Like a Lawyer, He Registers an Objection

If Howard Rosenberg bothered to read my extensive writings on criminal law that go back a quarter of a century, he would understand what I mean when I say, “I never believe what the prosecutor or the police say, I never believe what the media say and I never believe what my client says.” (“Confessions of a Habitual Movies-on-Cable Watcher,” Calendar, June 30). I have made the statement for years in the context of arguing that a lawyer should do an independent examination of the facts and not rely on what anyone, including his client, tells him. Any lawyer who disregards that rule does so at his client’s peril, and I do believe that very few lawyers disregard that rule.

ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law

Harvard Law School

Cambridge, Mass.

British director Michael Winner said it first: Why do the L.A. police spend their time capturing Hugh Grant and Divine Marie Brown when there are so many more serious crimes being committed? Here is your answer.

I live a block and a half from the location of Mr. Grant’s arrest. I offer this explanation: Prostitution is an ongoing serious concern of the residents of my Hollywood Foothills neighborhood. My neighbors and I must run the gantlet of women plying their trade on a daily basis and clean their used condoms from our gutters and lawns. I believe that prostitution should be legalized; perhaps then it would be removed from my doorstep. I don’t want anyone selling anything 30 feet from my living room.

Furthermore, this invasion of privacy is the least of the dangers brought by a person sitting in his car, whether he is engaged in a harmless activity or not. The officer who arrested Mr. Grant was protecting residents from potential burglary, carjacking, rape and worse. True, sitting in a car is innocuous. However, when I arrive home from work late at night, I must be particularly aware of the people around me to avert possible harm. Knowing that someone is patrolling my street, watching out for me, is comforting, and I’m grateful that these officers do their jobs so well. SUZAN LOWITZ

Los Angeles

I don’t understand Hugh Grant.

I came to that conclusion as I watched him on “The Tonight Show,” answering a question about his recent misfortune. “I’ve done a bad thing,” he said, and “I need to suffer.”

Hmmmm. Not quite cynical enough an answer for me. Had he grown up here, he would have known the litany: It didn’t happen. I’ve never met her. I was entrapped. My parents abused me. It was someone else who looks like me. I’m not physically capable of doing that. I was drunk. I was crazy.

How naive of him to take responsibility. He’s wealthy. He could have bought a much higher-quality defense than “Guilty.” Certainly, others have.

Perhaps he wasn’t raised properly. He isn’t yet familiar with the myriad options available to him outside of public culpability.

This is not so much a jab at America’s legal system as it is a jab at moral cowardice. We are so used to hearing “not guilty because,” “not guilty with an explanation . . . “ “not guilty by reason of . . . “ that to hear someone stand in front of the media’s unflinching eyes and say “I did it” sounds odd. We’re not used to it.

As for now, it is too late for Mr. Grant to plead innocent. He has gone on national TV and confessed.

What the hell was he thinking?

PETER LEFEVRE

Torrance