Sucks

The client that I've written about in the last few posts entered a plea today. We had a pretrial, and I had hoped to talk her down, but the Judge ended up following the prosecutor's recommendation.

My client was involved in three armed robberies which happened over the course of two days. In addition, his brother, who was a co-defendant, ended up getting shot by the police. You'd think that these were bad guys, but they weren't. All three of the co-defendants were still in high school, and the two brothers of my clients were doing very well. My client is a soft-spoken, sweet kid, who I don't think really understood the gravity of his situation until this morning. He always knew in the abstract, but today it all became real.

The Judge sentenced him to serve 15 years in prison. At the age of 18. It is an entirely fair sentence for three armed robberies committed in less than 48 hours. But it seems like such a waste. Here, there is no parole, there is no good-time credit, there is no early release for armed robbery.

He will be 33 when he walks out the doors of the prison, finally a free man. He will have lost the entire decade of his twenties. He had plans to go to college following high school, which now will not come to fruition. He will not know living in the dorm, all of the tangled social webs that are woven in freshman and sophmore year. He will not know football games, he will not play in the school's marching band, which was his dream.

A few instances of extremely poor judgment have led to him missing the heart of his youth.

Update

I'm in, but now I'm a little pissed. Before the calendar call, the D.A. was interested in what the client had to say about a co-defendant. But now, since that co-defendant is set up for a plea, the D.A. isn't interested anymore.

The delay in resolving this issue, at this stage of the proceedings, has cost my client the opportunity to lower his sentence. Which doesn't mean much in the abstract, but does when you realize we're talking about years in prison. And I do mean "years."

I met with his mother last night, and everyone seems pretty well resolved about what is going to happen, which is good. Still, I feel bad for her.

Waiting

The first week of the trial calendar is nearly half over, and I've got a problem.

I represent one guy that's charged with a series of offenses, and he's one of three co-defendants. The conflict defender is already handling one, and the second co-defendant is being represented by another attorney in our office. Looks like there might be problems with the joint representation and we have made motion to appoint outside counsel.

Here's the problem: Brian Nichols. Well, indirectly, anyway. I don't think that there is any money left to pay appointed attorneys. Anywhere. Our budget is pathetically small, and the Brian Nichols case has exhausted the state offers, as has been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere. So, we've tried to handle our conflicts inhouse when we can, but sometimes you just can't. And I think that's the position that I'm in now.

And I'm now stuck in this sort of limbo -- if I'm going to represent my guy, there are certain things that I need to do right now, but everything is sort of on hold and it's getting to be just a little frustrating.

I'm left in a quandary.

Testing

Does this thing still work?

I've been awfully, awfully busy lately. As you might imagine. I second-chaired a child molestation case, which we won. That was incredibly sad -- our client was 13 when the alleged incident occurred. I have all kinds of respect for people that represent juveniles charged as adults.

I got through my first trial calendar in big people's court just fine. I'm on the cusp of another, which will start Monday. I think I have all 15 of my cases worked out, though. We shall see. There are one or two which have potential.

And I have my first case set tomorrow with real exposure set for pre-trial. There is a motion pending that will make a huge difference in the case. We shall see what tomorrow brings.