La Peine Forte et Dure

A Long, Long Year

2009-12-21T23:13:00.004-05:00

So, this year is drawing to a close. I have tried:

Two Murders
An Aggravated Sexual Battery
An Aggravated Sodomy
A Rape/Aggravated Assault
An Armed Robbery
A Burglary
and ... something else.

I tried and retried a murder with my boss as second chair. I've closed somewhere near 325 cases. I have been tired most of the year and feeling worn very thin.

Last week, I learned that the County CEO is asking us to eliminate 13 positions, in a 50 lawyer office.

Nonetheless, I'm feeling a little upbeat. I'm moving to a new courtroom after the first of the year and it sounds like it will suit my workstyle a little more. I'll be partnered with a great lawyer, from whom I know that I can learn a lot, and I'll be working with at least one prosecutor that I already know, from previous courtroom assignments. All in all, the change is going to be good.

Assuming that I am still employed.

Too Busy

2009-08-09T22:52:00.003-04:00

I've tried four cases so far this year of my own, and sat second chair on the trial and retrial of another. Tomorrow, I'll probably pick a jury on a complicated, challenging child molestation. My opinion is that we will be fighting a long, uphill battle, yet the client wants to charge forward.

There is simply too much work, now. We need more lawyers, because I cannot prepare these cases to the same extent that I was able to just last summer. Almost everyone I've spoken to feels overwhelmed and there is no end in sight. I don't think that any of us can prepare cases to the level where we are satisifed or the level for which our office is famous. The current situation is a professional disappointment and raises the question: why am I doing this?

This seemingly never-ending wave of cases needs to break.

Frustration

2009-06-04T11:29:00.003-04:00

The delivery of mental health services has largley transferred to the criminal justice system: for instance, the L.A. County jail has the largest mental health hospital in the world. As a result, people are arrested for petty crime, such as criminal trespass or disorderly conduct, and sitting in jail for a periods of time. The question becomes: do we try to get them out of jail quickly and limp through a plea; or, do we have them sit in jail for six months while we are trying to get them to a hospital. The decision becomes easier in felony court, because of the delay between arrest and indictment.

I represented a man, now in his mid-'30's, who has profound schizophrenia. As I recall, we requested that the State doctor assess him and she found him competent to stand trial. Subsequently, we entered a plea and he was placed on probation, with a requirement that he continue with mental health treatment. He was arrested for disorderly conduct, which triggered a felony probation violation. After a 90-day revocation, he was released on June 1.

I saw him yesterday on the Square and it was evident that he had not been on his medication for some time. He was unwashed and unkempt. His thought was obviously disturbed and it appeared that he was relating episodes of auditory hallucinations. I believe that he was suffering from visual hallucinations. All of this, 72 hours after his release.

We miserably fail at providing for this population of our community and it is endelessly despressing.

Long time, no post

2008-06-17T22:58:00.002-04:00

I've got a jury deliberating on a rape case, just now. They went out on Monday at 1:45 and by 3:30 they sent out a note saying that they were deadlocked. They twice sent out notes that they were "deadlocked," today. In the last, they even said that they were "hopelessly deadlocked."

The thing is, the split is 9/3, and I think it might be in my favor.

Belated update

2008-01-28T21:08:00.001-05:00

The jury was out for about 8 hours. They convicted my guy of 3 counts of robbery by intimidation, 4 counts of aggravated assault, hung on the possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and acquitted on the 3 armed robbery counts. The verdict is inconsistent, at the least -- they convicted on the robbery by intimidation, but still found that a gun was involved in the aggravated assault counts. I will not complain too loudly: at least my guy has is afforded the possibility of parole and will accrue good-time credit.

The Judge sentenced my guy to 20 do 15. No history. No one hurt. All property was found at the scene. That seemed awfully steep to me, given the circumstances, and put me in a tail spin for a while. I'll blog more on that later.

I'm getting really, really tired of losing.

Jury's out

2008-01-10T23:34:00.000-05:00

I tried a armed robbery/aggravated assault this week. I think it is a fairly good case, despite what the story sounds like at first blush. Four guys get robbed, allegedly by three other guys, and a cop just happens to roll buy and interrupt it. My guy runs. But everything was very confused in the witness statements and descriptions, the evidence wasn't collected very well, and one guy pled guilty.

The jury went out today at 1:30 and will be coming back in the morning.

On another note, this is my 100th post.

Boggled

2008-01-03T22:48:00.000-05:00

Client: Well, are they going to dismiss the case?

Me: No, no, I don't think so. They want a trial or a plea.

Client: There's no way that they're going to win -- they know that they don't have any evidence. I need to get home.

Me: Well, what concerns me is that the dude is going to say that you pointed a gun in his face and took his stuff. And, if we lose, the Judge is probably going to give you 15 to serve. That's 15 years to the door -- no parole, no good time.

Client: We'll just have to crank it up.

And the Judges always think we're nuts

2007-12-22T18:40:00.001-05:00

An officer in a neighboring jursdiction started a blog and it apparently lies now in neglect, as it seems most blogs do.

What's interesting about this blog is that it is written from the perspective of the cop out on the street. It traces his journey through the academy and his application for a job through his first three months on the street. Along the way, he drops little nuggets like this:

We do a lot of mexican raids. You know the spots where all the illegals hang out in the morning looking for day labor. Well we have a lot of fun harrassing them. The other day we played the cops theme song "Bad Boys" across the PA system as we rolled up in there. It was hilarious.

Just as I always suspected. The emphasis is mine.

On Friday, I represented a man from Mexico, who happened to have a social security card and a permanent resident I.D. in a false name. This fellow is an itinerant agricultural worker. He has come to the U.S. to work the fields and send money back home to his three kids. He is a religious man and was extremely polite. He is not: (1) a terrorist; (2) a gang member; or, (3) a drug addict. He's just a hard-working guy.

I am sure that the stop was exactly as Officer Beck describes in his blog -- my report said that the arresting officer saw some men drinking along a woodline and arrested my guy for public intox (although there was no indication that he was disorderly), criminal trespass, and a county ordinance violation of having an open container. Now that's reaching deep. Upon searching my guy, he found the fake ID cards. My guy entered pleas to two counts of Forgery and is now awaiting deportation. I begged the ADA to come down to misdemeanors, but he would not budge. There was some poetic justice, however: after the plea, the Judge asked why the illegal immigrants were being arrested solely for false identification, when there were no other charges. The ADA got to squirm a little, which was nice.

My guy is still in jail.

Ugh.

2007-12-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

My Residential Mortgage Fraud client is scheduled for sentencing tomorrow. Apparently, the Attorney General's office is going to recommend two years to serve, followed by eight years of probation. (10 do 2, in local parlance.) That seems a bit excessive to me. But then it probably should, given which table I sit at in the courtroom.

I talked to my client today on the jail phone, and after we discussed many things, the last words she said to me, just before hanging up, were, "and thanks for everything you've done." Those aren't words you hear very often as a public defender and it is very rare for them to be heartfelt. But these were and I got just a little bit choked-up.

I also have six probation revocation hearings scheduled for tomorrow morning. There's nothing quite like easing into the holidays.

UPDATE: The Judge and I were on the same page -- 10 do 2, suspended on completing the Detention Center (which is a 90-120 day program), no restitution, first offender status. So, as long as she gets through the Detention Center, which is basically a boot-camp program, then she won't have to do any prison time. That's extremely fair, although I would have preferred straight probation. On the same page, but not in the same paragraph.

Progress and disappointment

2007-12-16T10:06:00.000-05:00

The past six weeks have brought a whole new layer of sophistication to my practice. I have

made widespread use of our investigators, and thank god for them
hired a private psychologist to perform a competency evaluation on a client, concerned not about mental illness but about mental status
hired a polygrapher to examine a client

Having someone else to actually get stuff for you, whether its witness interviews, documents, or whatever, is a such a luxury. I've been a public defender for over five years now, I guess. But, in the past, I've never had access to investigators. I was the one that hunted down witnesses, obatined documents, etc. There really is now way that you can effectively investigate a case when you have 30 cases on a trial calendar each month. Sure, you can get your client to help you, but that is less than effective. Their friends may or may not call you back, and there is no way that I can serve subpoenas in 30 cases. As a result, a lot of one's work becomes processing cases -- getting a dismissal, because the victim doesn't show up, or the best deal that you can. There are always regrets when you try a case, because there is more that could have been done. Having someone on the team, though, who does that work full-time is an immense help. It makes me feel like a lawyer again.

Speaking of, I tried my first felony case here. Before I came Down South from the Rust Belt, I was in a felony defender's office back home. I tried several there, but that was over seven years ago, now. (For those astute readers, I took some time off from defending and worked in the courts -- I moved unexpectedly to the South, and got a job where I didn't need a license right away.) I've second-chaired a couple of felonies since I joined this office, but this was my first without being under someone's wing.

The charge was Residential Mortgage Fraud, and I had a lady that was just trying to buy her first home. The mortgage broker and home owner were charged as well, and were represented by retained counsel. I suspect, though, that I've had the most experience actually in the courtroom. The mortgage broker paid a lot of money, I suspect, on a retainer on a fairly new attorney. We are all inexperienced at some point, so I am not faulting the lawyer. But, the situation spoke volumes about the "real lawyer"/"public pretender" myth. Of course, I'm not claiming to be Barry Scheck or F. Lee Bailey or Johnny Cochran.

I didn't believe that the jury could find my client guilty of what the State charged her with. We picked a jury on Monday, and slogged through all week and closed on Thursday morning. Of the two dozen trials I've had, this was one of my better closing arguments, so I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I began to get worried, though, when the jury went home Thursday night without a verdict. On Friday afternooon, after 10 hours of deliberations, they jury let us know that they disagreed with my take on the facts. My lady was taken into custody immediately, of course. She's facing a mandatory 1 to 10, although the 1 can be probated or suspended. Sentencing is Tuesday.

Losing really sucks.

No Comment

2007-12-01T11:02:00.000-05:00

The truth is much, much stranger than fiction.

Sucks

2007-10-30T22:07:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-24T07:51:00.001-04:00

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

2007-10-17T23:40:00.001-04:00

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

2007-10-11T22:28:00.000-04:00

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.

Caesura

2007-08-11T18:09:00.000-04:00

My daughter was born this past Tuesday. Everyone is healthy and good.

However, I am on paternity leave for the next week and a half and won't have much of chance to write anything here. Do not despair, oh faithful readers.

(*crickets*)

I'm returning to work somewhere right around the 21st, I think, and will be confronting a trial calendar when I do. Woohoo!

Another promotion

2007-07-30T20:20:00.000-04:00

Today, I found out that I am being reassigned to felonies, which are prosecuted in the uperior Court, here. I defended felonies before I came to the South, six years ago. I've almost forgotten what it's like, now.

I've been pretty well unsettled for the past month and a half, first going to the supervisor's position a week early, while I still had trials set. Then getting used to the role of supervisor. I had planned on covering for a friend who will be going on maternity leave next month, so I was beginning to get my mind wrapped around that.

And now I am where I wanted to be when I first started. I think I just need to let the dust settle some. It's going to be a great position -- the Judge, I hear, is on senior status and has a reduced caseload. So, while a lot of my colleagues have 150+ open felony files, I'll have less than 100. Not a bad way to get reaquainted.

Bomb threat update

2007-07-26T17:21:00.000-04:00

Well, I came to work today to be greeted by a very visible police presence. There were deputies in the parking lot, turning non-employees away. Which was nice, because there aren't ever any parking spots, because of the probationers. There were police officers inside of the building, just hanging out and observing. And I understand that there were undercover FBI officers present.

Of course, nothing happened. I did happen to bump into one of the fellows in charge of terrorism preparedness on the local police force this morning. He pretty much affirmed what I was thinking, pointing out that the threat wasn't specific.

I was kinda hoping we'd get a new building out of the deal. Alas.

Empty threats

2007-07-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

Our office is located in a building across the street from the courthouse, which is nice, in many ways. It reduces the appearance that we're "working for the State" and keeps us a little bit out of the loop, in a good way. We're in a big county, the second most populous in the State, I'm guessing. And we're located in a relatively major urban area, so its a good thing to lie low on the radar.

Pre-trial services is on the same floor as us. They monitor folk who are on bond, but need a little more supervision than the average criminal defendant. They get a fair amount of foot traffic. Oddly, the county's family law clinic is also on the same hall.

Last week, an employee of either the family law clinic or pretrial services discovered a legal pad which had a relatively long, rambling letter written on it. A warning, of sorts. I read a copy of the letter myself, and the writer stated that he was ready to die, and would be carrying out a suicide operation in which "hundreds of thousands of white people" would be killed. The date of this supposed operation is tomorrow, July 26. The person signed the letter with an Arabic name.

I call bullshit.

Title change

2007-07-17T21:44:00.000-04:00

In my haste to begin blogging, I couldn't think of a good title for this space, so I went with the obvious. I'm a public defender, I'm writing about day-to-day work, hence, "A Public Defender's Journal." However, this title was always provisional, until I could think of something better. I've finally found something that I think fits. Granted, it is going to change where I stand in the listings at Public Defender Stuff, but sacrifices must be made.

As I blogged about last November, I have become interested in the things that lie under our daily practice. I have become intensely interested in the Common Law as we inherited it from England. Granted, this project is moving very slowly. And I mean very slowly.

Nonetheless, I was reading about Henry Bracton, a systematizer of the Common Law in the thirteenth century, and a forerunner of the more famous Blackstone, in my old copy of Bryce Lyon's Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England, when I ran across an old Common Law procedure designed to encourage the accused to embrace trial by jury.

It is also known as crushing. If the accused elected to stand mute, then he would undergo La Peine Forte et Dure. According to Lyon, the accused

were loaded with heavy chains and placed on the ground in the worst part of the prison; they were fed a little water one day and a little bread the next. We also learn that more iron or stones were put upon the individual to make his imprisonment more painful and to persuade him to accept trial by jury. Under such hideous conditions many men chose to die rather than to take their chances by trial with jury.

You see, if the defendant lost at trial, his entire estate would escheat to the King. Because his family would be left without any means of support, the accused often opted to be crushed to death.

Thus are the origins of our most hallowed institution in the criminal justice system, the trial by jury. Needless to say, the next time I hear a client demand that I "crank up the jury," I will be chuckling silently at the irony.

Promotion update

2007-07-16T08:08:00.000-04:00

Things with the new position are going swimmingly. Mostly, I backup inmate arraignments and arraignments, and triage mental health clients. And, of course, I am a sounding board for the division attorneys on motion and trial tactics.

I've had this position for three (?!) weeks now. The first week, however, I was finishing up my division assignments, including trials, which made for a very busy week. But, since then, I'm settling into a groove.

Oddly, I had a stress dream this morning. I dreamt that I was in bed and sleeping, and I had to get to the office to prepare jury charges for the trial that I had today! I remember thinking to myself, "well, its awfully late -- I guess I'll wing it!"

Things not to wear to court

2007-07-11T21:20:00.000-04:00

Walking passed security and out of the front door the courthouse yesterday, I saw a lady walking in with a t-shirt that caught my eye. It was black, very tight, and across the chest said, "I WOULD NEVER FUCK YOU." I had to take a second glance, because the "NEVER" was in much smaller print than the rest. My first thought was, "why the hell would you wear that to the courthouse?" Then I heard a deputy say, "she can't wear that" and my second thought was, "First Amendment issues?!"

I kept walking.

Trial update

2007-06-27T19:52:00.001-04:00

My boss re-tried the murder case last week. The child who died was horribly abused in his short life. He had multiple broken ribs and over 30 healing bruises on his body. One of the bruises was in the shape of a little hand. The big question, of course, was who did all of this to the child.

Our client was not the biological father, but the mother's boyfriend. He never disciplined any of her three children. And, the two-year old had been with his grandparents for the two weeks prior to this death. They dropped him off around 4:30 or 4:45, and he was dead by 5:30. The mother arrived home around 5:20, perhaps a little before, and the call to 911 was placed at 5:26. The poor little guy died because someone had hit him so hard that his heart was compressed between his chest and his spine and ended up tearing. That sort of injury is extremely lethal, and could have resulted in death in as little as five minutes. No one saw our client hit the child, and the mother was subsequently charged with abusing the child. The timeline here was absolutely critical.

The case went in much better last week, and the jury ultimately acquitted the client of both charges. He was released last week, and is now free, for the first time in over a year.

Drama! Controversy! Juror Misconduct!

2007-06-13T20:02:00.000-04:00

Our murder trial ended unexpectedly today. More on that in a minute.

Jury selection finished up yesterday morning, and we executed our strikes. Here, peremptory strikes are silent -- a piece of paper is passed back and forth between the parties and they either accept or reject the veniremen. When the clerk called the names of those selected, I had to suppress a giggle when I heard one of the jurors mutter, "shit."

The Chief Assistant gave a good opening, laying the groundwork for closing arguments, without giving too much away. I actually crossed two witnesses, a little nervous because the Chief Assistant is one of the Bosses. And, she's really, really good. We were chatting last week, and she laughingly told me that she has tried 100 murder cases. That's just murder cases.

When I wasn't listening to the evidence yesterday, sharing thoughts on the evidence with the Boss, or fine-tuning the areas I wanted to cover in cross, I was desparately trying to console our client. He cried horribly yesterday after opening statement. He began to cry when the State played a videotape that was taken inside the house where the death occurred. He cried when the State published the hospital photos of the decedent. A person, a cynical person, would say that he was crying because of guilt. I truly believe that he was grieving, two years later, and grieving deeply.

Although we stayed late, we did manage to get through five, unimportant witnessess yesterday afternoon, which was good progress. They were the responding officer, two officers who executed search warrants, the emergeny room nurse, and the EMT who first arrived at the house. The Judge was pleased with where the case stood and was talking about more reasonable hours for the rest of the trial.

After the other jurors left, a lone juror came forward and shared that another juror was expressing her opinions about the case. After being pressed by the Judge, the juror said that she had told them, "he's guilty, he's guilty, I'm telling y'all he's guilty." That's after five witnesses who were largely peripheral to the case.

This morning, the Judge had a hearing and individually asked the jurors if they had heard anyone express opinions about the case. 7 of the 14 said that they had. Oh, but wait! That same blabbermouth-juror also happened to recognize the mother of the decedent this morning, and had a little chat with her in the courthouse hallway. The mother, who is a witness, told the juror that she was there because "my ex-boyfriend killed my son." Did blabbermouth keep this to herself? Of course not! She shared that too! Another 7 of the 14 had heard her say that she knew the witness, with varying degrees of intimacy with the full facts about why the juror knew the witness. So, we had a total of 10 tainted jurors. (Most had heard her on both topics.)

Despite the fact that there is caselaw directly on point in this State, the Judge ruled that merely expressing an opinion about the ultimate issue is not juror misconduct. Hey -- who cares about structural error? However, because the State acquiesced in our motion with regard to the extra-judicial conduct, the Judge granted the motion on that ground. So, we were back in the office by 11:00, trying to figure out how we had landed in space court.

In all seriousness, but for the courage and integrity of one lone juror, we never would have known that one of our jury members was flagrantly violating the Judge's instructions not to (1) talk about the case or (2) form an opinion, until the evidence was concluded. That is scary as hell.

Tired

2007-06-11T23:48:00.000-04:00

I'm "helping" our Chief Trial Assistant out with a murder trial that started just today. We spent all day today on preliminary motions and voir dire. And we didn't even get a jury picked.

Anticipation

2007-05-31T07:07:00.000-04:00

Part of the Big City Next Door actually lies in our county. For whatever reason, it is almost impossible to get the officers from that jurisdiction into our court. Last year, I had a vehicular homicide case that was dismissed for want of prosecution because the investigator never bothered to return phone calls, either from the State or from us.

I have a little prostitution case this morning. She was allegedly soliciting in the City, and the prosecutors offered her pre-trial diversion. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to complete the diversion, and I picked the case up when it was falling apart, of course. Initially, I was a little upset that she didn't just finish what she needed to do. Until I realized where the incident occurred. Now its an entirely different story. These kind of cases are good for my stats.

EDIT: The officer didn't show and the case was dismissed for want of prosecution.

Promotion

2007-05-29T19:21:00.000-04:00

Well, starting in July, I'm going to have a new position in our office. The Big Boss has seen fit to make one of the two supervisors in our misdemeanor court. It will be a nice change of pace -- I will no longer have my own trial caseload, but will be helping out at jail pleas and arraignments. In addition, I will be putting out various fires, most of which will have to do with mental health clients.

I have never really supervised before. I mean, there has been the odd law student intern from time to time, but that's really more mentoring, in my book. Hiring and firing decisions are, thankfully, left to others. So it will be a nice opportunity to develop skills on helping others reach solutions to their problems.

In that vein, I have already told one of my colleagues that I intend to abuse my powers by randomly making him drop and give me twenty. His reply was much less than respectful.

Things I Like

2007-05-22T22:22:00.000-04:00

Writing an appeal brief while listening to Slayer.

Outed

2007-05-01T20:40:00.000-04:00

A very funny thing happened today. A fellow blogger happened to come in contact with one of The Bosses today. The dots were connected, and the blogger explained that he knew one of the attorneys in the office, through this very blog.

This Boss is pretty clever (not that I suspect that she is reading these very words!), and immediately narrowed the field of potential supsects to two. She approached another in the office, and eliminated him. And then, while I was innocently trying to close files in JCATS or lookup something on WestLaw, or do something productive, I am sure, her shadow darkened my door.

I don't know exactly what happened, but I suspect that she used some sort of Jedi mindtrick on me, because the next thing I knew I was admitting that these, in fact, were not the droids that I was looking for. My sins were confessed, my soul laid bare.

Alas. No more complaining about the conditions of employment. No more bitching about management. No more skewereing co-workers. No more fun. I am outed.

...

Actually, and in all honesty, I've got a really, really good gig. And the Big Boss has told me, in another context, "I can't control what my employees do outside of work." God bless him.

The Big 200

2007-04-23T22:05:00.000-04:00

The 200th person was exonerated today as the result of the good work of the people at the Innocence Project and the its affiliates. It is just a little scary that so many people could have wrongly been convicted. Even scarier, I think, is the fact that science is only able to exonerate people or confirm convictions in those cases where DNA is at issue. In most robberies, thefts, and drug crimes, DNA is not in play. Yet people can be wrongly convicted for all the same reasons as they are in the high-profile murders and rapes.

For information, see the pamphlet that the Innocence Project has put together to commemorate this milestone.

How Appealling!

2007-04-11T19:31:00.000-04:00

Back in January, I had a probation revocation hearing that was just a little strange. Back in 2005, my guy was ordered to serve a year in the jail on a DV case, consecutive to another sentence, and then serve 12 months on probation. He ended up getting out in September of 2006. I haven't done the math, but it looks like he may have gotten out early. In other words, the jail ran the two confinement sentences concurrently instead of consecutively.

My guy reported to probation in September of last year, and even in October, but then got picked up on another case. The prosecutor didn't like that at all, and wanted not only to revoke my guy's 12-month probationary sentence, but have him do the rest of the initial 12-month confinement sentence.

Of course, the Judge agreed with the prosecutor.

Because it was a probation matter, kind of, I had to apply for a discretionary appeal with the Court of Appeals, which surprised me by granting leave. And, today, I sent the brief off. The need to file the brief has always been lurking in the background over the past two weeks, and I'm glad that I've finally moved that off of my plate.

Yeah. And please forgive the cutesiness of the title -- I'm waiting for dinner to finish cooking and am not thinking straight.

PPD

2007-03-31T12:51:00.000-04:00

So, a couple of weeks back during jail pleas, I talked to a guy that kept coughing. When he did cough, he would hold a handkerchief up to his mouth. We were sitting fairly closely together at the counsel table in the courtroom. I generally try to talk quietly, so that others can't hear, and, as a result, I was fairly close to the guy. Of course, the coughing set off all sorts of alarms about tuberculosis, but I was so busy working the cases that I forgot to actually ask him if he had TB.

Last week, the jail notified us that the fellow does, in fact, have TB. So, it looks like I'll be making an appointment with my doctor for yet another PPD. I'm probably going to schedule the appointment another month out -- I understand that the incubation period for TB is relatively long, and I'd rather make one trip to the doctor's office than two.

Dire Predictions

2007-03-11T21:51:00.000-04:00

There is a whole lot of concern that the State-wide public defender system is going to implode.

Some of it has to do with the funding problems that I've mentioned earlier. I don't really know the whole story, but the local paper has devoted a lot of space to the various bills in the legislature, as well was the Brian Nichols trial.

I'm not sure what this means for the State-wide system. Luckily, our office is almost entirely funded by our county, so our operations will be unaffected.

Things I Don't Like

2007-02-23T19:21:00.000-05:00

Preparing discovery motions.

Putz-like

2007-02-21T22:10:00.000-05:00

I had jail pleas this morning. There were, probably, 25 or 30 people on the calendar, and I was the only APD in the courtroom this morning. Unfortunately. I think I ended up talking to ten clients or so. A relatively light load for jail pleas, but several of the cases turned out to be failry complicated. To add a twist, I had a visiting judge this morning. My Judge was not there for some reason.

Jail pleas, as they are called here, are weekly exercises in triage. My aim is to get everyone out that I can, normally by bond reduction. However, I usually learn about the person's case after they say they want the help of the P.D. The prosecutor puts the file on my table, and I start reading. Also, I had to kind of pay attention to what this judge, who I did not know, was doing, so I could make some sort of recommendation to the client.

There was an older guy whose was wanting to get out on bond. He had failed to appear for arraignment, but he was in his forties, and I thought that it would be a no-brainer for him to sign his own bond. The problem was that I didn't have my Judge.

The visiting judge was concerned that the guy hadn't shown up for arraignment. I hadn't looked at the file that closely, because

The client was older
Notice of arraignment was sent to the wrong address
The client was a Viet Nam veteran
The client had earned two Purple Hearts while in Viet Nam
The client has cancer and a heart condition, necessitating surgery
The client and the alleged victim have parted ways

However, the visiting judge was concerned that the client had kept the Court apprized of his address. Well, it turns out that the case was initially started as a felony, and the charges were dismissed at preliminary hearing. We're talking here about an incident that ocurred over two years ago. The charges were dismissed, and the client was free to assume that the case was done. However, the misdemeanor prosecutor has ridden in to save the day and accused the client with misdemeanor charges.

We eventually got the signature bond, got an arraignment date, and I moved on to the other three clients that were begging for my attention.

This whole time, there were at least two attorneys sitting, patiently waiting for their cases to be called. They had clients on the walk-in calendar, which should be called at 11:00. However, because jail pleas ran over, their cases weren't called until noon.

After one of them finished his business, he came over before leaving and pointed out that there might be a limitations issue. I know about the freaking statute of limitations. But the thing is, so I was so focussed on getting the guy out on a signature bond, I didn't really take that close a look at the dates. The misdemeanor prosecutor had two years from the date of the incident to file the charging document, called an Accusation here. If the prosecutor missed the opportunity to file, then the prosecution is forever barred.

I ended up feeling like a putz, because I hadn't checked that out. It is pretty rare that we get cases that have languished for so long, and that should always be the first thing to check. But the vibe of the interaction was just a little strange. Like the big-shot retained attorney was sharing some sort of practice secret with the likeably-addled and slow public defender. In short, I was pissed off twice over: once at myself and once at him. Mostly because the guy had been sitting around for over an hour while I was working my ass off.

Anyway, I just checked through the online judicial management system. The incident ocurred in December 2004, the Accusation was filed in October 2006. No limitations problem.

Impromptu Hearing

2007-02-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

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.

A Question

2007-01-30T19:51:00.000-05:00

Why, in the world's largest economy, is there so much crime?

Budget shortfall update

2007-01-19T18:27:00.000-05:00

The director of the statewide public defender network was quoted in the paper as saying that the budget shortfall is actually a product of timing. The new defender network is largely financed on an additional fee for filing civil cases and an application fee for public defender services. The director took the position that the system for collecting the monies has only been in place for nine months, leaving a 3-month shortfall. That amounts to $9.5 million.

Budget shortfall

2007-01-17T18:15:00.000-05:00

Well, it turns out that a certain, high-profile death penalty case has cost the state-wide public defender council way too much money. The fellow has four, full-time lawyers, all appointed at state expense. Granted, the case is complex, as it involved multiple deaths, one of which involved an elected official. And, the incident was covered fairly extensively by the national medai. As a result, there will be a budget shortfall.

Apparently, the state-wide public defender council was told that they can expect to start laying people off, starting in February.

Luckily, almost everyone in my office is a county employee. But it is a shame to see all the forward momentum that the state has experienced in indigent defense over the passt two years potentially stall over monetary matters.

The Conditions of Incarceration

2007-01-10T20:07:00.000-05:00

One of my colleagues was working a case where the client had some mental health issues. So, he hired a psychologist to review the case and interview the client. The psychologist ultimately determined that the client was incompetent to stand trial. The State's psychologist agreed, and the next step was for the client to be transferred to the State psychiatric hospital for treatment and to determine whether he could be restored to competency and ultimately stand trial.

That was in October. Apparently, it took some time for a bed to open up, and my colleague was checking on the client from time to time, to see if we could get him in the hospital.

Apparently, there were some issues, and he was discovered in his cell, yesterday, deceased. The papers aren't saying much about the circumstances surrounding his death.

However, we have heard from the jail that the issues involved rectal bleeding. In fact, he had gone to the regional trauma hospital three weeks ago to treat the condition.

Curiously, his cellmate apparently is a fellow that has returned to the jail from prison because he has a motion for new trial pending. He's currently serving multiple life-sentences. Infer what you will.

Frontline

2007-01-09T22:59:00.000-05:00

A couple nights back, I caught a rerun of an old Frontline investigation on plea bargaining. The journalists picked three examples of the criminal justice system reaching imperfect results. In two cases, men chose to take a deal when they were most likely factually innocent. In the third, a woman refused to take a deal, to her own detriment.

One of the men was charged with homicide of some sort and ended up being pressured into a deal, so he claimed. One of the key factors in his decision was the presiding judge's representations that the defendant would be released on parole after a certain date. Of course, that date has long since passed and the man remains in prison. The story told by the lay people, including the father of the victim, was that the plea was essentially coerced. Subsequently, the father of the victim investigated on his own and came to the conclusion that the defendant may have assaulted his son, but the defendant did not kill his son.

In another, a man on death row took a deal when he was demonstrably innocent. He had twice been tried for murder and rape, twice the death penalty was imposed, twice the verdicts were set aside. At the third (or fourth?) trial, he was offered a time-served deal, which he took because he was essentially worn down. Subsequently, DNA evidence basically exonerated him, although the prosecutors continue to maintain that the defendant was guilty.

In the third, a woman was convicted of murder and robbery, all based on a very questionable identification. In fact, the warden at her prison asked some NYU law professors to look into her case. Years after her conviction, a Federal court granted habeas relief, and the prosecutors put a deal on the table. Her attorneys understood that the climate at the Federal Court of Appeals in that circuit was not favorable, and strongly urged her to take the deal. They understood that the window was rapidly closing and that this opportunity would not present itself again. Nevertheless, she felt that she could not tell a lie. Sure enough, the Federal Court of Appeals reinstated the conviction.

What I thought was most interesting, was this sense that these cases are examples of the system breaking down. There is this sense, which I believe is naive, that if you just tell the truth, everything will be fine. Often, this is the case. But, you don't have to look very far, perhaps as far as Illinois and their situation on death row. Often, the truth will set you free, but not always. And the thing was, this sense of outrage was coming from law professors and criminal defense lawyers.

I tell my clients that a trial is a risky thing. I tell them that the decision to enter a plea is theirs alone. I tell them that every trial comes down to the particular defendant. If the principle is important, then we should try the case. However, if managing risk is what important to them, then we should take the deal.

So I found this Frontline investigation somewhat amusing. True, our system is flawed. True, I hope that none of my friends or loved ones ever gets caught up in the criminal justice system. True, sometimes, my clients get screwed. But, I don't know of any better system and I have to conserve my outrage for the most obvious situations. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to continue doing this.

Final Caseload Update

2006-12-30T11:44:00.000-05:00

Our case management software says that I closed 604 cases this year. That includes a number of things:

Original cases.
Probation violations.
Clients that opted to proceed pro se or to retain counsel.
A small handful of cases that we opened because we are/were required to contact inmates within 72 hours of their arrest.
A few post-judgment matters.

We aren't really following the 72-hour rule anymore. If so, my stats would be more like 850 cases, probably, and I never would have worked the file because we got the person out at inmate arraignment and, at the regularly scheduled arraignment, the person resolved the case pro se. The number is just too great for us to handle, and we aren't really accomplishing anything.

In any event, when the boss distills the numbers, I suspect I'll come out to around 375. I haven't talked to him yet about how he does that, and I hope to next week.

A Brief Vacation and Other Updates

2006-12-19T20:19:00.000-05:00

Mrs. P.D. and I went to Chicago this weekend -- god I love that city. It was good to get away, and I'm feeling as if my batteries are somewhat recharged.

I had my last courtdate of the year today. Inmate arraignments went pretty smoothly today, but I am still trying to find ways to expedite the process. We had a Division meeting last week, and I suggested that the inmates be brought up to the courtroom 30 minutes before court actually starts. That gives the prosecutors and me some time to get things rolling, which hopefully comes off the back end. So, we had 25 or so inmates today, and we were done in about three hours. Not too bad.

I had a small falling out last week with my two prosecutors, but I think we've patched things up. I think most everyone was suffering from crankiness last week. I know that I was.

So, I have appointments and paperwork scheduled for the rest of the week, and then we're heading back home to Michigan for Christmas. I'm hoping that there will be some snow.

Frustrated

2006-12-13T20:31:00.000-05:00

Why can't they understand that these are misdemeanors -- these are not the crimes of the century. When the charge is simple battery and they offer me a plea to disorderly conduct for an 18 year old client, they aren't offering me a deal at all. This is a person that is just starting into adulthood. What possibly justifies branding her a criminal, for the rest of her life, when the same ends can be accomplished by diversion?

So maybe we lose at trial, but at least we've gone down swinging.

A Sad State of Affairs

2006-12-12T21:43:00.000-05:00

In February, I had a client that was examined by a State psychologist, who determined that my client was incompetent to stand trial. That means that (a) he couldn't help me put the case together and (b) he didn't understand the object and nature of the proceedings against him. In other words, he was so disorganized that he didn't know what was going on.

As a result, he was committed to the State psychiatric hospital, in an effort to return him to competency. He has been there this whole time.

Today, we received a letter from the State psychologist saying that they've treated him all that they can, and he simply isn't responding. In addition, the State psychologist specifically found that he wasn't a threat to himself or others, which takes civil commitment off the table. So, they're going to return him to the jail -- even though he is only marginally better than when I saw him back in February. At this point, the State has exhausted its resources, and now he is being thrown back on the criminal justice system.

So, I expect that we will get his case dismissed and he will be released in the next couple of weeks, still disorganized as when I first met him. And, in two weeks or three months, he'll be back, on some other classic mental-health-client offense. Criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, etc.

That's a damn shame.

Arraignments

2006-12-07T19:43:00.000-05:00

A very full day:

Started at 9:00 a.m., ended at 7:00 p.m.
200+ cases on the morning and afternoon calendars combined
34 new files
1 case sent to diversion
2 dismissals
3 or 4 cases set for the motions calendar in January
3 slices of pizza in 10 minutes for lunch
2 tired feet

I have calendar call tomorrow, but, thankfully, there are only 35 or so cases set for tomorrow.

Comments

2006-12-05T18:04:00.000-05:00

I've been spammed twice -- time to turn on word verification.

First Week of Trial Recap

2006-12-04T22:27:00.000-05:00

So I had another five cases set this past Thursday. None of them went, and I did end up getting two dismissals. This Court is working out a lot better -- I may have 20 cases set for trial, but they are spread out over two weeks, as opposed to one day. It makes for a more relaxed pace.

Sadly, I learned this morning that one of my client's passed away on Friday. He was one of the guys that entered a plea on Thursday. It was a domestic case, and he was going to admit that he broke his soon-to-be-former-wife's cell phone. The prosecutor worked with us and we ended up entering a plea just to the cell phone charge. (It's called criminal trespass here, if you can imagine that.) Anyway, he had health problems, and was taking dialysis three times a week. Apparently, he had a heart attack on Friday. This past month has not been the best, on that score.

The Common Law, Part 1

2006-12-03T20:29:00.000-05:00

Justice Holmes' book is a history, really, of the common law and an attempt to analyze the values underpinning it. Even now, written a 125 years ago, the book has great relevancy and is an interesting read.

Justice Holmes examines offenses at the margin in an attempt to expose the values that gave rise to the common law. He then turns to some pretty obscure injuries -- a freeman killed by a horse, or a tree, or even a slave. In his reading, the early forms of the common law required the chattel to be turned over to the family of the dead man, to satisfy the loss. From these examples, he concludes that the common law was initially motivated by vengeance.

That's an interesting word. It's derived from the Latin verb vindicare, meaning "to lay claim to" or "to avenge." So, in Justice Holmes' estimation, the common law was concerned with buying off the blood feud. In other words, the purpose was retribution.

On a side note, Justice Holmes observes that "[t]he customs, beliefs, or needs of a primitive time establish a rule or a formula. In the course of centuries the custom, belief, or necessity disappears, but the rule remains." He then traces the evolution of these causes of action into their present form. For instance, modern law about an employer's liability for his employees actions dates back to the original requirement of the slave owner to turn the slave over to the family.

So, the bottom line for a public defender is that, every day, we are struggling against centuries of tradition.

Random Stuff

2006-11-29T20:41:00.000-05:00

This is the first week of a two-week trial term. Two down today -- neither of which, obviously, actually went to trial. Good outcomes, nonetheless, I believe. Five tomorrow, one with an interesting Confronation Clause issue. The client's stepson calls 911 after the client has left the premises. The prosecutor wants to get the 911 tape in, since I don't think the victim/wife is going to appear.

I think I mentioned a couple of weeks back that one of my colleagues was slapped in court by her client, after the jury found him guilty. You might remember that this was the case where the client shot up his mother's house. Well, the Conflict Defender did take the case for sentencing, and the Judge imposed a term of 111 years. That's right: 111. Effectively, he will never be paroled. That's a whole lot of time for an incident where no blood was ever drawn.

As it turns out, things are going to go quite well in my new division, I think. The senior assistant, my friend, is very reasonable indeed.

I doubt that I will try anything tomorrow -- there is a judge's meeting, so my judge will only be available for part of the day. I guess we could pick a jury and then reconvene on Friday morning. However, I think my cases are going to all get worked out. I am expecting two or three dismissals tomorrow. We'll see.

A Change in Focus

2006-11-27T19:41:00.000-05:00

Or perhaps an addition?

O Faithful Readers, I'm thinking about adding another dimension to my writing here. I initially conceived of this space as a log, or journal. (Hence, the unique name.) Personally, I don't think that I need to be in the business of writing generally about politics, since many do that much better than I. In addition, I don't think that writing about legal stories in the news is particularly useful. In many respects, every case is important. I'm not sure that salacious facts or a well paid legal team necessarily mean that a case is more interesting.

I have tried to avoid getting too esoteric here, in fear of alienating the three people who visit and aren't actually public defenders. So I've mostly tried to write about things that are interesting or things that might help counteract the clear pro-prosecution bias that exists in the world we live in. Afterall, our criminal justice system is adversarial, and I think it is helpful for us, the public defenders, to promote our point of view. It's my own educational project, or sorts.

Before I returned to criminal defense, I was working at the Federal Court of Appeals here, as a staff attorney. That office was pretty clearly divided politically when I was there. And, because we were all lawyers, no one was scared of backing down from an argument. I've realized in the last month or so that I miss the debates that we had about overarching issues. Some of the things that I have ranted about here are echoes of the exchanges that I had then, but without rolling up the sleeves and talking about the gritty technical issues.

And that got me to thinking.

Obviously, I went to law school. But, if you ask any that has been to law school, they'll tell you that isn't actually designed for teaching, or learning, the law. The law school curriculum pretty clearly is designed to accomplish other ends. I've realized that there are a lot of things that I haven't learned. For instance, just where the hell is Justice Scalia coming from? I mean, what's that all about? What was Justice Rehnquist reading that inspired him to rekindle the Federalist revolution? And, just how many copies of jury instructions are you supposed to file with the court?

So, I've decided to start studying again, allowing my curiousity to take me where it will. And, from time to time, I might just write about here.

Right now, I'm reading parts of The Common Law, by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Good stuff, and food for thought, which I might be tempted to share soon.

Changes

2006-11-21T23:26:00.000-05:00

The prosecutor has finally assigned a permanent, second assistant to my courtroom. I think things are going to be okay for awhile. You see, the new assistant is actually a friend of mine. As a matter of fact, I met him because he used to work in our office. He thought he would like the private world better, so he left the Defender and was out in the real world working comp or something. Anyway, the grass was not greener and he decided he'd better get back to a courtroom. We weren't hiring, so he went across the street.

I don't necessarily know that it's going to be easy-street for me, but I think things are going to work out well. Today was the first day that we have worked together, and we seemed to be on the same page.

Domestic Violence

2006-11-14T21:38:00.000-05:00

I represented a lady, let's call her Ms. Smith, after her first arrest. She was accused of assaulting her husband, who had let her sit in jail for a couple of days before bonding her out. I met her at arraignment, where she came across as mild-mannered and quiet. I think her husband had already had a case or two, in which he was accused of assaulting her. His cases ended up being dismissed, because she didn't appear for trial.

As it turned out, hers was dismissed for the same reason. At that point, I had moved into another courtroom and had turned the file over to another attorney in our office. The file was closed, and everyone moved on to other clients.

Apparently, the relationship became more volatile as time went on. Her husband evidently felt the need to get a protective order at some point over the summer, and he alleged that she violated it. A divorce was filed.

Three weeks ago, she ended up getting a protective order of her own, alleging that he had assaulted her again. He ended up picking up new charges for assaulting her.

Yesterday, police were called to their house. He alleged that she had assaulted him with a machete. When the police arrived at the house, they saw her outside, maybe with a knife and maybe not. She ran into a neighbor's house, and the officers followed her in. The officers reported that she grabbed a knife and lunged at them twice. Some reports indicate that she was saying things like, "go ahead, do it." Ultimately, the police obliged and fired one round, killing her.

That was 5:00 p.m. yesterday, making her the 12th person killed by the local police this year.

A Matter of Opinion

2006-11-13T22:31:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, leaving the office, I ended up striking up a conversation with a probation officer on the way out. Naturally, the recent election came up. Let's just say we had very different takes on what the election meant.

First off, this P.O. is a cop. He's go the short hair, the little mustache, the talk, all of it. I get the impression that he's the kind of guy that would actually jump in when shit gets crazy. I don't know if he was ever actually employed as a cop. He's old enough to have had a full career and then retired and started a second career. But he's cop through and through.

He seems to think that the election turned out as it did because the current prosecutor got voted out of office because she tried to control too many things and "didn't prosecute." Those are his words, not mine. He was lamenting the fact that she was offering diversion in so many cases. He pointed out that there is a loss of revenue because people don't actually pay probation when the case is diverted, because they aren't on probation. So, apparently, she was a softy that was going to bankrupt the county. ... Or something.

The common wisdom in our office is that the prosecutor alienated a fairly large proportion of the electorate by locking people up over minor stuff. Of course, we're just P.D.'s.

But what really struck me was that the criticism that she didn't prosecute cases. Last I knew, the duty of a prosecutor is too seek justice. Not necessarily long terms of incarceration in every case, or hefty fines, but punishment which fit the offense and the offender.

Did I mention that these are just misdemeanors?? Most of my clients wouldn't have any interaction with the criminal justice system if they learned to deal with their anger better, used better judgment, or fell in love with people that dealt with their anger better. The solution to these problems is simple, I think: education and a sense of empowerment or ownership over their own lives. Effectuating change on a cultural level, though, is beyond the scope of this entry, anyway.

So, as far as I'm concerned, doing justice in these misdemeanor cases mostly means making some sort of positive intervention. Maybe sending a guy to an anger management course, or making a kid going to a prison and talking to the inmates there. Somehow, trying to give the client some sort of perspective on their own actions and how they impact others. It seems to me that the social costs of locking someone up on a misdemeanor for retributive purposes onlyh exacts a social cost that is to high. Children lose contact with their parents, and incarceration becomes normalized for them. The client comes out of incarceration having lost their apartment, they're behind on bills and have to find a new job. And, if they have any reflective sense whatsoever, they are altered by the fact of incarceration. Why pay all these social costs, when it's possible to intervene and make a change for the better? What the hell ever happened to rehabilitation?

But maybe I'm just bleeding heart liberal.

Random Reflections on Arraignments

2006-11-11T16:16:00.000-05:00

Arraignments were this past Thursday, and it was strange day all the way around.

There were about 200 cases scheduled for arraignment, an unusually high number. I ended up picking about 30 cases, so I'm not complaining. But it seemed like almost everyone was in a bad mood. Ugly, almost.

This judge schedules arraignments at 9:00 and then again at 2:00. At 1:45, we were still finishing up the morning schedule, so I didn't get any lunch. Neither did any one else, and I don't think that that helped matters.

Apparently, it was international day. There were more hispanic defendants than usual, which was only slightly remarkable. But we also had two Russians, a Somali, and an Afghan. I think there was also a defendant from Korea, but he or she had retained counsel, and I didn't pay attention to that case.

There was one guy who was on the 9:00 calendar and had to wait through lunch. At 2:30, when the Judge came back onto the bench for the afternoon calendar, he stood up after the judge called and a case and said, "Excuse me, excuse me! I've been here since 9:00 and I've got to go." Needless to say, the Judge didn't take kindly to the interruption.

Also, several people (the deputy, the bailiff, the Judge) all asked people to turn off their cell phones. I am always amazed that people will simply leave their cell phones on. I don't care wh a person is -- no one needs to be instantly contacted all the time. Several phones rang during the course of the afternoon. The Judge warned several times that the phones needed to be turned off. She must have warned people four or five times. Finally, she warned that the next person who had a cell phone go off would be taken into custody. Sure enough -- someone's cell phone rang about five seconds after she made the announcement. That guy had two blackberries, and hadn't realized that the second one was on him. He got to think it over in a holding cell. The bad part was that he was signed up for a plea.

Did I mention that I didn't get lunch?

Another weird thing, but a good thing, involves diversion. Diversion is called a lot of different things in different jurisdictions: pre-trial diversion, delayed prosecution, a "hold" in my jurisdiction. Basically, the idea is that the case is suspended for a period of time, the defendant jumps through some hoops, and the case is eventually dismissed. I am of the opinion that nearly all misdemeanors should be diverted, with perhaps the exception of recidivist DV cases, recidivist theft cases and DUI cases. Off the top of my head, anyway.

The current prosecutor has a run a very tough ship. She has based her administration on "evidence-based prosecution," which means that her office will continue to prosecute, even if the alleged victim doesn't want to go forward. She has required all diversion offers on DV cases to be run through one of four adminstrators before the offer could be made. And, I've got the impression that either she or her deputy keeps a close eye on the offers that are otherwise being made. She ran for re-election on Tuesday in a contested race and lost. (I think most of that had to do with demographics -- she ran as an appointed Republican in a Democratic county.)

Well, I got five or six diversion offers on Thursday. Granted, none of them were DV cases, but I know that I would not have gotten diversion offers last week. I'm a big fan of diversion because, frankly speaking, I don't have to do much, and the client knows e Sxactly what he has to do to get the case dismissed. In addition, it's possible to get the arrest expunged once the case is dismissed. Everyone wins. So, those 30 or cases actua;lly means that I only have to work 25 or so. And that's something that is manageable.

That were such good results that they almost offset the fact that I didn't get out of court until 7:00 p.m. On the other had, the guy whose blackberry landed him in a holding cell? His case was the very last called.

Report Day

2006-11-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

Our office isn't actually in the Courthouse, but located in a building across the street. This arrangement certainly presents some advantages, as we are a bit insulated from all that goes on in the Courthouse and, hopefully, on the edge of the radar screen.

The misdemeanor probation office is also located in our buidling, which is one of the main reasons that I have been running into so many former clients. In any event, I can always tell when it is report-day in the probation office, because there are empty double-deuce bottles of beer in our parking lot.

Serendipity

2006-10-31T22:56:00.000-05:00

Yet again today, I ran into a former client. This is a guy that I wrote about back in July -- he is Muslim and it seemed to me that he got arrested and charged largely because of backlash.

Anyway, he had left me a couple of voicemails from time to time, but never with any a return number. I happened to run into him today as he was leaving probation. He looked good, and seemed to be doing better than he was when I first saw him.

I think most of our clients just need to know that someone is in their corner -- that someone is willing to fight for them -- that someone cares.

Irony fulfilled

2006-10-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

The case was dismissed today.

I felt kind of sad, though. The criminal case is done, but now he has to go face immigration on his own. Without much English. Fantastic.

Irony

2006-10-29T10:30:00.000-05:00

I have a trial set tomorrow for a hispanic guy that has been in immigration custody for 60 days now. We tried to enter a plea about a month ago, but we tried to do it in a way that wouldn't hurt him on the immigration side. The Judge wouldn't accept the plea because the State's recommendation was too lenient.

Well, the trial is set for tomorrow and, as of Friday, the State hasn't located their victim. This case should be going away tomorrow.

I don't know what is going to happen with the immigration proceedings. I can see how their would be economies in the P.D. representing clients in immigration proceedings, as well. However, that kind of thing is outside of what the county commissioners will let us do.

Client appreciation

2006-10-27T17:22:00.000-04:00

In the past a couple of weeks, I've had three or four clients wave me down, outside of the courthouse. Mostly, they just wanted to say hello, but they all seemed genuinely happy to see me, which must mean that they were pleased with how their case turned out.

That always a nice feeling.

Every P.D.'s Nightmare

2006-10-22T21:57:00.000-04:00

So, I mentioned in the last post a case that one of my colleagues just finished trying. Apparently, the client shot up his mother's house, while she was inside. The client's sister actually makes the 911 call. In addition, despite an admonition from the Judge, the client elected to attend trial in his orange, jail jumpsuit. Let's just say that the State's evidence was strong.

The jury came back with a verdict of guilty, and the client took it in stride. The verdict was handed to the Judge, and the client was peaceful. The Judge rescheduled sentencing, because she wanted to hear from the victim, and the client didn't say much. And then, just after the Judge remanded the client to the custody of the Sheriff, while the jury was still in the box, the client reached over and knocked my colleague upside the head. Apparently, he was getting ready to hit her again, but the deputies were on top of the situation. This particular colleague is very strong, but I could tell when I spoke to her later that she was still rattled by what had happened.

As luck would have it, I ran into the ADA that tried the case late Saturday night at a local watering hole. He said that the jury freaked out and the Judge was out the door at the first sign of trouble. You see, the Brian Nichols incident occurred just down the road from us. I was struck with his concern for my colleague, because it was obviously personal and not ideological. He told me many times that he liked her and it all seemed very genuine and sincere.

I can tell you this: I think it would be very difficult for anyone in our office to represent the guy at this point. I'm not sure that I could keep his best interests in mind.

A New Phase

2006-10-21T09:14:00.000-04:00

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.

Caseload, Part 3

2006-10-19T08:35:00.000-04:00

I've been closing out old files, and have topped 500.

Troubling

2006-10-08T21:48:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine is getting caught up in something that shouldn't be happening. It is a truly, truly scary thing when the State decides that it is going to take a hard look at you.

Return from Silence

2006-10-02T20:56:00.000-04:00

I haven't had much to say, lately, because the senior assistant prosecutor in my new division has been a dream to work with. My favorite words out of her mouth are, "oh yeah, we can work that case out."

Unforutunately for me and my clients, I have learned that she is going to leave this job and go work for the state A.G. So it looks like my ride along easy street is about to end.

Vehicular Homicide update

2006-09-11T19:35:00.000-04:00

So, the Judge dismissed my Vehicular Homicide case this morning for want of prosecution. The State claimed that they couldn't find their eyewitness. I think that they were looking for a way for the case to go away, because I think it wasn't so much a case of "couldn't find their eyewitness" and "didn't want to find their eyewitness." The case was a dog, as evidenced by the fact that they offered a plea to reckless driving.

(The State was alleging that she was speeding. A pedestrian walked out in front of my lady, and she hit him. An eyewitness claimed that she was going 60 mph in a 40 mph zone. However, the science pretty well established that she was going 40 mph.)

I am very happy for my client, although I would have mightily liked to try the case. She has some closure now, although I'm not sure that that is much solace for her. It will take a very long time for her to come to some sort of peace with this tragic accident. She arrived a little late to Court, after the Judge had already dismissed the case. When she was told the case was dismissed, she broke down in the courtroom. I hope she is doing well.

Mixed news

2006-09-09T09:55:00.000-04:00

I've had a vehicular homicide kicking around for several months now, which is set for it's second date-certain on Monday. A pedestrian walked out in front of my lady. The State is alleging that she was speeding, based on an eyewitness' testimony. The science says that she was traveling at the speed limit, and I am loaded for bear.

I got voicemail on my cell phone yesterday, which I just checked, from the Solicitor's office, advising that they have witness problems. So, they're going to be requesting a continuance.

I'm still going into the office to finish preparing, but that little bit of news brings the axiety level way down.

Caseload, Part 2

2006-09-06T23:32:00.000-04:00

So, I've surpassed the 400 misdemeanor mark. Does that mean that I'm supposed to start refusing cases?

As if that's even feasible.

A New Division

2006-09-04T22:21:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, I'm starting in a new courtroom. I have mixed feelings. I'm leaving a very big caseload for the September trial calendar, but I really have enjoyed working with this Judge.

We didn't see eye to eye at first, but we ended up working together quite well. I think he likes to test people when they first come into this courtroom. I appreciate the fact that he is very practical, willing to work with defendants satisfy everyone's interests, as best he can within the confines of what he needs to accomplish during sentencing. A lot of our clients have challenges that the rest of the population doesn't. Some of them are just plain behavioral, but a lot of the challenges are psychiatric or addictive in nature. He is a very fair Judge, a Judge who is able to empathize, and a Judge who is able to see the bigger picture.

Like I said, it was good working with him.

A Long Week

2006-08-30T17:50:00.000-04:00

Three actual trials on Monday -- two bench trials and one jury trial. I had 16 cases, total, I think, on the calendar.

One jury trial yesterday, with a total of 6 on the calendar. Retained counsel also had cases set, which took some pressure off.

Inmate arraignments this morning -- I must have talked to 8 or 10 guys. Luckily, I had help.

10 Bench trials set this afternoon, although none actually went.

I'm tired. Where's the bourbon?

Indefinite servitude

2006-08-27T10:19:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, this guy's name came across my desk, because he had been in jail for quite awhile. I checked into his case, and was immeditely confused -- he had pled to credit for time served on an obstruction charge back on July 21.

His case was a little confused, procedurally, becase he had initially been charged with obstruction and terroristic threats. The DA apparently investigated and decided that the terroristic threats was really a simple assault and sent the case to the Solicitor General. (That's the misdemeanor prosecutor here.) They brought him over on July 21, and he entered a pro se plea, thinking he would get out that night.

The problem is, there was a paperwork snafu somewhere, and the Jail thought that the felony obstruction charge was still open. So they held him.

Our jail specialist called over and talked to the appropriate person at the jail and they said that they would look into.

On Friday morning, I checked again and discoverd that he was still in jail. I called the guy and he was as mystified as I was. Our jail speciailist called over again and spoke to someone else, who told us that his file was misplaced. She ended up faxing paperwork over Friday afternoon and I called the guy to let him know that he should be getting out.

I'm going to run into the office today to make sure that he is out.

Needless to say, he was curious about compensation for the extra 37 days that he spent in confinement.

UPDATE: Dude did get out Saturday morning.

Good news

2006-08-21T22:55:00.000-04:00

Our misdemeanor division covers seven courtrooms, with one attorney in each courtroom. We also have one supervising attorney in the misdemeanor division. Historically, the misdemeanor division has also staffed the county's traffic court, which largely deals with ordinance violations, and the posting has just been part of the misdemeanor rotation. So, that means that a total of 9 attorneys in our office in the misdemeanor division.

The Big Boss called a meeting on Friday, and decided that the traffic court attorney should come back to misdemeanor court and, henceforth, our intake division will handle traffic court.

Which means that we'll have 9 attorneys covering 7 courtrooms, which is freaking fantastic.

A Grateful Client

2006-08-13T14:35:00.000-04:00

For the past three weeks, I've been working with the wife of one of my client's. You see, she's the alleged victim in not one, but two, domestic violence cases. I picked up the first one, and then he was arrested subsequently for alleged assaulting her again. He is hispanic and I'm finding that, as a general rule, hispanic folk get screwed when it comes to the criminal justice system.

And you read that right: I've been working with the victim. I've had her into the office a couple of times and she has clearly recanted. For the past week and a half, she's practically been stalking me, turning up at the courthouse when she knew that I would be in Court. She's arranged to have medical records faxed to me, has executed affidavits invoking the marital privilege, has written statements for us in which she recanted, wrote to the prosecutor and recanted, and even called the prosecutor. You see, she has a long list of mental health problems, among which is a neurotic fear of abandonment. She thought that her husband was cheating on her, when in fact he was just going to play soccer, and she got even. I'm not clear on the circumstances of the second incident yet, but she claims that he never touched her.

I had calendar call on Friday and requested that the Judge reconsider bond in my client's case. The Judge initially wasn't interested in entertaining the motion, until I explained that the alleged victim was present. The prosecutor told me that she would ordinarily be seeking to revoke my client's bond, but she had a "fruitcake" for a victim.

Yeah, you read that right, too. The empathy from the other side of the aisle is often underwhelming.

So, we went ahead and had the bond motion, the Judge spoke directly with the victim and quickly came to understand what was going on. He ended up giving my guy a signature bond in both cases.

When I went back in the lock-up to explain what had happened, the translator wasn't there, so we had a brief conversation in broken English. I could tell that he was nervous, and I said to him, slowly and clearly, "you're getting out tonight." At that point, he put his face down in his hands and, sobbing, repeated, "Thank you so very much" about ten times.

The translator soon came in and I gave him the full run-down on where we stood. But, that moment is going to stick with me a for awhile.

Karma

2006-08-07T21:14:00.000-04:00

Did I mention that my boss unexpectedly gave me a promotion on Thursday? The best kind, actually -- more pay and no more responsbilities. That was a very nice surprise, indeed.

The gods must have been laughing, though, because I picked up over 40 cases at arraignment today. September is going to thoroughly and completely suck.

Recap

2006-08-06T22:19:00.000-04:00

Last week, I had 20 jury trials and 11 bench trials set.

I tried one case to the jury, which resulted in conviction.

I tried two cases to the bench, one restuled in a directed verdict and the other an acquittal.

There were numerous pleas, and several dismissals, and a few continuances to jury calendars or plea calendars.

All in all, I'd say that was a pretty good week's work.

Tomorrow is arraignment, and Friday is calendar call for the next batch of trials. Woohoo.

Coda

2006-08-04T22:33:00.000-04:00

The East African fellow who I represented a couple of weeks ago called and left a message today, without a return number. He thanked me for my help, such as it was. He said that he would call and update me later on his situation.

It was nice to hear that he is in an at least somewhat stable situation. And it was also nice that he called.

O Happy Day

2006-08-02T23:06:00.000-04:00

Today was particularly busy, with inmate arraignments this morning and then bench trials this afternoon. 35 or more guys must have been brought over, and I probably spoke to 20 or so, getting bonds, entering pleas, etc.

But the best part of the day was this afternoon. I had eleven bench trials set. Some were continued to plea calendars, some pled, and a at least one was dismissed.

I did, however, end up trying two.

One fellow is on first offender probation for aggravated assault, and while the subsequent charges were just misdemeanors (marijuana and driving while license suspended) there was potential for the probation officer to cast a dim view on the subsequent charges. I had some prolonged negotiations with the prosecutor over whether notice was properly served on the driving while license suspended charge. In exasperation, I finally said, "Let's just put it up and see what we've got." I ended up getting a directed verdict on both the license charge and the accompanying marijuana charge, because the State failed to prove identity. The prosecutor is new to criminal law and very sharp -- that is the last time I will catch that slip, I am sure.

I also tried a child abandonment case. I detest this charge, because it is basically used as leverage to have the father pay child support. I have been waiting for some time to try one, and this was the perfect test case. My guy was fairly recently released from prison, and landed a good job. He met a woman after his release, and she got pregnant. The relationship ended. I got the impression that my guy didn't want to be involved after the child was born. Paternity was established, and he eventually consented to an income withholding order at the end of October, 2005. Because she hadn't received any support, the mother took out a child abandonment warrant at the beginning of November, 2005, charging that he had abandoned the child for the last 30 days. My guy was catastrophically injured at the end of November, 2005 and hasn't worked since. The Judge ended up acquitting my guy, because it was clear that he hadn't knowingly and willfully abandoned the child. And, I ended up getting the parties together afterwards and they agreed to go to the Social Security office and sign junior up for disability benefits.

That's a good day's work.

Bad result

2006-07-31T22:14:00.000-04:00

I tried a domestic violence case today. I was pretty sure that it would be a long, uphill battle. My guy was accused of fighting his dad. We had some things going for us, though, and it was a triable case.

As I feared, my guy was convicted on both counts. Because he had numerous arrests, the State was asking for a 180 days in jail. I was on my way, I think, into talking the Judge into the pre-trial recommendation, which would have been 90 days with probation and certain conditions.

However, my guy started talking. The Judge was thinking that the client had a drinking problem, based on some stuff that came out. But my guy denied it, and started giving the Judge responses that the guy didn't like his responses. So, my guy ended up talking himself into 12 months in jail.

The thing is, I told the prosecutor, prior to trial, that if my client got convicted, he'd end up doing a year. Go figure.

Caseload

2006-07-25T18:57:00.000-04:00

The state office that sets caseload standards here says that an assistant public defender shouldn't close more than 300 misdemeanors per year.

I've closed 311 since January 1, and I have a whole stack waiting to be closed. Somehow, I doubt that the county is going to let me take the rest of the year off.

Directed Verdict of Acquittal

2006-07-24T21:06:00.001-04:00

Those are sweet, sweet words to the ears of a criminal defense attorney. They are also very, very rare.

I picked a jury on a domestic violence case this morning, although I had some misgivings. After my last domestic violence case, I've gotten a little gunshy. That last verdict threw me for a loop because it just seemed unjust, in the truest sense of the word. There is no way that the State could have carried their burden, yet the jury found that they did. Go figure.

Essentially, all the State had here was the 911 tape. The complaining witness had gone over to the neighbor's house and had the neighbor dial 911. I managed to keep the most damaging portions of it out of evidence, but there was still a fair amount of crying and drama on the tape. The State wasn't able to serve the complaining witness, so she wasn't there. (I had made a motion to dismiss for want of prosecution first thing, but the Judge denied it.) And the neighbor testified about what she heard, which wasn't much. And then the State tried to call the police officer. While he appeared in the morning, first thing, he could not be found later one. He had worked the morning watch, and had gone to take a nap in his truck. Apparently, his cell phone wasn't working in the parking deck. So the Judge recessed for lunch early.

I agonized over whether the client should testify or not. In all the D.V. cases that I've won, the client has testified. In those cases where the client hasn't testified, we've lost. And that's something that I didn't realize until I typed those very words. In any event, I was nervous in this case, because I think juries, no matter how much you try to educate them to the contrary, want to hear from the defendant. In this case, however, things would have gotten a little sticky had the client testified.

When we returned after lunch, the officer could not be found, and the Judge looked directly at me and said, "do you have a motion?" I was a little thrown off, because the State hadn't formally rested, it wasn't quite time yet to make the directed motion verdict but I went ahead and renewed the motion to dismiss for want of prosecution. And, because the Judge didn't respond, I made a motion for directed verdict on some counts where there was an utter failure or proof.

The Judge then asked for the State's position, and ended up granting the motion to dimiss for want of prosecution. He stated twice, I think, that they State couldn't prove essential elements of the offense. It then became clear that he was talking about all of the charges, and not just the ones I identified in my motion. When the assistant prosecutor pointed out that they had in fact prosecuted, the Judge agreed that the motion I had made wasn't the proper vehicle, and directed a verdict on all of the counts. I did not expect that at all, because it is so very rare. There was some testimony that the complaining witness had cuts and had hair torn out. I had assumed that the Judge would find that, given the circumstances, the State had established a prima facie case. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised and then explained it all to my client.

The only downside was, I never got to give my closing. All of the energy I had built up had nowehere to go. I did nothing for the rest of the afternoon, and I'm sure that I'll be paying for that.

Backlash

2006-07-20T17:35:00.000-04:00

For whatever reason, we have a suprisingly large number of East African refugees here. It is large enough that I have made some inroads into the community during the 9 months I've been working here. I learn more about the region nearly every week, through my clients.

Today, I had a guy at jail pleas charged with misdemeanor marijuana. I call him up, we start talking. He tells me right away that he had a small quantity of marijuana on him.
He proceeds to tell me this horrible tale about how he was mistreated by the police. They found a copy of the Koran, which apparently had been printed in Iran. They called him a terrorist and pushed him around. They threatened him with deportation. They said other insulting things, which he wouldn't even repeat to me. They had taken all of his belongings and expected that he would be deported. This guy is from East Africa originally and a Muslim, but obviously spent a lot of time here because he has a New York accent. In fact, he is a naturalized citizen and has served this country in the armed forces. He was working for a pizza chain, delivering pizzas. He had fallen on hard times and was sleeping in his car for a couple of weeks.

After getting his side of the story, I walked over to the prosecutor's table and got the file so I can make some sense of what is going on and grab the warrant. The file only had the accusation, the warrant, and his criminal history. There iass no report. When the prosecutor hasn't gotten the report yet, I have no idea why the guy was stopped, so I normally suggest that we wait a week. That is never popular, because that means the client has to sit in jail for another week.

In any event, I take a close look at the warrant, and the magistrate had written by hand that the fellow had "Hamas clippings" in his car and that he wasn't using his own name. So they called Homeland Security.

What the hell?

I dig a little deeper in his criminal history, and it becomes quite obvious that he isn't using his own name. Because his real name is the surname of the former royal family, and that could get a person killed or kidnapped in his old country. So, in a very pragmatic move, he adopted a pseudonym.

And as for the Hamas newspaper clippings -- so what? He has been living in his car for the past two weeks. Guys who come to this country to do bad things at least have enough resources that they can rent an apartment in a non-descript quarter of town. They don't live out of their cars. They don't work for pizza parlors.

So I go back and talk to him, and explain that I am uneasy resolving his case, because I don't know why he was stopped, so I can't tell if the prosecutor would be able to prove him guilty of the controlled substance violation. (A bad stop would mean that the marijuana was supressed and the State's case would implode.) In a move that made my stomach drop, he said, "This is what the Muslims must deal with" and told me that he just wanted to get it over with. I explain that the fatalistic attitude only reinforces the problem. He says, "you're just one man, what difference can you make?" And I respond, "I can fight for you!" I tried for a while longer to persuade him that we should ask for a bond modification so that he could get out, or at least wait until next week, so that the prosecutor's could secure the report. He insists that he just wants to get the case done.

So we enter the plea.

That was this morning, and he should be hitting the street just about now. I hope he has a place to sleep tonight.

Mental health court

2006-07-18T20:20:00.000-04:00

In our county, we have a mental health diversion for program. That means that the case is diverted from the normal trial process and the client's mental health condition is treated. If they comply with the terms of the program, then their case is eventually dismissed.

For whatever reason, there are a lot of people here who are profoundly, chronically, mentally ill. I have struggled for some time with the best approach to these sorts of cases. The dilemna is, do we delay getting them out of jail to ensure that they get some sort of treatment. Our jail is big, holding over 3000 people, I think. The conditions can be less than acceptable. In fact, litigation, brought by a local civil rights group challenging the conditions of the jail, just terminated after many years of supervision by the courts.

Our office hasn't had much involvement in the diversion program. For those of us in misdemeanor court, it's been a great option because the cases are referred to the program and, from our perspective, they end up going away. The advantage is that we haven't had to monitor the cases much and the client receives a benefit. However, it seems like there is a greater role for us to play. The prosecutor's office has a presence, and it seems like we should to. In addition, I'm not sure that we are utilizing the resource as well as we might.

So, for the next month or two, a colleague and I are going to observe the process and see what role makes the most sense for us.

Vacation's end

2006-07-17T18:42:00.000-04:00

I had a nice, relaxing week, doing next to nothing and I'm feeling pretty well recharged.

I think that, in this line of business, it's particularly important to get away from time to time. Criminal defense lawyers, and especially public defenders, really need to monitor burn-out. The clients can be demanding, the judges can be demanding, the prosecutors can be demanding, and the caseload is demanding. Generally speaking, we've become public defenders because we want to serve the public, and it's hard to do that when we don't care about our client's best interests.

I was just disucssing this with a colleague today over lunch. He hasn't had a real vacation in a year and a half. He just went up to felony court a couple of months back, which is a different world altogether. I told him that it's necessary to get away, I think, just to decompress. Vacation becomes a win-win situation, then for us and for the clients, because we returned reinvigorated.

This week is devoted exclusively to appointments, which is kind of fun, and then the next two weeks are trial. I didn't pay attention after calendar call the week before last, but I just realized that my trials start next week, including 4 on Monday. Luckily, these are all cases that have been on the trial calendar once, so I have already done 95% of the prep. Unfortunately, the cases' age drops as the week goes on, as does the prep level. I haven't done a full count, but I'm guessing that I have over 30 cases set for trial.

Woohoo! It's good to be back!

PS: I did take my files with me, but they never made it out of the back of the car. Isn't that always the way?

Vacation

2006-07-06T21:00:00.000-04:00

I have over 40 cases on the docket for calendar call tomorrow. (That's what they call the post-arraignment status conference here.) I imagine that most of those are going to be put over to the end of the month, on trial calendars. Which means that I'll probably have 30 some trials to prepare for.

Nonetheless, I am taking all of next week off. It will be my first vacation in two years. The most troubling question is whether I take my files with me.

Unwanted advice

2006-07-02T14:32:00.000-04:00

When I was a teen-ager, my parents repeated their mantra ad nauseum: short-term sacrifices for long-term goals. I didn't particulary like to hear it, but their is logic to it and it eventually stuck. I wish that my client's could have benefited from such direction when they were growing up.

On Friday morning, I covered jail arraignments for one of the other attorney's in our office. Basically, guys are brought over from the jail and have bond hearings or probation revocation hearings or get their cases started.

Several of these guys had felony probation revocation proceedings pending. Now, rather than just plead guilty to get out of jail, it's best if these guys exercise a little restraint and allow us, the misdemeanor attorneys, to coordinate with the felony attorneys. That way, we can work something out that will hurt them the least. Let's call this guy Mr. Smith. He had picked up several charges for going over to his girlfriend's house when there was a restraining order in effect and for kicking her door.

Because I was just covering and there were 30 guys on the calendar, I had asked that some of the other attorneys in the office help me out. So, I told the other attorney that Mr. Smith had a pending felony probation revocation. He knew the drill and told Mr. Smith that he was better off waiting. But Mr. Smith didn't want to hear any of that and asked to talk to someone else.

Eventually, I got around to talking to Mr. shortly before noon. I explained to him that he was better off waiting, so we could coordinate. He was convinced, however, that his felony judge was going to let him out, and the hearing was to be that very afternoon. He wanted out in the worst way. First, he wanted a bond modification and if that didn't work out, he wanted to enter a guilty plea. So, I worked out a deal that would hurt him as little as possible. We would enter an Alford plea (meaning he was maintaing his innocence but pleading guilty to avoid the consequences of an adverse verdict at trial) and all he would have to do for 12 months was comply with the restraining order that was in fact. I believe that the deal intially included a 26 week domestic violence intervention program.

We asked for bond modification, but the Judge didn't want to hear it because the guy had just been in front of the Judge two weeks ago on bond. The Judge invited him to enter a plea, if Mr. Smith wanted and Mr. Smith took him up on the offer. He was focused completely on his belief that the felony judge was going to let him out. He had been in jail for about 2 weeks.

However, the lunch hour was nearly half hour and the Judge was late for a conference call, so he set the case over to 1:30. I tried to find Mr. Smith's felony lawyer during the 10 minutes I was in the office, checking email and voicemail and getting organized for the afternoon, before I ran out to get lunch and headed back to court.

During the afternoon session, we went ahead with the plea and the prosecutor didn't recommend the DVIP program. So the guy just had to comply with the restraining order. I advised the Judge that the victim had come to the jail on several ocassions to visit Mr. Smith, including Thursday night, and that we were expecting that the restraining order would be rescinded. In the alternative, the Judge ordered no violent contact.

Afterwards, I went upstairs to talk to his felony attorney, who was waiting for Mr. Smith to come up. When I told my colleauge, he just closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. As it turns out, the attorney thought that the possibility of Mr. Smith being released that day was a long-shot and was pleased when Mr. Smith indicated that he was going to fight the case. Our state has a rule that if there are only technical violations of the conditions of probation, the judge can't exceed two years on a revocation. Mr. Smith effectively increased his exposure by entering his plea and had pretty much guaranteed that he would be spending more time in jail, if not actually going to prison. At that point, I explained what happened and the selling points of our plea, and then left to go meet a client back at the office, which I was already late for.

Three words: "short term sacrifices."

Hey, I'm just an Assistant Public Defender and not a "real lawyer," but sometimes I know what I'm talking about.

A small victory

2006-06-22T12:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a bench trial calendar and I, luckily, only had three cases set. I knew that we would resolve two -- one by pretrial intervention and the other would be dismissed.

The third was a red-light case. As in, my guy was ticketed for running a red light. The Solicitor had offered a $200 fine. The new assistant didn't really seem to think that I was willing to try it, but my guy was saying that it was yellow when he went through.

So we tried it.

The officer testifed that he had run a stoplight at Derrill Avenue, where it intersected Glenwood, and that's what the ticket said. The problem was that the assistant who drafted the Accusation, charged my with running a stoplight at Demill Avenue. (At a glance, the "rr" did sort of look like an "m"...) Anyway I established that the officer didn't remember much other than seeing my guy run the light, which isn't particularly remarkable because the incident occurred over a year ago. I asked the officer if she knew of any "Demill Avenue" in our county, and she said no. I asked some other questions, and sat down.

After the State rested, the Judge asked if I was going to present any witnesses, and I said, "Well, Judge, I do have a motion." I assume that he thought I would make the perfunctory motion for directed verdict. However, when I pointed out that the was charged with running a light at "Demill" and the testimony indicated he ran a light at "Derrill," the Judge immediately understood that there was a variance between the proof and the charge.

Now, our new assistant solicitor is brand new to criminal law, and the Judge has taken a liking to her and I think he wants to mentor her. So he turned to her and began to grill her about whether the variance was fatal. He let her flounder some, and then held that the variance was indeed fatal and granted my motion.

I stood and started to pack up my stuff. And then I realized that my guy was still sitting. So I leaned over and whispered, "we just won." He was very happy, which is always a nice feeling.

Mortification

2006-05-31T22:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I went back to my old courtroom to finish up the last case that I had kept. The poor fellow had had five attorneys in our office, because his case was almost a year old, so I figured that I would handle it, since I had worked the case the longest. (And I'll probably be posting more about that later.) In any event, I have a lot of respect for this Judge. He is my age, which is a little disconcerting, as we are both about 10 years out of law school. He is smart, he is fair, and he is knowledgable. You can't really ask for any more in a Judge.

While I was sitting there, waiting for our turn, the Judge took a DUI plea from a Defendant that had retained counsel. These were the last two cases of the morning session, and the courtroom was almost empty. I pretty much tuned it out, and made quiet small talk with my client. Mostly, I was concentrating on the points that I wanted to make during my guy's sentencing. I started paying attention to the DUI plea when I got the sense that it was winding up. During sentencing, the client, not the attorney, asked if he could be allowed to transfer the vehicle to his daughter, who was going to school. Because the plea was to a second DUI in five years, the Defendant was required to surrender the tags to the car he got busted in. The Defendant was asking for a break, basically.

His attorney didn't say anything. I figured that was either because (A) he didn't know or (B) he knew that the law wasn't on his client's side, which is more likely. The Judge didn't ask the attorney, though, and he didn't ask the prosecutor. Rather, he got the book out and started looking through the motor vehicle code. After awhile, he grew a little impatient, and calling me by name, asked, "Do you know if there's a hardship exception to the tag surrender provision?"

So everyone is on the same page, this ain't my case. I'm not standing in the well, I'm not sitting at counsel table. Rather, I'm actually behind the bar, sitting in the gallery with my client. (Who happens to be in orange.) I stand up, debating on how to handle the question. I was immensely flattered that the Judge asked me -- he could have just as easily asked either of the two lawyers who were actually involved in the case. As I walk forward, I realize that I'm pretty sure that the hardship exception was abolished fairly recently and that this Defendant is S.O.L. But, I don't want to screw things up. So I tell the Judge, "I'm sorry Judge, I just don't know." He thanks me and keeps digging through the book.

I'm feeling pretty good about myself on both fronts. The Judge consulted me and I didn't blow it for the Defendant.

I walk over to the Solicitor's table, where the two prosecutors on my case are sitting. I tell them that I think the exception has been abolished, and they rib me a little and tell me that I should disclose that to the Judge. And then, in the very next breath, they say, "It's not even your case. The guy's attorney should be doing the work." The thing is, the Defendant and his attorney are standing about 10 feet aways from us. And it's really freakin' quiet. I simply couldn't believe that they were talking that way about a fellow attorney, even if the attorney is on the other side. And they were (literally!) doing it right behind his back. I was embarassed for him that they were talking like that in the presence of his client. I was embarassed for myself, since I didn't want him to think I was a part of it. And I was really disappointed with them.

So I walked back to talk to my client.

The Judge eventually satisfied himself that there was a hardship exception, found on the record that there was a hardship, and allowed him to transfer title to his daughter as part of the sentence. After they finished up, I waited for the Judge to call our case, as he was filling out the judgment and making notes and such.

The DUI defendant's attorney made his way out of the courtroom, and ended up walking right past me. I was hoping to make eye contact and give him a "good one" or some other such encouragement. But he just kept his eyes on the door and walked out of the courtroom.

oof

2006-05-29T21:25:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling like I should turn in my bar-card.

I tried a case Tuesday, which I thought was a no-brainer. It was a typical domestic violence case, the alleged victim was recanting and was in fact saying that my guy acted completely in self-defense. She had been into the office before, and was completely supportive. I honestly believed her when she said that she had started it, and also ended it by calling the cops.

The two were under a lot of stress, of all sorts. He wasn't getting shifts like he should, so they were behind on rent and bills. So there was economic stress. They had a child under the age of one, who had been staying with her mother and whom my guy hadn't seen in a couple of days. The best part was, the complaining witness was packing on the day this all happened. So they had plenty of relationship stress, as well. She is in her early twenties and hadn't graduated from high school. It is easy to imagine the stress she was under and the frustration and betrayal she must have felt.

I thought it was a fantastic sign -- I had four men on my jury (out of six here) and I knew that she was going to say that she had grabbed my guy's groin in the middle of the fight. Four men!

The best part was, the cop didn't even show. No pictures, no corroborating testimony -- nothing. All they had was the 911 tape, in which she says "he beat me up for no reason." They aren't married, so the tape was coming in.

The problem that we ran into was that she did say that he spanked her, and that's how she got the bruise on her leg. However, at the same time, she was biting him. The prosecutor made some hay, asking the jury whether that scenario was very believeable. In any event, in light of the larger context and her repeated averments that he was only defending himself and that she wasn't afraid of him, I didn't think that we'd have a problem.

But the jury was out 45 minutes, which worried me, and they ended up convicting on two counts. I was stunned. Apparently, what someone says to a police officer, at the time of the incident, is enough (without the police officer's testimony, for god's sake!) to convict a person in the county I live in.

Good god.

Trial week

2006-05-16T08:06:00.000-04:00

I have trials starting next Monday, the 22nd. Ten or so set on Monday and ten or set on Tuesday. And three or four bench trials on Wednesday.

It's Thursday's trial that has me concerned the most. I have a specially set vehicular homicide. The problem here is that I believe that my client is actually innocent of the charge. Those are the cases that scare me the most.

An acquittal

2006-04-24T17:51:00.000-04:00

I tried a case today and the jury ended up agreeing with us. So, I got a straight acquittal on one count of battery, one count of simple battery, and one count of criminal trespass.

My lady had posted a guy's bond. Three days later, she's trying to find him, because she used her rent money, and she swings past his grandmother's hosue. There, she sees the guy sitting in a car smooching another woman. As you can imagine, drama ensues. The State's witnesses said that she flew into a rage and threw a bottle of bleach at the guy, cutting the back of his head. The fellow's grandmother than calls the police and my lady eventually leaves.

Later, she returns with some friends. She ends up jumping out of the car and chasing the guy, fighting him and the new girlfriend. She tires of the fight and the throws a brick throught the new girlfriend's windshield. The windshield gave rise to the trespass claim. Where I am, damage to property in an amount less than $500 is criminal trespass.

Our witnesses said that Romeo attacked her when she first arrived. My lady admitted hitting him with the bleach bottle, but only after he had spit on her, threw a trashcan against her car (breaking the antenna and scratching the car), pushed her against her car, and punched her. In other words, she acted in self-defense. After he went in the house, she testified that she called police, and then left to meet her sister and friend. She wanted moral support when she talked to the police.

As luck would have it, the police had already come and gone when she returned. But, there was more fighting to be had. The young man actually threw a brick the car she was in and she ended up getting out to confront him. At that point, Romeo and his new Juliette ended up attacking my lady. Juliette finished the fight when she was handed a baseball bat. However, our witnesses testified that she wasn't that good of a hitter -- she ended up hitting her windshield while swinging for my client, which was how the windshield broke.

Romeo declind to attend -- there is an active bench warrant for him, because he failed to attend court. That would be on the felony that my lady posted bond for.

The jury apparently agreed that the State did not prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's awfully good thing to hear that kind of verdict being returned. I'm now 2 for 2 in the new job, which ain't half bad.

Now, I have to finish preparing for the 9 cases I have set for trial tomorrow. Unfortunately, I'm going to head back to the office in an hour or so and finish up a few things for tomorrow.

Something new

2006-04-11T12:34:00.000-04:00

During my last trial calendar, the Judge got a little impatient because we were still working cases out at 10:30 in the morning. (Nevermind that I had 10 cases on the calendar, half of which hadn't returned my calls and the other half involved poor victim contact on the prosecutor's part.) Anyway, we chatted afterwards, and came up with a solution that we decided to try at our next arraignment, which was last Monday.

At arraignment, client's receive notice of their next courtdate. I went ahead and put appointment times on the notice, and the Judge threatened that if they didn't keep their appointments, he would consider revoking their bond. The advantage is, I can get people into the office fairly quickly and have plenty of time to work their cases. The downside is, if they don't keep their appointments, it puts me in a very uncomfortable position. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.

In any event, I had 7 appointments scheduled yesterday, and 5 people actually appeared. That's a much better rate than I have ever had working here. Back home, almost all of my appointments were kept. Of course, those were felonies, where people were facing significant jail time. I guess we will see how the remainder of the week goes.

Victory on appeal

2006-03-18T10:11:00.000-05:00

I forget to mention, an event from last week. In my last job, I worked for a couple of guys who are well-established in the South Metro area. One has been practicing for more than two decades and has a sterling reputation. Because I had worked at the Federal Court of Appeals before coming to work for him, he asked that I help him write an appeal. Which I did.

The case was pretty straight forward. The client was in her car at a closed gas station late at night and a cop rolled up, concerned for her safety. Because she gave inconsistent answers about what she was doing, the cop asked for her license, which he never returned. Eventually, she admitted that she had some methamphetamine on her, and she was arrested. The trial court denied the motion to suppress and we appealed.

Last week, we found out that we won. The opinion contained this fantastic language: "This case graphically illustrates that liberties and rights are always an interpretation away from extinction, unless jealously and zealously guarded." I called my old boss, and we patted ourselves on the backs.

I also happend to belong to the state criminal defense association. We have a very active list-server, from which I probably receive 50 or 60 messages a day. As I may have mentioned before, the state I live in recently reformed the public defender system. So, the guy in charge of the state-wide public defender system posted a message to the criminal defense association list-server, lauding our result on appeal. In fact, he called it "damn good defense work." As a result, I was receiving congratulations from colleagues on the list-server and well as my own co-wrokers, and was feeling pretty good about just about everything.

And then I went to court on Wednesday to represent the inmates.

All in all, I have cooled off over what happened in court. And I'm beginning to feel good again about our win. The client on appeal can put this whole three-year ordeal behind her, and the client who is still in jail at least knows that we are looking our for him.

Contempt

2006-03-15T23:26:00.001-05:00

I think that I was very close to going to jail myself today.

There is a guy in jail, who has been there since the middle of December, largely because his case was in a municipal court and then got transferred to our court. He has been sitting on a bond that he can't post and that is uncharacteristically high.

He wrote to our office and we received the letter yesterday. Another attorney in the office scrambled to get the guy into the first available courtroom. We notified the prosecutor that we were planning on bringing the guy over, but I omitted to notify the Judge. Mostly because I wasn't all that involved in making the arrangements, but still, 2 minutes of effort late yesterday afternoon would have saved me an ass-chewing today.

In any event, guys were brought over this morning from the jail, and after almost all of the other cases had been heard and well before lunch, the prosecutor mentioned that there was an add-on. The Judge then wanted to know why the guy was added and he wasn't notified. He then turned his ire on me and vented vociferously. He chewed my ass, and let's just say he ate until he had his fill. I mentioned that the guy had been in jail since December and the Judge actually said, "I don't care, no one comes over to my court unless the prosecutor requests them or I say it is okay." Eventually, the Judge took a softer tone, after he discovered that I was not the person who requested the guy. (I wasn't going to mention it, as it is my courtroom and I don't have respect for others who try to shift the blame.)

Obviously, the Judge wants to maintain control of his docket. And, with the caseload we carry, that is understandable. The problem is that the guy is going to sit until Monday when he can be heard in the courtroom that his case is assigned to. I don't think I can properly express the depth of my disappointment.

2006-03-15T23:26:00.000-05:00

Coaching

2006-03-15T23:12:00.000-05:00

Ever since I started trying cases, I have been concerned about witness coaching and about where the line is between "prepping" and "coaching." I've ultimately decided that, as long as I'm not suborning perjury, anything is fair game.

Now, when I say suborning perjury, I basically mean getting a witness to say something that they wouldn't have said unless I pointed out a legal advantage.

Today, I was reading another blog which pointed out that the problem with the Moussaui trial is not "coaching," but the fact that the Court's sequestration order was violated. Afterall, all lawyers talk with witnesses about what they saw and heard and remember. We try to test the memories and we probe and we look for ways in which the story is internally consistent.

The problem here was that the Judge had ordered the witnesses not to discuss their testimony with other witnesses. The point of a sequestration order is to keep witness testimony pure, if you will. Witnesses aren't supposed to talk about the case and unconsciously align their testimony.

Intrigued by the question "just what exactly is coaching," I did a quick search on Westlaw in my jurisdiction and didn't find anything particularly instructive. A google search did reveal an article that appeard in the Cardozo law review. The article is a little too empirical for my taste, breaking coaching into categories and such. But in it I saw another central interest of mine arise, and that is the fallibility of memory. Of the convictions that were set aside because of DNA, the majority involve inaccurate identifications by an eyewitness. I have been struggling for some time to find some way to deal with this issue at trial. Everybody can accept the proposition that "he saw it plain as day, so it must have happened." The problem is that memory is malleable and fallible. I'm still struggling with how to most effectively address the issue with juries. But a good step is a sequestration order, and kudos to Judge Brinkema for sanctioning the government for the violation of her order.

Frustration

2006-02-24T17:51:00.000-05:00

I shared this blog with another whom I know only very casually, and the response was familiar: "the blog is interesting, but I didn't quite understand all of it." Often, when I come home excited about the day, my wife gets sort of a glazed look on her face, and it is obvious that she is not following what I am saying. I'm not sure if that is because I'm not explaining well, or the fine points of the law can be so esoteric. Even though the general principles make complete sense. I often wonder if law school isn't really just an institutionalized attempt to obscure the obvious.

Self-validation

2006-02-21T12:29:00.000-05:00

In our office, we have a phone line linked directly to each of the cell blocks in the jail. And this jail is pretty big -- it holds about 3200 people. We also have a jail specialist, whose primary responsibility is to answer the phone and answer questions that the inmates have regarding the status of their cases. She's on the phone most of the day. Her desk is right outside of my office.

Needless to say, there is fair amount of skepticism about public defenders, and perhaps even some misunderstanding about our training. I have run across this myself more times than I can recount, but today, I actually found myself laughing aloud when I heard her side of this conversation.

You haven't been indicted yet.
...
Who is your public defender?
...
Who is your public defender?
...
Public defenders are attorneys.

Of course, this happens conversation happens enough that some are profiting from the phenomenon.

Mental Illness

2006-01-21T10:28:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I get so frustrated over politics -- there are massive amounts of words spilled everyday about "the left" and "the right." As best as I can tell, most of this blather has more do to with ego and personality then actual rigorous policy analysis and isn't productive. Or, the focus in political discourse is on foundational issues, which don't really effect the average person in a real way.

Take for instance, the Alito confirmation hearings. Much in the media has been said about briefs he wrote 20 years ago regarding abortion. Don't get me wrong -- abortion is a very important civil rights issue; but, in the grand scheme of things, it effects a relatively small portion of our population. Obviously, people are heavily invested in the issue. Let us not forget that some people kill and bomb over this issue. However, there are other, more pressing, issues which have a much greater societal impact.

I just started this new job in October and I have to say that I am appalled at the number of people with serious, chronic, mental illness that are caught up in the criminal justice system in urban areas. I can see the emotional cost that families pay, having to deal largely on their own with a family member who can't integrate, because I hear the weariness in their voices. In addition, there are the obvious costs of law enforcement, jail administration, docket clogging, and, eventually, treatment costs.

The law requires that every criminal defendant be able to (1) assist his lawyer in the defense of the case and (2) be "sane" at the time the offense was committed. The first concept is competency to stand trial and the second concept is criminal responsibility. When it appears that either of these two issues are in question, a defense lawyer can request a forensic psychological evaluation, which is conducted by the state. If the defendant fails either test, then he or she is committed to a secure psychiatric institution for treatment.

When I was working in Northern Michigan and here in the Southern Metro area, I was working in rural or suburban areas. During those three years, I filed 3 petitions and the State doctors determined that one of the clients was not guilty by reason of insanity, or wasn't criminally responsible. That guy, who really was very sweet, is most likely still housed in a secure psychiatric hospital, five years later.

In the four months I've been working in this new office, I have already filed 5 petitions, and have inherited 3 cases where petitions were filed. Of these petitions, I know that 2 will be found incompetent, without a doubt. These clients will then be housed in a secure psychiatric facility until they are returned to competency. At that time, they will be returned to the criminal justice system and the cases will proceed. These are generally short term committments of 3 to 6 months.

The problem is, most of these folks at the misdemeanor level either (1) did not understand the difference between right and wrong at the time they committed the alleged offense or (2) acted as they did because they were compelled to do so by a delusion. In other words, they were insane. However, there aren't enough resources to treat all the people who aren't criminally repsonsible. These committments generally last a much longer time. The beds are limited and the State would be prefer to house murders, as opposed to guys who jumped the subway turn-style. So, the State conducts a very cursory criminal responsbility examination, concludes that responsbility cannot be conclusively determined, and the prosecution proceeds. The problem is, most of these folks aren't dangerous and never graduate to the big leagues of the criminal justice system, and continue to offend at the misdemeanor level.

In this country, how can we possibly tolerate such a situation? Many of these folks could lead satisfying lives if they were involved in successful treatment programs. We could reduce the criminal justice costs of dealing with them on an acute basis. We could alleviate the suffering of the families involved, who are dealing with, in some cases, decades of mental illnes and very little support. How is it possibly tenable in this country to shunt these folks to the side and not address the problems that they face? Unfortunately, this issue doesn't fit the agenda of the talking-heads, and we get more rhetoric over "femi-nazi's" and Bush's purported I.Q., finger-pointing and partisan idiocy. Its enough to make a person sick.

Satisfaction

2006-01-12T08:56:00.000-05:00

The prosecutor realized the problem with her case on Monday, and the question became, "do I dismiss and recharge or do I work this out today." Thankfully, she opted for the latter.

My guy pled guilty to a disorderly conduct and got credit for time served. Hopefully, he can move on to the more serious charges against him now in a better position than he might have been otherwise.

Rehired

2006-01-07T15:28:00.000-05:00

The office policy is to represent everyone who is incarcerated. So, if Bill Gates was arrested by the police, we represent him at his bond hearing and such.

In November, I was in Court in Friday morning for inmate arraignments. There was one fellow who initially asked for my help, so I talked to him and then talked to the prosecutor. He had made several trips over from the jail, and was growing frustrated because this case wasn't going forward. He has several others with our office, as well. The bottom line was that he didn't think that I was doing anything for him, so he fired me. Which was fine with me -- I had several other people (probably 10 or 15) that I was trying to help that morning.

Later, he decided that maybe he did want to be represented on this case. Which means that, unless he hired a lawyer, he'd get me back.

I went to speak with him today at the jail, and I have to say that I am hopeful that we'll be able to get a good result for him. First, he basically told me that he is innocent, and I believe him. Scond, the prosecutor told me yesterday that she doesn't have one of her witnesses. That means that one of his two charges is going to go away, and the State's case on the other is seriously undermined. His case is set for trial on Monday. We're ready to try it, but I think we'll be able to work out a gravy deal for him. At least, that's what I am hoping.

In any event, it's a nice feeling to know that we're probably going to get a good result for a guy that was extremely frustrated with us.