VIEWPOINTS
EDITORIALS, OPINIONS. LETTERS TO THE EOITOR
U.S. gives $3.1 million
to prevent lengthy trial
■ OUR OPINION » ’ ■ •
awards illustrate legal
system problems
The U.S. government
agreed to pay $3.t million
to a while separatist and his
family last week for the
shooting death of his wife
and son
The financial settlement
of the now infamous Ruby
Kidge incident pits eded
hearings set to determine
whether federal agents'
at tions during the Idaho
mountain stand-off were
negligent As sue h. a signifi
cant sum of taxpayers'
money will now he trans
ferred to a man who just
two years ago the govern
merit sought to i onvit t in
the death of a federal mar
shal.
1 ,aw\ers for the l tnitnd
Stales have said the settle
ment prevented a trial and
possibly larger award if the
government pursued the
matter in court and lost
Randall Weaver had sought
$200 million In damages It
is, however. ( uses such as
tins that shine a bright light
on the dark holes in our
legal system.
Weaver who has been
living on social security,
and his daughters will now
be able to live in comfort for
the rest of their fixes not
!>ei ause of any proven neg
ligence on the part of feder
al agents, but bei ause the
Federal bureau of
Investigation had more to
lose by trying to prove its
innocence than by giving in
to Weaver's demands
As the FBI far es more
( barges her arise of its
actions during the siege on
the Branch Davidian com
pound ill \V,e o. Texas, it
would appear that the
agem \ was simply trying to
get a rather ugly monkey off
its bar k in preparation for
what could he rougher
times ahead.
But tin* financial settle
ment will not prevent a full
inquiry into the at tions of
federal agents in the Idaho
incident, As sue h. not only
h.ivu Americans forfeited
millions of dollars !o a
whito separatist, but they
will still have to endure
weeks, if not months, of
hearings before the end of
the year
II federal agents were neg
ligent in the shooting death
of Weaver's wife and son, it
would be difficult to deny
the Weaver family monetary
compensation for its loss
1 hat. however, hns yet to be
proved
The government has ele< t
ed to compensate the
Weavers for a loss that may.
in fact, have been caused by
Weaver's actions rather than
those of federal agents
Weaver initiated the
stand off by refusing to
leave hts home when feder
al agents arrived to arrest
him tor illegal weapons
sales. While it has yet to lie
determined who fired the
first shots, it is Weaver's
criminal activity that initiat
ed federal intervention.
Americans have just paid
$:t 1 million to a com ic ted
criminal because it was
i heaper than fori ing him to
prove his case
If we continue to dole out
money to plaintiffs for no
other reason than to prevent
the expense of a trial or a
potential loss. Americans
will continue to slide into
the depths of a sue-bappv
culture If we still hold to
the tenets of innocent until
proven guilty, plaintiffs
should not be an arded
damages until they have
proved the guilt of the
defendant.
Without that foundation,
defendants, whether indi
v iduals or federal agenc ies,
become vic tims of legal
blai kmail We will live
within a system of "justice'
that rewards plaintiffs for
the inconvenience they
c ause would be defendants
rather than for their abil
ity to prove guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt.
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OPINION
Behold a new world: laptops and legalese
Law school Two simple
word* that moan *o
many different things
to different people To
some, it means a training
ground for unethical dtiibags
who live to suck the lifeblood
of true humans Toothers, it
symbolizes what makes our
country great the notion that
wo are a nation of laws, not of
men. and that all people art*
( mated equal, blah. blah, blah
Hot to law students it is
something else It is a way of
life l or most, it's the begin -
ning of a career For all. it’s the
fieginning of a new, unique
way of approaching life For
ma, it was the beginning of on
enormous mountain of debt I
remember two years ago, that
first day of registration, feel
ing. not so much like a bug,
hut more like a spot k o! dust
on a hug. I couldn't help hut
wonder, was I the admission
i ommittee's mistake'
I remember looking at the
third-year students in silent
awe, and 1 swore I saw a halo
of light surrounding them.
Now of course 1 know better
The halo was simply exi ess
beer fumes wafting out of their
bodies
Two years ago I was told
that I would leant to think dif
ferently, learn to w rite more
clearly and coni isely Actual
ly, I've learned that common
sense has no place in the law .
The clear, obviously lair and
equitable answer is typically
wrong, unless someone lias
first written a t.ooo-word
chapter in the Oregon Res ised
Statutes to make sure that, if
you do the right thing, you
don't get t arried away and do
to much of it
Law school has obliterated
my communications skills
See, e g., this column A few
years back 1 was an award
winning editorial writer and
columnist for the t'nwmld.
Today 1 couldn't write my way
out of a cardboard hoc i used
iii (>!• abl* to show my mi}«•
drafts of ray columns and got
some useful feedback Today, 1
show her drafts of rescan h
memos that might as well he
written in Russian Imagine
trying to decipher writing
w here every other sentence
reads “O R S. 2r>-t.(M3(b)(i)
(1903). See also State s Dumb
Guy. 2H7 Or 843. H4<». 13(1
Sftir tin
I i - ht i
1 dissenting)
(holding
dumb people
Min t be held
to a reason
able person
standard)."
Sometimes I
think I am
now capable
of having
more mean
ingful * onver
vttions wttn mv (week-old
daughter than with adults
()gt hi ih>- great experieniat
m lavs m hoti] ts discovering
that there is someone in your
class who has had more tin pe
nances in one lifetime than
any other person on the plan
et Invariably, a class discus
sion will get sidetnu ked hy
the person who had a similar
incident happen to their
cousin, occasionally leading to
an impromptu version of
Oprah. At first, l thought it
was annoying, considering
how much I was paying to sit
there Did I t are that a contrai -
tor had once put a lien on
someone's toilets, or that a
train/auto accident couldn't
have happened the way it was
desi ribed by the court because
someone had seen similar
accidents on Hrscuv 911, and,
well, they just don't happen
that wav'
Eventually. I began to appre
ciate the entertainment factor.
Bui somehow 1 don't think my
professor had prepared his dis
cussion around the question of
how to avoid execution of a
lien against one's toilets
Fortunately, just when I'm
near being overwhelmed by
tile enormity of it all. I'm
brought bai k to reality by the
following conversation - Per
son "So. what do you do?"
Me "I’m in law s< bool." Per
son 'Oh That's great. What
do you think about the O.J
Simpson trial?" Me "I pre
ferred Marcia Clark’s old hair
style." Person: "1 see.”
Perhaps the greatest sanity
saving devn e I've had in law
school is my PowerBook Sure,
it's great for taking notes and
all. But when the lecture gets
too far off base (see Liens. Toi
lets, supra), I can fall hack on
my games At any given
moment, you can stand in
back of n law class and watch
myriad computer games being
played, proving that te< hnolo
gy can lie a curse ns well as a
blessing
This year's entering law stu
dents are required to purchase
a laptop computer for use in
class 1 can't fathom what it
will lie like to sit in a room of
BO-plus people clacking away
at their keyboards and listen
ing to the various dings and
dongs reverberating from the
computers of people who
haven’t figured out how to
turn the sound off yet.
Today. Pll watt h as new law
students enter their classes for
the first time and learn that
college is over. In law school,
we have seating charts and
attendance. Apparently, the
idea that students might pass a
class without actually attend
ing frightens some people.
Sure, I used to find the manda
tory attendance ritual annoy
ing Hut after two years. I've
come to appreciate what it's
done for me As 1 begin my
third year of law school. I can
hold m\ head high look ; • >
pie straight in the eye and be
confident that l could probably
beat them at solitaire
Martin Fishtir is a third-year
law student at the l 'mversih