Profile of the DC Madam's Lawyer,
in today's Washington Post. He sounds like the perfect attorney to hire if you're charged with running a high-class prostitution service; the evidence against you is overwhelming; and your primary goal at this stage is to make sure your case becomes a memorable news story so you can sell your book and movie rights for a lot of money. (The federal "son of sam" law only applies to espionage offenses and crimes that cause physical harm, so I gather Palfrey can keep whatever money her book and movie rights will bring.)
And it does beg the question, how would one sue the S.Ct.? All other courts are inferior to it; leaving the S.Ct. as the only venue to handle such a case itself. And I think the Court will generally find in its own favor, mostly because those bringing such suits generally won't have good legal reasoning on their side.
My first, only partly cynical thought was: What a glaring loophole in the law! Needs to be closed immediately to prevent this immoral woman to profit a second time by preying on the weakness of her victims.
Great issue for an enterprising lawmaker in need of a profile. Good line of justification might go like this: While Randal Tobias may not have been hurt physically (quite to the contrary), his and his family's mental anguish is very real.
Radley Balko at Reason has it right:
D. C. Madam
I'm confused, who are her victims?
If you look at the evidence in the case, it's pretty clear that this was just a CYA move.
Because the legal issue is whether Palfrey *actually* had the intent to have the girls engage in sex. It's very easy to sign a piece of paper promising that you won't do what you're actually going to do, but what matters is what you do actually do, not what you say. Otherwise any criminal could just sign a piece of paper saying "I promise I will not commit any crimes," and then they and their co-conspirators couldn't be charged.
I suppose he should have said it's a "lame attempt at a CYA move," not an actual CYA move.
If it were my client sued for pimping and the defense was no sex (or no permitted sex), why not call all the johns? Who else has personal knowledge and a high ability to help persuade the males on the jury there should be a finding of no sex (or no permitted sex)? Only a lazy/dumb “dump truck” lawyer (or an intimidated lawyer) would simply call the call girls as witnesses. If I were on a jury and could see 8-10 stalwarts (Repubs and Dems) who swore they used the call girls just for massages and the like, why not acquit? It looks like a good case for jury nullification, at the least.
More importantly, what does the USATTY think he is doing making this case any sort of priority? I have a sister working in the USATTY office in DC and have no doubt she has lots of far more serious cases to process (lots of non-victim-less crimes).
I blame Bush and A Gonz and Rove for guiding the USATTY into what looks like a pretty meaningless low-priority sex case.
I believe that the federal Son of Sam statute is similar enough to the New York State one that the Supreme Court struck down in Simon &Schuster, Inc. v. Members of the New York State Crime Victims Board, 502 U.S. 105 (1991), that it is unconstitutional. 18 U.S.C.A. 3681 indicates no cases on point.
I had thought NY's Son of Sam law was still in force, but learned otherwise awhile ago through VC. So why shouldn't the federal version be Constitutionally defective too in view of the Simon &Schuster outcome? Is the federal version different in legally consequential ways from the state one? Has there never been a case to test the federal law, or is it that no one has ever been sufficiently incentivized to do so?
I'm confused, who are her victims?
Those who were just after some face-to-face naughty conversation (not Bill and Monica on the phone together) or a massage and now find themselves being blackmailed.
If it were my client sued for pimping and the defense was no sex (or no permitted sex), why not call all the johns?
Because, "John Wesley Hall Jr., a vice president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys and author of the standard text on defense ethics, calls it 'spiteful' and 'over the line,' and says it 'doesn't serve any purpose but to harass and embarrass people.'" But didn't Lynne Stewart have her defenders among her criminal bar compatriots, who said that it was a criminal defense attorney's duty to go all out for their clients, doing whatever it took to serve the clients' interests? Where exactly is "the line" in criminal defense work so we might know what is "over the line"? (I am not talking about aiding and abetting a criminal defendant, going along with perjury, or those sorts of clearly proscribed help to a defendant.)
Question...if someone is disbarred in one jurisdiction (MBS faces possible disbarment in FL), how likely/ unlikely is it that they will be disbarred in other jurisdictions where they are admitted? Are lawyers less successful at moving from state to state in order to keep practicing their profession than are doctors?