And the Reprehensible Shysters
By: George Feigley
Cofounder
Portia was a pathetic character in Shakespeare's Merchant of
Venice. She played at being a lawyer. Of course, Portia
was really a faker and a transvestite. In spite to the clever
"quality of mercy" speech that Will put into her mouth, Portia
wasn't much of a lawyer. She cheated.
The Pennsylvania state government employs who-knows how many lawyers. Lots of them are women. Think of them as state Portias. If they were any good as lawyers, they'd be in private practice where the real money is. Of the hundreds, if not thousands of state lawyers, none are like the reprehensible shysters employed by the Department of Imprisonment. They're the only gaggle dedicated to harming the citizens who employ them. They are the bottom of the bottom, slimy! The prison lawyers are among the very worst shysters in the state. They lie. They cheat. They bungle. They are without integrity. They are utterly unscrupulous - and they do it at discount prices. They even smell bad. It's a good thing the taxpayers bought expensive computer systems for the prison lawyers or they wouldn't be able to write a cogent brief. Being prison lawyers, they don't have to be able to write a cogent brief. They hardly need to be able to read and write at all. In Pennsylvania there's damn little justice. When it comes to prisoners, none of the courts are fair or unbiased. If the bumbling prison lawyer can stay sober long enough to wave a paper in the direction of the judge, they win. Facts and law account for nothing in the Pennsylvania courts.
Because of a suit against an anal-obsessed prison guard, we came to know a prison Portia named Debra Sue Rand. Ms Rand was paid a princely sum to defend the offensive guard, an odd bachelor named Michael Conti, with an odder interest in men's bowels. Ms Rand would excuse the odd guard's threats, sexual harassment, crimes and abuses. Her position was that it was just dandy for the guard to commit crimes. He was a prison guard and therefore immune from prosecution. Debra Sue Rand seemed to be one of those Portias who had no compunction about distorting facts or law. What does a prison lawyer need with integrity? We wondered just how much taxpayer money Portia Rand was costing us. We figured that she could read and write, at least a little. She had a staff and fancy computers and the prison tradition of only the most casual relationship with truth. We figured she was pulling down a bundle. Using Pennsylvania's impotent Right-to-Know Law, we asked the Department of Imprisonment how much we were paying Debra Sue Rand, Esq. We were ignored. The imprisonment department didn' answer at all. They're afraid to write to us. They don't like to read their lies in print. We appealed for the information to John S. Shaffer, the imprisonment flunky with a PhD in locks and keys, a prince of a PhD! He ignored us too. Even the good doctor Shaffer was afraid to write to us. We use their lies against them. The boss of the prison system, Jeffrey "the Tippler" Beard, quit answering our inquiries when we scoffed and pinned down some of his lies. He's allowed to harm us, but we aren't allowed to report his follies. He's a prison official. We must accept that he's immune.
After a while we got a brief from Ms "too much" Rand. It was such imaginative fiction that we figured her computer had gone <1>I Robot! The gist of the document was that guard Michael Conti could do whatever he wanted because he was a prison guard sitting at the immaculate right hand of God, or some-such. Being simple citizens, but not without a schmear of rational logic, we figured that an attorney, even a state employee, even a Department of Imprisonment shyster should have a dollop of integrity. See how wrong a citizen can be! Being a prison lawyer isn't about doing what's right or even about doing what's just. Being a prison attorney, a public servent, is about covering-up for the crimes and abuses of prison guards even where it means deceit. The reader may wish to consult the Rules of Professional Conduct numbers 3.1 relating to meritorious claims and 3.3(a)(1) and 3.4(b) relating to false statements by lawyers. It's a study in hypocrisy. Prison lawyers give prisoners lessons in how to lie and break the rules. Consult the Rules of Civil Procedure 1023.1(c)(2), (3) and (4). In Pennsylvania, Doctor Beard's whole prison system is a university teaching crime. It teaches by example. We have nothing against Portia, but we wonder if it's a good policy for taxpayers to finance lies and cover-ups.
"Few things are as hard to put up with You are welcome to use or re-publish
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With the slick computer systems even marginally literate shysters
can printout a brief. Just enter an issue and the computer cooks
up lies for the lawyers to parrot. It cites precedents just as
if they really mattered. And it LOOKS so much better than an
impoverished layman can produce - what can't tax money buy?
We deduced that Debra Sue Rand was raking in enough tax
cash to make it embarrassing for Shaffer and his minions to reveal
the extent of the waste. So we decided she gets paid between
"too much" and "way too much."