Taking issue with Garner

• Author: David Parker
• Pages: 8-8

Letters From Our Readers

Rogue tenant control

“When Landlords Pay,” Winter 2019-

2020, page 18, makes the statement,

“The law doesn’t say landlords need to

act like cops.”

That is exactly the type of duty this

action seeks to impose on landlords,

except the landlords have no police

powers. There are very strict laws gov-

erning evictions. Some municipalities—

Chicago is one—impose a duty to evict

a tenant engaged in criminal activity

and seek to impose such a duty even in

the absence of any conviction.

Like it or not, we have a presump-

tion of innocence in the USA. Requiring

a landlord to evict tenants—a landlord’s

only real remedy—absent a criminal

conviction simply seeks to shift a

burden from criminal authorities to

landlords.

Not only is this unworkable, but

some municipalities seeking to impose

this duty are less than cooperative when

it comes to having police come to court

to testify that a law has been broken. If

a law has been allegedly broken and the

landlord knows about it, the landlord’s

sole duty should be to report the alle-

gation to the police and provide lawful

cooperation for any follow-up.

Earl Weiss

Skokie, Illinois

Taking issue with Garner

I disagree with the advice given in

Bryan A. Garner’s column, “Point

Taken,” September-October, page 32.

In my view, one should almost never

repeat, quote or summarize her adver-

sary’s argument before refuting it. The

adversary already stated his argument

in his papers.

To me, there is nothing less convinc-

ing than, “The adverse party argues X.

This is wrong.” I would say instead:

“The adverse party’s contention regard-

ing X ignores the fact that” or “ignores

the controlling case that holds” or just

“is logically inconsistent and falls of its

own weight.”

With all deference to Charles Alan

Wright, instead of:

“Louisiana attributes to the

district court ndings that the dis-

trict court never made. On page 1

of its brief, and again on pages 3

and 32, Louisiana contends that

the district court found that Stack

Island had ‘washed away entire-

ly’ or ‘disappeared.’ In fact, the

district court never made any such

nding. The reference cited by

Louisiana is to the portion of the

trial judge’s opinion that stated

Louisiana’s position. The truth of

the matter is that the district court

rejected Louisiana’s position and

made exactly the opposite nding:

‘The court does not accept the

theory of the Louisiana parties.’ ”

Say:

“Louisiana’s contentions to the

contrary notwithstanding, the

district court never found that

Stack Island had ‘washed away

entirely’ or ‘disappeared.’ Rather,

Louisiana’s quotations are from

the portion of the trial judge’s

opinion that summarized Loui-

siana’s position, which the court

then rejected.”

In short, do not tell the judge your

adversary’s points (perhaps better or at

least more succinctly than your adver-

sary did). Make yours.

David Parker

New York City

Journal feedback

I continue to love the content of the

ABA Journal and always nd it useful. I

also think it makes sense to reduce fre-

quency of publication. I don’t care for

the new size, especially the width, which

is very annoying.

Barbara G. Stephenson

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Corrections

An unnalized draft of “Inclusion

Illusion,” Winter 2019-2020, page 9,

inadvertently ran in the print version of

the ABA Journal.

“Blood Ties,” Winter 2019-2020,

page 44, should have made clear that

Parabon NanoLabs did not identify a

lmmaker as a potential suspect in a

rape and murder case. And a process

Parabon NanoLabs used should have

been referred to as genetic genealogy.

Due to an editing error, “Desperately

Seeking Sanctuary,” Winter 2019-2020,

page 52, did not correctly refer to one

of the four parts of Raquel Aldana’s

framework to dene the absence of the

rule of law in Central America as “licit

corruption.”

A caption in “Protection for Pro-

tectors,” September-October, page 64,

should have said that Brittany Bentz

pursued a rape case against an airman.

The Journal regrets the errors.

Letters to the Editor

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ABA JOURNAL | FEBRUARY–MARCH 2020

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