True and False Handwriting

by Andrea Campbell

Years ago I studied handwriting for several years with the intention of becoming a Questioned Document Examiner. I got sidetracked along the way for Forensic Art and Forensic Sculpture instead, but I never lost my interest in this discipline.

One of the most interesting things is this: when people try to write false content, there are ways to analyze the sample toward finding the deeper truth.

Cognitive Differences

Writing out lies is different from creating truth on paper, because the brain has a way of making those cognitive characteristics different, thus exposing the real truth. The differences can be seen in the flow of the writing, the length of the strokes, and the amount of pressure of the pen against the page.

A new research study was conducted at the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Services at the University of Haifa, a school tucked into the Carmel Mountain ridge southeast of the city of Haifa and surrounded by the Carmel National Park in Israel.

The research was based on a computerized "writing-analysis system" meant to measure the differences in the pressure on the page, the duration of the pen when put to page and off again, and the flow of writing.

According to Dr. Gil Luria of the Department of Human Services and Dr. Sara Rosenblum of the Department of Occupational Therapy, who carried out the research, "It seems that the act of writing a false text involves extensive cognitive resources, and the automatic act of writing is thereby affected." 

Hard to Decipher Lies

Most people would agree it's difficult to identify lies. We have a need to trust people, and there are many complex problems to solve to be sure about truthfulness and generally, we aren't good at reading them. Even today, the polygraph or lie detector, which has been used as an investigative device by law enforcement and various federal agencies, can be beaten. The typical machine is set up to measure and record physiological changes in the body. There is, in fact, an organization set up to challenge and discredit the polygraph called Anti-polygraph.org, and you'll find many sites on how to beat the polygraph. And it's true, the test has no scientific basis in a court of law.

Joe Navarro

If you remember my interview with Joe Navarro and his book What Every Body is Saying, he writes, “The truth is that identifying deceit is so difficult that repeated studies begun in the 1980s show that most of us—including judges, attorneys, clinicians, police officers, FBI agents, politicians, teachers, mothers, fathers and spouses—are no better than chance (fifty-fifty) when it comes to detecting deception.”

The First Effort

The first recorded effort to construct a mechanical device to measure emotion and determine truth and deception came from Cesar Lombroso. In 1885, Lombroso was recording changes in blood pressure in police cases in Italy with some success.

The Changes Induced by Lying

When a person lies, the body reacts. These physiological changes result from interactions between chemical processes in the body, triggered by mental states or emotions that are behavioral. In the case of a polygraph, the questions act as the stressors. The alterations can include changes in blood pressure, an increase in pulse, higher respiration, skin conductivity—perspiration or sweating—and what is generally referred to as breaking rhythms or ratios. The belief is that during a series of questions, the deceptive answers produce physiological responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-deceptive answers.

Research Now

The Haifa study examined whether the act of lying causes cognitive, or brain, changes. The approach is based on the assumption that lying—writing lies in this particular case—requires special resources and causes cognitive stress, which in turn affects performance that would otherwise be carried out automatically.

To start the survey, participants were asked to write two paragraphs. In the beginning, the first writing was supposed to describe an event that actually took place. Then volunteers were instructed to follow that with a description of an event that didn’t actually occur.

Electronic Pen to Electronic Board

The instrument to collect the data was an electronic pen and board developed with the aid of a program that Dr. Rosenblum participated in years earlier. The system manually measures pressure, rhythm, speed, frequency and duration of writing.

Results

Deceptive writing produces a consistently heavier pressure on the page than writing the truth. In turn, the "flow of strokes when writing false text, as expressed in the height and length of the letters, is distinctly different from these elements in truthful writing." In addition, the act of thinking about writing falsely sets up a different performance, and the letters expressed are changed in both size and duration.

Something to Think About

"A lie detector that analyses handwriting has many advantages over the existing detectors, since it is less threatening for the person being examined, is much more objective and does not depend on human interpretation. The system also provides measures that the individual has difficulty controlling during performance. This is certainly a system that can improve—alongside the existing detectors—our ability to identify lies," the Haifa researchers concluded.

Searching to perfect the system is a worthwhile goal.

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Joran van der Sloot: A Serial Killer?

by Pat Brown

Now that Joran van der Sloot is back in the headlines, returned to Peru after his infamous run to Chile to avoid arrest in the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores Ramirez, speculation is spreading that van der Sloot is a serial killer. Although never convicted in the murder of Natalee Holloway, who went missing in Aruba in 2005, we all know she was murdered even though she is still just officially missing. Now that Joran is in a Peruvian jail, suspected in the brutal bludgeoning death of Stephanie, he is being called a serial killer. People are starting to wonder if he has a string of bodies around the world, everywhere he's traveled in the last five years -- murders he has never been linked to.

But van der Sloot is no serial killer. He may have killed more than once, but that doesn't make him a serial killer - a serial date rapist, but not a serial killer. He doesn't fit the FBI definition of serial killer, nor mine. He doesn't exhibit serial killer behaviors.

The FBI definition requires the killer to commit three murders, each separated from the others by a cooling off period.

My definition requires only one known sexual homicide of a stranger (or at least not an intimate partner or close friend), because I know that just like potato chips, he can't have just one. A person who crosses the line to plan, rape, and murder a complete stranger likes the thrill so much he will do it again. We may have linked a suspect to one killing of a stranger, but that doesn't mean he hasn't done it before or won't do it again. To be entirely accurate, I call these "suspected" serial killers, but I know in reality they're serial killers at heart. Once we have a string of homicides (and then they don't have to be sexual to be the work of a serial killer but most are) that have down time in between them (so as to distinguish them from mass murderers and spree killers), we can be pretty sure we have a serial killer out there.

The second issue is behavior. A serial killer plans his crimes. He decides to kill, usually when his life is on a downturn - his girlfriend dumped him, he lost his job, or his mother died. Feeling more of a failure than usual, he imagines that if he grabs some unsuspecting, innocent human being, humiliates and brutalizes her, and takes her life away, he'll feel in that moment like a god, a superhero, someone with control over life and death -- and who can show society that he has such power. He takes the prize -- someone dearly loved, someone society thinks is better than him. His shining moment: When he sees the terror in his victim's eyes and watches the life drain out of her.

He basks in the glory of that act for days or weeks. He laughs as police search desperately for a killer-ghost. Feeling better about himself, he gets on with normal life. Weeks, months or years later, his ego severely bruised again, he repeats his crime and, once more, gets his vile fix.

A serial killer wants to get away with his crime so he can do it again and again. In almost every case, the serial offender picks a stranger and abducts or attacks her when no one is looking. His plan is to kill horribly, violently. Rape isn't always part of every serial killer's crime, but is often an added amusement, since it's one of the most degrading acts a victim can suffer. Rape for the serial killer is fun, foreplay to murder.

That's not the modus operandi of Joran van der Sloot. This arrogant psychopath's plan to obtain power and control is through sex, and if the woman doesn't cooperate, through rape. He targets women in public places, uses his own name, woos them, and plies them with liquor or drugs (sometimes likely without their full knowledge). When they exit the public venue, he is the person known to be in the woman's company. Most likely, he gets the woman to have sex with him without force. At times, the woman is probably too out of it to resist him; when the sex is over, she goes home and doesn't report it. Why? She knows there will be no evidence of rape to prove she was violated without her consent.

And then we have Natalee and (at right) Stephanie. What happened to these women? Joran van der Sloot did not premeditate their murders, or he wouldn't have been so stupid as to be the last person seen with them. Furthermore, with Stephany, he wouldn't have taken her back to his own hotel room and killed her there, since his real name was on the register. He would at least taken her to another isolated public area, as he did Natalie, if his intention was murder. No, Joran "only" planned to have sex with the girl, one way or the other.

So what went wrong? Apparently, neither Natalee nor Stephany wanted to have sex with Joran, and neither girl was so inebriated or drugged that he could easily take advantage of her. Natalee was able to walk onto the beach, and Stephany was able to walk into Joran's hotel room without his support. They may have been somewhat drunk or drugged, but not nearly enough that they couldn't put up a fight. Natalee was likely smothered in the sand during sex, and Stephanie didn't even take her clothes off before Joran went ape on her.

Along with being a serial date rapist, Joran van der Sloot also exhibits the kind of rage we usually see in domestic homicides. When a woman finally stands up to her husband or boyfriend and says she is not taking it any more or leaving him, he becomes enraged. She dares deny him his "rights" and his loss of power and control over his woman! That drives him mad. He'll be damned if she'll treat him that way, insult his manhood, mock him in the eyes of society. If he can't control her, he'll kill her. He will end the relationship, not her, in his own way and his own time.

Joran van der Sloot behaves this same way with his "women" even if their relationship lasts just the evening. She'll do as he says or else. Most of the women he leaves with to have sex with don't end up dead, simply because they were willing or weren't fighting. But sometimes, he gets unlucky, and then so do the women like Natalee and Stephanie.

Joran got away with the murder of Natalee Holloway (left). But this time, he screwed up so badly, I doubt he'll manage to avoid a long tenure in a Peruvian jail. Thank God for stupidity and hotel surveillance cameras. Joran's serial date-raping life will finally come to an end. No more women will have to die because they "just said no" to a piece of garbage like him.

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Call Me Crazy

by Deborah Blum

If it hadn’t been for that constant itch, that need to gloat, the letter he just had to send to the dead girl’s parents, he might never have been caught. He could have finished his life in the shadows, stayed the boogeyman, the gray man, the Brooklyn Vampire, all those names they called him after he was safely locked away.

But the business felt unfinished; it pricked at him over the years. He needed someone to know. Not just anyone, really. He needed the little girl’s parents to know how she died – and how she tasted. How she’d fought him, kicking and scratching. And how “I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven.”

 

The letter arrived in November 1934, more than six years after 10-year-old Gracie Budd (right) had vanished from her Brooklyn home. In the intervening years, the police had mistakenly arrested a neighbor and been forced to let him go. The real killer had been twice sent to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital for stalking and harassing women. He was both times treated and released.

 

But this time all the pieces came together – the killer, the letter, and a police detective who set a perfect trap. Their quarry was a disappointing sight at first, just an aging house painter with a tired face. Albert Fish didn’t look so much dangerous as exhausted, a scrap of a man, gray-haired and thin, dark rings circling pale eyes. But when the police found him, he pulled a straight razor from his pocket, slashing at the face of the closest one.

Fish didn’t regret the letter even after he was in prison. He’d gained such pleasure from telling the parents how clever he was in gaining their daughter’s trust, how he’d savored her piece by piece. “It took me nine days to eat her entire body.” And while in prison, he continued to brag, giving the names of other children he’d cooked, other recipes that he’d tried.

He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Of course he did. He was a murderer, a torturer, and a cannibal. He ate children, didn’t he? And yet, Albert Fish’s trial lasted ten days, most of it consumed by that very question. Was he insane? Or merely an example of the very darkest edges of normal human behavior?

In fact, the 1935 trial of Albert Fish, still regarded as one of the most horrific serial killers in American history, set the stage for a near brawl by some of the country’s distinguished psychiatrists over that question: who qualifies as crazy in the criminal justice system? And who has the power to decide?

It was a moment in which the profession of psychiatry was starting to flex its muscles, argue that the science of behavior was now strong enough to make judgment calls, even those that could make a difference between life and death. It was also a moment that crystallized the natural conflict between the goals of the criminal justice system and the goals of impartial science.

Because there was nothing academic about that debate over the sanity of Albert Fish. His life - and the lives of deviant murderers to follow - depended on that outcome of that scientific quarrel. Lunatics aren’t executed for the crimes, after all. The verdict would send him either to an asylum or to his death.

Fish was born in 1870 and most experts agreed that his childhood had undoubtedly helped shape him as a killer. His father died when the boy was five years old and his mother, unable to care for him, put him into an orphanage where – it was later learned – children were regularly stripped naked and whipped bloody.

But he was distinguished from the orphanages’ other victims in that he learned to enjoy the pain. As an adult he regularly whipped himself raw and drove needles into his groin; after his an arrest, an x-ray found 28 needles so deeply embedded that they could not be removed without surgery. As an adult, he also sought out brothels where he could be whipped and beaten.

And he discovered that inducing pain in others, especially young boys, offered him equal pleasure. By the time he was arrested, Fish claimed to have raped and murdered children in every state. In New York, at least, the police were able to confirm a number of these claims, some of which involved torture murders and at least one of which also included claims of cannibalism. The victim was a four-year-old boy named Billy Gaffney, whom Fish claimed to have roasted with onions and served with gravy. But first “I stuck the knife in his belly and drank his blood.”

No wonder then that his defense attorney, James Dempsey, assumed that his client was a natural candidate for a lunatic asylum. As he told the jury, Fish was a “psychiatric phenomenon;” he himself had never defended anyone so riddled with perversions and bizarre behaviors.

Dempsey’s expert witness parade began with the psychiatrist, Frederic Wertham (right), who would later become famous for his book, Seduction of the Innocent, which claimed that comic books and cartoons lured children into accepting and condoning violent behavior.

But that book was published 20 years later. At the time of the Fish trial, Wertham was running a clinic for the New York courts, which provided psychiatric examinations of convicted felons. After examining Albert Fish, Wertham concluded that the man was delusional, believing that he needed to sacrifice children as penance for his sins. Fish also believed that his cannibalism was a form of communion, he said. When asked directly about Fish’s mental state, Wertham was blunt: "He is insane." Two other psychiatrists called by Dempsey said they had reached the same conclusion.

Prosecutors responded by calling four of their own experts, beginning with Menas Gregory, famous as the alienist who had established modern psychiatric treatment at Bellevue Hospital. I’d actually researched Gregory for my book, The Poisoner’s Handbook, because I was following a chloroform serial killer who ended up in the psychopathic ward at Bellevue. I’d admired his sense of compassion; he wrote papers deploring the way vengeful families sent unwanted relatives to lunatic asylums, fought for better treatment of those who needed help.

But at the Fish trial, it was very clear that Gregory had a goal in mind. He wanted to see Albert Fish go to the electric chair. In fact, he testified that some of Fish’s perversions – not only pedophilia but also coprophilia (hording feces, eating feces, defecating on another for sexual pleasure) – were “socially perfectly alright” and that, in this case, Fish was just like millions of others. My favorite of these expert statements – in terms of its complete absurdity – was by another psychiatrist, Charles Lambert, who agreed that coprophilia was common practice and that religious cannibalism might be bizarre but "was a matter of taste" and not evidence of a psychosis.

It seems to me that in this case the phrase “matter of taste” was poorly chosen. And it also strikes me that this does not represent a high moment in the history of expert testimony – at least, unbiased expert testimony. One can understand why so many people wanted to see a cannibal killer of children like Albert Fish face the most severe punishment possible, one can understand why a life sentence in an asylum would seem so unsatisfying (although asylums of the time were pretty horrible.) But scientists should not be in courtrooms to crusade, or to bend their own science to a need for vengeance. There’s no situation that demands research integrity more than a courtroom in which a life is at stake.

But the arguments in the trial also remind us that we have yet to really answer the essential questions - who do we call truly crazy? How much compassion, if any, should we extend to a mentally unbalanced serial killer? Do we yet grasp why any human being would behave this way? In his beautifully researched book about the Fish case, Deranged, writer Harold Schechter notes that years later, Wertham bitterly criticized the prosecution's psychiatric witnesses for making "extraordinary statements under oath" that served to give a "black eye to psychiatry." He argued that “society would have been better served by understanding what made Fish who he was.”

And from that statement, you can probably figure out the ending to this story. Albert Fish, found sane, died in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on January 16, 1936.

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Last Public Lynching in California: But Were They Guilty?

by Cathy Scott

Handsome, popular and wealthy, 22-year-old Brooke Hart, the son of a wealthy department store owner, was the most eligible bachelor in San Jose. But that very good fortune made him a target for those seeking a shortcut to riches. Less than two years after the Lindbergh abduction -- and while the perpetrator of that crime was still on the loose -- Brooke became the latest victim of the epidemic of kidnappings for ransom that was sweeping the US. This time, however, the public wouldn’t wait for justice to be served: Within hours of the discovery of Brooke’s body, the suspected killers -- Jack Holmes and Thomas Harold Thurmond -- were hanged by an angry crowd in what would be the last public lynching in California.

The Harts were one of the foremost families in San Jose. Brooke’s grandfather had founded Hart’s Department Store in 1866, and under his son Alex it had become a local institution. It provided employment to hundreds, and nearly every family in the city shopped there. Brooke was Alex’s eldest son; he had worked in the store throughout his childhood, and he was expected one day to step into his father’s shoes and run the business. Soon after he graduated from Santa Clara University, his father appointed him junior vice president of the store and began grooming him to eventually take over the day-to-day operations. He also presented him with a light-green 1933 Studebaker President roadster.

It was when he drove his new roadster out of a parking lot near the store, on November 9, 1933, that Brooke was kidnapped. His captors drove him 10 miles out of town in his own car, then abandoned the Studebaker for a Chevy, shoved Brooke into the back seat, and drove to the San Mateo Bridge. Here, they ordered Brooke out of the car and hit him over the head with a concrete block, knocking him unconscious. They bound his hands and feet with wire and tied two blocks to his feet before pushing him into the chilly waters of San Francisco Bay. The tide was out, and there was just a few feet of water at the base of the bridge. The fall didn’t kill Brooke, who regained consciousness and thrashed about in the shallow water yelling "Help!" To finish him off, Thurmond shot at Brooke with a pistol until he stopped struggling.

Brooke’s disappearance was noticed almost immediately. He’d left the store five minutes before closing, at 5:55 p.m., telling his father he’d be back directly with the car, ready to drive him to a dinner party. The parking lot was only half a block from the store. By 6:15 p.m., when Brooke still had not shown up, it was obvious to his father that something was amiss. It wasn’t like Brooke to ignore an appointment. The family called Brooke’s friends and co-workers. No one knew where he was.

At 9:45 that night, the kidnappers called the Hart home and spoke to Brooke’s younger sister. According to court transcripts, the caller said, "We have your brother. He is safe, but it will cost you $40,000 to get him back. If you ever want to see him alive again, keep away from the police. We will phone further instructions tomorrow."

The family notified police, and an all-points bulletin was issued, instructing all law enforcement officers to be on the look-out for the Studebaker. Meanwhile, Hart’s employees scoured the streets in a desperate search for Brooke’s car. Later that evening, Perry Belshaw, manager of the San Jose Country Club where Brooke and his father were to have attended a dinner meeting that night, spotted a Studebaker parked at an awkward angle on the shoulder of a rural road with its headlights left on. No one was inside. He went home and telephoned the county sheriff’s department to report the abandoned car.

The sheriff himself responded to the call and confirmed that the car’s plate was registered to Brooke Hart. The family waited anxiously for further instructions from the kidnappers. On Wednesday the 15th, six days after Brooke’s abduction, Alex received a letter telling him to take the ransom money and drive alone toward Los Angeles in the Studebaker. Alex was willing to cooperate, but he had never learned to drive, so he had a large sign placed in the window of the department store that read "I cannot drive."

That evening the kidnappers phoned. Alex spoke to them, and managed to keep the caller on the phone long enough for police to trace the call to a phone booth in downtown San Jose. Officers swooped down on the location and arrested Thomas H. Thurmond as he left the booth. After some intense questioning, he opened up and described the murder, giving details of his accomplice. Early the next morning, Thurmond (pictured right) led police to a hotel where Jack Holmes, caught by surprise and wearing only his underpants, was holed up. He, too, confessed to the crime. The men, who were both from San Jose, were booked into the downtown county jail behind the courthouse on First Street.

Meanwhile, two weeks after Brooke Hart went missing, his body was discovered by duck hunters in San Francisco Bay, three miles south of the San Mateo Bridge where his killers had thrown him into the water.

When they learned details of Brooke’s fate from the radio and newspapers, the public were outraged. The San Francisco Chronicle reported, "The temper of San Jose citizens is still at white heat." People wanted justice, and they weren’t willing to wait for a trial, especially since rumors were circulating that the men might get off on grounds of insanity. The evening after Brooke’s body was found, an angry, hysterical throng of 5,000 gathered outside the county jail. Armed with a battering ram and a garden hose -- used to douse tear gas canisters that police threw out at the crowd -- the mob broke into the jail and dragged Holmes and Thurmond across the street to St. James Park. The terrified suspects were stripped, strung up and hanged from trees -- Thurmond from a mulberry tree and Holmes from an elm.

The feeling in the community was that the kidnappers had gotten what they deserved. This was reflected the next day in Oakland’s Post Enquirer, which prominently featured photos of the two men’s nude bodies hanging from the trees. The governor of California, James Rolph, earned himself the nickname "Governor Lynch" when he declared publicly that if it were up to him, he would release all kidnappers and murderers incarcerated at San Quentin and Folsom prisons in Northern California and deliver them to the "patriotic San Jose citizens who know how to handle such a situation." However, across the rest of the country newspapers reacted with horror to this extreme act of "vigilante justice," describing the mob as "bloodthirsty," "crazy" and "savage."

Seven men were eventually arrested and charged in connection with the mob violence, but no one was ever convicted. Since the lynchings, some have claimed the accused men were innocent, but no credible proof has ever been presented providing any reasonable doubt, and the case remains closed.

The story about the Brooke Hart case is included in the book The Rough Guide to True Crime by Cathy Scott.

Photos courtesy of TRUtv and Old Cars Weekly.

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Women and the Law

by Katherine Scardino

Arabella Mansfield is a name no one, other than Arabella’s mother, is likely to recognize today. Ms. Arabella Mansfield, born on May 23, 1846, became the first female lawyer in the United States when she was admitted to take the Iowa bar in 1869. Arabella never actually went to a law school. She studied in her brother’s law office before taking the bar exam, which she passed with high scores. Ms. Mansfield achieved this despite a state law restricting bar exam applicants to white males over 21 years of age. Later in her career, Arabella was active in the women’s suffrage movement. She chaired the Iowa Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1870 and worked with Susan B. Anthony. Unfortunately, she died in 1911, too early to see the movement’s ultimate achievement, passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920 -- granting women the right to vote.

One other woman before Arabella Mansfield also fought a hard battle  advancing women’s rights within in the legal profession. Ada Harriet Miser Kepley, born in 1847, became the first American woman to graduate from law school in 1870. However, as a woman, she was denied a license to practice law. Therefore, Ms. Kepley did not officially became a lawyer until 1881, when the Illinois law barring women from practicing the learned professions was overturned.

Ironically, around the same time in 1880, Teddy Roosevelt wrote his senior thesis at Harvard on the issue of “The Practicality of Equalizing Men and Women Before the Law.” Mr. Roosevelt wrote: “Viewed purely in the abstract, I think there can be no question that women should have equal rights with men,” and “Especially as regards the laws relating to marriage, there should be the most absolute equality between the two sexes. I do not think the woman should assume the man’s name.” In Teddy Roosevelt’s autobiography, published in 1913, he wrote: “Much can be done by law towards putting women on a footing of complete and entire equal rights with man - including the right to vote, the right to hold and use property, and the right to enter any profession she desires on the same terms as the man.”

In the late 1800's and early 1900's the ideas of Teddy Roosevelt, Arabella Mansfield and Ada Kepley were radical. The rights that both men and women enjoy today were handed to us on a silver platter. Many of us simply assume that men and women should be treated equally. But we can't forget that men and women fought long and hard so that we can enjoy the most basic human rights in this country.

While rights among men and women are more balanced in the modern U.S. than in the 18th and 19th centuries, are they really treated equally on all fronts? Here are a few statistics:

* Female students make up a little less than half of law school classes.

* Women make up nearly one out of every two law firm associates, but only one out of every six equity partners.

* Women were general counsels at 82 of the Fortune 500 companies in 2008.

* The highest paid lawyer at 99 percent of law firms was a man, the firms reported.

* Female lawyers earned 80.5  percent of male lawyers’ salaries in 2008.

Full-time female lawyers are often faced with a balancing act that would floor a man at the first hurdle. For married full-time lawyers -- especially married full-time lawyers who are also mothers,  the daily responsibilities and requirements are almost impossible to accomplish. During the mid-'80s I was a “newbie” lawyer, and my children were very young. I was expected to do my work in the morning hours, and be home by 3:00 pm to greet the children from school. After working a full day in the office, I was expected to cook, clean, and care for my children and husband, as would any devoted mother and wife. The reality is that schedule is unworkable. Lawyers face daily crises that usually interfere with a mother's need to be home by mid-afternoon. It simply doesn't work.

It's little wonder that levels of alcoholism and addiction among lawyers has climbed steadily over the past few years. Help lines are jammed with calls from distressed lawyers, particularly women. Women in other professions face similar difficulties, but the legal profession is one that requires especially long working hours and intense competition. We've all seen films that highlight those pressures, such as The Firm. They were intensified during the recession in which some of the world's biggest legal firms collapsed and senior management were ousted.

“Why don’t you just quit?” That's a good question. If the pressure is more than you can bear, why not just go to work for a small company? You can go home at 5:00 p.m., and no one will call you at midnight to tell you about their son or daughter was arrested for a DWI, burglary, assault, or domestic violence, etc. Being a good lawyer usually requires Type A personality, which involves competitiveness and obstinacy. In turn, these qualities tend to keep you in a profession that can drive you insane. It doesn't help that Type A personalities are generally perfectionists as well. We impose our own pressures -- to be the best lawyer, best mother, best housekeeper, best wife, best friend and best colleague. It's precisely this quality that propels female lawyers up the ladder of success but also pushes them off. Add postpartum depression to the mix and it can prove fatal.

Women still face the demands of their male partners; i.e., cook dinner, entertain, sex (god forbid!!) and a myriad of other requests. The stories of what women lawyers do to multitask are legion. How many women have their babies in their office during working hours? Breast feeding and dabbing calamine lotion on chicken pox while researching a pressing search-and-seizure issue?

So have we “made it”? The honorable U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is the latest woman appointed to the nation's highest court, a great achievement. But what does that do for our lives on a daily basis? Most likely ... nothing.

The ratio of demands in the workplace versus the demands in our personal lives is lopsided. The pressure from this inequality causes lawyer burnout, which runs highest for women. After all this whining about pressure, not enough time, competition, wanting less stress in our jobs, we then hear about a woman named Alice Thomas. Alice is 79 years old and just finished law school in December 2009, with a $70,000 student loan to repay. She reported to the Sacramento Bee that she always wanted to be a lawyer to take a “nibble” at some of the world’s injustices. Ms. Thomas will be at least 80 by the time she passes the bar exam, which she expects to take either in California or Nevada next month.

Female lawyers in a male-driven profession also face potential gender bias and sexism in the courtroom. Have you ever been called “little lady” from the bench by a male judge? If so, I hope it was many years ago. Men have become fairly educated about dealing with women in the workplace. Blatant gender bias is generally rare today. Reforms to eliminate gender bias in the courts, such as judicial education programs addressing inequities for both female  lawyers and female clients, may be part of the reason for this shift. It's not a trivial issue to ensure that female lawyers are addressed appropriately in court. Judges are incorporating skills for overcoming bias into their community, their administrative policies, and their decision making.

TV has served as a tool to advance the perceptions of female lawyers. One of my all-time favorite characters is “Shirley Schmidt” (Candice Bergen) in Boston Legal. In one of the most memorable scenes, Shirley is walking down the hall when she stops a young woman lawyer wearing a low-cut top and miniskirt. Shirley asks: “Are you a lawyer? Then go home, change your clothes and dress the part. We need women who appear the way a jury expects them to appear.” This wardrobe advice is pertinent. Today's young female attorneys should take a second look at Shirley Schmidt. Or Lara Flynn Boyle on The Practice, or Angie Harmon on Law and Order. These women reflect style, confidence, and femininity without being sexualized. Not all of us can look like the women on television, but we can appear in the courtroom “the way a jury expects” us to appear.

Several years ago, a study reported that 75 percent of women surveyed said they felt their commitment to family and personal life hindered their advancement. At first, the work/life balance issue was perceived as a “mommy” issue. Female professionals, including lawyers, were put on the “mommy track,” taken off committees and excluded from good clients.

We're supposed to be in a new era now. Judges aren't calling us “little ladies” or making suggestive remarks to us. One reason might be that about half of today's judges are female, at least in my jurisdiction.

Just as in the earliest days, female attorneys should dress in a business-like manner. There has never been a time when a female lawyer should not hold herself out as proud, efficient and sensitive. Today they also must be assertive, competitive, and confident in their offices  and courtrooms. And they have to be able to achieve the ultimate in multitasking, handling work and personal household chores and duties. No one said it was easy, but for the right personality, it's challenging and rewarding.

But it's also stressful. Some women tell me that the hardest job they have is finding some “me” time. There must be some time set aside just for you, as a woman, to do something that you enjoy -- working out, gardening, reading, walking, learning Italian or taking wrestling lessons. Whatever you truly enjoy and can do to release the tension from your “other” lives, find it and do it.

Don’t forget we are wonder women. We have made it through law school, the bar exam, gender-biased judges, co-workers, clients and other lawyers. It's not impossible; sometimes it just seems like it is.

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Can New Instructions for New Times Change Old Habits?

By Robin Sax

Face it; juries think that a crime occurs and is reported, investigated, filed, prosecuted, deliberated, and sentenced in one hour.  Judges have been so concerned about outside influences in cases that they have resorted to sequestering juries, to granting change of venue motions, and to admonishing jurors to consider only the evidence in front of them.  It is routine practice (and even law) for judges to instruct jurors not to discuss any aspect of the case, consult outside sources or do independent research. But experienced trial lawyers know such warnings often aren't followed. Jurors frequently talk to a spouse, may call a lawyer friend, go take a look-see at the scene of the crime, or even worse ... use the Internet.

Never has doing one's own research been so easy, so anonymous, so undetected. Before the days when, with a fews strokes of the keyboard, one could find information from around the globe, a disobedient juror would have to do original research -- dig information out of newspaper or library morgues, talk to witnesses, consult experts. And if jurors are anything like county employees, the sheer amount of work may have scared them off this path. But today, the technology that makes it so darn easy to violate jury instructions has forced jurisdictions to update rules to address the reality of this new ease of access.

Before lawmakers could even tweak the instructions to incorporate the realities of the Internet in general, newer software has allowed jurors to investigate in real time while the case is still being presented to them. No longer do people need to wait to return to their desktops to peek. With websites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, combined with sophisticated cell phones and applications for them or technology like iPads, Kindles and netbooks, jurors can do their sleuthing while court is in session, while witnesses are still on the stand, and while the wheels of justice are supposed to be turning fairly.

Ohio decided that its courts were no longer going to handle these technological issues after the fact.  Instead, it would update and keep current jury instructions, no matter what, and address all of the modern issues floating around ... including the not-so-new issues of TV's  legal and criminal procedural dramas.  Not a bad idea, Ohio.  While it amazes me that we even need such instructions, better to get it all out in the open than to count on our jurors (remember -- they are our voters and drivers) to do the right thing on their own. 

So, if you happen to be sitting on a judicial committee, heed some advice from your friends in Ohio, and consider adding instructions like they did in these sections:

WARNING ON OUTSIDE INFLUENCE. The effort to exclude misleading outside influences information (sic) also puts a limit on getting legal information from television entertainment. This would apply to popular TV shows such as Law and Order, Boston Legal, Judge Judy, older shows like L.A. Law, Perry Mason, or Matlock, and any other fictional show dealing with the legal system. In addition, this would apply to shows such as CSI and NCIS, which present the use of scientific procedures to resolve criminal investigations. These and other similar shows may leave you with an improper preconceived idea about the legal system. As far as this case is concerned, you are not prohibited from watching such shows. However, there are many reasons why you cannot rely on TV legal programs, including the fact that these shows: (1) are not subject to the rules of evidence and legal safeguards that apply in this courtroom, and (2) are works of fiction that present unrealistic situations for dramatic effect. While entertaining, TV legal dramas condense, distort or even ignore many procedures that take place in real cases and real courtrooms. No matter how convincing they try to be, these shows simply cannot depict the reality of an actual trial or investigation. You must put aside anything you think you know about the legal system that you saw on TV.

WARNING ON OUTSIDE INFORMATION. In addition, you absolutely must not try to get information from any other source. The ban on sources outside the courtroom applies to information from all sources such as family, friends, the Internet, reference books, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, a computer, a Blackberry, iPhone, smart phone, and any other electronic device. This ban on outside information also includes any personal investigation, including visiting the site, looking into news accounts, talking to possible witnesses, re-enacting the allegations in the (Complaint)(Indictment), or any other act that would otherwise affect the fairness and impartiality that you must have as a juror.

Those are the warnings, and now the big question: Are these Ohio bar instructions  going to resonate with jurors? Stay tuned.

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Fallen Heroes - May They Rest in Peace?

by Donna Pendergast

The United States Supreme Court will consider a landmark case in their next court term beginning in October. They will hear the case of a Maryland man whose slain soldier son's funeral was targeted for picketing by the Topeka, Kansas, based Westboro Baptist Church and its leader Fred Phelps.

The zealot church was comprised mostly of Phelps' 13 children -- 11 of whom are attorneys; one son is said to be estranged from the family -- and his grandchildren has no affiliation with mainstream Baptist organizations. They have made a practice of demonstrating at military funerals to complain of the U.S. government's tolerance of homosexuality and of gays in the military. They believe that God is punishing soldiers who are defending a country that has a "policy of accepting homosexuals." The group regularly posts a schedule of their picket activities and appears at military funerals with signs in hand to bring attention to their anti-government and anti-homosexual positions.

Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder of Finksburg, Maryland, died of injuries suffered in a non-combat vehicle accident in Al-Anbar province Iraq. The Westboro church staged a demonstration at his March 2006 funeral in Maryland, rallying, chanting anti gay slogans and carrying signs with statements like "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "Semper Fi Fags" as the mourners grieved. Members of the church had never met Matthew, who was not gay, nor any members of his family. Snyder's father later sued the church for invading his privacy and inflicting emotional distress, igniting the legal battle that has now reached the Supreme Court. The lawsuit also contained defamation charges for statements made on the Internet that Al Snyder "raised his son for the devil" and "taught his son adultery." Snyder won $2.9 million in compensatory damages and $8 million in punitive damages in October 2007. In 2008 the award was cut down by the judge upon a motion to $5 million.

In September 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, reversed that judgment on appeal, finding in favor of free speech rights of the demonstrators. To add insult to injury, Snyder's father was ordered to pay over $16,000 of the church's legal costs incurred in defending the suit. Scores of outraged soldiers, citizens and veterans' groups have rallied behind Mr. Snyder's suit, and donations to the legal cost fund continue to flow in. This past March, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in the fall.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, mother of 11 children and the most visible spokesperson for the church besides her father, is known to spew hateful vitriol, including threats of eternal damnation. In her own vile manner she consistently engages with members of the media and public, arguing that the First Amendment protects her rights to say what she wants. She testified at trial that the "Semper Fi Fags" sign used at Snyder's funeral means "You are always faithful to the fags." She further testified that it was her duty to deliver the message "whether you wanted to hear it or not."

Snyder's lawyers have argued that the church members' actions interfered with the Snyders' rights to bury their son at a religious gathering that was entitled to constitutional protection. They argue that while Phelps and his supporters may have a constitutionally protected right to protest, it shouldn't come at the expense of the Snyders' rights to gather peacefully at their son's funeral. Recent disclosures that Mr. Snyder did not learn of the protest until after the funeral may diminish the viability of the Snyders' claim on that point.

The federal government and 46 states have enacted laws that regulate picketing and other forms of disruptive behavior during a funeral. Proponents of the laws argue that funeral protection laws do not infringe on First Amendment rights, and that freedom of speech does not trump the right to bury in peace a loved one killed in defense of our nation. Opponents of the laws argue that the right to free speech trumps all even when the speech is offensive and repugnant. Soon the Supreme Court will address these tough issues in this case that goes to the core of First Amendment guarantees. What is so ironic is that the First Amendment rights that Phelps and his flock hide behind have been paid for by the same military whose deaths and funerals they so viciously and hatefully mock.

Members of the church plan to be at Arlington National Cemetery today to picket the wreath-laying ceremony and the Memorial Day parade. While the hatemongers spew their venom, may the rest of us remember the men and women who have so honorably served their country, and say a prayer of thanks for their courage, selflessness and dedication. We recognize the hardship, suffering and sacrifice they endured to let us live the lives that we lead. On Memorial Day and every day, we remember with respect those who have fought to defend democratic ideals and secure our freedom. With deep gratitude, we salute our country's brave and honorable veterans.

Statements made in this post are my own and do not reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

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