I weep for our language (part 4)…

Well, either for our language or for our system of jurisprudence …

(Source)

In her opening statement last month, prosecutor Ama Dwimoh asked jurors to reject any attempt to demonize the girl, describing her as a defenseless, innocent child who weighed only 36 pounds at her death.

“He wasn’t no daddy,” Dwimoh said of Rodriguez. “Daddies don’t blame their child for their actions. Murderers do.”

Don’t you need a basic command of English to be a prosecutor in the country’s largest municipal DA office?

Comments

  1. I’d weep for the latter….she’s just trying to be relatable for the jury.

  2. Disconcerting? Sure. I’d rather see proper English. But just as those simple ol’ aw-shucks country lawyers find success by dumbing things down to simple ol’ aw-shucks country juries, it’s probably the case that double-negative spewing urban prosecutors do well by adopting the language of their juries as well.

  3. Two votes for the system of jurisprudence then.

  4. Man, I feel like an idiot. Here I am, a young lawyer in Georgia trying to be a prosecutor and I no one ever told me the key was to dumb everything down. Although i think the phrase “dumbing it down” implies that the speaker is more intelligent than their grammar would indicate. Having dealt with the Georgia Attorney General’s office, and the sheer stupidity and lack of knowledge much of its employees possess, I wonder whether the key to being a prosecutor is to be ignorant as far as logic and attention to detail are concerned.

  5. Nah. The key is to simply be yourself. If you’re an everyman and try to come off like Oliver Wendell Holmes, you’ll fall flat. If you’re a minor genius and try to pull the folksy stuff, they’ll see right through it. Be yourself, know your case, and everything else is cream cheese.

  6. I agree with Keith that it’s painful to see the language mangled.

    But the prosecutor was not speaking to children, they were speaking to adults. The battle to save their language skills was lost long ago.

    Want to save the language? Get rid of the massive defense spending in this country and work harder at pre-school education. But that is a pipe dream.

  7. Who cares? Every major language is broken into dialects. Do Florentines weep when they hear a Sicilian speak?

  8. I’m not sure that’s a dialect. It’s either fashion or a lack of education.

  9. And of course we should care as language is communication. The easier it is to communicate the easier it is to understand each of our wishes and problems.

  10. I weep for anyone who is more concerned about language than a child’s life. Let me guess, your pro-life!

  11. If anyone can make heads or tails of that last comment, let us know.

  12. I can’t, but at least he managed to prove he has no concern for the language himself. Seriously, your and you’re. Is it really that hard to remember which is which?

  13. FWIW, rightly or wrongly (and I may be wrong), I believe lawyers have essentially become entertainers who pander to their “market” – the jury. You don’t have to be “right”, or “tell the truth” – you have to convince 12 people to agree with you. If those 12 people talk that way, then you are presenting an argument to them that they more quickly understand. Yes, its a very sad development, and yes, it sounds horrible to think that someone qualified to be a prosecutor could talk that way, but if the case is won, the job has been done. See Rusty Hardin and his “aw, shucks”, “down-home” crap when he needs to use it. When he’s got a jury that is educated, he’ll go legalese. At the end of the day, for better or worse, he’s doing his job, which is not to find either “truth” or “justice” – its to win a particular case…

    I am not a fan of this development, but I understand its practical application. And, not knowing the prosecutor involved, I would hope that it is essentially “courtroom theatrics”. If its not, I agree that it is horribly sad, and yet another indictment of our educational system…

  14. Brian - Laveen, AZ

    Well, it appears that she “wasn’t no honor student” in her college and graduate school career…just be glad she is not your lawyer!

  15. Brian - Laveen, AZ

    I am still waiting for Pagan to guess Keith’s Pro-Life…I wonder what the guess will be?