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THE LAW IS A ASS for 11/14/2000
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 69
Originally written as installment # 58 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 606, June 28, 1985 issue
My career as a comic-book character seems as ill-fated as sending the Hindenberg to find the sunken remains of the Titanic. When Tony Isabella tried to sneak me into a Marvel Team-Up he was writing, the editor had the plates changed to give me a moustache and dark hair. As for my on-going career as the legal consultant to the super-hero team The Specialists (see the first item of the within installment) was short-lived. Only that one issue of Colt ever came out and no new stories of "The Specialists" ever appeared. Oh, I appeared, kind of, as myself in a Hulk mini-seriesanyway it was some lawyer, albeit a red-haired one, named Ingersoll. But he was the foil of the story.
Sigh. It is sad to think that Willie Lumpkin has had a more successful comic-book career than me.
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 69
by
Bob Ingersoll
And then in Flash # 349...
I'm sorry, I'm not really writing about The Flash. It was force of habit. It won't happen again. Not again, that is, until the next time I really write about The Flash. At the rate it's going, I don't hold out much hope that my promise will be long-lived.
Actually, this column is dedicated to catching up on some comics which have appeared during the run of the Flash murderer story, which I've been putting off while "The Trial of the Flash" has been going on.
And off.
And off.
Comics such as...
******
Colt Special # 1 came out some time in the last month or so. If you read Don's "Comics Review" column (And if you don't, why don't you? It's easily one of the best features in the CBG Is that good enough, Don? Can I get paid now?) then you know that I have a supporting role in the backup feature, "The Specialists." Months back Don Secrease, the writer/artist of "The Specialists" asked me if I would be the legal consultant for his stories. I said, "Sure." (See how easy going I am? I don't know where these rumors that I'm some kind of ogre get started. And, no, I don't think it was Vigilante.) So, I agreed to give the advice for the stories, and as a thank you, I was put into the strip, as the Specialists' attorney. It's a nice gesture, but frankly, I'd rather have the retainer that the Specialists are paying that comic-book simulacrum of me.
Mr. Secrease (I'm not really this formal, but if I call him Don someone might think I'm talking about my Editor) even credited me with something called "An Ingersoll Note." It's like a footnote only it explains the law instead of when Dr. Doom last died. One point, however, I didn't write the "Ingersoll Note." Nor, I suspect, did Don Secrease; at least not in the form in which it saw print. The note is obviously missing words and somehow manages to print those words it did include out of order. But I don't mind. The "Ingersoll Note" was about "The Silver Platter Doctrine," and this gives me a perfect opportunity to talk about said Doctrine, this time without leaving out words or putting them of out order.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires that before what it calls "The State," constitutional shorthand because it's much easier to write "The State" than, "The police, the DA, the Attorney General or anyone else who is employed by a governmentfederal, state, or localand acting in his or her official capacity," can search either a person or property, it must first secure a search warrant from a neutral, detached magistrate. If the state doesn't get that warrant, then the search is illegal, and anything found in the search is not admissible as evidence. The evidence is excluded from a trial under The Exclusionary Rule, a rule created by the Supreme Court to exclude evidence taken illegally and in violation of the Fourth Amendment.(Yes, there are exceptions to the warrant requirement, but let's not get into them. There are too many to fit into the confines of my column, and the way the Supreme Court is currently going, there isn't going to be a search warrant requirement in another year or so, so what difference does it make?)
One important consideration about the search warrant, however, the one on which the "Silver Platter Doctrine" rests, is that the Fourth Amendment only requires the State to secure a search warrant. Searches conducted by private citizens are not covered by the Constitution. Thus, if a private citizen were to conduct a warrantless search, which would be illegal for the State to conduct, he could hand the evidence found over to the police on a silver platter. Hence the name "The Silver Platter Doctrine." See how this all connects up, eventually? Such evidence would even be admissible in a trial.
The theory behind the Silver Platter Doctrine, and most other exceptions to Exclusionary Rule, is that the rule is a penalty designed to deter improper action by the State. If the State knows evidence it seizes illegally isn't admissible, then the State won't seize evidence illegally. Or so the theory goes. The Silver Platter Doctrine opines that if the State didn't do anything wrong, why should it be punished, because someone who wasn't their agent, did do something wrong? Suppressing evidence in this case wouldn't serve to deter the State from future wrong doing, so it isn't suppressed.
(Oh believe me, the judges of this country look for ways not to suppress evidence. "He got off on a technicality" lovers notwithstanding, suppression motions are not granted with anything even approaching the frequency that Hardcastle and McCormack would have you believe. Actually, I'd say it was more in the neighborhood of the frequency of Ms. Mystic's publication.)
That is why many of the super heroes can break into the bad guy's house, rifle his files, and turn the evidence over to the cops. Heroes like Superman, who has been deputized so is an officer of the law, or maybe Batman, who has a special relationship with the police, can't. But someone like Spider-Man, who isn't connected with the police, can.
One important note: These heroes are trained professionals. Do not try this in your own home or anyone else's.
Why? Because it's illegal, that's why. The search may not constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but it is still breaking and entering, theft, and a few other felony counts. Let's face it, if you break into some bad guy's office, steal his files, and give the police the information they need to prosecute him successfully, the bad guy's not going to be too pleased. If he doesn't have you killed, he is certainly going to have you arrested and charged with breaking and entering. I mean I would, if I were in their shoes, and I've got to believe that they're at least as vindictive as me.
(Incidentally, the reason that I wrote about Colt first, is because it came first alphabetically. The fact that this way I got to talk about myself was only a coincidence.
******
Crossfire # 8, see I told you that I've had some of these items lying around waiting to be discussed for awhile, was its usual readable self. But I must confess that I found it a trifle over written. I have no more use for the Association for Children's Television (or whatever the frell it is that ACT stands for) than Mark Evanier does or its editing of cartoons to take out the "violence" it claims to find in them. And I'm sure that its influence on animated cartoons is every bit as heavy-handed as the story indicates. But I do have difficulty accepting the proposition that a seven-year-old boy who has seen only the sanitized version of a Road Runner cartoon would find himself so repressed, and so unable to outlet his fantasy that he could casually shoot his entire family, an Avon Lady and a Japanese gardener. (I think they overdid it with the Avon Lady.)
But the real reason that I'm writing about Crossfire # 8, other that to express my doubts about its major premise, is to discuss its novel proposition that the seven-year-old child who killed his family would need Jay Endicott to bail him out. Yes, I know they had to get Crossfire into the story somehow, but I can't conceive of any court which would require bail for a seven-year-old.
Most, if not all states, have an irrebuttable presumption that children seven and younger are incapable of forming a criminal intent. Young children don't fully understand the difference between right and wrong, so cannot fully understand the consequences of their actions. For this reason the law declares that they are incapable of forming a criminal intent, thus cannot commit a crime. The children may do things which would be crimes, if done by adults, but because of the child's age and inability to form a criminal intent, are not crimes when committed by these children.
In other words, little Brian Spencer would not be charged with a crime. Oh, he would be institutionalized and studied, and might not ever see the light of day again, but he would not be charged with a crime. And if he isn't charged, then he wouldn't need bail. After all, there's no such thing as bail from a foster home or, mad slasher movies aside, from a mental institution.
******
Which brings us to Ms. Tree # 17. Would you believe me if I told you I hated this book? Would you believe me if I told you that the ending, where Ms. Tree murders confessed child molester Billy Bobbecause if you believe that crud that issue # 18 gave us about self-defense, you've been watching the unedited versions of the Road Runner cartoons and your acceptance level for fantasy is quite goodoffended me even more than Void Indigo.
Was it self-defense?
No. Billy Bob was standing helpless while Ms. Tree held a gun on him. He was in no position to do anything that could, in any way, harm Ms. Tree. Thus, she did not have a legitimate fear of imminent fear of serious bodily harm or death. So, she didn't meet the first prerequisite of self-defense: that of defending herself.
Moreover, in most jurisdictions, there is a requirement that a person invoking self-defense not have violated a duty to retreat. That is, if the person could have retreated from the confrontation without killing and didn't do so, self-defense is not available. As Ms. Tree could have left Billy Bob alone and taken her evidence to the police, she wasn't legally entitled to invoke self-defense.
But self-defense was just a smoke screen anyway. It was the buzz words that Ms. Tree used to justify the fact that she shot and killed Billy Bob in cold blood. I don't care that she knew him to be guilty of a heinous crime, what she did was murder.
I don't want to get into a discussion of the merits, or lack thereof, of capital punishment. (Actually, capital punishment is something of a misnomer. After all, Reagan wanted to be President, so I'm not sure requiring him to live in Washington is really a punishment.) All I want to say is that if we are to have capital punishment, then it should only be exercised by the state and only after an individual has been found guilty by a trial jury. To have a comic book story, or any other work of art, which has the purported hero kill, thus seems to sanction private executions of persons who have not only not been found guilty of any crime, but who, because of their possible mental instability, may not, in fact, be legally guilty on any crime is disturbing
Look, I'm as big an advocate of freedom of speech as the next man, but not only can I not agree with what Ms. Tree said by her actions here, I'm not even sure that I can defend her right to say it.
******
And that leaves us only with Hex # 1. Yes, I know that it's out of alphabetical order, but I don't really have anything of a legal nature to say about the book. No, the comment I wanted to make was to answer the question that all loyal Hexophiles have. We remember that in Jonah Hex Special # 1 it was revealed that Jonah dies in the old west, is taxidermed, and finally put on exhibit. And we wonder how this is possible, if in Hex # 1 Jonah was transported alive to some future time after a world-destroying nuclear war. How could he be a candidate for Norman Bates's study in the past, if he's living in the future? Fear not, Hexophiles, I have the untold story.
It seems that ten years after Jonah was transported to the futureTen years? I don't actually think the book will last that long, but that's how the story goes, er will gohe will meet a typical comic book alien. You know the type, one of those annoying pests with god-like powers, who tramp around like they were, well, God. It seems that Jonah, as is his custom, won't exactly be ingratiating to this alien. Actually, he'll manage to tick the alien off royally. The alien will respond to Jonah's boorish behavior by intoning, "Get stuffed!" and the rest, as they say, is history.
BOB INGERSOLL
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