The Court Of Public Opinion

At arraignment, the District Attorney may offer a plea to a lesser charge than what you were arrested for originally. Pleas are offered to unburden an extremely congested criminal court calendar, as well as to get rid of lesser criminal cases so the District Attorney can rightfully concentrate on the more serious crimes.

If you were arrested for misdemeanor shoplifting and you arrive at the arraignment with no prior arrests, most likely the District Attorney will offer you the option of pleading guilty to a lesser violation and a few days of community service with a fine. You have the option to end the process by accepting the lower charge of a violation, which is not a crime but will appear on your record in the future.

If you accept the plea then you will actually plead guilty to a lesser offense on the record and the court will most likely impose a fine and community service or counseling, depending upon what you and the District Attorney agreed to.

If you dont accept the plea, you will simply plead not guilty and continue your criminal court appearances. Your attorney will file various motions and hold hearings to discover what evidence the District Attorney has against you or to get the charges dismissed. An example of such a hearing would be called a Huntley Hearing. In that hearing your attorney’s objective is to get any incriminating statements you made suppressed, meaning they can not be used against you. The point of that hearing is that the police obtained statements from you invlountarily. At the hearing your attorney will cross-examine the police involved in your arrest by asking them detailed questions. If your attorney can prove your statements were coerced or obtained form you in some way involuntarily then you have just eliminiated a criucial piece of evidence against you, making your case of innocence stronger.

As you proceed further through the criminal court process, the plea to a lesser charge may or may not be offered again. Whether or not you accept a plea is something only you and your attorney can decide, based upon your circumstances. Just remember that the plea will always be on your record as opposed to fighting the charges if youre innocent and getting the whole criminal case dismissed, clearing your name.

Your Criminal Court Appearances

If you plead not guilty and are released ROR (meaning without bail and on your own recognizance) or on bail, youll be given the next date to appear before the court. At that time the court will set deadlines for your attorney to complete certain work on your behalf.

The District Attorney has a limited period of time to complete his investigation and state on the record he is ready for trial. The time limits are mandatory to protect your constitutional right to a speedy trial. So you should be prepared to quickly prove your innocence. Being accused of a crime is a stigma, and the reality is that you are actually presumed guilty until you prove your innocence (contrary to the belief that you are presumed innocent until proven guilty).

If you miss a court appearance, a warrant for your arrest is issued

Your Right To A Speedy Trial

The time for you to get a speedy trial starts running from the date the criminal complaint is filed against you. A trial for a violation must be held within 30 days. A misdemeanor trial must occur within 90 days. A felony trial must take place within six months.

The time periods for a speedy trial are tolled (stopped) because of certain motions made by your attorney or certain hearings. They are not tolled if the District Attorney requests adjournments without your consent. They are also not tolled if the District Attorney is not ready for certain appearance dates. This is called excludable time for the purposes of determining when a trial must be held.

Making A Record

At each court date, there will be a stenographer typing every word of the proceeding to make a record of it. Your attorney must make sure the record is clear that you do not consent to an adjournment or that the District Attorney was not ready. Being clear is important, because the court is overwhelmed with hundreds of cases a day. Sometimes the judge will not keep a good record or his notes on your file will be unreadable and the judge later cant recall what happened.

To be clear and to protect your rights, state on the record that defendant does not consent to the adjournment and time should be charged to the People or state that The District Attorney is not ready and time should be charged to the People. Make sure the stenographer hears what you say because you may later have to order those records from the stenographer to prove what happened at the hearing. If the stenographer did not hear you or your attorney then you will not have a record that will benefit you. Make sure you both speak loud and clear at each court date to protect your record.

Law Offices of Susan Chana Lask
853 Broadway, Suite 1516
New York, NY 10003
(212) 358-5762
2004 Susan Chana Lask All Rights Reserved

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The arraignment process involves:

• Being brought before a Judge in the courtroom

• Receiving the criminal complaint with the crimes charged and the factual basis to each charge

• The District Attorney requesting bail or releasing you on your own recognizance (called ROR)

• Pleading guilty or not guilty

The process starts when the court officer brings you from the cell in the back of the courtroom and into the courtroom before the Judge.

If you were unable to contact your family, friends or an attorney when you were arrested then most likely the court will have a Legal Aid attorney appear for you. Legal Aid attorneys are in the courtroom at all times to defend the poor, and most times to appear for the unrepresented.

Usually there will be about three attorneys from the District Attorneys office in the courtroom. One of them will read the charges against you and request the court to impose bail at a certain amount or no bail. If no bail is demanded by the District Attorney then you will hear the word ROR, which means return on your own recognizance.

Bail is determined according to the crime and your personal information. At arraignment the District Attorney will have your personal information obtained from their computer searches on you. They call this your rap sheet. It will include information about you, such as:

• Any Prior convictions

• Any arrests at anytime

• Any pleas to prior arrests

• Parole

• Probation

If your rap sheet is clear of any crimes and this is your first arrest, chances are good that there will be no bail set against you. But even if your rap sheet is clear, if the crime youre charged with is serious (such as involving a large amount of stolen money or violence), bail can be set against you. There are different factors affecting the setting of bail against you, and all are considered by the judge in a matter of minutes.

If the District Attorney requests bail, your attorney should argue that:

• Youre not a flight risk

• You have family, friends and a job in the state or locally

• The charges against you are improper in some way.

Your attorney may even get the whole case dismissed if the District Attorneys criminal complaint against you is not properly drafted or signed by a proper party.

Getting The Complaint Dismissed At Arraignment

The District Attorney drafts the criminal complaint against you from information received from the arresting officer and the victim of the crime. While youre being processed through the Precinct and Central Booking, the arresting officer will fax his paperwork and information regarding your arrest and charges to the District Attorneys office. Someone in the District Attorneys office will then call the victim and get more information so they can properly draft the complaint.

The complaint needs to be signed under oath by the arresting officer or the victim. If it is not signed by anyone when you appear at your arraignment then it is not corroborated and must be dismissed. So check out who signed the complaint: if it was a person other than the arresting officer or the victim then the complaint should be dismissed.

Lastly, if the facts of the complaint do not establish each legal element of the crime charged, or the complaint is poorly drafted then it should be dismissed however, the court usually will give the District Attorney a few weeks to file a properly drafted complaint.

Law Offices of Susan Chana Lask
853 Broadway, Suite 1516
New York, NY 10003
(212) 358-5762
2004 Susan Chana Lask All Rights Reserved

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Prenuptial agreements are like insurance policies. You do the paperwork, and then hope you’ll never need it. However, since half of marriages end in divorce within the first seven years, you may want to consider a prenuptial agreement before you walk down the aisle and say, I do.

Since you could later be engaged in a nasty, costly, and emotionally draining divorce some day, you should consider a prenuptial agreement as a precaution. Below we have given you some information on what is in a prenuptial agreement and whether it could be useful for you.

A prenuptial or ante nuptial agreement is a document signed by two people who intend to be married. It describes their rights and obligations should they get divorced. A prenuptial agreement informs the court how they want their assets and property divided up.

Divorces become messy when parties cannot agree on the distribution of property, such things as the house, the house, stocks, and bonds and whether one party should pay the other alimony, now known as maintenance in most states. Assume that the husband has $1,000,000 in his own name prior to the marriage. A properly drafted prenuptial agreement can award that same $1,000,000 to him after a divorce, notwithstanding what he does with the money, such as purchasing a home in joint tenancy or shifting the money into other accounts. Without a prenuptial agreement, the wife might be entitled to one-half of the $1,000,000 or more, depending on the financial circumstances of the parties at the time of the divorce. The prenuptial agreement is a powerful and valuable tool that can favor the husband, protect the wife, or serve both of them fairly. It is a question of circumstances and intentions.

Candidates for prenuptial agreements used to be just older individuals with huge estates that they wanted to protect from gold diggers for their children from previous marriages. Since more millionaires are born every day, the candidate pool is growing by leaps and bounds. Now everybody has something to protect: an unpublished author, the budding inventor, anybody with a lucrative profession or a good idea. So, before you dismiss the idea of a prenuptial agreement, assess your situation in life and your long-term future in deciding whether a prenuptial agreement is right for you.

Consider at length the nature and extent of your present and possible future assets. A prenuptial agreement can be a very simple document running only a few pages that segregates each party’s assets owned before the marriage, or it can be a very complicated document that runs dozens of pages because it deals with income and assets acquired during the marriage, the payment of debts, attorneys’ fees, alimony/maintenance, and other financial matters. The next hurdle is raising the issue with your intended spouse, a very unromantic event. It helps to get it over with early. Perhaps you could blame it on someone else, such as your parents who may want to involve you in a family business, or possible business partners.

If you have no one to hold responsible, just be honest. Tell your future spouse that you intend to be open, fair, and honest, and the fact that you will be revealing all your assets is a sign of trust. Assure your intended that he or she will be protected during the negotiation procedure and in the prenuptial agreement, and stress that the document is something you feel is necessary and wise before you get married. The most important thing is to discuss it earlier instead of later, so that the degree of pressure before the wedding is mitigated.

Couples do not usually break engagements because of disputes over prenuptial agreements. In almost every instance, the agreement is signed and the parties are married. It is also completely appropriate to state that you will not get married without a prenuptial agreement; case law has indicated that this will not invalidate an agreement if made before the wedding.

The best way to avoid charges of duress or coercion is to tell your future spouse early on that you want the prenuptial agreement. Sometimes, such documents are signed shortly before the wedding, but have been the subject of negotiation for months. A well-drafted agreement will recite the fact that, even though it was signed shortly before or on the wedding date, negotiations began much earlier. It is for clauses like this that you consult experts.

Eventually, a prenuptial agreement will be fashioned so that you and your future spouse both accept it. The terms may not be what you initially envisioned and may not be what your intended would want. But that is the nature of compromise.

Note that Legal Helper Corp. - http://www.legalhelpmate.com/prenuptial-agreement.aspx
- provides an easy-to-use, quick, and economical online method for creating Prenuptial Agreement (Premarital).

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A Cup of Tea, Coffee, or Something Else www.quiettable.com

Whenever investigating an individual or business, one of the most basic checks is for lawsuits, criminal charges, and bankruptcy filings. But how do you research the court system? Is there one simple site to go to where you pop in a name and are rewarded with a listing of all court filings across the country pertaining to that individual? No such luck … yet, anyway! To understand court research, you first need to understand a bit about the USA’s court system.

There are two major separate court entities in the USA, the State court system and the Federal court system. The Federal court system is divided into three branches, the federal criminal, civil, bankruptcy, and appeals courts. These courts are not ’single entities’ — there are a number of federal courts scattered across the United States, each covering a certain geographic district within a ‘circuit’. For a map of the circuits, see www.uscourts.gov/images/CircuitMap.pdf.

For example, there is a Northern Mississippi district court, as well as a Southern. Cases are prosecuted by US Attorneys, who are elected, or Assistant US Attorneys, who are government employees. Regarding federal law, federal statutes are divided into sections called Titles. Title 11, for example, deals with bankcruptcy, and under that Title you will find Chapters, such as Chapter 7 regarding liquidation of a business. All personal and business bankruptcies fall under federal statutes and are dealt with in federal court, and bankruptcies make up nearly 70% of all federal court cases. This makes researching whether an individual has a history of bankcruptcy a considerably simpler matter, since only the relevant federal court needs to be searched.

Title 18 contains the majority of the criminal statutes for the federal criminal court. Note that in many cases it can be decided for an individual to be tried in the federal rather than State court system, under federal-question jurisdiction rules, for a variety of reasons. For example, in a recent case where two teens burned a cross in a black family’s yard, it was decided to prosecute them in federal rather than State court — the penalties that could be imposed by the federal court system were greater. Likewise, cases involving citizens from different States will be tried in Federal courts if the monetary amount involved in the case is greater than $75,000. There are a number of other types of cases that are likewise defaulted to federal court, including cases involving patents or copyrights, cases challenging State laws (usually for Constitutional reasons), and cases involving federal agencies.

The State court system is somewhat more complex in its terminology, since this terminology differs from State to State, but in the end the terminology resolves into a system of ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ courts in civil and criminal matters. The State civil court was an ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ court, as does the State criminal court. In some States, these are referred to as the ’supreme’ and ‘county’ courts, or the ’superior’ and ‘justice’ courts.

The upper courts tend to deal with more important subjects, or crimes with stiffer penalties (such as armed robbery, cases of gross malpractice, and often divorce). Lower courts will deal with misdemeanor crimes and small money claims (ie, small claims court). In criminal cases of all sorts, the prosecutor is usually the United States government (from the State’s attorney office), and the case will be lised as The State of Wherever V. Lastname.

Upper and lower courts are relatively simple to understand — big money cases or cases involving serious crimes go the upper, and everything of lesser importance to the lower, but don’t forget that most divorces are tried in the upper court! Unfortunately, the State court system doesn’t stop there, but also includes, depending on the State, a variety of other courts such as the municipal court or traffic court, which handle matters specific to their speciality (ie, argue traffic tickets in traffic court). There are also appellate courts, for dealing with appeals.

So, now that we understand the court system a bit better, how do we go about finding court records? For Federal courts, this is a relatively simple matter: The majority of records are accessible through a system called PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records). PACER allows searching different courts by a variety of fields, including name. You as a citizen can sign up for PACER with a credit card at http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/ — the service isn’t free, but only charges a few dollars for good documentation on most cases. Note that some districts still aren’t in the PACER system (for example, the Alaska district court) — in this case, you can always pay a visit to the nearest district federal courthouse.

Every district has one, and the records should be open to the public for free. Feel free to drive there and peruse! If the district court is further than you want to travel, there are courthouse researchers across the country who make a living looking up court records for those to far away from the court to visit in person.

State records are somewhat more complex. To access these records over the Internet, not only should the State records be online, but also the individual county in question. Most State higher court and appellate courts are online with free searching, but many lower (county) courts are not, only offer some records, or charge high fees. Of course, if you’re only interested in researching cases in your area, all you need to do is drive to your local county courthouse, where the records are, by Federal law, public access. Your county courthouse should not charge you a fee to access these records, they should be free to peruse.

Charging a fee online is for ‘electronic access’, not for seeing the actual documents themselves. Once again, if the county is outside your area you can hire a courtresearcher to do the job for you. To find county court researches and county/State courts on the Internet, simply do a search engine search for ‘Countyname county court’, and follow the links from there.

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We all know times are tough and, for some of us, bills are getting harder to pay each month. If the debts you owe are more than what you can afford, you should read on.

Filing a bankruptcy can be the answer to your problems. A bankruptcy is a way to discharge your debts completely so you can have a fresh start in your financial and personal life. You can only file a bankruptcy once every 6 years and once filed, it can become part of your credit history

Before filing, you want to know two things: 1) that your monthly expenses (i.e. rent, phone, medical payments and just about anything else paid by you for the living expenses of you and your family) are more than your monthly net income and 2) that your assets (all property you own at its current market value) are worth less than your liabilities (that is, the debts you presently owe and that you will list in your bankruptcy petition).

The next step in filing a bankruptcy is to have the actual petition prepared. The petition is an extensive document listing all of your income, assets and liabilities as well as other information with respect to your financial history. You must list all of the creditors that you owe money to and want to be discharged from that debt. Any creditor that you do not list will always remain your creditor. For example, you may want to keep one of your credit cards if you do not list that credit card company on your petition then you can continue to use that line of credit (of course, you will continue to make your monthly payments for that credit card).

Your petition will be filed in the bankruptcy court for about a $150.00 fee. The moment your petition is filed an automatic stay is in place that means your creditors listed in the petition must stop their collection procedures during your bankruptcy proceeding.

Only those creditors you list in the petition will be notified with respect to your filing for bankruptcy. In about 30 days from your filing date, you will be scheduled for a first meeting of creditors (called a section 341 meeting). At that meeting, the bankruptcy trustee (the person from the court) will ask you some questions. The trustee is interested in discovering whether you have any property or assets available for the benefit of your creditors. By law, you are allowed to keep certain property and the trustee’s questions are very straightforward and not at all intimidating. When the trustee is finished, your creditors are given an opportunity to speak. If none of your creditors appear then an additional 60 days is set for anyone to make any objections or file any additional papers. If nothing happens in that 60 day period, your bankruptcy will be granted and you will be relieved from all debts listed in your petition.

This article is certainly not all inclusive and is intended only as a brief explanation of the legal issue presented. Not all cases are alike and it is strongly recommended that you consult an attorney if you have any questions with respect to any legal matters.

Any questions and/or comments with respect to this topic or any other topic, contact:

Law Offices of Susan Chana Lask
853 Broadway, Suite 1516
New York, NY 10003
(212) 358-5762 Susan Chana Lask, Esq. c 2004

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Failure to follow corporate formalities may expose corporate officers, directors and shareholders to personal liability. Maintaining good records, including corporate minutes, on a timely basis goes a long way toward maintaining the limited liability benefit of a corporation.

If incorporating was your first step to a new and safe way to do business, compliance with the law is the easiest way to keep you safe from any liability associated with they way you manage your company.

There are many reasons to pay attention to the formalities associated with running a corporation: Business corporation laws require articles of incorporation and bylaws and specify other things that must occur.

Articles of incorporation and bylaws form a contract between the corporation and its shareholders, obligating the corporation to act in accordance with the articles and bylaws.

Directors and officers owe the corporation and shareholders a fiduciary duty to use good faith, exercise due care, and act in the best interests of the corporation. Majority shareholders must act in good faith, in a manner not calculated to oppress the rights of minority shareholders.

Corporate formality must be respected and observed to preserve the integrity of the corporation and to shield officers, directors, and shareholders or related businesses from personal liability.

Dont think that for the fact that you can be the only person holding all the positions of a corporation you are out of keeping your company in compliance. Small companies also have duties with State Agencies, providers and even customers.

Why Are Minutes So Important?

Its the law. Nothing more clear than that. Minutes are legal records that document actions and support business decisions made by the principals of the business throughout the year. Minutes help you to separate your own affairs from the companys actions. It is the way to protect you from liability.

During an IRS audit a privately held company may be required to produce the minutes of the company. If they do not, or can not give the minutes to the IRS agent, the problems stand as found. There is no negotiation with the IRS.

State law requires corporations to prepare annual minutes and in many cases; failure to do so has contributed to piercing of the company veil resulting in exposure to the principals.

As mentioned, without current and complete minutes, corporate players could be held personally liable for the actions of the corporation.

Protect Yourself

Your legal protection could be in jeopardy if a creditor successfully pierces the corporate veil due to the corporations failure to keep minutes.

Good recordkeeping habits and paying attention to detail are necessary for any successful business. Now you know it.

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Anatomy of a Lawsuit

Learning the anatomy of civil lawsuits is as easy as spelling CAT.

Complaint - Answer - Trial

It’s as simple as that!

Master this simple truth and you will soon be operating successfully in court.

Plaintiffs file complaints.

Defendants file answers.

Judges examine the facts and law at trial to decide who wins.

It’s not difficult if you keep these three steps in mind.

Every lawsuit has this same fundamental anatomy.

Complaint. Answer. Trial.

If you can spell CAT, you can master the basics.

C = Complaint Where the case begins, when the plaintiff complains.

A = Answer Where the defendant responds to the plaintiffs complaint.

T = Trial Where the judge (or jury) decides the final verdict.

After the plaintiff files his complaint, the defendant may file a flurry of motions that seek to have the complaint stricken or dismissed so he need not answer.

If the flurry of motions fails, the defendant must answer the complaint.

Once the defendant is compelled to answer the complaint (and sometimes before) both parties are permitted to engage in discovery of evidence procedures, i.e., to demand production of documents and things, to require the other side to admit facts and law under oath, to ask relevant questions of anyone, to put evidence on the public record, and to attempt to settle the case and avoid the expense, delay, and uncertainty of going to trial.

If the parties cannot settle their dispute during the discovery phase, the court must examine the evidence, hear testimony, consider arguments of law, and render its final judgment.

Its just that simple.

By knowing this, you can write a powerful complaint or avoid filing an answer by moving the court to dismiss or strike the complaint or require a confusing or poorly worded complaint to be re-written. You can get the evidence you need with effective discovery tools, getting facts into evidence,demanding your rights, and forcing the court to do what’s right … according to law.

The anatomy of a lawsuit is no more complicated than this. CAT. By knowing the basics you strengthen your case.

Resolve conflicts peaceably, according to the rules that control both judges and lawyers in our courts.

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During a radio-talk show appearance, a caller told me about his unfortunate brush with the legal fiction of common-law marriage. He had been living with a woman for several weeks when he came home one evening to find the woman, his TV and assorted other property missing. He called the police, who mistakenly informed him that the woman was his common-law wife and so they couldnt help him.

What qualifies as a common-law marriage? Take your pick:

1. Leaving too many clothes at your girlfriends house?

2. Living together six months

3. Living together seven years?

Chances are you picked the third answer, but all three response are equally wrong. A common misconception is that the length of cohabitation creates common-law status. This is not true.

Three elements are necessary and none relate to a time-frame. A couple must

1. Live together

2. Agree between themselves to be marriage

3. Represent themselves as married (also called holding-out.)

The agreement in the second element does not have to be written; it can be implied by the behavior of the parties. Signing leases as husband and wife or filing joint income tax returns are examples of the proof used to imply a common-law marriage.

In the example above, the police, as are most people, were woefully misinformed.

Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and D.C. recognize common-law marriages. Ohio repealed its recognition in 1992. Pennsylvania has just now abolished it. Other states may recognize an informal marriage if it was originally contracted within one of these states.

In the past, common-law marriage was often seen on the lower socio-economic rungs of the ladder. However, celebrities often make the news with claims by their live-ins of this status.

If you are concerned about your own status, contact an attorney in your state for more information.

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The state has a monopoly on behaviour usually deemed criminal. It murders, kidnaps, and locks up people. Sovereignty has come to be identified with the unbridled - and exclusive - exercise of violence. The emergence of modern international law has narrowed the field of permissible conduct. A sovereign can no longer commit genocide or ethnic cleansing with impunity, for instance.

Many acts - such as the waging of aggressive war, the mistreatment of minorities, the suppression of the freedom of association - hitherto sovereign privilege, have thankfully been criminalized. Many politicians, hitherto immune to international prosecution, are no longer so. Consider Yugoslavia’s Milosevic and Chile’s Pinochet.

But, the irony is that a similar trend of criminalization - within national legal systems - allows governments to oppress their citizenry to an extent previously unknown. Hitherto civil torts, permissible acts, and common behaviour patterns are routinely criminalized by legislators and regulators. Precious few are decriminalized.

Consider, for instance, the criminalization in the Economic Espionage Act (1996) of the misappropriation of trade secrets and the criminalization of the violation of copyrights in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (2000) both in the USA. These used to be civil torts. They still are in many countries. Drug use, common behaviour in England only 50 years ago is now criminal. The list goes on.

Criminal laws pertaining to property have malignantly proliferated and pervaded every economic and private interaction. The result is a bewildering multitude of laws, regulations statutes, and acts.

The average Babylonian could have memorizes and assimilated the Hammurabic code 37 centuries ago - it was short, simple, and intuitively just.

English criminal law - partly applicable in many of its former colonies, such as India, Pakistan, Canada, and Australia - is a mishmash of overlapping and contradictory statutes - some of these hundreds of years old - and court decisions, collectively known as case law.

Despite the publishing of a Model Penal Code in 1962 by the American Law Institute, the criminal provisions of various states within the USA often conflict. The typical American can’t hope to get acquainted with even a negligible fraction of his country’s fiendishly complex and hopelessly brobdignagian criminal code. Such inevitable ignorance breeds criminal behaviour - sometimes inadvertently - and transforms many upright citizens into delinquents.

In the land of the free - the USA - close to 2 million adults are behind bars and another 4.5 million are on probation, most of them on drug charges. The costs of criminalization - both financial and social - are mind boggling. According to The Economist, America’s prison system cost it $54 billion a year - disregarding the price tag of law enforcement, the judiciary, lost product, and rehabilitation.

What constitutes a crime? A clear and consistent definition has yet to transpire.

There are five types of criminal behaviour: crimes against oneself, or victimless crimes (such as suicide, abortion, and the consumption of drugs), crimes against others (such as murder or mugging), crimes among consenting adults (such as incest, and in certain countries, homosexuality and euthanasia), crimes against collectives (such as treason, genocide, or ethnic cleansing), and crimes against the international community and world order (such as executing prisoners of war). The last two categories often overlap.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica provides this definition of a crime: The intentional commission of an act usually deemed socially harmful or dangerous and specifically defined, prohibited, and punishable under the criminal law.

But who decides what is socially harmful? What about acts committed unintentionally (known as strict liability offences in the parlance)? How can we establish intention - mens rea, or the guilty mind - beyond a reasonable doubt?

A much tighter definition would be: The commission of an act punishable under the criminal law. A crime is what the law - state law, kinship law, religious law, or any other widely accepted law - says is a crime. Legal systems and texts often conflict.

Murderous blood feuds are legitimate according to the 15th century Qanoon, still applicable in large parts of Albania. Killing one’s infant daughters and old relatives is socially condoned - though illegal - in India, China, Alaska, and parts of Africa. Genocide may have been legally sanctioned in Germany and Rwanda - but is strictly forbidden under international law.

Laws being the outcomes of compromises and power plays, there is only a tenuous connection between justice and morality. Some crimes are categorical imperatives. Helping the Jews in Nazi Germany was a criminal act - yet a highly moral one.

The ethical nature of some crimes depends on circumstances, timing, and cultural context. Murder is a vile deed - but assassinating Saddam Hussein may be morally commendable. Killing an embryo is a crime in some countries - but not so killing a fetus. A status offence is not a criminal act if committed by an adult. Mutilating the body of a live baby is heinous - but this is the essence of Jewish circumcision. In some societies, criminal guilt is collective. All Americans are held blameworthy by the Arab street for the choices and actions of their leaders. All Jews are accomplices in the crimes of the Zionists.

In all societies, crime is a growth industry. Millions of professionals - judges, police officers, criminologists, psychologists, journalists, publishers, prosecutors, lawyers, social workers, probation officers, wardens, sociologists, non-governmental-organizations, weapons manufacturers, laboratory technicians, graphologists, and private detectives - derive their livelihood, parasitically, from crime. They often perpetuate models of punishment and retribution that lead to recidivism rather than to to the reintegration of criminals in society and their rehabilitation.

Organized in vocal interest groups and lobbies, they harp on the insecurities and phobias of the alienated urbanites. They consume ever growing budgets and rejoice with every new behaviour criminalized by exasperated lawmakers. In the majority of countries, the justice system is a dismal failure and law enforcement agencies are part of the problem, not its solution.

The sad truth is that many types of crime are considered by people to be normative and common behaviours and, thus, go unreported. Victim surveys and self-report studies conducted by criminologists reveal that most crimes go unreported. The protracted fad of criminalization has rendered criminal many perfectly acceptable and recurring behaviours and acts. Homosexuality, abortion, gambling, prostitution, pornography, and suicide have all been criminal offences at one time or another.

But the quintessential example of over-criminalization is drug abuse.

There is scant medical evidence that soft drugs such as cannabis or MDMA (Ecstasy) - and even cocaine - have an irreversible effect on brain chemistry or functioning. Last month an almighty row erupted in Britain when Jon Cole, an addiction researcher at Liverpool University, claimed, to quote The Economist quoting the Psychologist, that:

Experimental evidence suggesting a link between Ecstasy use and problems such as nerve damage and brain impairment is flawed … using this ill-substantiated cause-and-effect to tell the ‘chemical generation’ that they are brain damaged when they are not creates public health problems of its own.

Moreover, it is commonly accepted that alcohol abuse and nicotine abuse can be at least as harmful as the abuse of marijuana, for instance. Yet, though somewhat curbed, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are legal. In contrast, users of cocaine - only a century ago recommended by doctors as tranquilizer - face life in jail in many countries, death in others. Almost everywhere pot smokers are confronted with prison terms.

The war on drugs - one of the most expensive and protracted in history - has failed abysmally. Drugs are more abundant and cheaper than ever. The social costs have been staggering: the emergence of violent crime where none existed before, the destabilization of drug-producing countries, the collusion of drug traffickers with terrorists, and the death of millions - law enforcement agents, criminals, and users.

Few doubt that legalizing most drugs would have a beneficial effect. Crime empires would crumble overnight, users would be assured of the quality of the products they consume, and the addicted few would not be incarcerated or stigmatized - but rather treated and rehabilitated.

That soft, largely harmless, drugs continue to be illicit is the outcome of compounded political and economic pressures by lobby and interest groups of manufacturers of legal drugs, law enforcement agencies, the judicial system, and the aforementioned long list of those who benefit from the status quo.

Only a popular movement can lead to the decriminalization of the more innocuous drugs. But such a crusade should be part of a larger campaign to reverse the overall tide of criminalization. Many crimes should revert to their erstwhile status as civil torts. Others should be wiped off the statute books altogether. Hundreds of thousands should be pardoned and allowed to reintegrate in society, unencumbered by a past of transgressions against an inane and inflationary penal code.

This, admittedly, will reduce the leverage the state has today against its citizens and its ability to intrude on their lives, preferences, privacy, and leisure. Bureaucrats and politicians may find this abhorrent. Freedom loving people should rejoice.

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WHAT ARE SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS?

Social Security Disability is a benefit received from the Social Security Administration by disabled workers and in some cases their dependents, similar to those received by retired workers.

WHO QUALIFIES?

To receive benefits under the Social Security Disability program, you must have a physical or mental health problem (or a combination of problems) severe enough to keep you from working in any regular paying job for at least one year. The test isn’t whether or not you are able to go back to your old job, and the test isn’t whether or not you have been able to find a job lately. Rather, the test is whether you are capable of doing any job available in the national economy. By using an extensive set of regulations, the Social Security Administration takes into account your medical condition, your age, your abilities, your training and your work experience in deciding your case.

WHAT HAPPENS IF I QUALIFY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS?

If you are found eligible for Social Security Disability benefits, you will get paid retroactive benefits beginning 5 full months after you become disabled, but only for a maximum of 12 months before you applied for benefits. (Please see below for additional information on duration and amount.)

HOW MUCH MONEY WILL I RECEIVE IF I QUALIFY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS?

A disabled claimant will receive the same monthly benefit that he would receive had he retired at full retirement age (65 years old or more depending on age). The sum of money received will depend on one’s previous work record.

HOW LONG WILL I BE ABLE TO RECEIVE SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS?

You will receive Social Security Disability benefits as long as you remain disabled and unable to work. Your benefits will not run out because you did not contribute enough into the Social Security system.

WHEN SHOULD I APPLY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS?

You should apply for Social Security Disability benefits as soon as possible after you become disabled and unable to work. You do not need to wait 12 months to apply, your disability need only be expected to last for at least one year or will result in death.

HOW DO I APPLY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS?

You can fill out an application for Social Security Disability benefits at the local Social Security office nearest to your home or by telephone. The address and telephone number of your local Social Security office can be obtained by calling 1-800-772-1213. When applying you should be prepared to give Social Security a list with the names, addresses and phone numbers of all the doctors, hospitals or clinics who have treated you for your condition. You should also bring a list of where you have worked in the past 15 years.

You will also need to provide Social Security with an original or certified copy of your birth certificate, your last earnings documents (W-2, last pay stub, statement of your employer, etc.) and copies (keep the originals) of any medical records you may be able to obtain.

Please note, however, that you should not delay filing for benefits if all documents are not immediately available.

WHAT DO I DO IF I AM DENIED BENEFITS?

Appeal! Many disabled people become disheartened and frustrated after they receive a disability benefits denial notice and do not appeal. This is often a mistake. Nationally, about 75% of all applicants are denied intially and about 90% are denied at the first appeal stage–Reconsideration. But many of these people ultimately receive their benefits, nationally about 70%.

What may be most frustrating about applying for Social Security Disability benefits is the process itself. Those who apply are often made to feel like they are asking for something that they do not deserve, and nothing could be further from the truth. Social Security Disability is not a welfare program; these benefits are paid for by you and were intended to act as a financial buffer in case you or a family member became seriously ill or injured. Therefore if you are unable to work, but you have been denied benefits, you should appeal.

DO I NEED AN ATTORNEY?

You have the right to have an Attorney represent you in your Social Security Disability case. Statistics have shown that claimants represented by Attorneys have been much more successful than people without representation. You should seriously consider the advantages of having an Attorny represent you by examining what an Attorney would do in your Social Security Disability case.

WHAT WOULD MY ATTORNEY DO TO REPRESENT ME IN MY SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY CASE?

Every case is different. Your Attorney’s role depends on the particular facts of your case. However, a few of the things an Attorney may do are:

• Gather medical and other evidence

• Analyze your case under Social Security Regulations

• Contact your doctor and explain Social Security Regulations to obtain a report consistent with those regulations

• Obtain documents from your Social Security Disability file

• Ask that a prior application for benefits be reopened

• Advise you how to best prepare yourself to testify at your hearing

• Protect your right to a fair hearing by objecting to improper evidence and procedures

• If you win, make sure that the Social Security Administration correctly calculates your benefits

• If you lose, request review of the hearing decision by the Social Security Administration’s Appeals Council

• If necessary, represent you in a Federal Court review of your case

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO HIRE AN ATTORNEY?

Most Attorneys who handle Social Security Disability cases will accept them on a contingent fee basis of 25% of past-due benefit or $5,300 whichever is less. That is, there is no fee if you lose, although you will be obligated to pay any out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the Attorny in your representation. Such expenses usually involve charges for photocopying and payments to doctors and hospitals for medical records and reports, and other miscellaneous charges. Total expenses usually are less than $100.

WHEN SHOULD I CONTACT AN ATTORNEY?

As soon as possible, preferably as soon as your inital application is denied. An Attorney will then be able to start assisting you in determining if you are disabled, as that term is defined by the Social Security Act. You will then be able to decide whether or not you want to pursue the first appeal stage–Reconsideration; and your Attorney can begin developing ways to prove to the Social Security Administration that you are disabled.

Attorneys in Social Security Disability cases do much more than sit in at a hearing and ask a few questions. Much pre-hearing preparation, analysis and evidence gathering go into adequate representation for your case. For this reason you should not wait until a week or two before your hearing to contact an Attorney. The earlier an Attorney is able to start working on your case, the better your chances of winning.

Please note that not all Attorneys practice before the Social Security Administration. You will do best to find an Attorney familiar with the complex Social Security Disability regulations and the somewhat unusual Social Security Disability procedures.

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