Balcony Collapse

We take a lot for granted when we step out onto a deck or balcony two or three or more stories above the hard ground below.  We assume that the architects and engineers and building contractors did their jobs competently.  What could go wrong?

Just a year ago, in June 2015, thirteen young students learned exactly what could go wrong when the balcony of a Berkeley California apartment collapsed dropping the students fifty feet to the ground below, killing six and seriously injuring seven.

So often we have to sadly remind clients of the obvious limitations of the law in providing relief and remedies for the terrible and tragic injuries and damages that are inflicted on them and their loved ones as the result of the neglect or malice of others.  Obviously, the six dead students cannot be returned to life.  The law cannot cure any permanent injures suffered by the seven other students.  The law can regulate.  It can punish.  It can compensate.  It is not enough but that is all that the law can do.

Alameda California District Attorney Nancy O'Malley announced in March, after an almost year long investigation, that no criminal charges would be brought against anyone associated with the construction or maintenance of the collapsed balcony.  There will be no punishment, at least not in the criminal courts.

Of course civil cases for money damages have been filed against those thought to be responsible for the balcony’s collapse.  To the extent that these suits are successful and to the limits of all of the culprits’ insurance policies, compensation may be ordered for the families of the six dead students and the others who were injured.  The very idea of money compensation for the loss of a son or daughter is really quite absurd and the formulas and benchmarks that we lawyers use to value a lost life are contrivances.  It is the best that we can do.  Civil courts can’t put people in jail but, in addition to compensatory damages, they can award punitive damages.  Punitive damages don’t have the bite of criminal prosecutions but, if a jury finds that the lack of care in installing or maintaining the balcony was malicious, that is if it was done with reckless disregard for the safety of the unlucky thirteen students who were killed and injured when the balcony collapsed, the responsible companies and individuals might have to pay huge sums of money for punitive damages that will not be covered by their insurers.  

So there will be no punishment by the criminal justice system and there may be compensation damages and possibly punishment by way of punitive damages in the civil courts.  A third repercussion for any guilty companies or individuals holding California contracting licenses is revocation or suspension of those licenses. On that front, the California State Contractors Board, which licenses and regulates contractors in California, has initiated actions against five companies.   

Punitive damages, not covered by insurance, and suspended or revoked contracting licenses might be deathblows for the contracting companies that caused the deaths of six innocent young students.   The families of the killed and injured may receive millions of dollars in compensatory damages.  None of this will bring the students back.  The law does what it can.  It can do no more.

Stay tuned to The Legal Pulse for updates and call Ed McGill for a no charge consultation if you or someone you know has suffered as a result of the negligence or malice of another.

Content prepared by Edmond McGill. © Edmond McGill, 2016

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This message and the information presented here do not create or evidence an attorney-client relationship nor are they intended to convey legal advice or counsel.  You should not act upon this information without seeking advice from a qualified lawyer licensed in your own state or country who actually represents you. In this regard, you may contact The McGill Law Office and then representation and advice may be given if, and only if, attorney Edmond McGill agrees to do so in a written contract signed by him.

Don't Taze Me Judge!

The courtroom can be exciting, better at times than anything you can see at the movies or on television.  Big things are being decided.  Nerves are taut.   Tensions are high.  Sometimes great fortunes are at stake.  Sometimes defendants are on trial for their liberty.  Sometimes the stakes are actually life or death.  I have been a lawyer in court for clients in all of these circumstances.  

So when you go into the courtroom take heed; this is serious business.  There is a judge sitting up there on the bench wearing a menacing black robe, clothed with great power.  That judge carries the authority of the state and the dignity of the office – the auctoritas and dignitas of the Romans.  Now, to tell the truth, judges being human beings, sometimes that authority is abused and sometimes the dignity is abased.  I once remember the report of the defrocking of a judge in California because, when attorneys began to argue their cases, he would spin his chair so that he faced the back wall and mumble incoherently to himself.  In the exciting instances when judges act so weirdly, of course, it’s better to be a witness to these abuses and indignities than to be the target of them.  That’s what self-representing defendant Delvon King learned the hard way not too long ago when he appeared before Maryland Judge Robert Nalley.

Delvon was arguing his own case.  Yes, you might say that he had a fool for a lawyer.   Even a fool didn’t deserve what happened to Delvon’s lawyer.  Certainly, Judge Nalley might have suffered Delvon’s arguments with a bit more judicial patience than he did.  But no, the judge did not like Delvon’s argument a bit.  I don’t think that he liked Delvon.  So, when Judge Nalley had heard enough and still Delvon, a passionate advocate for his own cause, continued to argue, well the limit of judicial patience was found and the hammer of auctoritas fell.  I’ve experienced and witnessed the limits of judicial patience before, many times.  Once, a good many years ago, my opponent was making his final argument to the jury when the judge, exasperated for some reason, interrupted this unfortunate lawyer who, no matter what the merit of his argument, did not deserve what came.  “Shut up; sit down; you’re through”, ordered the judge.  Oh!

Judge Nalley silenced Delvon differently, not with a crash of his gavel or with harsh unmeasured words, but with a better more powerful silencer, a 50,000 volt taser jolt.   “Do it”, the judge commanded the court’s bailiff, “use it”, the taser that is.  The bailiff did it and that did it.  Delvon finished his argument as his own lawyer with screams of excruciating pain - 50,000 volts of pain.

On March 31st Judge Nalley faced another judge in the Federal District Court in Maryland.  This time Nalley was the defendant and he was sentenced to probation for violating Delvon's civil rights by silencing him with a 50,000 volt electric shock.   Nalley has retired from the bench and the Maryland Supreme Court has barred him from returning to serve on temporary assignments, as retired judges often do.

Now most judges most times behave in a very civilized manner.  Usually judges are courteous to the lawyers and respectful to litigants, witnesses and jurors even or especially when the stakes are high and nerves are shattered and people are stressed and tired.  Judges like Judge Nalley are rare but the law of averages dictates that a few strange and abusive lawyers will make it to the bench.   

No matter what the dispute, whether it is a fortune at stake or issues of life and death, no matter the issues or the emotions, the angst and anger, Ed McGill will always champion your cause faithfully and energetically, without distraction, to achieve your goals, to win your case.

Content prepared by Edmond McGill. © Edmond McGill, 2016

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This message and the information presented here do not create or evidence an attorney-client relationship nor are they intended to convey legal advice or counsel.  You should not act upon this information without seeking advice from a qualified lawyer licensed in your own state or country who actually represents you. In this regard, you may contact The McGill Law Office and then representation and advice may be given if, and only if, attorney Edmond McGill agrees to do so in a written contract signed by him.

Charles Manson Release

Just imagine, it’s only weeks until Charles Manson’s release?  Imagine, also, a ruling from the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeal affirming the orders of the United States District Court that not only mandated Manson’s release but also awarded him a tidy sum of money to be paid by the taxpayers of the State of California.  The conditions of Manson’s prison confinement for more than four decades violated his human rights, the District Court found.  He suffered innumerable indignities and harms to his humanity.  Standards previously applied by American courts under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibiting Cruel and Unusual Punishment set too low a bar for the treatment of prisoners in the United States.  European courts have set new and higher standards for the humane and civilized treatment of those whose misfortune it is to be convicted of a crime.   Imagine that the 9th Circuit found that the civilized and humane European standards are derived from the natural rights of man and that these natural rights preexisted the Constitution and, where more protective than the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, they must be applied to protect prisoners in the United States.  Manson’s release and compensation naturally follow.

The liberation and compensation of Charles Manson cannot be a surprise if American courts are to follow the lead of Europe as has been encouraged even by powerful judges in the United States.  Isn’t it correct that, where European standards of criminal justice are, well, let’s say more civilized, more forgiving, less penal and more permissive than American standards, these standards provide a good guide for the “better angles of our nature” and we ought to apply them here in the United States too.  

Take Norway for example.  Other than Disneyland, Norway is reputed to be the happiest place on earth and Norwegians must be happier still because of how humanly and justly their courts have treated self-styled neo Nazi and mass murderer Anders Breivik.

Breivik killed 77 people, a lot more than Manson and, unlike Charlie; Breivik did it himself in a bombing and shooting spree in which he especially targeted teenagers.  Even so, that’s no reason to treat him badly and Breivik has suffered inhumane incarceration in his three room private suite – one room for sleeping, one for exercising and one for studying.  In addition, Breivik has the use of a computer.  He has video games, television and access to a phone to call his girlfriend.  Even so, Breivik complained that the food was not up to his standards, his coffee was cold and that his human rights were violated because he was alone and lonely in his rooms.  The Norwegian court agreed that Breivik’s human rights were violated and awarded his attorneys more than $50,000 for pointing it out.  

Breivik will not have to suffer indignities all that long, really, in comparison to prison terms in the United States.  Norway is committed to the rehabilitation of criminal offenders and, if Norway cannot rehabilitate Anders Breivik before he finishes his 21-year maximum sentence, well, whose fault is that?  Out he will go.

In America’s crueler less civilized justice system, Charles Manson has already served 45 years, more than twice the maximum time that Brevik will serve for killing 77 people.  Americans might be okay with leaving Charlie Manson in a small cell, humiliating him with handcuffs and other restraints and serving him cold prison coffee but Manson’s conditions of confinement would be absolutely unacceptable to the Norwegian court that handled Anders Breivik’s case.  So we can only imagine, with delight or with horror the day when our courts will achieve the same level of civilization and humanity as the do the courts of Norway.

Content prepared by Edmond McGill. © Edmond McGill, 2016

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This message and the information presented here do not create or evidence an attorney-client relationship nor are they intended to convey legal advice or counsel.  You should not act upon this information without seeking advice from a qualified lawyer licensed in your own state or country who actually represents you. In this regard, you may contact The McGill Law Office and then representation and advice may be given if, and only if, attorney Edmond McGill agrees to do so in a written contract signed by him.