Vanessa Kachadurian, more on corruption of public officials Mayor of West Palm Beach, Florida

Mayor Jose Rodriguez By Eliot Kleinberg Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH — A judge Thursday refused to delay the corruption trial of suspended Boynton Beach Mayor José Rodriguez, set to start in two weeks. Rodriguez’ lawyers had filed Tuesday with the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach, arguing a circuit judge doesn’t have the right to rule on a county ordinance. They want the appeals court to order Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Charles E. Burton to dismiss what was the first charge ever filed against someone under Palm Beach County’s year-old ethics ordinance. Rodriguez, 50, was suspended from office Jan. 27, one day after his arrest on charges he pressured the city’s police chief and interim manager to stop an investigation into allegations he abused his then-11-year-old stepdaughter. Investigators declared the allegations unfounded, but Rodriguez was charged with misusing his power as mayor. On Oct. 2, Burton had thrown out one of four corruption counts. It alleged Rodriguez resisted, obstructed or opposed a law-enforcement officer. But Burton had refused to dismiss the other three counts, including the one that accuses Rodriguez of breaking the county ethics ordinance’s ban on “corrupt misuse of official position.” Rodriguez’s lawyers have challenged the ethics ordinance as unconstitutionally vague. In motions to the appeals court, lawyers for Rodriguez argued the county ordinance punishes the same conduct as the state statute, which they said is a civil infraction and not a crime. They had asked the appeals court to “stay all proceedings in the trial court” while it considers the motion and also had asked Burton to delay the case. Rodriguez’ trial was originally set for July, then delayed to this month. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Oct. 25. On Thursday, Rodriguez lawyer Jason Weiss — Rodriguez did not attend the hearing — told Burton he worried the appeal court would rule during proceedings; “I don’t want to stop on the second day of the trial if there’s an order,” he said. Assistant State Attorney Daniel Funk, the prosecutor in the case, said, “We’re ready to go to trial.” Burton asked if the two would consider separating the one count and proceeding with the rest. Weiss said yes; Funk said no. Burton then denied the motion to delay the trial, saying, “If the Fourth tells me I can’t hear it, I won’t hear it. But until they rule … ” Rodriguez also was arrested July 16 in a separate case in which prosecutors charged he defrauded a bank when he did a “short sale” of a Palm Beach condominium but actually sold it to a relative and, in effect, back to himself. Rodriguez has pleaded not guilty in both cases. Rodriguez’s estranged wife, Sarah Marquez, filed divorce papers Wednesday in Phoenix. It’s her third divorce filing since the two were married in February 2010 in Palm Beach County. She first filed for divorce in August 2010, and that case was closed in July 2011. She then filed again Oct. 11, 2011, but withdrew that filing Jan. 12, about two weeks before Rodriguez’ first arrest. Rodriguez asked a judge to let the divorce proceed, but the judge declined. It was Marquez’ Aug. 4, 2011, interview with Boynton Beach police that ultimately led to Rodriguez’ arrest on the corruption charges. “The actions of the BBPD (Boynton Beach Police Department) have devastated our family and our marriage,” Rodriguez said Thursday evening in an email. “This is something that we have been discussing for some time and so now we are moving forward to begin the healing process.” http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/judge-refuses-to-delay-corruption-trial-of-suspend/nSZrC/

Vanessa Kachadurian-Attorneys in a corrupt system?

I recently started reading a new book called Our Corrupt Legal System: Why Everyone Is a Victim (Except Rich Criminals). PS, this book is almost as good as "Taking on the Kennedys."

Regular readers will understand immediately why I would be interested in a book with a title like that. But I'm happy to report that the book, by Australian journalist Evan Whitton, has much more going for it than a captivating title. It is an insightful and scathing critique of the common-law adversarial justice system, which began in Great Britain and spread to its colonies, including the United States and Canada.

To top it off, Whitton includes the best lawyer joke we've ever heard.

What is the crux of Whitton's argument? He says the British adversarial system has failed us and should be replaced with an inquisitorial model that prevails in much of Europe. Whitton provides a simple chart that shows how the two systems stack up:

Investigative Adversary

Seeks truth Yes No

Conceals evidence No Yes

In charge of evidence Judges Lawyers

Length of hearings About a day Months

Conviction rates 95 % 50 %

Innocent in prison Rare 1-5 %

The Age newspaper of Australia recently presented a profile of Whitton and examined his latest work:

Whitton has spent 30 years covering crime, corruption and courts, using a keen eye, an inquisitive mind and rare research talents to produce unique essays that shine lights into dark places. His opinions are backed by facts, and the former journalist of the year has concluded our court system is irreparably broken.

Even more startlingly, he has discovered there is something morally lower than a working hack from the press: criminal lawyers. It would appear he believes such creatures think that Integrity is a small island in the South Pacific and Scruples a board game played following after-dinner mints.

Whitton holds lawyers in even lower esteem than I do. No wonder I like this guy. And he has a prescription for what ails our sickly justice system:

He argues in his new book Our Corrupt Legal System, Where Everyone is a Victim (Except Rich Criminals) that the British adversarial system has failed and we should move to the European inquisitorial model.

He says the European system is cleaner and less open to abuse than our present process, which is unnecessarily complicated and designed not to discover but to hide the truth. He believes lawyers, judges and politicians (many of them former lawyers) are wedded to a process that is too expensive and fails too often.

He writes that the European model empowers judges to find evidence and discourages lawyers from concealing it. Trials are quicker and more just.

Whitton has a sense of humor about the whole corrupt enterprise:

''The adversary system is biased against people in business, industry, medicine and the media and in favour of criminals,'' Whitton writes. ''The bias makes business for trial lawyers and the rule of law a joke in the worst possible taste.''

Lawyers work for their clients and routinely ignore facts that do not suit their arguments, he says. ''Controlling evidence enables them to omit the damaging bits; spin out the pre-trial and trial process; procure enough pelf to retire comfortably, if they choose, to the social status of untrained, uninformed and passive judge.

''Judges, of course, do the decent thing: they try to stay awake.''

Oh, and about that lawyer joke . . .

How do you save a lawyer from drowning?

Shoot him before he hits the water.