A New Phase

So, the prosecutor that I like so much has left. She took a job with the State's Attorney General. That's good for her, obviously, but I don't like it much.

They haven't assigned a second prosecutor to my courtroom yet, so I've been working almost entirely with the junior prosecutor for the past two weeks or so. He's a good guy, but he is straight out of law school and I don't think he has tried a case here yet. He apparently did try quite a few cases in law school, which is good. (I do pay real estate taxes in this county, after all.)

I have heard him say on a couple of occasions, "this one is pretty bad." Perhap I'm jaded, but unless it's a domestic violence case or a DUI, I don't consider a misdemeanor "bad." And he wasn't talking about those. (He actually said that in the context of a criminal trespass -- my client was going to an apartment complex when she shouldn't have been. How can that possiblybe "bad"? I mean, my god, our office just tried a case where the client shot up his own mother's house. Relatively speaking, a trespass at an apartment complex ain't bad.)

In addition, I'm afraid that he is a little inflexible. I've got a domestic violence case where my guy is willing to plead to a simple battery, but doesn't want to plead to a family violence battery because he will lose his right to carry. (He is in a rap group and, unfortunately, all of his compatriots are felons. They go to places where they feel the need to carry to protect themselves.) But, because there is a history between my client and the complaining witness, he isn't willing to bend that far. He ended the conversation with, "you and I haven't tried one yet, anyway." I am so over trying misdemeanors.

This prosecutor is a good guy, but it's going to take awhile before he finds himself, prosecutorally. That's what I am inpatient about.