When I read that the “victims” of the tiger attack at the San Francisco zoo had hired Mark Geragos it struck me as odd. After all Geragos is best known for defending scumbags. Why would people who had been mauled need a defense attorney anyway? Could it be that they weren’t the virtuous as Geragos and their defenders have claimed that they were?

Everyone, even those that are guilty, deserves the best defense possible; but what has always bothered me about Geragos is the reality distortion that he brings to his cases. The most recent example, though by no means the only one, is his handling of double-baby killer Holly Ashcraft. Holly maintained that the baby she tossed in the trash was already dead–therefore it was not technically murder. Geragos wasn’t satisfied just defending her on the murder charges. He had to tell everything that “she did nothing wrong.” Even if she is telling the truth, her behavior would hardly be considered doing “nothing wrong.” His handling of the cases of Michael Jackson, Gary Condit and Scott Peterson were all equally nauseating.

Now for the tiger attack. Anyone who has ever been to a zoo knows that the animals just sit around. Especially the big cats that generally sleep over 20 hours a day. It is hard to fathom a big cat that is well fed deciding to jump over a 12 foot barrier to go after humans at random. But that is exactly Geragos’s contention. Here is what he said on January 3rd (Los Angeles Times):

Geragos has denied contentions that the three victims fired objects at the tiger with slingshots. He said such rumors were being spread by zoo representatives as part of a “campaign of disinformation and misinformation.”

Geragos insisted that the tiger attack was unprovoked. The three men had “bought food at the cafe, gone to see the tigers, and Carlos and Paul were talking,” Geragos said. “The next thing you know, the tiger is mauling Paul.

Now it is becoming clear why the tiger victims were quick to hire Geragos. According to court documents (Los Angeles Times):

One of the three victims of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted standing atop a railing of the big-cat enclosure and yelling and waving at the animal that would later maul them, killing his friend.

Toxicology results for Dhaliwal showed that his blood-alcohol level was 0.16% after the attack — twice the legal threshold for drunk driving — while his 24-year-old brother Kulbir Dhaliwal’s blood-alcohol level was 0.04% and Sousa’s was 0.02%, according to Inspector Valerie Matthews, who prepared the affidavit.

All three also had marijuana in their systems, Matthews said. Kulbir Dhaliwal told police that the three had smoked pot and that each had “a couple shots of vodka” before leaving San Jose for the zoo Dec. 25, the affidavit said.

Three dumbasses get drunk and while high start taunting the maneaters at the zoo. Not surprisingly one of the big cats is thinking “Hey I can take these guys” and does something about it. I think this is called survival of the fittest.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 10:38 pm by Insider and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.