The New York Times reports that The Last Train from Hiroshima, a critically acclaimed new book about the destruction of Hiroshima that is already being prepared for a film adaptation by James Cameron, was substantially based on fraudulent “eye-witness” recollections by a man who wasn’t there. Continue reading
Professions
Randy Cohen Watch: “The Ethicist” vs. Integrity, Accountability, and the Law
Randy Cohen, “The Ethicist” of the popular New York Times Magazine column, frequently gets in trouble when he opines on the law, legal ethics, and how lawyers interact with society. This week he was at it again, and he got in trouble, all right. Big time.
Bruce Pelligrino wrote to the column to get “The Ethicist’s” take on the actions of a friend, who told Bruce he wanted to hire a lawyer to challenge a speeding ticket even though he had admitted to the police officer, in the presence of his children who were passengers in the car, that he had been driving 51 m.p.h . where the limit was 35.
“I think he should accept the consequences, learn from the experience and give his children a lesson in ethics,” wrote Pelligrino. ”Shouldn’t he just pay the ticket?”
Cohen sided with the speeder, opining…
“Even those who think themselves guilty are entitled to their day in court, and there is civic virtue in their exercising this right. A trial is a way to hold officials accountable for their conduct. Was the radar gun accurate? Was the speed zone clearly marked? Did the police officer behave properly? And what, given all the circumstances, is an appropriate punishment? Little of this could be scrutinized if everyone simply paid the ticket. It would be a court-clogging nightmare if every self-confessed speeder demanded a trial, but it is a fine thing if, now and then, some people do.”
Randy appears to have misunderstood the question, believing that Pelligrino’s friend was being charged with an arcane S.E.C. violation, or some intricate form of criminal conspiracy. The guy was driving too fast, knew it, and got caught! What does Cohen mean “Even those who think themselves guilty”? The driver admitted he exceeded the speed limit on the basis of his own car’s speedometer; he didn’t “think” he was guilty; he knew with complete certainty he was guilty, and said so to the cop who stopped him.
“The Ethicist” thinks “it’s a fine thing” for that driver to renege on his admission and impugn the policeman’s behavior, challenge the speed limit posting and question the radar gun to get out of a wrongful fine for an act he admits he committed. How could this course of action possibly be called ethical?
Here is what really is “a fine thing,” Randy: integrity—sticking to one’s word and backing it up with action. The driver said the ticket was correct. It is dishonest and irresponsible for him to turn around and challenge it as Cohen suggests. Here’s something else that is “a fine thing,” Randy: accountability—admitting when you have done wrong when you know it and accepting the consequences. The purpose of the legal system is not to encourage citizens to try to avoid just consequences for admitted violations of the law. Yes, as Cohen correctly notes, everyone has a right to challenge charges in court, but as anyone who calls himself an ethicist is supposed to know, it is not always ethical to exercise a right. Banks have the right to kick elderly homeowner out onto the street as soon as they fall behind on their mortgage payments. I have the right to limit my circle of friends and business associates to straight, white, Protestant bigots. I have the right to be blatantly incompetent in my free ethics commentary, and, like Randy in this case, to give mistaken and even harmful advice. All of these things are still unethical, however.
The Ethicist’s answer to Mr. Pelligrino’s query is unethical too, dramatically so. Cohen is saying that it is reasonable and ethical to force a trial on a traffic offense when…
- The driver admitted the offense to the police officer…
- …in front of his children…
- …in order to challenge the veracity of the officer, who took his admission in good faith…
- ….requiring the officer to appear in court, taking him away from community law enforcement duties…
- …taking up court time, using taxpayer-funded personnel, that should be devoted to cases where the facts are genuinely in dispute…
- …with the objective of avoiding the payment of a just fine to the government, where it would be used for community purposes, in order to transfer money instead to the pocket of, not just a lawyer, but the unethical species of lawyer who is willing to take unconscionable cases…
- …thus teaching the driver’s children, if the driver prevails, that the objective in life is use the system to avoid accountability, even when you deserve to be punished, and..
- …that respect for the law is less important than avoiding a thoroughly earned fine, and
- …that speeding is all right if you can get away with it, thus…
- …increasing the likelihood that the children themselves will regard excessive speed this way when they become drivers, and also increasing the chances that their driving habits will cause harm to themselves or others.
I have read “The Ethicist” for years, I have learned that Randy Cohen has unseemly problems with honesty, a reflex prejudice against law enforcement, and shocking and brazen cluelessness on matters of legal ethics and the exercise of legal rights. Bruce Pelligrino managed to ask a question that involved all of them, and the result was one of the most indefensible answers I’ve seen from Cohen yet.
An Unethical Ethics Conference
The Fourth International Legal Ethics Conference at Stanford Law School has lined up over 100 speakers. It is giving them no honorarium, hotel, meals or travel expenses, and despite the fact that they are providing the content and attraction for the event, the Conference still requires them to pay registration fee of $350. Stanford is also charging its students a registration fee to attend, generously reduced to “only” $250. But the conference can afford to be so generous, because it will also be getting registration fees from lawyers who are required to fulfill bar-mandated Continuing Legal Education requirements.
I have argued, and behavioral science suggests, that thinking about ethics helps one’s ethics alarms work well and often. The Stanford Conference suggests that either this is not as certain as I believed, or that the people running the ethics conference don’t actually think about ethics, which, if true, adds fraud to their list of ethical outrages.
The unfair and irresponsible requirements of the Stanford event has prompted least one prominent legal ethicist, Prof Monroe Freedman, to abandon plans to attend, saying, “I’m a card-carrying capitalist, but this kind of exploitation in the name of ethics could turn me into a Marxist, or a cynic.”
We should be concerned about a culture whose those in the ethics business are increasingly unethical. The sad lesson seems to be that when there is a conflict between commerce and ethics, commerce wins.
Trust, Redemption, and Bank-robbing Lawyers
The story of Shon Hopwood is certainly an inspiring one…so far. While serving more than a decade in federal prison for a series of armed robberies, his time in the prison law library turned him into an expert in case law, and he pulled off a rare feat: a petition for certiori he prepared on behalf of a fellow prisoner successfully persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Now Hopwood is out of prison, and is turning his life around. He has been working as a paralegal, he now has a family, and at 34, he plans to apply to law school.
It is likely that a law school will admit him, but not at all certain that any state bar would give him a license. Can a former bank robber pass the profession’s character requirement? Should he, no matter how good he is at writing Supreme Court briefs? Continue reading
One More Reason to Distrust Banks
National Public Radio did a feature on foreclosure auctions, following one real estate investor as he sought a bargain at an auction in Boston. The auction held a surprise for the investor, the reporter, and me. After the young man who was being followed by the NPR correspondent won a lively bidding battle for a $300,000 house at the bargain price of $84,000, the bank refused to sell it to him. The reason: the auction was a “reserve” auction rather than an “absolute” auction, meaning that there was an unpublished price at which the bank would sell the property, but winning bids below that amount could be rejected. The investor was angry. The NPR reporter was confused.
The auction was rigged. Continue reading
The Seattle Beating Tape: “Just Following Orders”
I know the Nuremberg defense when I hear it, and this is the Nuremberg defense.
The release of a January security video from a Seattle transit station has triggered a public uproar, and no wonder: it shows a group of girls brutally beating a young woman, including kicks to her head, as three security guards stand by, watching, doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing: they did call for help.
Gee, thanks, guys. Would you tell them to bring some aspirin, an ice pack and a stretcher while you’re at it?
Seattle officials say that the guards appear to have done their job properly. The training manual the guards follow says “Never become involved in enforcement actions.” Continue reading
The Not-So-Baffling Mystery of the Missing Ethics Rule
ABA Model Rule 7.6: Political Contributions To Obtain Legal Engagements Or Appointments By Judges
A lawyer or law firm shall not accept a government legal engagement or an appointment by a judge if the lawyer or law firm makes a political contribution or solicits political contributions for the purpose of obtaining or being considered for that type of legal engagement or appointment.
That’s pretty clear, is it not? The American Bar Association, in its Model Rules of Professional Conduct, now followed (in various, eccentric forms, to be sure) by 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, emphatically declares that “pay-to-play” arrangements are unethical for lawyers even in states where the sleazy practice might be legal. “Pay-to play” is, after all, classic corruption, older than Mayor Curley, Richard Daley, Boss Tweed and Mister Potter. Lawyers contribute big bucks to the campaign funds of state and local powerbrokers, including Attorneys General and judges, and get big state contracts in return. It is indefensible ethically, although you can find plenty of people who will defend it, their tongues crossed tightly behind their backs all the while. Continue reading
Ethics Trainwreck in Kermit, Texas
In the tiny west Texas town of Kermit, just north of Mexico, an ethics train wreck is underway that may have long-term consequences far beyond the Lone Star State.
Anne Mitchell, a nurse with an impeccable record, became disturbed at the conduct of a physician at the Winkler County hospital where she worked. After unsuccessfully attempting to get hospital administrators to deal with what she believed was a matter of patient endangerment, she sent an anonymous complaint to the Texas Medical Board. This was a classic whistle-blower situation, protected by law and encouraged by the ethics code governing nurses. Unless she trumped up her accusations for a personal vendetta, she did exactly what the medical profession says she has an obligation to do, a responsible act of medical system self-policing that all too few nurses are willing to follow. Continue reading
“Professor”= Racist?
The academic world has its robes in a bunch because critics of President Obama are increasingly calling him “Professor,” and not as a compliment. Various blogs and academic websites are attributing this to the anti-intellectualism of the Right, the populist dislike of academic elites, contempt for higher education, and other motives that confirm the author’s own biases.
Silly me: I naively assumed that they called Obama “Professor” because he was one, and also because his demeanor, speaking style and fondness for lecturing are professorial. Continue reading
Ethics Quote by an Ethics Hero: Adm. Mike Mullen
“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”
—U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen
Admiral Mullen made the statement testifying last week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, as he urged the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that permitted the military to discharge gay personnel once their sexual orientation became known, by whatever means.
[Special thanks to the Institute for Global Ethics for reminding me (via its weekly e-mail bulletin] that I had neglected to give Mullen credit last week for a much-needed endorsement of this policy change from a military leader of impeccable credibility.]
Ethics Alarms 