Thank
you to everyone who wrote a letter of support for the commutation or signed the
group letter.
~~~
Some landmark
points in my life have been the discovery of mistaken beliefs about how things
work. These occurrences form the basis of the essay below.
How Often Can We Be
Wrong About Everything We Think?
Let's pace over the
well-trod ground of misconception. At various
times in our lives we discover that everything we think is wrong. I
hope to address any misconceptions about the legal defects I have tried
to correct. The operating misconceptions of a first timer to the judicial system enabled and caused these misconceptions to prevail.
times in our lives we discover that everything we think is wrong. I
hope to address any misconceptions about the legal defects I have tried
to correct. The operating misconceptions of a first timer to the judicial system enabled and caused these misconceptions to prevail.
The
defects are most concisely represented by this fact: A week
after sentencing my attorney, Kathryn Hay, informed me that she would file notice of appeal and recommend range testing. The range should have been resolved in the mind of Ms. Hay on week one of representation. I speculate that she must have felt some guilt for her ramblings at sentencing where she made only one concrete statement; that I shot Marc Bender from four feet. [Anyone following Michael Brown, Ferguson Mo., or with rudimentary ballistics knowledge, knows that determinability drops after 12" and becomes indeterminate at 18"!] Babbling an incongruous distance was her way to refute the prosecutor's testing from 0"->12". Hell, she was on a roll from having me sign the plea contract uncounseled and having the head public defender tell me (without knowledge of range, or anything?) that it was plea or be found guilty of first degree murder.
after sentencing my attorney, Kathryn Hay, informed me that she would file notice of appeal and recommend range testing. The range should have been resolved in the mind of Ms. Hay on week one of representation. I speculate that she must have felt some guilt for her ramblings at sentencing where she made only one concrete statement; that I shot Marc Bender from four feet. [Anyone following Michael Brown, Ferguson Mo., or with rudimentary ballistics knowledge, knows that determinability drops after 12" and becomes indeterminate at 18"!] Babbling an incongruous distance was her way to refute the prosecutor's testing from 0"->12". Hell, she was on a roll from having me sign the plea contract uncounseled and having the head public defender tell me (without knowledge of range, or anything?) that it was plea or be found guilty of first degree murder.
That's
three massive misconceptions: 1) range testing after sentencing, 2) uncounseled plea, 3) appeal to uninformed authority.
A
fourth,
that encompassed the first three, is that Hay had assured
my family that there were defensible issues and that she would defend
me.
my family that there were defensible issues and that she would defend
me.
Five is that
Patricia Lara planted false statements in the pre-sentence investigation
report; one, that my then spouse worked at the bar where it all went down, and
more grievously, that Marc Bender was "an innocent by-stander to the
collapse of the marriage." Mr. Bender invited Cari Pecci to move in with
him the first time they copulated,
and was the cause of the collapse of the marriage. But that's not relevant, is it? No. Ms. Lara inserted this clause from training, so that it could be projected to Bender generally; as "an innocent bystander" to everything. This renders it impossible, in the stage show of a courtroom, for him to be the recipient of any effect he caused.
and was the cause of the collapse of the marriage. But that's not relevant, is it? No. Ms. Lara inserted this clause from training, so that it could be projected to Bender generally; as "an innocent bystander" to everything. This renders it impossible, in the stage show of a courtroom, for him to be the recipient of any effect he caused.
How elegant are the
intentionally imposed misconceptions within
the system that everyone conceives to function with goals of equanimity,
justice, and such? These acts against me prove that I was in an environment opposed to its advertised purpose. This achieved the misconceived goal, by the owners of the system, of telling an aggrandized story, to support an aggrandized sentence, and perpetuate aggrandized authority. Everything we thought was wrong.
the system that everyone conceives to function with goals of equanimity,
justice, and such? These acts against me prove that I was in an environment opposed to its advertised purpose. This achieved the misconceived goal, by the owners of the system, of telling an aggrandized story, to support an aggrandized sentence, and perpetuate aggrandized authority. Everything we thought was wrong.
Let us reverse this
and look at the situation from the first impressions, which leveraged the five
complaints above. Someone shoots
their wife's boyfriend in the parking lot of a bar; enough said, res
ipsa loquitur, right? We are wired to make minimal evaluations to continue to acquire air, food, shelter, and the other needs of Mazlow's
hierarchy. These type of estimations would always prove inaccurate if researched. We never know because we don't take courses in logic and critical thinking and seek employment making researched findings for a society that has to make their own evaluations in their fields of expertise. Most of us are accountable for our findings and actions in support of our employment, and perforce, correct relevant bad assumptions, estimations, and accusations. My experience has been that thinking wrong; while intolerable in private business; serves the ends
of the judicial branch of our government. They run better (by unchecked
authority) under the "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" paradigm.
I hope you can see the perverse irony of how a defendant may bring that
same paradigm to confront a charge, like a sparrow into a courthouse
wall. Whatever these judicial shot-callers choose to think becomes
permanent. Immutable. Its falsehood emanates from a foundation of
their wife's boyfriend in the parking lot of a bar; enough said, res
ipsa loquitur, right? We are wired to make minimal evaluations to continue to acquire air, food, shelter, and the other needs of Mazlow's
hierarchy. These type of estimations would always prove inaccurate if researched. We never know because we don't take courses in logic and critical thinking and seek employment making researched findings for a society that has to make their own evaluations in their fields of expertise. Most of us are accountable for our findings and actions in support of our employment, and perforce, correct relevant bad assumptions, estimations, and accusations. My experience has been that thinking wrong; while intolerable in private business; serves the ends
of the judicial branch of our government. They run better (by unchecked
authority) under the "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" paradigm.
I hope you can see the perverse irony of how a defendant may bring that
same paradigm to confront a charge, like a sparrow into a courthouse
wall. Whatever these judicial shot-callers choose to think becomes
permanent. Immutable. Its falsehood emanates from a foundation of
law degrees, false
logic, and privilege of assumption as profound as it
is invisible.
is invisible.
This indulgence – decadent
manipulation executed in high profile invisibility – leaves this query; is the
wrong thinking intentional, whereby they have thought of ‘right’ but indulge in
‘wrong,’ or, has the privilege of public deception evolved
to self-deception and we, the “voice of the people” believe, along with them
that they are incapable of misconception?
If the latter is true then everything
I have thought is wrong. They are not
simply deceitful, they are pathologically delusional.
The recipe for perpetual
ignorance is: be satisfied with
your opinions and content
with your knowledge.
Elbert
Hubbard
Post Script: by Mary-Ellen
I have to give
Jason credit for saying “If the latter is true…”
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