About John Bradley

I’d like to preface this entry by acknowledging that I’m not a veteran, so anything I say about the experiences of veterans and the difficulties they have had adjusting to civilian life is second-hand information at best. Consequently, I might be full of shit. I don’t know from personal experience what combat veterans have been through—only from listening and observation. So if anyone wants to correct me on any particular, or on my whole theory in general, I invite them to do so. But I think I’ve seen enough incidents of this type to have a relevant opinion.

I ran across a news article a couple days ago on veterans—particularly those who suffer from PTSD—who end up committing (or rather, being convicted of) serious crimes once they return to civilian life. It caught my attention for a couple of reasons. The first is that one of the featured cases in this story, that of Christopher Lee Boyd, comes from the jurisdiction right next door to Bedford, VA, where I worked as a public defender. In fact, Boyd was arrested in Campbell County just a couple weeks before I started working in Bedford. But the second reason it caught my eye is because I’ve seen these same sorts of stories in my work.

I’m certainly not trying to paint the armed forces as a breeding ground for felons. Veterans, and combat veterans in particular, make an agreement to do what is necessary, no matter how horrifying or costly that necessary thing might be, so that we as a country can enjoy the freedoms we do. They are truly heroes, and for that we all owe them a debt. We owe them much better than our current, systemic failure to address the horrors they experience on our behalf.

The article discusses how many veterans return with PTSD, and develop substance abuse problems, and implies that life for many veterans begins to spin out of control, whence they find themselves in trouble with the law. But what I’ve seen leads me to believe that there’s another aspect on top of that—a specific aspect of PTSD that is in part because of their experience, but is also a part of the training they all undergo to prepare them for combat. Combat veterans have to learn a different set of responses to crises.

For most of us, if someone picks a fight, or if an argument were to come to blows (all of which can carry criminal penalties of their own), we can rest reasonably assured that things won’t get wholly out of control. Usually there are police around (or at least on call), and witnesses nearby, and generally a lot of social pressure not to let things “go too far”.

Certainly, this doesn’t work all the time. Parties and bar fights do get out of hand, and people do get seriously injured. But as someone who’s spent years as a bouncer on both coasts and a number of places in between, most of the time, better judgment (either yours or someone else’s) will stop things before serious or permanent injury is done. Despite the fact that throwing a punch is a criminal offense everywhere that I know of, most fights—even when witnessed by dozens of people—never result in any sort of legal action, because no one gets really injured and no one wants the cops involved.

Veterans, and combat veterans in particular, have had to unlearn that social training. When someone is in a combat zone, by definition the societal and governmental structure that would prevent violence from escalating to deadly levels in that part of the world is long gone. Waiting for someone who’s pointing a gun at you, or setting an IED by the side of the road, to stop and consider the possible criminal penalties of their actions can mean that you become a casualty before you ever get the chance to be a veteran. Hesitation in war will get you killed, and so will underestimating a threat.

But when that veteran returns to society, the same government that taught him (or her) not to hesitate to use force when necessary, now requires him (or her) to assume that force is not necessary. They must act as though a fistfight cannot escalate—even though each of them knows, in a way that most of us never will, that any form of violence can turn deadly without warning; that even a peaceful day can be fatal. And it’s a transition that society expects them to make not only without guidance, but generally without acknowledgment.

Of the veterans I’ve known, none of them have told me any stories about sitting down with their C.O., or even a squad leader, and being told, “You’ve spent the last x years overcoming your societal impulse to shy away from injuring or killing other people (when necessary). Go forth and never do that again. Unless it’s really necessary. But the people who will judge whether or not it was necessary, after the fact, will never understand what you know.”

The stories I have heard from veterans charged with or convicted of violent felonies do tend to have a common theme. I grant this is anecdotal evidence, and not a formal study, so again, I could be completely wrong. But that being said, most of the violent felonies I see civilians charged with stem from poverty and powerlessness, and involve taking either someone else’s property (robbery or burglary), or their control over their own actions or body (abduction or rape). While it’s not unheard of for a veteran to be charged with such offenses, what I most commonly see when veterans are charged with violent offenses are situations where the veteran is not the initial aggressor.

I hear these stories time and again. A veteran tried to walk away from a bar fight, but was followed. Three civilians picked a fight with a veteran. The child of a veteran’s friend was molested by someone who avoided conviction. In these cases, and many others, the veteran didn’t go looking for a fight. Maybe they didn’t “try hard enough” to avoid trouble, but they didn’t set out to start it. But when trouble found them, they chose to end it.

Exactly as they were trained to do.

The problem, all too often, is that their response is deemed too extreme for the day-to-day world of civilian life. Part of civilian life—and law—is that we pretty much have the right to be assholes any time and place we choose, and we still don’t get beaten for it (even if most people would agree we probably deserved it). And even if a line is crossed, we’re expected to trust civilian authorities to deal with it.

All the things that will get you killed in a war zone.

We require veterans to make that transition, and the truth is, we must require it from them. We cannot afford to have a special class of people who are permitted to react with deadly force to situations the rest of us do not believe justify it. Without that transition, the society these veterans fought to protect falls apart.

But at the very least, we owe it to these men and women to provide better resources to help them make that transition than we currently offer. They deserve both mental health counseling, to help them adjust to their new reality, and career counseling to help them find a place in that new reality. Many of these people have seen hell with their own eyes—we owe them whatever help they need adjusting back to life in New Jersey.

EDIT: I have received several responses to this post, both publicly and in private.  They have included links to writings, as well as a video, created by combat veterans about their own experiences.  I think they paint a good picture of the sorts of things I’m talking about, and I wanted to share them here.

First, two blog entries from a friend who is still in the military, but has rotated out of combat to a posting here in the states:

5 Ways A Deployment Inadvertently Turns You Into An Asshole

and

5 Things They Don’t Tell You About Being In the U.S. Military

Secondly (or thirdly, I suppose), a video created by a combat veteran based on his experience adjusting to life as a student:

“Now, After” (PTSD From A Soldier’s POV) (WARNING: Contains graphic images, and scenes that will likely be triggering to anyone with combat-related PTSD, and possibly those without)

Perhaps these will help people to understand—they did for me.

Greetings, soon-to-be-faithful readers.  I know I promised an update a while back, but business duties got in the way.  I have been working on some ideas , and will be making more regular updates from here on out.

But I’m breaking the silence with this post, because I have to respond to what’s been going on all over the social-media-verse in the last couple of days.  Specifically, the reactions to the verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman.

For anyone who’s been living under a rock for the last 18 months, George Zimmerman is the Florida man who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012.  This Saturday (7/13/13), a Florida jury acquitted him on charges of Second-Degree Murder (which included the possibility of finding him guilty of the lesser charge of Manslaughter) (see Fla. Stat. § 782.04(2) and §782.07(1) (2013)), and of using a firearm in the commission of a crime (Fla. Stat. § 775.087(1)(a) (2013) (which provides for a sentencing enhancement on the underlying charge if convicted, though it must be proved separately).  The trial has been televised and picked apart nightly, and I haven’t watched any of it.  I didn’t watch O.J.’s trial either.  I didn’t watch them because what I think about them doesn’t matter.  The only opinions that matter are those of the jury and the judge, and the only people allowed to influence them are the prosecutor and the defense attorney.  Since neither of the above cases were mine, I enthusiastically avoided the whole mess.

But now it’s over.  The verdict is in.  And while I feel a sense of accomplishment at avoiding the trial and all the commentary it’s generated, the wonders of social media have brought the verdict, and its tidal wave of backlash, crashing to my doorstep.  And I find myself possessed of an opinion or two.

There are two themes I’ve seen come up most often: 1) People saying, “They found Zimmerman ‘innocent,'”; and 2) People saying it’s a victory for racism.

First, the jury did not find him “innocent.” That’s not an option available to a jury. They found him “not guilty”. That may seem like semantics, but it’s a distinction that lies at the heart of our system. Specifically, that means they decided that 1) based on the evidence they were presented at trial (and not a year-and-a-half of op-ed pieces in the Washington Post), 2) the prosecutors failed to meet their burden, 3) of *proof beyond a reasonable doubt*, 4) that Zimmerman committed murder or manslaughter–a question which in this case (where the fact of the killing is undisputed) turned on proving Zimmerman’s state of mind.

To say someone was “found innocent” suggests that the jury weighed the evidence and decided that person didn’t do anything wrong–but that’s not the way it works.  The jury doesn’t pass judgment on someone’s life, or decide if they’re a good or bad person.  They decide one thing–whether the prosecution has proved that the defendant committed every element defining the crime.

The Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Bedford, Virginia has a plaque on the wall about the things that make a good prosecutor.  The one I always found myself staring at while I was waiting to talk to one of the prosecutors said, simply, “Remember, moral outrage is not a substitute for proof.”

The classic symbol for justice is a scale, and suggests both sides are equal.  But in a criminal prosecution, a better symbol would be a hurdle, and the prosecution has to clear every one.  If they catch their toe even once, they fail.  Period.  That’s the definition of “innocent until proven guilty,” and also, “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”  Zimmerman didn’t have to prove a goddamn thing.  And the jury found that the prosecution didn’t clear the hurdles, plain and simple.  “Innocent” is just the default state of someone who’s not convicted. I grant that, even today, racism, politics, and simple ignorance can make it easier to clear those hurdles in some cases—the system’s not perfect.  But it’s important to understand how it works before declaring where it’s broken.

Second,  it’s really disturbing to see people declaiming what horrible racists the six women of the jury are. These are six women who, I guarantee, wanted nothing to do with the case, had no desire to spend the past two weeks of their lives listening to this same horror hashed and re-hashed from every angle, and had no interest in being told to pass judgement on George Zimmerman, much less on Trayvon Martin.

In case we all forgot, jury duty is an obligation. It is not voluntary. You don’t get asked if you want to be there—you get told to show up, under penalty of law. No one in their right mind wants to do jury duty—the pay sucks, getting to the courthouse is a pain, parking stinks, you miss work/school/literally anything else you need or want to be doing, and when you go in one morning, you don’t know if you’ll be home by lunch, or—like the present case—have a new career for the next two weeks (Note: according to this, in Florida, your employer might be required to pay your normal wages during jury duty—otherwise, it’s $15 a day for the first three days, and $30 a day after that)

These six women were tasked with a shit job, and it’s clear that they took their duty seriously. They listened to two weeks of testimony—and if you ever have insomnia, try listening to actual court testimony sometime.  There’s a reason even the exciting, scripted testimony on shows like Law & Order only gets shown in 30-second clips.  These women listened to two weeks of it. Then they listened to lawyers try to be impressive at each other for another day.  Then they received instructions on existing Florida law—including the much-discussed stand-your-ground statute (Fla. Stat § 776.012(1) (2013)).  They were not asked their opinion on the law.  They were not given the option of deciding the law was bad.  They were instructed to decide whether the law was violated in this case.  Deciding anything else would have been a violation of the oath each juror takes before the trial ever begins.

If race were the deciding factor in this case, they would never have come back for further deliberation on Saturday morning.  They’d have spent an hour to make it look good, and been home in time for a movie Friday night.

I’m not saying they got it right. I’m not saying they got it wrong. I wasn’t there that night, and I wasn’t a juror for that trial.  But I am saying that just because there’s a dead person—even, as appears in this case, a completely innocent young man who was legitimately just minding his own business—that does not, in and of itself, make it a murder or even a manslaughter. Whether or not a crime occurred is NOT determined by the outrageousness of the outcome. It is determined by whether or not the defendant committed every element of the crime—including having the necessary state of mind.

It’s whether the prosecution cleared all the hurdles.

In the end, what’s most disturbing to me is what all of these comments sound like. People who were not the jurors chosen at trial have decided that they know better than the actual jurors what the outcome should have been.  And all they’re talking about is race.

In case you’re missing my point, that’s how lynch mobs happen.  Just because you’re pissed off on behalf of a teenage black man, instead of at one, doesn’t make your attitude any less distasteful.  No lynch mob ever said, “let’s go string up an innocent man.”  They just knew what they felt was right, and what they felt was wrong, and knew what all their neighbors knew about “those people”.  And they weren’t going to trust the justice system to get it right.  Just because you’re not a three-toothed hillbilly burning a cross in your grandma’s bedsheet doesn’t mean you’re being any better than they were.  You’re just pissed off from the other side.

At the beginning of all this, Trayvon’s parents said, “We simply wanted an arrest. We wanted nothing more, nothing less. We just wanted an arrest, and we got it.” (See previous citation.) George Zimmerman was arrested, tried, and judged.  That’s all anybody gets.  You don’t get to create the “right” outcome.  All you get, if there’s enough evidence to bring a case, is that it gets to be judged.

Zimmerman shouldn’t be anybody’s hero. It’s very clear, now, that he made a terrible mistake. But not all mistakes are crimes—not even, sometimes, the ones that result in a dead child.

Consider this: There was a time when it would have been impossible for a man of Hispanic heritage to get a fair trial in Florida, claiming that he believed he was defending himself against a sympathetic victim—especially in a case that received a lot of media scrutiny.    Maybe people are seeing the racism they want to see.

Imagine, you walk into a giant room–vaulted ceilings, oil paintings depicting centuries of pompousness staring dismissively down at you, and hardwood walls that have been polished until the silverware lining the tables gazes up at them with envy. And the tables! Tables stretching the length of the Hall, with dinner settings so perfectly spaced you’d swear they were laid out with chalklines. Everyone’s wearing a scholar’s robe and, if there’s an American in your group, in ten seconds they’ll declare dreamily, “It looks just like Harry Potter!” After dinner, a distinguished gentleman in a silk robe stands up and asks you how you would go about prosecuting Batman. (1)

Not pictured: Dumbledore

As I mentioned on the “About the Attorney” page, I took advantage of some study abroad opportunities while I was in law school. One of the coolest (in my ever-so-dorky opinion) things that we learned about (but didn’t actually get to do), were dinners at the Inns of Court in London.

Some background–there are presently four Inns of Court: Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, and the Inner Temple and Middle Temple Inns. In order to become a barrister in Britain–basically what we in the U.S. would call a trial lawyer, except that’s all they do–you have to be accepted at one of the Inns of Court, complete a course of study, and attend a number of dinners there. The format for dinners can vary widely. Sometimes there are guest speakers, or readings from legal publications of particular interest. Sometimes the students are assigned positions to debate on the fly, or quizzed by members of the bar on logic puzzles and pertinent legal issues.

It’s like drunken 3:00 AM conversations at Denny’s (there is a drink service beforehand), except instead of Denny’s, you’re in a dining hall that’s been hosting meals since Renaissance Festivals were called “Tuesday” (also, there’s no manager whinging about how you’ve taken up his best tables for three hours). And instead of all your weird friends, you’re talking with some of the most brilliant legal minds in the country–and if that doesn’t appeal to you, then you have no idea how twisted the minds of most lawyers are. Granted, you might not get to argue about which superpower would be coolest, but debating the free speech implications of strip clubs after half a bottle of wine is pretty entertaining too.

Granted, I’ve never actually been to a dinner at one of the Inns of Court (so, yes, I’m making up the Batman hypo–it would still make an excellent discussion). I’ve been in one of the Halls, but only while all the faculty and students were on winter holiday. (2) Nevertheless, I maintain that it’s an amazing idea.

So, this is my Inn of Court–Bradley’s Inn. There’s more than a little truth to the idea that almost every lawyer would eventually like to buy a bar and retire–because who doesn’t want to make money for drinking with their friends? But I’m still half-a-million dollars away from owning even a shitty bar. So instead, this is where I’ll sit around and talk about whatever legal stuff I decide entertains me (or gives me a suitable soapbox to rant from). I’ll probably stay sober, too–but I make no promises.

(1).  OK, probably not Batman, because you’re in the UK.  Possibly the dude from V for Vendetta?

(2).  I did dine once or twice in the Hall of Hertford College in Oxford–again, while the usual residents were on holiday–and although none of us were wearing robes, every third sentence that night was a reference to Hogwarts.  Since we were all U.S. students doing study abroad work, it took a while to sink in that for every school in England older than the lightbulb (pretty much all of them) this was normal.