Impromptu Hearing
We've had struggles with the Sheriff for some time now. As I believe I metioned earlier, a lawsuit was recently concluded, in which we are not involved, challenging the conditions of incarceration for mentally ill inmates. It seems like the Sheriff has been punishing us since. One of the first things that he did, following the conclusion of the lawsuit, was to kick us out of the jail.
The county jail is very large --I understand that it holds over 3000 inmates. There was a time when we could go back into the pods to talk to our clients. Now, we have to use the attorney interview booths. The downside is that there is glass between us and our clients. These booths are no different than regular visitiation, other than they are one to a room. I have always been concerned that the CO's can listen to our conversations. You see, both sides of the attorney booths have intercoms, and we suspect that the CO's can listen in on our conversations, if they choose.
Based on this concern, apparently, at least one of the judges in felony court has been having the Sheriff bring over the incarcerated inmates for pre-arraignment conferences. These are conferences in the courtroom, with the two assistant public defenders assigned to the courtroom and our clients. A few deputies are there for security purposes. Apparently, the Sheriff decided that he had had enough and started to refuse to being inmates over. And that led to a hearing on Friday afternoon in one of the judge's court. It was all very interesting -- I missed the boss testifying, but I did see one of our senior, major felony attorneys testify. In addition, we have a PhD psychologist on staff, who is also a lawyer, and I got to see him testify.
I only wish that I had a better understanding of the posture. In any event, the hearing is going to be continued until this coming Friday.
The county jail is very large --I understand that it holds over 3000 inmates. There was a time when we could go back into the pods to talk to our clients. Now, we have to use the attorney interview booths. The downside is that there is glass between us and our clients. These booths are no different than regular visitiation, other than they are one to a room. I have always been concerned that the CO's can listen to our conversations. You see, both sides of the attorney booths have intercoms, and we suspect that the CO's can listen in on our conversations, if they choose.
Based on this concern, apparently, at least one of the judges in felony court has been having the Sheriff bring over the incarcerated inmates for pre-arraignment conferences. These are conferences in the courtroom, with the two assistant public defenders assigned to the courtroom and our clients. A few deputies are there for security purposes. Apparently, the Sheriff decided that he had had enough and started to refuse to being inmates over. And that led to a hearing on Friday afternoon in one of the judge's court. It was all very interesting -- I missed the boss testifying, but I did see one of our senior, major felony attorneys testify. In addition, we have a PhD psychologist on staff, who is also a lawyer, and I got to see him testify.
I only wish that I had a better understanding of the posture. In any event, the hearing is going to be continued until this coming Friday.
posted by swd at 2:26 PM
1 Comments:
We had a similar issue with our jail. You see, they spent all this money building a new jail, forgetting to consult people like attorneys. The end result being there were *no* rooms in which we could speak with our clients! After a few hearings, the jail decided to build suitable interview rooms, rather than transporting our clients to our office all the time for interviews.
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