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May 1 is Law Day

May 1, 2017/0 Comments/in May

Today is Law Day, created in 1957 by American Bar Association (ABA) president Charles S. Rhyne. The following year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower established Law Day to honor the U.S. legal system. Each year, the sitting president signs a new proclamation. In 1961, Congress issued a joint resolution designating May 1st as the official date for celebrating Law Day.

The ABA sponsors educational programs on Law Day. The theme for 2016’s 50th anniversary was “Miranda: More Than Words,” referencing the June 13, 1966, decision by the Supreme Court that anyone in police custody must be explicitly informed of his or her right to remain silent and refrain from making self-incriminating statements before being interrogated.

In 1963, 23-year-old laborer Ernesto Miranda was arrested in Arizona for the kidnapping and rape of a cognitively-impaired teenaged girl. After two hours of intense questioning, he said he had committed the crime and wrote his confession on paper provided to him by the police. The following words were already printed across the top of each sheet: “This statement has been made voluntarily and of my own free will, with no threats, coercion or promises of immunity and with full knowledge of my legal rights, understanding any statement I make can and will be used against me.”

Miranda hadn’t been told he had a right to an attorney and had no idea he didn’t have to answer the police’s questions. He recanted. Alvin Moore, the lawyer later assigned his case, argued that the confession was illegally obtained and should be excluded from evidence. Moore’s objections were overruled; on the basis of the confession, Miranda was convicted and sentenced to 20 to 30 years. He appealed to the state’s Supreme Court but the conviction was upheld.

When Moore was unable to continue due to medical reasons, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) turned to the law firm of Lewis & Roca in Phoenix, Arizona, to represent Miranda. Criminal defense attorneys John J. Flynn, John P. Frank, Paul G. Ulrich and Robert A. Jensen worked pro bono, drafting and submitting a 2,500-word petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In November 1965, the court agreed to hear the case. Seven months later, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the opinion in Miranda v. Arizona, which concluded that:

The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent him.

The judgment didn’t mention Miranda, but the wording that evolved became known as the Miranda Warning and the verb Mirandize entered the lexicon. In 1968, the warning’s text was finalized by California deputy attorney general Doris Maier and district attorney Harold Berliner. It reads:

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?

The ABA provides more detail on its website:

The purpose of the Miranda Warning is to ensure the accused are aware of, and reminded of, these rights under the U.S. Constitution, and that they know they can invoke them at any time during the interrogation. Miranda Rights are given under circumstances of “custody” and “interrogation.”
• Custody means formal arrest or the deprivation of freedom to an extent associated with formal arrest.
• Interrogation means explicit questioning or actions that are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response.
• Contrary to what is depicted on many television shows, the police do not need to give the Miranda Warnings before making an arrest. But the warning must be given before interrogating a person while in custody.

Ernesto Miranda’s conviction was overturned but he did not go free. He was tried again using witnesses and other evidence and convicted. After he was granted parole in 1972, he made money autographing the Miranda Warning cards that police were required to carry and recite to suspects. He was arrested for several driving offenses and lost his license. In 1975, he was arrested for possession of a firearm, in violation of his parole. He was sent back to prison for a year. On January 31, 1976, after his release, he got into a bar fight and was stabbed to death.

On June 17, 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in Salinas v. Texas that it is not enough to remain silent. Justice Samuel Alito said that the privilege against self-incrimination must be expressly invoked or a prosecutor could use a suspect’s silence against him. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia stated that they concurred but would have gone further and overruled the 1965 Griffin v. California judgment, in which the Supreme Court decided that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination prohibits a prosecutor or judge from negatively commenting on a defendant’s failure to testify.

Shouldn’t the warning be updated? “You have the right to remain silent but only if you tell us first.” If you don’t answer because you don’t understand or because, frankly, it’s so ironic it sounds like a trick question, does that mean you have waived your rights? It’s like getting tagged out in the schoolyard (“You didn’t say ‘Olly, olly, oxen free‘!”) except in this case you may go to prison for not saying the magic words.

Know your rights, protect those rights and have a safe and happy Law Day!

April 27 is Matanzas Mule Day

April 27, 2017/0 Comments/in April

visual approximation

Today is Matanzas Mule Day. While Mule Appreciation Day (October 26) honors mules in general, today’s holiday is dedicated to one special mule.

On April 27, 1898, during the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Navy fired upon the coastal town of Matanzas, on Cuba’s northern shore. When the smoke cleared, the villagers discovered one casualty: a mule.

Perhaps to express their outrage at the attack, they held a funeral for the mule and buried it with full military honors. (Of course, we can’t discount the possibility that they just really loved that mule.) Word of the memorial spread, along with disbelief.

On August 5, 1898, the New York Times printed an eyewitness account given to the London Globe. Chief Officer Smails of the Myrtledene, a steamship in the area to pick up sugarcane, confirmed the story and reported that he had attended the funeral at the invitation of a Spanish dockworker. He described the scene:

“Altogether there were about 200 persons present, including many distinguished officers. They all walked in mournful procession to the final resting place of the ill-fated animal, a band rendering melancholy music all the while. The authorities were also present to give the obsequies an official aspect. At the grave more appropriate music was played, and eloquent addresses were made by Spanish officers….Then the signal for lowering the carcass into the earth was given. The body went down enveloped in the Spanish flag, amid a volley of musketry!”

The Times article concludes with three unattributed verses one could reasonably assume were an ode to a fallen comrade.

They marshaled men of every rank,
They summoned muffled guns to roll,
They called the merchant from the bank,
They caused the Church’s bell to toll.

And slowly to his grave they passed,
Obeying every martial rule,
And there with tears they took a last,
Long look at that bombarded mule.

Wrapped in the flag he served so well.
Amid a cloud of smoke he sank;
“The Slain” – by tons of shot and shell –
Went under with a round of blank.

We’re fairly sure it wasn’t sung at the funeral. In fact, since it would have been written in Spanish, that’s either an excellent translation—complete with rhyming—or the newspaper of record was having fun heaping ridicule on a small town and, by extension, the enemy.

May you have a better Matanzas Mule Day than the mule did!

April 22 is In God We Trust Day

April 22, 2017/2 Comments/in April

Today is In God We Trust Day. On April 22, 1864, Congress ordered the redesign of the one-cent piece and the minting of a new two-cent coin bearing the motto. On March 3, 1865, Congress passed another act directing the U.S. mint to place the words on all gold and silver coins.

The phrase is often attributed to lawyer Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the British bombardment of Baltimore Harbor on September 13, 1814, during the War of 1812, which lasted much longer than its name suggests.

Key wrote the poem Defence of Fort M’Henry, which was later set to the tune of a popular British song, Anachreon in Heaven, and renamed The Star-Spangled Banner. In the fourth stanza, like many sports fans, Key expresses a belief that God is on our team’s side.

We include the poem in its entirety because, like us, you may not have seen it. We’ve never heard it at a sporting event. It would be cruel and unusual punishment for the fans and for the singer trying to hit the high notes again and again.

Defence of Fort M’Henry

O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —
O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havock of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul foot-steps’ pollution,
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home, and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto — “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

On July 30, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law declaring that In God We Trust must appear on all currency. The first paper money bearing the phrase was issued the following year. He also made it the nation’s official motto, replacing E pluribus unum (Latin: Out of many, one), the country’s unofficial slogan since its inclusion on the Great Seal of the United States created in 1782.

Have a happy and healthy In God We Trust Day!

April 21 is Keep Off the Grass Day

April 21, 2017/0 Comments/in April

Today is Keep Off the Grass Day. It may just be a clever way to stitch together Pot Smoking Day (April 20) and Earth Day (April 22). But there’s an event that it should represent, even though it happened a few calendar days later.

On May 1, 1894, a wealthy Populist named Jacob Coxey arrived in Washington, D.C. with an “army” of 500 men to demand the government create jobs building roads, bridges, etc. to help alleviate unemployment in the depression caused by the Panic of 1893.

Word of “Coxey’s Army” preceded it. In anticipation of its arrival, 1,500 soldiers were mustered, with thousands more ready to be mobilized if necessary. But during the march from Ohio, many lost enthusiasm and left to go home or find work. Other so-called armies, meant to converge on Washington around the same time, had dwindled to nothing before reaching there.

Despite his group’s militaristic name, Jacob Coxey had come not to stage a coup but to give a face to poverty-stricken citizens who desperately needed work. He set out to make a speech on their behalf in front of the U.S. Capitol building. But the moment he stepped on the Capitol lawn, he was arrested for walking on the grass.

Fifty years later on May 1, 1944, at the age of 90, Jacob Coxey was finally allowed to deliver his speech from the steps of the U.S. Congress. Here is a portion of it:

…Up these steps the lobbyists of trusts and corporations have passed unchallenged on their way to committee rooms, access to which we, the representatives of the toiling wealth-producers, have been denied.

We stand here today in behalf of millions of toilers whose petitions have been buried in committee rooms, whose prayers have been unresponded to, and whose opportunities for honest, remunerative, productive labor have been taken from them by unjust legislation, which protects idlers, speculators, and gamblers.

We come to remind the Congress here assembled of the declaration of a United States Senator, “that for a quarter of a century the rich have been growing richer, the poor poorer, and that by the close of the present century the middle class will have disappeared as the struggle for existence becomes fierce and relentless.”

…Coming as we do with peace and good will to men, we shall submit to these laws, unjust as they are, and obey this mandate of authority of might which overrides and outrages the law of right. In doing so, we appeal to every peace-loving citizen, every liberty-loving man or woman, every one in whose breast the fires of patriotism and love of country have not died out, to assist us in our efforts toward better laws and general benefits.

Today, Coxey’s words still ring true. Here’s to everyone who refuses to keep off the grass!

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Defence of Fort M’Henry