Member-only story
If it’s Wrong, Why?
The law treats wrongful acts differently, depending on why they are wrong.
Suppose you speed through a stop sign and hit another car on the driver’s side. The driver is killed.
Mr. Trump purposely shoots somebody dead on Fifth Avenue.
In both cases, a human being died. In both cases, the act was wrong and probably would have been wrong without a death. It’s wrong to bust through a stop sign and it’s wrong to discharge a weapon in the direction of another person — regardless whether the misconduct kills.
When the ink had just barely dried on my law license, the civil rights law firm that employed me broke up. The five named partners became five different solo practices, but they did not go anywhere. The place we had was too ideal, a big old house that was ultra swank in its time located just a block from the courthouse. Everybody had their own room. There was a kitchen on the first floor, restrooms on both floors, and the attic had been finished out and rented to other lawyers.
The two “associates” had graduated in the same class. I was going to go job hunting, having just lost an election for Justice of the Peace and facing some debt from that piled on top of student loans. The other associate, Vivian Mahlab, had taken me to raise some time ago.
