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Review of Kidnapped by a Client

Review of Kidnapped by a client: The Incredible True Story of an Attorney’s Fight for Justice by Sharon R. Muse
Rating ****

Sharon R. Muse

You know how when you have a conversation with someone, and later as you reflect on what was said, you often think of all the things you should have said but didn’t? There is a lot of that in this book. That’s not a criticism. It’s an observation.

In telling her story, the author dissected her case in minute detail. In the process, she uncovered numerous things that she should have or would have done differently. The same is true with her encounters with the police, investigators, and the prosecutor. They should have done a better job collecting evidence; they should have taken photographs; they should have documented the crime scene better.

The author is also a lawyer. In recounting her kidnapping and sexual assault, she sometimes had the presence of mind to do things on her own to aid in any future criminal proceeding. Such as making sure the police took down the contact information of witnesses and having a drug test to counter statements made by her attacker.

If there is a lesson to learn from the author’s story, it is that no one is going to care more about your case than you. While it would be nice to think that everyone you encounter in the criminal justice system is professional and attentive to every detail, the truth is that more often than not, you are just one more victim in a sea of victims. Police make mistakes. Investigators overlook important clues. Prosecutors don’t always ask the right questions. It doesn’t always go down as it does on Law and Order.

The author tells of one instance where a clerical error could have resulted in her attacker being freed from prison ten years early. It is only through her persistence in following up with authorities that she was able to prevent the mistake.

My one criticism deals with the way the author decided to handle depositions and trial transcripts. Her choice was to reprint them exactly as they appeared. It would have been better to treat them as part of the narrative: The prosector turned toward the jurors; he fidgeted in his seat before answering, the judge asked the witness to speak louder, etc. It would have required more work, but the result would have made for more interesting reading (and listening). I listened to a good portion of the book. It was more than a little annoying when the narrator reverted to using Q and A when reading transcripts.

This book gives a realistic look at a criminal case from the crime, through the investigation, to the subsequent plea deals, trials, and appeals.

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All about slavery and the fight for equal rights

One of this site’s goals is to bring attention to books, films, and documentaries that you might have overlooked. There is a lot of great content out there. Sometimes I like to group things based on subject matter, as I did in my recent post about abstract art. This post will point you to hours worth of top-notch storytelling involving slavery, civil rights, and the equal rights movement. There is a bit of overlap, but you won’t go wrong with any of these suggestions.

First up is the six-episode docuseries Lincoln: Divided We Stand. So you think Lincoln was one of the best Presidents in history? The man who put an end to slavery? Not so fast. This docuseries tells the real story of a President who had many flaws, including racism, and whose moral compass shifted over time. Lincoln’s first stab at freeing the slaves was to suggest that they leave the country and go to Central America. The one person whose character, intelligence, and sense of decency rose above all others was Frederick Douglass. Imagine what our country would have looked like had he been elected President. Catch this one on CNN demand.

13th (Review of 13th) – The story behind the thirteenth amendment to the constitution and a history lesson on slavery in the United States. One thing you will learn as you go through this list of docuseries is that ending slavery was no easy task. We fought a war over it where 800,000 Americans lost their lives. Politicians, business leaders, and even the Supreme Court all sided with continuing slavery. Once it was taken away from them, those who profited from slavery did everything they could to continue the practice by whatever means necessary. Catch it on Netflix.

Amend: The Fight For America – Realizing that the 13th amendment didn’t go far enough, the 14th amendment was enacted with the goal of giving equal rights to all Americans. Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, due process, it’s all covered in this two-hour Netflix documentary.

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My pick for the 2021 best documentary Oscar

Thanks to on-demand video and streaming, I’ve been able to see all five of the Oscar-nominated feature documentaries. I’m a fan of documentaries, but had these films not been nominated, I might not have sought them out. The one documentary that I felt should have been nominated but wasn’t was the film A Thousand Cuts, about a journalist’s efforts to expose Duterte’s human rights violations.

Here are the five nominated films:

Collective – A story about corruption and dysfunction with the healthcare system in Romania. After a nightclub fire kills 27 and injures hundreds more, preventable deaths of some of the survivors expose numerous problems with Romania’s healthcare system. Politics, graft, corruption, and outright fraud are exposed by a team of journalists. The real power of the story takes hold when a new health minister is appointed and he is forced to grapple with a broken system that has been in place for decades. This film had English language subtitles. I watched this on-demand from my cable provider.

The Mole Agent – When the daughter of a nursing home resident believes that items are being stolen from her mother, she enlists the help of a firm to expose potential elder abuse. That firm hires an eighty-year-old man to live in the nursing home for three months to see what he can uncover. What he finds is a nursing home that has some forty women residents and just four male residents. The eighty-year-old spy soon finds himself having to fend off amorous old ladies. The film is a humorous and also sad look at life in a nursing home. This film also has English subtitles. I caught this one on Amazon Prime.

Time – This film looks at the impact of a long prison sentence on one particular family. My feeling after watching this documentary was that it was a story that involved a long string of very bad decisions. The first bad decision was getting married at a young age. It goes downhill from there. One bad decision leads to the next: starting a family at a young age, starting a business destined to fail, deciding that the solution to all of their problems was to rob a bank, bad legal advice that led to one parent not accepting a plea deal that would have had him serve less than twelve years instead of the sixty-year sentence he received, agreeing to pay another lawyer $15,000 that resulted in that lawyer writing a letter saying that there was nothing he could do. There’s a lot going on here: the depressing life of being incarcerated, the impact on the wife and children forced to move on without a husband and father, sentencing disparities. If there is a message to take from this documentary, it is to not repeat the same mistakes. Another film covering a similar topic is the film Forty Years a Prisoner.

Crip Camp – A summer camp in the seventies for kids with disabilities. Former campers look back on their time bonding with staff and fellow campers. Catch this one on Netflix.

My Octopus Teacher – A diver forms a relationship with an octopus. Now here is a film that I can guarantee you I would not have sought out unless I was totally desperate for something to watch. Instead, I discovered a film that changed my view of other living beings. This film is so unusual that it commands your attention. It is beautifully filmed, emotionally narrated, and has a great soundtrack. Who knew that an octopus could be so intelligent? This documentary is available on Netflix.

My pick for best documentary (so far I’m about 0 for 10) is My Octopus Teacher.

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Review of The Last Season

Review of The Last Season by Eric Blehm rating *****

Two years ago, my wife and I took a vacation to California to complete the Majestic Mountain Loop: Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite. I knew nothing about Kings Canyon at the time but found it to have some of the most stunning sights. I took the two images that grace the home page of this site during our visit to Kings Canyon. So, a story about a backcountry ranger who went missing in Kings Canyon piqued my interest.

You know from the outset that this story revolves around the mystery of what happened to Randy Morgenson, the missing ranger. The author lays out four plausible scenarios: suicide, accident, murder, or an intentional disappearance.

Randy grew up in the Sierra Nevadas. So, his ranger position seemed like a good fit. The isolation of his job, however, came with some big negatives. He spent months away from his wife, who eventually filed for divorce. That unfortunate development spurred on the suicide theory. Adding to his troubles was low pay that was barely enough to justify the time spent away.

Randy was a writer and amateur photographer. Part of his job was to document his day-to-day activities in a logbook. The author uses those journal entries and interviews with Randy’s wife, friends, and fellow rangers to paint a clear picture of Randy.

As the story unfolds, none of the scenarios seem any more plausible than the others. It’s a mystery that the author keeps going to the final pages.

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Review of Murder Among the Mormons

Review of Murder Among the Mormons
Rating *****

Murder Among The Mormons is a story about greed, deception, and self-preservation. It all starts when a man named Mark Hofmann announces the discovery of a historical document that calls into question the beginnings of the Morman church. The document, later known as the salamander letter, goes through a rigorous analysis by church historians and is determined to be authentic. It’s the beginning of a long string of discoveries of rare documents by Mark Hofmann.

Mark’s uncanny ability to find rare and valuable documents raises suspicions, but the worn and tattered letters and papers he brings forward all pass inspection by numerous experts. As you might inspect, there are plenty of buyers for such material, and Mark starts a thriving rare documents business.

Things start to unravel for Mark when the police charge him for the deaths of two individuals with whom Mark had done business. The storyline is remarkably similar to the one covered in the rare art documentaries in my previous post on abstract art.

This three-part docuseries covers the story from all angles: the victims, the experts, the people who knew and trusted Mark and finally Mark himself through audio from interviews done shortly after his conviction. The audio interviews provide a rare look inside the mind of a psychopath.

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All about abstract art

A little over a year ago I purchased a 27-inch digital picture frame by Meural. I love the versatility of this frame. I take a lot of pictures. The Meural allows me to create playlists of my images. But that’s not all I use it for. I also use to display images from other sources, such as the Hubble space telescope and from other photographers. Additionally, I use it to display artwork. It’s like having an art museum in my home. Here’s a sample of some of the artists and artwork I have viewed over the past year: Van Gogh, Picasso, Leonardo Da Vinci, Monet, Rembrandt, Jackson Pollock, and many more. Additionally, every week Mueral, through a yearly subscription, sends me artwork and playlists from various artists around the world as well as museum curated picks. There’s more you can do with this frame, but that’s not what this post is about. I want to talk about abstract art.

The best way to describe abstract art is that it’s all in the eye of the beholder. It’s subjective. I’m no art expert. I couldn’t paint a telephone pole standing in an open field. But I’m pretty sure that I could create a painting that looks a lot like a Jackson Pollock. Give me a large canvas and a couple buckets of paint, and I could create a masterpiece.

This brings me to the real reason for this post, my recommendation for three excellent documentaries that deal with the subject of abstract art.

First up is the Netflix documentary Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art. This excellent documentary tells the story of how an art studio, its owner, and one particular art dealer, managed to sell nearly 80 million dollars of fake art to unsuspecting art enthusiasts. It turns into a massive white-collar crime where no one is really held accountable. Watching it unravel is worth your time.

The next documentary to add to your list is Who The &%$# is Jackson Pollock. You can find this one on Amazon Prime. This is a story about a painting bought for a few dollars that just might be a real Jackson Pollock painting worth millions.

The last of this three-film abstract art trilogy is the documentary My Kid Could Paint That. You can find this one on Amazon Prime also. This film tells the story of how a four-year-old girl, with a little assistance from her father, created paintings that would eventually sell for thousands of dollars. Is she an art prodigy? Or is she just a young child slapping paint on a canvas? Is she creating the work on her own, or is her father the real artist? This film was released in 2007. The little girl in the film, Marla Olmstead, is all grown up. She’s still painting. You can view her paintings at www.marlaolmstead.com.

Take the time to watch these three documentaries. Maybe you’ll have a whole new appreciation of abstract art.