury of preserving myself from such an occupational hazard. But also look at history; some of the morals we take for granted today have undergone dramatic evolution.

A biblical scholar once told me that while "turn the other cheek" was very enlightened for its time, "an eye for an eye" was equally enlightened when it first appeared centuries earlier because it limited punishment to something of equal value, when previously an injury to one person could be the reason to wipe out a family or start a war. History is littered with examples which we, in our supposed enlightened state, pass judgment upon. We look at the colonization of other continents now as examples of barbaric greed and forget that many people of those times assumed they were bringing a “superior” religion, civilization or government to those that had been deprived. (Something we have not overcome even today.)

We find examples everyday of situations that exist or anachronistic laws that remain that offend our modern sensibilities. Which is good because it means we are probably evolving. We find it remarkably easy to pass judgment on others because we are absolutely sure we would not do something like that in the same circumstances, though most often we have not been so tempted. If we were not horrified at certain crimes we would probably be hopeless as a civilized society; and we become more demanding of ourselves each generation, and rightly so.

However, we often forget that what we consider moral now may also appear to be hopelessly primitive and cruel to people who judge us a hundred years from now. For instance, when neurophysiology continues to contribute to the social sciences of psychology and sociology, we may find that sociopaths have a specific physiological origin or cause that can be reversed or prevented (already fMRI's are noting physiological differences in how sociopaths process information in their brains). It will seem as pathetic to citizens of the future that we called them "evil" and "useless wastes of skin" as it does to us now to denigrate those who have mental illnesses we have just begun to understand, like schizophrenia or Tourette's, or learning challenges like dyslexia, or information-processing differences like the autistic or those with Asperger's. I'm sure anthropologists of the future will marvel at how backward and unenlightened we were about all kinds of prejudices and discriminations we take for granted today as still being acceptable (some of them religious, ideological and political).

We have still not learned to separate the person from the crime in other words, even though we are starting to show progress. We are learning that an act or behavior can be evil without the person committing it necessarily being so. It’s slow and difficult process. It’s hard to wrap our minds around relativity when it is more comforting to think in terms of black and white, good and evil. I’m certainly not there; I am absolutely guilty of condemning the person along with the crime. But I try to be aware of it and how context and relativity make such a difference to me still.

For instance, we have all felt outrage here because a man spent 26 years of his life in jail for a murder he did not commit, and rightly so. But would we have felt such outrage if the man was a burglar? A rapist? Or a sex offender? Would these facts in any way change how we saw this situation – is there something relative after all about our morality?

There are many other occupational hazards that can end up eroding your values or even burning you out emotionally. (I also decided not to become a neurosurgeon, my other interest, because I wasn't sure I could was emotionally mature enough handle what it would do to my psyche if I lost a patient on the table, and I didn’t want to become clinically detached enough to handle it). We are only now beginning to understand what PTSD does to people we ask to defend our country, and yet we are woefully inadequate in giving them the attention and support they need. Many LEOs and psychiatric nurses and teachers burn out after being in stressful situations that numb them emotionally or make them jaded. Their suffering and subsequent performance is often forgotten or criticized because we feel we would not make oversights or mistakes in their place.

I’m not asking any of us to change our opinions on things, but I just want to gently remind us that we may be more prey to relativity or context than we can comprehend and perhaps should be careful before we jump to judgment if we are only speaking of what we believe hypothetically and not from what we have had to actually prove with our actions. I have always admired the whistleblower types and have done so myself at great cost to career, but I do not sit in judgment on those who have not. I am lucky to have quickly extracted myself from abusive relationships but do not judge those who have not found the courage or wherewithal to do so. And while I’d like to think I would risk everything for principle, I have not actually been tested in my life, so perhaps I don’t really have the right to be on that pedestal of moral certitude.

I admire Wudge’s experience and calm reasoning because I imagine if I needed defending it would be valuable to have that kind of detached logic available. I don’t like what the law does to hardwire brains but I can appreciate the fact that it creates a mind stubborn to the principle of existing law and not subject to the fluidity of social mores, although both of them seem to sometimes evolve at different rates.

 

[Wudge]

I am not a legal scholar, nor do I pretend to be, so in that regard I would like to ask you two questions. If I understand your above referenced post correctly, you are saying that the evidence, which in this situation would be the attorney's testimony and the affidavit, would only be admissible or actionable after the death of Wilson due to the attorney/client privilege.

Are you saying this a rule of law requiring a court to rule this evidence inadmissible if presented prior to Wilson's death?

As a non scholar, I find it incredible that there is a rule of law not allowing testimony from officers of the court as to a man's innocence, particularly in a case with this much injustice.

If in fact this is an absolute rule of law, what was the reason for all of your points and counterpoints in other posts about principles and their variance among different people as to possible career ending choices in this matter?

I never stated an "absolute" (your word) law exists. Nonetheless, I don't know of a case where the client was alive, the attorney-client privilege was violated and the evidence was ruled admissable and resulted in the reversal of a wrongful incarceration.

Best framed, your post relates to the rules of evidence. I'm sure you know that evidence admissibility is anything but a given and that not all evidence is ruled admissable. This includes testimony from officers of the court.

Moreover, even given that the affidavit in this case stated Wilson gave his permission to reveal the secret after his death, it's admissibility was challengable under Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3), which Illinois courts deem applicable.

The admissability of hearsay evidence is governed through hearsay exception rules. Even with a ruling that the evidence met a hearsay exception standard, it still would not be ruled admissable unless there was corroborating evidence (as I noted in prior posts).

Again, I never referred to an "absolute" law. So I need not address your last question.

 

[Wudge]

SNIP

I asked if there was anything the CLIENT actually signed, saying that his lawyers could reveal the secret information once he died?

SNIP

Based on my understanding of the facts in this case, my answer is: no.

 

[SoSueMe]

Is there any evidence that the client agreed years ago that his confidential information could be revealed after his death, or was this just the decision of the lawyers that the time had finally come to put aside the A/C privilege?

It is my understanding that his attorney asked Wilson during his trial (thinking he might get death for killing two police officers) if he could divulge the truth after his death. He then said yes. When he didn't get the DP, some years later he asked Wilson again and he said yes, after my death. Another inmate at the prison said that Wilson had in fact signed an affidavit, but that's all I can find so far.

Also, Logan has said that he approached Wilson at the prison, asking him to come clean and Wilson would just laugh at him. Some character, huh?

 

[SoSueMe]

I have to think that SOMETHING could have been done to help Logan. Why couldn't the attorneys make anonymous calls to prosecutors or even an investigative reporter, simply saying Logan was innocent and follow the timeline? They didn't have to implicate their own client.

Did I read the article right in that it took the attorneys 5 months to come forward after Wilson's death? Perhaps that's how long it took to release Logan? I'd like to think the attorneys came forward THE DAY Wilson died.

 

[Concerned Papa]

I understand the concept of attorney client privilege. I understand the ethical dilemma created for the 3 attorneys who shared the secret knowledge of Alton Logan's innocence. I am not a legal scholar. I am not a law professor. I don't pretend to know all of the rules of law that pertain to this situation.

What I do know, however, is that a grave injustice against an innocent man was allowed to continue for 26 years by the self serving silence of these 3 attorneys. One of these attorneys, Andrea Lyon, has been quoted as saying:

“You see something wrong, you do something about it.”

Andrea Lyon is a legal scholar. She is a law professor. She does know the rules of law. She has crafted a reputation as someone who "cares very deeply about a human being in a terrible situation."

She has shown a thought process of creativity in crafting her reputation by being prepared to cry, get angry, or bully in front of a jury. She once delivered her closing argument handcuffed to the witness box so jurors would appreciate the conditions under which her client made his confession.

How wrong does something need to be for you to do something about it Ms. Lyon? How terrible does the situation need to be for you to care? Your knowledge and thought process of creativity could only result in 26 years of silence for Alton Logan?

THAT is what I don't understand.

http://itsamysterytome.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/who-is-andrea-lyon-will-she-save-casey-anthony/

 

[Tiki]

Speak for yourself. I assume you are, but just in case I wish to explicitly state that I am not part of the "us" however you defined it.

I am also not part of the "us". I don't consider myself superior to anyone in any way. I only act in the way my consciousness directs me and do not condemn others for their actions. I may ask for insight as to their way of thinking.

While teaching, I used incidents and news stories as what we called "educational opportunities" - opportunities to begin discussions to speak opinions and hear those of others. I have already learned a great deal by reading the posts on WS. I hope to be able to continue to use this forum as a place to express opinions and engage in interesting discussions without being judged by other participants. Let's face it - what we say here will not have any real influence over the topics we discuss, but will hopefully keep us open to new ideas and other ways of thinking.

I've been in a situation where I put my career in jeopardy to do what was right for the students I advised. I was an educator and could not set an example of following blindly those who directed us to break the law. It was not a difficult decision for me.

I eventually lost my position over this matter. I was reinstated by the Faculty Senate when a grievance was brought before them by my students, but I chose to move on to another university.

Life is a learning experience. Note that the graduation ceremonies from educational institutes are called "commencement" which means "beginning" - hopefully the beginning of a lifetime of learning.

As for ALy, my questions are why she willingly involved herself in the situation, and how she reconciles her participation with her self-proclaimed dedication to helping people by use of her legal knowledge and skills. She has called herself an "angel", but - to me - she seems to be selective about who deserves help.

I'm simply expressing my opinion and seeking to read those of others.

.

 

[Spangle]

In my opinion, a life sentence is worse than a death sentence. I have never been in prison, or even in jail but I have sat with men whose sentences were commuted from death to life over doubts about their guilt and had each one, who have no contact with each other tell me on separate occassions tell me that if they had known then what they know now they would have refused to sign the papers and would have been executed.

On of the posts here mentioned the fact that A/C privilege does not cover a lawyer when they have knowledge that a crime is going to be committed but after the crime is over then it is okay. I feel that when there is a known innocent in prison then there is a kidnapping in progress. Privilege should have relief in instances like this one. And if you think that is unfair you should check out Virginia's 21-day rule. I can only imagine, since I believe Life to be a death sentence, what these lawyers would have done if they had been in Virginia where waiting would make it nearly impossible to get out EVER. Would they have found a way then, knowing the race against the very short clock? Ignorance would not be a valid claim because EVERY lawyer in Virginia knows about this rule. Every defense attorney hates it and is terrified of it when they do have an innocent client. I wonder what circumstances would be enough for an angel to break privilege.

http://www.vadp.org/21day.htm
http://www.justicedenied.org/21day.htm

Was the paper signed within those 21 days? IF it wasn't then the attys wouldn't have known about it in time to do anything.

But that is a nasty law.

 

[Spangle]

I have to think that SOMETHING could have been done to help Logan. Why couldn't the attorneys make anonymous calls to prosecutors or even an investigative reporter, simply saying Logan was innocent and follow the timeline? They didn't have to implicate their own client.

Did I read the article right in that it took the attorneys 5 months to come forward after Wilson's death? Perhaps that's how long it took to release Logan? I'd like to think the attorneys came forward THE DAY Wilson died.

What gets me is, they could have worked to try and free him. Knowing he was innocent and locked up for life should have been the motivator. Surely they could have tried, without showing WHY they knew he was innocent. And tried to prove it without using the evidence they had on hand.

This case should have been right up AL alley. He was innocent. The reason she says she is against DP is because of people like him being given the DP when they are actually innocent. KNOWING he was innocent, she should have spent some time and effort trying to prove it. Even if she couldn't use that paper.

That she did not, well... That is what speaks to me. I wouldn't expect her to break A/C. Just that it should have motivated her at some point to do something about the situation as best she could.

 

[Sunshine52]

Wonder if Ms. Lyon realized when she came on this case the ramifications she would face about Alton Logan...wonder if she realized the amount of blog space dedicated to the Casey Anthony case and that nothing is secret. They are talking about this on several of the big blog sites...including here...Wonder how long she will last until she cries...No Mas!!!!!

 

[MAMABEAR]

Speak for yourself. I assume you are, but just in case I wish to explicitly state that I am not part of the "us" however you defined it.

I saw cecybeans post as "in general"---------but if the shoe fits---then---just sayin.

When I was in the 4th grade with dyslexia---my daddy called me 'RETARDED" and slapped me outta the chair. Daddy was a school teacher in the 20s. Back in the olden days, dyslexia was looked upon as retarded because they didn't know what it was. I am here to tell you that I am not retarded. What my daddy did to me did not affect me bad. I didn't think I was retarded.

I may be a big b!tch but I ain't a retarded b!tch.:floorlaugh::floorlaugh:

 

[elementary]

Okay, we've managed to establish that none of us has any respect for the defense team's morals. JB is most likely a horny, egotistical, fame-crazed fool. LBK and HL have blotches on their reputations involving possible evidence tampering and suspected violations of privilege. TM is in some kind of legal halfway house status in CA for funky financial dealings. Lyons made an unfortunate choice to protect someone's client from the DP by keeping quiet about the fact she knew another man was innocent of the crime, although it would have served her conscience and perhaps not the innocent. It makes us feel better to assume we are morally superior, I understand. (Although in this case I’d rather admire the defense team at some point because I’m worried their shortcomings may be grounds for appeal)

I've been fascinated with law my whole life; considered getting my JD many times, read many books about what it does to you (such as One L, Take the Bar and Beat Me about Harvard and Yale respectively) and grilled all of my attorney friends incessantly about how it changed the way they think. I ended up forgoing the opportunity. Going to law school rewires your brain I think. In order to be able to effectively argue both sides of a case you have to be able to suspend your personal beliefs and create a world in which morality is relative, which it often is. And it is has seemed to do so since jurisprudence began - look at Cicero and other great legal minds from ancient Western civilizations. I wanted the luxury of preserving myself from such an occupational hazard. But also look at history; some of the morals we take for granted today have undergone dramatic evolution.

A biblical scholar once told me that while "turn the other cheek" was very enlightened for its time, "an eye for an eye" was equally enlightened when it first appeared centuries earlier because it limited punishment to something of equal value, when previously an injury to one person could be the reason to wipe out a family or start a war. History is littered with examples which we, in our supposed enlightened state, pass judgment upon. We look at the colonization of other continents now as examples of barbaric greed and forget that many people of those times assumed they were bringing a “superior” religion, civilization or government to those that had been deprived. (Something we have not overcome even today.)

We find examples everyday of situations that exist or anachronistic laws that remain that offend our modern sensibilities. Which is good because it means we are probably evolving. We find it remarkably easy to pass judgment on others because we are absolutely sure we would not do something like that in the same circumstances, though most often we have not been so tempted. If we were not horrified at certain crimes we would probably be hopeless as a civilized society; and we become more demanding of ourselves each generation, and rightly so.

However, we often forget that what we consider moral now may also appear to be hopelessly primitive and cruel to people who judge us a hundred years from now. For instance, when neurophysiology continues to contribute to the social sciences of psychology and sociology, we may find that sociopaths have a specific physiological origin or cause that can be reversed or prevented (already fMRI's are noting physiological differences in how sociopaths process information in their brains). It will seem as pathetic to citizens of the future that we called them "evil" and "useless wastes of skin" as it does to us now to denigrate those who have mental illnesses we have just begun to understand, like schizophrenia or Tourette's, or learning challenges like dyslexia, or information-processing differences like the autistic or those with Asperger's. I'm sure anthropologists of the future will marvel at how backward and unenlightened we were about all kinds of prejudices and discriminations we take for granted today as still being acceptable (some of them religious, ideological and political).

We have still not learned to separate the person from the crime in other words, even though we are starting to show progress. We are learning that an act or behavior can be evil without the person committing it necessarily being so. It’s slow and difficult process. It’s hard to wrap our minds around relativity when it is more comforting to think in terms of black and white, good and evil. I’m certainly not there; I am absolutely guilty of condemning the person along with the crime. But I try to be aware of it and how context and relativity make such a difference to me still.

For instance, we have all felt outrage here because a man spent 26 years of his life in jail for a murder he did not commit, and rightly so. But would we have felt such outrage if the man was a burglar? A rapist? Or a sex offender? Would these facts in any way change how we saw this situation – is there something relative after all about our morality?

There are many other occupational hazards that can end up eroding your values or even burning you out emotionally. (I also decided not to become a neurosurgeon, my other interest, because I wasn't sure I could was emotionally mature enough handle what it would do to my psyche if I lost a patient on the table, and I didn’t want to become clinically detached enough to handle it). We are only now beginning to understand what PTSD does to people we ask to defend our country, and yet we are woefully inadequate in giving them the attention and support they need. Many LEOs and psychiatric nurses and teachers burn out after being in stressful situations that numb them emotionally or make them jaded. Their suffering and subsequent performance is often forgotten or criticized because we feel we would not make oversights or mistakes in their place.

I’m not asking any of us to change our opinions on things, but I just want to gently remind us that we may be more prey to relativity or context than we can comprehend and perhaps should be careful before we jump to judgment if we are only speaking of what we believe hypothetically and not from what we have had to actually prove with our actions. I have always admired the whistleblower types and have done so myself at great cost to career, but I do not sit in judgment on those who have not. I am lucky to have quickly extracted myself from abusive relationships but do not judge those who have not found the courage or wherewithal to do so. And while I’d like to think I would risk everything for principle, I have not actually been tested in my life, so perhaps I don’t really have the right to be on that pedestal of moral certitude.

I admire Wudge’s experience and calm reasoning because I imagine if I needed defending it would be valuable to have that kind of detached logic available. I don’t like what the law does to hardwire brains but I can appreciate the fact that it creates a mind stubborn to the principle of existing law and not subject to the fluidity of social mores, although both of them seem to sometimes evolve at different rates.

Basically what you're saying is that everything is morally relative, very much the post-modern thinking of current times.

There are moral absolutes. Check the ten commandments.

As to your "what if"- what if Logan had been a burglar, etc, not pure and clean as the driven snow- the question, IMO, is irrelevant. Logan wasn't any of those things, or we'd be arguing a different case altogether.

And for all the lawyers out there whose brains have been transmogrified by the "law", I am sure there are many others whose consciences remain in tact. It does take a strong moral foundation and backbone to do the right thing. But then, that's our challenge on this earth, isn't it? Whether it's law or business or how we raise our kids. (Look at the As and how well moral relativism worked for them.)

Nothing justifies the living death that this man, innocent of these charges, endured.

 

[cecybeans]

Speak for yourself. I assume you are, but just in case I wish to explicitly state that I am not part of the "us" however you defined it.

Sorry, I should have qualified that. It was an impression I was getting from the tone of various posts here that some folks were passing judgment on another person for making the wrong choice in a what was basically a moral conundrum. The fact that it appeared easy for them to ascribe baser motives to the person for doing so, or assume they did not agonize at all over the decision, made me think that these people were feeling morally superior. My apologies if you found the first person plural offensive; I was simply including myself in that group.

 

[elementary]

Sorry, I should have qualified that. It was an impression I was getting from the tone of various posts here that some folks were passing judgment on another person for making the wrong choice in a what was basically a moral conundrum. The fact that it appeared easy for them to ascribe baser motives to the person for doing so, or assume they did not agonize at all over the decision, made me think that these people were feeling morally superior. My apologies if you found the first person plural offensive; I was simply including myself in that group.

People are judging, yes they are. On the basis of the facts as presented. With very fine arguments, IMO.

Once you get into the territory of ad hominem attacks on posting it becomes personal. I prefer sticking to the facts and expressing my opinions. All the facts suggest to me someone who did something wrong because it was expedient, on a major, major scale. She chose to let an innocent man take the rap for murder, no small thing. It's not only wrong, it's evil. What about his family and the next generations who have to deal with the psychological fallout of what happened to him? His wasn't the only life aborted or changed by that one "wrong" choice.

 

[SoSueMe]

I saw cecybeans post as "in general"---------but if the shoe fits---then---just sayin.

When I was in the 4th grade with dyslexia---my daddy called me 'RETARDED" and slapped me outta the chair. Daddy was a school teacher in the 20s. Back in the olden days, dyslexia was looked upon as retarded because they didn't know what it was. I am here to tell you that I am not retarded. What my daddy did to me did not affect me bad. I didn't think I was retarded.

I may be a big b!tch but I ain't a retarded b!tch.:floorlaugh::floorlaugh:

No MamaBear, you are far from it.

 

[SoSueMe]

Wonder if Ms. Lyon realized when she came on this case the ramifications she would face about Alton Logan...wonder if she realized the amount of blog space dedicated to the Casey Anthony case and that nothing is secret. They are talking about this on several of the big blog sites...including here...Wonder how long she will last until she cries...No Mas!!!!!

Yes, I wonder if she considered the press for her new book vs. the skeletons in her closet before she took on the Anthony case?