Letters from Just About Everyplace

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

I get a lot of letters from other lawyers reminding me there’s a lot of good work out there not being done by me. When I do get the time to catch up, I like to let folks know about it.

Around the beginning of the year, criminal defence (how they spell it in Canada) lawyer Heather Ferg wrote from Calgary to let me know she and her colleague Clayton Rice run a project similar to Drunk & Disorderly. It’s called On the Wire, and it’s full of interesting stuff with an international focus — about cybercrime, multibillion-dollar pyramid schemes, fair sentences for mass murderers in a country that has abolished its death penalty, and much more.

In April, the executive director of The Sentencing Project, Amy Fettig, wrote from the national capital to express hope “for a more just and equitable future.” The Project works to advance racial justice, end extreme criminal sentences, expand voting rights, and promote youth justice. All of which suffered under another executive director in the national capital for four years and beyond, and threaten to suffer another four years if that one somehow avoids prison and finds enough utter fools to help him. Maybe a secret medical report buried somewhere in the Annual Report Fettig included is one source of her hope. Fingers crossed.

From Portland, Oregon, Joshua Cohen wrote in May, about his newsletter — Fat Pencil Studio News — and the work his company does. Every criminal defense lawyer knows the importance of going to the scene of the crime. Cohen brings the crime scene to the judge and jury, creating 3D visual models and scenes more persuasive to communicating the defense theory of the case than any amount of slick lawyer talk.

You can see exactly what he means here, starting with the blog post he wrote about police violence, after the killing of George Floyd; you can roam around his website for an illuminating tour of cutting-edge trial graphics.

Reaching way back, I got a letter from Miami, from someone who also works in legal video concepts. But what really interested me about Katrina Daniel is the crime podcast she does: “Prime Time Crime.” Anybody who can rhyme three words in a row has my immediate admiration. She’s a broadcast journalist who has won a Peabody Award — not the one associated with the Wayback Machine that helped me reach way back for her letter — and been nominated for an Emmy.

Topics or guests recently include a look back at the Gianni Versace murder; Mark Anthony the Psychic Lawyer (he somehow knows all his clients are guilty); the sentencing of child sex trafficker Gislaine Maxwell; a woman who grew up with the Unabomber; and a flight attendant who stole a baby’s identity and used it to get a job, a pilot’s license, and admission to college (that must have been some baby). Digging deeper into the one hundred twenty five episodes, Daniel covers everything you’d want her to cover, back to the first episode nearly two years ago when Gislaine Maxwell was merely an alleged child sex trafficker.

It’s pure candy for true crime fans, and the portions won’t make you fat: episodes are a half hour and usually less.

You can hear her incredible body of work on any of the podcast platforms. And you should.