Boy. Almost a year without a post. There is a reason, or there are reasons, for that. (See previous post almost a year ago.)
A maxim to live by, or at least a maxim that I live by, is "It is good to have enemies." The world is not a moral monochrome. We would not recognize good unless there was also evil, nor white unless black.
For twenty-seven years in the Miami State Attorney's Office the one person I could count on always to be there for me as an enemy was Abraham Laeser. We were, as a colleague said to both of us once, "the yin and the yang" of the S.A.O:
I refused to seek the death penalty as a homicide prosecutor; Laeser had a miniature electric chair-which did deliver a mild shock-on his desk.
For many years I had a framed portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. hanging on the wall in my office; for as long as I remember Laeser had a framed photograph of himself in shirt and tie standing in boxer shorts on the wall of his office...I never got that. And never asked.
Laeser remains a revered figure in Miami legal circles; me, not so much.
I mocked Laeser to his face and disparaged him to others at every opportunity. And when there were no opportunities I created them. Besides our common humanity Laeser and I shared only mutual loathing.
I don't know what I would have done without him.
Yesterday I was on the New York Times, saw an editorial that I thought I would check out:
The Prosecutors Who Aim to Kill
The editorial cited to a study by Harvard Law School, http://fairpunishment.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/FPP-Top5Report_FINAL.pdf
AMERICA’S TOP FIVE DEADLIEST PROSECUTORS: How Overzealous Personalities Drive The Death Penalty
I didn't think he'd make the Top Five but I checked anyway. No...But close!
THE RUNNERS-UP
Our efforts to identify the top five deadliest prosecutors in America turned up
a small handful of prosecutors who failed to meet the threshold for the worst of
the worst, but who broke records in their own states or counties, and racked up
notoriously long records of misconduct. We have dubbed them “The Runners-Up” for
their overzealous and sometimes infamous pursuit of the death penalty.
#6 ABE LAESER, MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA
Abe Laeser, who retired in 2009 as a prosecutor in Miami-Dade County, Florida,
narrowly missed the top five list. Laeser obtained at least 30 death sentences, more
than any other Florida prosecutor.135 He illegally withheld evidence from defense
lawyers in two capital trials;136 put a man on death row who suffered from paranoid
delusions and organic brain damage;137 and secured a death sentence for a mentally
disabled, non-triggerman who suffered from “child abuse, incest and neglect.”138
He also once seriously considered prosecuting a five-year-old child for murder.139
In a widely reported incident, he unzipped his fly in front of a defense attorney and
female jury consultant.140 Abe Laeser, like Britt, Macy and Myers, embodied the win at-all-costs,
personality-driven death penalty.
135 See Susannah A. Nesmith, Longtime Prosecutor Abe Laeser Retires From Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, Miami Herald, Apr. 30, 2009,
http://www.susannahnesmith.com/clips/Laeser.pdf.
136 See Smith v. State, 7 So.3d 473, 504 (Fl. 2009); Rodriguez v. State, 39 So. 3d 275, 287 (Fl. 2010).
137 See Connor v. State, 979 So.2d 852, 865 (Fl. 2007).
138 See Madeline Diaz, Attorney Asks Jury To Spare Caraballo, Sun Sentinel, Apr. 17, 2007, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2007-04-17/
news/0704160281_1_victor-caraballo-death-penalty-ana-maria-angel; David Ovalle, Death Sentence For Defendant In Ana Maria
Angel Murder Is Overturned, Sun Sentinel Jun. 27, 2010, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-06-24/news/fl-angel-death-sentencetossed-20100624_1_penalty-phase-death-penalty-death-sentence.
139 State Undecided On Whether To Whether To Charge 5-Year-Old, Lakeland Ledger, Mar. 15, 1986, 8B.
140 Luisa Yanez, Trial’s Prosecutor Demoted Assistant State Attorney For Gesture, Sun Sentinel, Apr. 27, 1990, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1990-04-27/news/9001050125_1_trial-consultant-laeser-defense-team.
A maxim to live by, or at least a maxim that I live by, is "It is good to have enemies." The world is not a moral monochrome. We would not recognize good unless there was also evil, nor white unless black.
For twenty-seven years in the Miami State Attorney's Office the one person I could count on always to be there for me as an enemy was Abraham Laeser. We were, as a colleague said to both of us once, "the yin and the yang" of the S.A.O:
I refused to seek the death penalty as a homicide prosecutor; Laeser had a miniature electric chair-which did deliver a mild shock-on his desk.
For many years I had a framed portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. hanging on the wall in my office; for as long as I remember Laeser had a framed photograph of himself in shirt and tie standing in boxer shorts on the wall of his office...I never got that. And never asked.
Laeser remains a revered figure in Miami legal circles; me, not so much.
I mocked Laeser to his face and disparaged him to others at every opportunity. And when there were no opportunities I created them. Besides our common humanity Laeser and I shared only mutual loathing.
I don't know what I would have done without him.
Yesterday I was on the New York Times, saw an editorial that I thought I would check out:
The Prosecutors Who Aim to Kill
The editorial cited to a study by Harvard Law School, http://fairpunishment.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/FPP-Top5Report_FINAL.pdf
AMERICA’S TOP FIVE DEADLIEST PROSECUTORS: How Overzealous Personalities Drive The Death Penalty
I didn't think he'd make the Top Five but I checked anyway. No...But close!
THE RUNNERS-UP
Our efforts to identify the top five deadliest prosecutors in America turned up
a small handful of prosecutors who failed to meet the threshold for the worst of
the worst, but who broke records in their own states or counties, and racked up
notoriously long records of misconduct. We have dubbed them “The Runners-Up” for
their overzealous and sometimes infamous pursuit of the death penalty.
#6 ABE LAESER, MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA
Abe Laeser, who retired in 2009 as a prosecutor in Miami-Dade County, Florida,
narrowly missed the top five list. Laeser obtained at least 30 death sentences, more
than any other Florida prosecutor.135 He illegally withheld evidence from defense
lawyers in two capital trials;136 put a man on death row who suffered from paranoid
delusions and organic brain damage;137 and secured a death sentence for a mentally
disabled, non-triggerman who suffered from “child abuse, incest and neglect.”138
He also once seriously considered prosecuting a five-year-old child for murder.139
In a widely reported incident, he unzipped his fly in front of a defense attorney and
female jury consultant.140 Abe Laeser, like Britt, Macy and Myers, embodied the win at-all-costs,
personality-driven death penalty.
135 See Susannah A. Nesmith, Longtime Prosecutor Abe Laeser Retires From Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, Miami Herald, Apr. 30, 2009,
http://www.susannahnesmith.com/clips/Laeser.pdf.
136 See Smith v. State, 7 So.3d 473, 504 (Fl. 2009); Rodriguez v. State, 39 So. 3d 275, 287 (Fl. 2010).
137 See Connor v. State, 979 So.2d 852, 865 (Fl. 2007).
138 See Madeline Diaz, Attorney Asks Jury To Spare Caraballo, Sun Sentinel, Apr. 17, 2007, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2007-04-17/
news/0704160281_1_victor-caraballo-death-penalty-ana-maria-angel; David Ovalle, Death Sentence For Defendant In Ana Maria
Angel Murder Is Overturned, Sun Sentinel Jun. 27, 2010, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-06-24/news/fl-angel-death-sentencetossed-20100624_1_penalty-phase-death-penalty-death-sentence.
139 State Undecided On Whether To Whether To Charge 5-Year-Old, Lakeland Ledger, Mar. 15, 1986, 8B.
140 Luisa Yanez, Trial’s Prosecutor Demoted Assistant State Attorney For Gesture, Sun Sentinel, Apr. 27, 1990, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1990-04-27/news/9001050125_1_trial-consultant-laeser-defense-team.
