Atlantic contributor Caitlin Flanagan remarked on Twitter regarding this Emory University professor of economics: "These are the post-arrest statements that haunt defense attorneys' nightmares."
Here’s that Professor of Economics who was arrested at Emory university and everyone seems to think is some poor victim of police repression. Caroline Fohlin ADMITS she hit a police officer on the head. Even professors are not allowed to assault cops. Yes, even professors. pic.twitter.com/YK5TrZokPD
— Heidi Bachram 🎗️ (@HeidiBachram) April 27, 2024
There are two well-known legal admonitions that freshly apprehended, amateur wrongdoers nevertheless seem to vacate from mind the very instant those cuffs are clinked: 1) Talk to no one but your attorney, and 2) above all, don't talk to the media.
Outside of law professors, are academics the one professional group 1) to be most aware of the two admonitions and yet 2) also most likely to offend against both? Answer: the But-I-only-hit-a-cop-on-the-head-very-slightly economics professor provided at least a bit more preponderant evidence pointing to yes.
Though I've the credentials to have belonged to her group, I never joined, was never interested in joining. I did the academic "work" just for the fun of it: I love being the student, not the educator.
However I was once arrested on a felony charge! (and I hate exclamation points). The nonviolent-crime warrant called for $25,000 bail, but the far bigger joke came the day after my arrest. I was watching the evening news and up popped a report on a local man charged with second-degree murder — murder, mind you. His bail: $5,000 less.
Anyway, your host, desperate criminal that I was, got pinched around four o'clock in the morning. By pinched I mean I answered a knock on the door, whereupon I stood groggy-face-to-perfectly-wide-awake-face with a deputy sheriff; yes, I'm your man, I said, you got me, I added, for what I had no idea, nor did Barney.
The criminal charge, by the way, was bogus; the warrant issued by a feckless, pip-squeak county prosecutor who suffered from a serious case of short-man syndrome, hence the preposterous, tough-on-crime over-the-rainbow $25,000 bail.
(He retired anon and his successor, realizing what a blunder his office had committed, dropped the charge. But that first little prick still cost me an unrecoverable $2,500 bond.)
Finally, the point to this story. No I was never a university professor though I had the credentials so I was kind of part of the econ prof's group and ... while being arrested and hauled off to the clink I jabbered like a magpie. No paparazzi, for sure, but had there been I would have thwarted admonition #2 as well.
So, per Caitlin Flanagan, if a defense attorney had been needed, my reams of post-arrest statements would have haunted his nightmares. And I would have made the economics professor look like a seasoned wrongdoer.
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