FRAUD ON-and in-THE COURT (eBook)

Chapter 1
My Troubled Teen Years

The law. Within the realm of human experience, little else possesses as many facets as the law. The law can secure a citizenry’s freedom or fortify a dictator’s oppression. It can catalyze human ingenuity or stifle a person’s ambition. It can provide a sense of security that legislation will remedy a societal issue, or cultivate hopelessness among citizens who await their country’s collapse. The law can buttress morality or foster depravity. It can impose the religious beliefs of a powerful majority, or crush the political beliefs of a beleaguered minority.

On a personal level, the law possesses the ability to simultaneously terrify, comfort, and entertain. An innocent man standing trial for a high-profile murder is terrified. Upon hearing “guilty” in the courtroom, the faulty verdict comforts the victim’s family members, who erroneously believe that justice has been served. And the media entertains the general public by debating the evidence that may not satisfy the legal burden of reasonable doubt. All of the above spring from the same source—the law.

The law defines people. Does one value and respect the law? Or is the law something that one usually skirts, and only supports hypocritically, when it aligns with a personal interest? My observations in Colorado, where I live, suggest that most drivers routinely exceed the speed limit. I believe this behavior subtly erodes our country’s values, as we convince ourselves that the law need only be followed when we agree with it.

I’m a cyclist, and I’ll admit to cruising through stop signs when it’s safe to do so. While my illegal cycling doesn’t affect other motorists or pedestrians, I occasionally draw a disapproving glare from a driver who thinks I’m a corrupt lawbreaker. As they speed away, I think, and you similarly respect the law by holding to the speed limit?

I’m an advocate for traffic laws that reflect drivers’ typical habits. Perhaps speed limits are rarely enforced because the speeders create a dynamic traffic flow that facilitates its movement. Imagine the difficulty of changing lanes on a congested road if every vehicle traveled at the same speed. The variable velocity of cars facilitates traffic flow, but the commonplace lawbreaking reinforces the philosophy that it’s acceptable to break the law if we disagree with it.

This kind of routine lawbreaking reminds me of a metaphor I first heard from a federal judge who was lecturing law students on ethics. As the metaphor goes, a person has two choices in cooking a frog. One can toss a frog into a pot of boiling water, but it will instinctively react to the heat and jump out to cheat death. Alternatively, one can place a frog in a pot of warm water and slowly turn up the heat. The frog experiences no initial discomfort, and as the heat is gradually increased, it becomes lethargic and fails to detect the deadly change in temperature. The judge used this metaphor to caution the students to heed their everyday conduct as attorneys, lest one day they find themselves imperceptibly changed from honest to unethical people.

Like the frog that fails to detect the gradual changes that ultimately destroy it, we are slowly becoming—or have already become—a society that accepts disrespect for the law, and I suggest that some of this starts with our driving habits. I see it in myself as I rationalize the legitimacy of my illegal conduct as both a cyclist and motorist. To remedy the problem, new traffic laws are needed that transform a vast amount of illegal conduct into legal conduct, accommodate the complexities of traffic flow, and are easily understood by motorists.

Perhaps, at the time of issuing or renewing a driver’s license, the state charges $5 to allow a driver or cyclist to break traffic laws within reason—for example, to drive 10 miles over the speed limit, but not drive under the influence. In essence, it’s a license to substitute personal judgment over rigid traffic laws while preventing the disparagement of the law. The $5 fee is optional to gauge society’s respect for the law, as a person who values $5 more than the law has little regard for the latter. People who refuse the $5 fee can expect a $250 fine for any traffic offense. Sometimes education comes at a cost.

The law permeates people’s lives every day, and the happy person minimizes their interaction with it. My first direct contact with the law occurred as a teenager, and it was an unwelcome experience. I was a conservative soul in high school but felt the temptation to mess around and have some fun, like many teens. But if one makes a habit of playing with matches, an attorney might soon be called upon to extinguish a fire.

I attended Littleton High School, which was one of the larger high schools in the Denver metropolitan area in the early 1980s. I had a great group of guy friends in high school, and we have largely stayed in touch into our 50s. We represented the nerd chapter of LHS, the ones who went from advanced placement class to advanced placement class our senior year. Nonetheless, through some act of God we had girlfriends in our senior year, though most of them attended different schools. The local girls knew better. My girlfriend Wendy went to Estes Park High School, Mark’s girlfriend went to Brush High School, and Chris’s girlfriend went to Columbine High School.

Having a long-distance girlfriend typically created a void in my life on Friday and Saturday nights. Attempting to fill a need for weekend entertainment, my friends and I developed what we called a “7-Eleven,” after the convenience store known for its Slurpee. I have no idea how we came upon this idea of a 7-Eleven, but it went something like this.

One of my buddies runs into a 7-Eleven in the quiet suburb of Littleton, with a little dirt on his face and a black winter hat on his head, giving the impression that the local posse is in hot pursuit. Looking nervously over his shoulder, he hands the clerk a $20 bill and asks for two tens. After receiving the bills, he darts out of the store.

About 15 minutes later, my remaining friends and I drive into the store’s parking lot, jump out of the car, and sprint inside with a score to settle. In a rush, I leave the driver’s door ajar and the engine running. Inside, we question the clerk: “Hey, have you seen a guy about six feet tall, wearing a black hat? He stole $20 from us.”

Every clerk that we targeted for our weekend entertainment jumped into the developing fracas. While $20 isn’t much money, our theatrics provided far more excitement than the humdrum request, “Pack of Camels.”

The clerk replies, “He was in here 15 minutes ago and shaking like a leaf!”

The climax of the theatrical production comes when the clerk spots my buddy sneaking up to the car with its engine running and exclaims, “Hey, there he is now! He’s stealing your car!” Yes, we had a reason to leave the engine running and the driver’s door open.

As my buddy jumps into the car and peels out of the parking lot, we burst from the store and run after him. A block or so later, out of view of the clerk, we catch up to our friend, parked and waiting for us. We’d share cheery laughter and high-fives. Good innocent fun, staging the crime of auto theft. What could possibly go wrong?

The 7-Eleven show traveled well. While visiting crosstown friends on a fall Friday night, I explained the idea and they were game for a little fun. With my experience, I took the role of the auto thief and all was going according to plan as I jumped into my car to “steal” it. Unfortunately for me, there are Good Samaritans in society, and I happened to cross paths with one on that particular night. As a guy saw me pulling out of the parking space, he strategically positioned his car behind mine and I was boxed in. Panicking because I didn’t want to go to jail for the theft of my own car, I backed into his car. Not too smart.

The conversation with my parents the next day was interesting. “Mom, Dad, I need a couple hundred bucks… to fix some guy’s car I banged up while doing a 7-Eleven.”

“What?”

So ended my days of 7-Elevens.

But that didn’t deter my friends. Home from college for Christmas break years later, my buddies decided it was time for a 7-Eleven for old times’ sake. Not too enthused with the idea, I agreed to go along but limited my participation to that of a bystander outside the 7-Eleven. I would play neither pursuer nor thief.

Things varied a bit from our past productions, as some friends in our company didn’t know how to execute a 7-Eleven. Three of them elected to remain in the car. That was of no concern to my friend Stu, who always relished the role of car thief. As he had done many times before, he leapt into the car, which on this particular evening was my mother’s Cadillac, at the appropriate moment as the thief. Laying down a little rubber as he sped out of the 7-Eleven parking lot, Stu was a spectacularly convincing thief. Indeed, it didn’t take but a second for a patrol car parked a few hundred feet away to flash its lights and begin pursuit.

The chase didn’t last long. As I walked up to the scene a moment later, I saw my friends in the car with their hands in the air. Well, this was...