I don’t mind arrogance, I really don’t.  If someone has the goods to spread their peacock wings and strut, I can celebrate that with the best of them.  I do it myself from time to time in my own way.  If I know I’m right about something or championing a cause I can and will strut out loud in living color.

What I don’t have patience for though is arrogance without the goods to back it up.  That will trip my Scorpion tail to rise like most any other thing.

And I ran in to it yesterday on twitter.  Now let’s get something straight, I rarely participate on twitter.  I do have over a thousand posts but they are kind of OCD looking. Meaning I don’t do anything then when there is something I need to engage twitter to express myself in, like this Jodi Arias retrial, I will bite the bullet and go there.  I don’t really get it, it’s not my natural vibe, I don’t want to get it but if it’s the only place to be I will suck it up and do my best.  My best is often bulleting the twittersphere with my point then disengaging.  Now I’m not saying this is the correct way to go about it.  In fact it’s likely something social media advisors would, well, advise against.  I don’t really care.  I’m not there to be social, I’m there to make points generally.  Just keepin it real.

I ran in to something that ignited that tail rising yesterday or the day before.  It has to do with the death penalty appeals process in Arizona which I am, unfortunately, far too intimately acquainted with.  My sister’s killers have been appealing now for 24 years.  One got off death row in a ridiculous mental retardation claim which cost taxpayers at least 10 million to hear it.  I don’t want to go in to all of that but will say what I’ve said before.

The worst treatment my family ever received in the entire legal process around my sister’s homicide and two death penalty trials was from appeals lawyers and their representatives.  Including the Judge who presided over those proceedings.

Back to now.  I ran in to an uninformed tweeter who claimed that another tweeter, a lawyer, had educated her that Jodi Arias will receive only one paid appeal if sentenced to death and the rest will be on her own dime. This was in response to a video I saw where Arias’ parents are soliciting money for “legal defense”.  Of course I know, totally, that they don’t need to come up with any funds for Arias’ legal defense. That will all be, and has been, covered by the AZ taxpayers even though, like the men who killed Cindy, Arias never contributed a dime to AZ tax coffers.  Ok maybe a couple of dimes when she claimed to have worked as a waitress for about 5 seconds.

This tweeter then pointed me to the “lawyer” who she found credible on this topic, so I began addressing him.

His name is Brent J. Kleinman and he apparently has a law practice in AZ focusing, what it seems like, primarily estate planning law.  I don’t see anything on his website about criminal law, much less death penalty law.  He does however boast “entertainment law” there which may explain why he’s been hanging around this high profile Arias trial like so many others seeking the spotlight.  He also boasts a video on his site where he is…wow…on the Channel 12 news talking about the trial!  I wonder how many times a day he watches himself there.

I’m only being snarky about Brent because he’s continuing to tweet entirely misinformed bullshit details about the Death Penalty appeals process and seems to claim some credibility because he did go to law school and pass the bar.  He also claims to have volunteered time for the Justice Project AZ but then anyone can say anything.  If that’s true, he’s also been misinformed there, is not paying attention or intentionally propagandizing in support of killers.

@katiecoolady i have not walked through one as you have. I worked with the Justice Project AZ that donates legal services to help DP inmates

Among other tidbits of wrong information, he claims that Jodi would get only one paid appeal by the State if sentenced to death and in reality it is the STATE who incurs most of the costs in death penalty appeals.

Pardon me, I just choked there for a second.

Let’s get this straight.  He claims the State sentences these killers to death, then proceeds to waste millions of taxpayer money  fighting to overturn their own sentence.  Or somehow their responses to these decades of claims against the trial/case/police/judge etc. are the things that cost the most.

oh yes he did

Cindy’s killers are from Germany.  Her appeals lawyers flew to Germany on at least one occasion to research their “mental retardation” while flying witnesses over from Germany to testify.  That’s just some of many expenses they burdened AZ taxpayers with for seven years once the Supreme Court decided a decade after these sociopaths were sentenced to death that we can’t execute the mentally retarded and they all overnight became mentally retarded.  See here.

Yet Brent Kleinman, is with a straight face, tweeting that it’s the STATE’S fault these death penalty appeals processes are so costly.

I don’t like anything that blames the victim.

Appeals lawyers make their entire living pouring over trials seeking loopholes for which these murderers to leap through.  One I know personally (and believe it or not am friends with) charges the State $350 an hour to do just that.  And she’s good at it.  And one of MANY who do this kind of tedious research.

And yet Brent Kleinman wants the twittersphere to believe that somehow all of these destitute death row murderers are paying for all of this on their own.  Or they are having other raise funds for them to cover these millions of dollar invoices.  Like Jodi Arias parents are claiming to do.

He pulled his tail between his legs this morning and retreated with this:

@katiecoolady I understand the personal nature of this discussion for you. DP appeals can’t be properly discussed in 140 characters or less.

Let me provide the subtitles for you:

It’s clear I’ve gotten over my head in this discussion so I’m going to bow out and go work on someone’s Will right now.

But he’s made his mark and I’m gonna keep letting him display this bold caricature of ignorance if he keeps trying to pull the wool over uneducated AZ taxpayer’s eyes.

He can’t have it both ways.  Trying to promote himself by tweeting and going on TV talking about the guilt of Jodi Arias then be one of the people who claims she and those like her have been mistreated via the death penalty therefore deserve a new trial (at taxpayer expense) or worse yet, parole or even more horrifying, release from prison.

They are out there disguised as all kinds of things–journalists with agendas helping defense teams, estate planning/ entertainment lawyers, your next door neighbor.

I’m not saying no appeals should be allowed. This thing has just gotten so bloated and out of control that it’s its own monster now.  Fueled by well meaning souls who manage to justify torturing grieving families in the name of “justice” for murderers or really in the same of some kind of other internal savior agenda driving them or in the name of having no conscience just like the killers themselves.  Yes I’ve seen a few of those too.

One of the attorneys who championed for Rudi Apelt to be removed from death row, turned and offered an apology to me directly in open court before I gave my impact statement.  Way too late and way too manipulative. Right before the Judge made her final decision he chose that moment to express this display of fauxpology.  He had spent 7 years dragging my family through this ringer over and over yet wants to smoothe it over with a public apology in front of the judge?  Poser.  I looked straight ahead then went up on that stand and kicked his ass.  And she ruled against him.  For once.  I was later told by the AG that it was my Victim Impact statement, published here, that influenced that decision in their opinion.

That’s what this process creates out of us.  And you have several choices–one is to ignore it completely but then they will show up on your front door without notice.

I rarely think about the Apelts.  I get notices from the AG’s office (my victim advocate) and toss them without opening.  I’ve told her/him (it’s been many over the years) to call me if there’s something I need to know.  Otherwise I don’t let this intrude in to my life/home/consciousness.

But this Arias trial has stirred things up.  I’m bonded with Travis and his family now and I won’t be silent.  Until I am again.

Then I will hop back in to my own trajectory of the life I’m living untainted by these constant attempts at tainting.

And I’m talking to you too Brent Kleinman.  Think of that next time to try to help a death row inmate get off the row or worse yet back in to society. Think of that next time you spew your misinformation in to the twittersphere for others to believe.  It could be the mother of a child who was murdered and dumped you are tossing salt in to her open wound.  Someone a lot less strong than me.  In the meantime it’s me you’ve got to deal with.  And I will stop exposing you, when I stop.

Arrogance with the truth?  Go for it. Arrogance from the ignorant?  You will be called out.

Without awareness there is no choice.  Be careful who’s word you are gonna believe.