It is not my job...(part 3)

As you descend the stairs you can't help but roll your eyes and throw your head back in frustration.  The client you are going to see in the holding cell has a very bad temper and it seems he does his best to draw out your bad temper.  He has been arrested for domestic violence assault and, though he is determined the young lady is lying and will not show up to court, she is here-again.

"THAT BITCH IS LYING, I AIN'T HIT HER!!!"

"OK, help me prove she is lying.  Tell me what YOU think is going on."

"We were messing around, we used to go out and spend a lot of time together.  Then I found out she was married, her husband is a cop and he found out she was messing around on him.  He beat her ass and he's the one making her go through with these bullshit charges to 'prove' to him that she is done with me."

Sigh....

You go over the barely-there file you have been provided by the municipality that has brought charges against your client, convinced there is nothing you can do to help him.  Although he does not want to look at the "lies" the police heard from her and wrote down, you convince him that everything is important--EVERYTHING.  And that's when it happens......he takes a look at the date.

"I was in the hospital that day! The day she is saying she called the police because I beat her up, I was in the hospital and had been in the hospital!"

Well now you're cooking with grease!  Because the victim states she called the police the same day your client beat her up.  If he was in the hospital the day she called the police, then it stands to reason that he was in the hospital the day he "beat her up."

You request a continuance to obtain the documents necessary for your clients trial, obtain his signature on a medical release form, send it over to the hospital and you wait...

...and wait...

                   ...and wait...

It takes so long that you're convinced you've just been had by your client.  You should have just tried harder to convince him to take the plea.  You didn't believe him anyway, he is a feisty little angry man that you don't doubt can, and will, hit anyone.  Including a woman.  Not only do you not believe him, you don't even like him, not a little bit.  But here you are, convinced to do your futile best to "fight the system" and now you're about to get embarrassed because you went against your gut, went out on a limb and tried to verify the story of a client that makes you want to stab yourself in the eye with a long, dull, rusty nail.

Then you receive the medical records.  Before you catch yourself you find your clients words escaping your mouth: "That bitch IS lying!"  He WAS in the hospital.  That swarmy, angry, frustrating client of yours was telling you the truth.

I do not like all of my clients.  Truth be told, I don't care for the majority of them.  Most of them are inconsiderate of my time, demanding, entitled and just downright unpleasant.  But in the short 7 months I have been doing this job I have found that most of them react that way because they know the odds are stacked against them.  I don't doubt that they can tell their Public Defender (this second-class, "unpaid", "fake" lawyer that works for the state) was rolling their eyes and regretting the encounter they were about to have with their them. 

My experience with Mr. X just 3 short months ago has helped to alter the way I engage with my clients every since. 

I can like, love or despise my client.  It is not my job to do any of the aforementioned things.  But if I have resolved to remain a part of this machine for a little while longer, I must work to transform it.  Not be transformed by it.  It is not my job to like my clients.  It is not my job to believe them or judge them or bully them into taking a plea because they are too unpleasant to deal with.  It is my job to do everything I can to ensure that justice has been done.  Justice is not just for the "nice" and "considerate" people.  Justice is not reserved for those who are predisposed to having a sunny disposition and an optimistic take on life (and thank God for that because I would never be afforded justice if that was the criteria).  Justice is for the person.  Justice is for the nice person, the mean person, the person that smiles at everyone and the person that smiles at no one.  The Fifth Amendment states that No PERSON shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."  It is my job to ensure that No PERSON is deprived of their life, or their freedom without the state (or city) first providing proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the person committed the crime of which they have been accused.  Plain and simple as that. 

Until next time,

Be blessed, be careful, don't confess and don't consent.

~LT,

"Take thought in how other people perceive you, you never know when twelve of them may be deciding your fate." ~LT

Rest in Peace

I received a call from the mother of one of my clients, Mr. CWL.  She called to tell me that he passed away in his sleep and his body was found in his home this morning.  I have a mix of emotions running around inside of me right now:

--honored that she thought of me when she is still dealing with the fresh news that her child has passed before even reaching his 40's

--sad for the loss of another human being

--relieved that the system won't screw over someone that is an addict, not a criminal

and finally,

--inadequate....??...maybe...ineffective?

This man was 39 years old.  His father passed away when he was a child and from that point on, he was never the same.  He became addicted to drugs and alcohol before he reached 13 years of age and our justice system kept throwing him into jail instead of treatment.

When his case was assigned to me, our social worker did an assessment and I convinced her to send him to treatment.  He was successful in his in-patient treatment and both he and his mother expressed their gratitude for getting him the help he has needed for the last 26 years.  But then he was sent to a halfway house and 2 months after checking in, he checked himself out. 

My clients mother informed me that an autopsy is going to be done in order to determine the cause of death.  It breaks my heart every time I consider the possibility that it could be a drug overdose. 

I don't know how much change I am going to effect during my time at the public defenders office.  There are days when my heart aches so much for my clients that I don't know if it is in the best interest of my health for me to remain here.  Those are the same days that my heart aches when I think about no one being in their corner if I am gone.  But clients like Mr. CWL make me feel inadequate and ineffective because he was in our system for so long without anyone caring to address his underlying problem.  NEVER convicted of a crime that touched the life of another, his only crime was harming himself.

The last thing his mother said through her stifled sobs before she hung up was "Thank you for caring."  At the end of the day, whether you are a public defender or in private practice, whether you practice law, medicine, teach or touch people in some other way, the point is to TOUCH their lives.  I mean, that's really what we're trying to do here isn't it?  We're trying to touch someones life, because they will touch ours in return, and we all crave touch.

Mr. CWL sought illegal drugs and alcohol in an effort to create some type of peace in his chaotic world.  My prayer is that he finds some peace now that he has left this world.

Until next time,

Be blessed, be careful, don't confess and don't consent.

~LT

Jobs Jobs Jobs

It is really hard to do this job and not want to do more for your clients if you are the type of person that like to "fix" people.  I, unfortunately, am that type of person.  In almost all of my relationships-romantic or otherwise-I have served as the "cheerleader" of sorts, yeah you can do it, you can do it, put your mind to it!  So I find it hard to sit back and not help when my clients who really are trying to move on and be productive cannot find anyone that will give them a break.  Hence, here is "the list":

This information was provided by the Alabama Department of Public Health
*****************There is, of course, no guarantee of employment but this information was obtained by our office social worker for our clients (any anyone else) having a hard time getting a second chance because of mistakes made in the past.  If you find additional companies, please do not hesitate to comment and add.**************************

Alacare Home Health
Alabama Gas Corporation
Alabama Power Company
Baptist Health centers, Inc.
Blue Cross/Blue Shield
Bradford Health Services
Charter Communications
Health South
Noland Health Services
Norwood Clinic
Regions Bank
Bruno's/Food World
Winn-Dixie
Publix
Burlington Coat Factory
Dillard's
Family Dollar Store
Goody's
K-mart
Marshall's
Parisian
McRae's
Sam's Club
Steinmart
T J Maxx
Wal-Mart
Michael's Crafts
CVS Pharmacy
Rite-Aid Pharmacy
Pet Smart
Applebee's
Arby's
Atlanta Bread Company
Baskin Robbins
Blimpie
Burger King
Captain D's
Chick Fil A
Chili's
Church's Chicken/Popeye's
CiCi's Pizza
Copeland's
Cracker Barrell
Dairy Queen
Hardee's
IHOP


As with everything, I ask my clients to use their common sense.  I would not get excited about an open position as a cashier at K-Mart if the felony plastered on the criminal background check is going to show a conviction for Theft of Property I.  I would not bother to apply for a position at CVS or Rite-Aid if the convicted offense involves drugs.

Good luck.

Is principle worth your freedom

I joined a colleague that was going to speak to her client about his plea offer that was soon-to-expire.  This particular client had been in jail for 12 months, accused of stealing and selling copper.  He was adamant that he found the copper on the side of the road, he left it there for 24 hours to see if the rightful owner would come retrieve it.  When he went back the copper was still on the side of the road so he took it and sold it.  He was unemployed, his parents were sick and they needed the money. 

I sit there listening to my coworker and listening to the client for about 20 minutes and I realize they are having two separate conversations.  She is trying to get him to understand what the law says and he is trying to get her to understand what he is going through.  While he admits that something did not "feel right" when he found the copper on the side of the road, he does not believe he found and sold the $6,000 worth that was stolen from the power company.  He was willing to pay restitution in the amount of $1000 but not a penny more.

I explained to the client that as his attorney, I would fight on his behalf if he wanted a trial.  I would require that the District Attorney prove each and every element of the charge and I would closely examine every piece of evidence they intend to present.  But I also explained to my client that as a person, sitting on the jury, I would find it hard to believe that valuable copper sat on the side of the road for 24 hours with NO ONE else picking it up.  We then discussed his mother and the fact that he has already lost his father while serving time.  He explained that his mother was pretty much on her death bed and needed him home.  So I asked him to look at it like this....you can take the plea, get credit for time served, chalk the $6000 restitution up to a life lesson learned and be home taking care of your mother.  Or you can stick to your guns, take your case before a jury, sit in jail until your case is up for trial and risk being incarcerated when your mother passes. 

He decided to take the plea.

You may be reading this and thinking that was a dirty trick, to use his mother as a way to get him to take the plea.  But you must look at it like this: He DID take the copper, he DID try to sell it, he DID think it was possibly stolen.  Elements of a receiving stolen property charge met.  The DA agreed to drop the Theft of Property charges.  The DA was asking for 12 months, of which, our client had already served 12 months.  There was no dispute that the alleged victim was out $6000 worth of property.  The question was whether my client received all of it and only sold some of it, or if he sold all that he had and had no idea what happened to the rest.  The IMPORTANT question was whether he was willing to sit in jail until his case came up for trial while his mother's health was failing.

The important question was "is principle worth your freedom?"  My client decided it was not. 

As I write this he is at home, cooking or cleaning and caring for his mother in her last days.  He is an elderly man who does not have much time left himself.  He has the next 13 years to make payments of any denomination towards the $6000 and you can bet your arse that he will NEVER pick up any copper off the side of the road again.

As attorney's we have a tendency to want to bring the client up to the level of understanding what the law "says", often refusing to be brought 'down' to what the client is saying. What we should be focused on is ensuring there is a "meeting of the minds" if at all possible, with our client. When we can accomplish a meeting of the minds, then we can speak to our clients about what is in their best interest without sounding like we are selling them out, selling them short or sending them up the river to fend for themselves.

Until next time,

Be blessed, be careful, don't confess and don't consent.

~LT

Law and Order

A little boy is born and all seems well.  He has ten fingers and ten toes, his screeching is so loud that it is clear his lungs are just fine.  He reacts well to being placed on his mothers warm chest and he squeezes his eyes in pain when he is placed under the light of the little bassinet that the nurses use to clean him up.

As he grows it is apparent that something is not quite....right about him.  He barely makes it past the eighth grade and then he just stops going to school, spending his days at his mothers side.

As a man he is on fifteen different medications, ADD, nerves, back pain, leg pain, headaches, stomach problems, und so weiter.  Although he does drink, even when he is stone cold sober he sounds like Boomhower from King of the Hill. 

One morning this man is startled awake by the loud ring of the telephone.  He can barely make out his mothers muffled voice in the other room.  Footsteps.  She is in his doorway and she needs him to take her to the hospital.  He hops up, throws on the jeans he peeled off the night before and takes her to the hospital seven miles away.  He decides that he wants to take a shower since he didn't the night before; he is starting to offend himself, surely he will offend his newborn baby niece.

As he approaches a yellow light he slows but then changes his mind and goes but it is too late, he runs the red light.  Two seconds after he realizes he has run the red light he sees the police car.  The officer hears the slurs of Boomhower and the disconnected thoughts of the thirty-three year old ADD man with an eighth grade education and immediately thinks "DRUNK DRIVER."  But the man blows 000's on the breath machine.  The officer figures he will just charge him with driving under the influence of something and takes him in.  His urine is never tested, his blood is never drawn, he is adamant that he was not drunk.  More important, he never had the opportunity to take his medication so he was not under the influence of anything.

The prosecutor doesn't care.  No evidence? So what? The cop arrested him so he must be guilty.  Time to go to trial.

Soon after I started practicing law I stopped watching Law & Order.  I stopped watching because they get it ALL wrong.  Every time I watched the show, any of the shows, I would sit there and shake my head "it's all wrong, they are all wrong!"

But there is one thing they did get right, the prosecutor is not supposed to go forward unless and until they believe that the police have the "right man."  I have watched episodes where the district attorney will tell the detectives "get me more."  I have sat and watched as the prosecutor yells at the police that if they don't get something that will stick they are going to have to let the perp go.  Never once does the D.A. say "hey, if you guys arrest them, I'll find a way to persecute them or corner them into taking a plea."

Alas, they did get one thing right.  They are supposed to be "seekers of justice."  The prosecutors are not supposed to say 'how high' each time an alleged victim yells jump.  The district attorney is not supposed to bow and bend at the beck and call of the police department, however that is exactly how the prosecutors in my state react.

Trial tomorrow.

I wish I was a school teacher.

Sigh.

UPDATE: Case dismissed.  The prosecutor saw that I was not going to back down or try to force my client into taking a plea.  He saw that I was ready and HUNGRY for a trial.  He asked for a continuance and the judge politely declined after hearing a brief synopsis of the facts. ;-)

Until next time,

Be blessed, be careful, don't confess and don't consent.

~LT

I am the glasses

In the little municipality just north of my office, they have court twice a week.  Once a week, I am the public defender assigned to the defendants coming through.  But only if they ask.  So often people will come in, go to the city prosecutor or the judge, admit things they shouldn't admit, say things they shouldn't say and agree to things they should not agree to. The prosecutor or judge will allow these defendants to enter into these pleas because they are not getting jail time...yet.

Fast forward three, six or nine months and Ms. Thomas has failed to do something and she has been ordered to come back before the court.  Since she is NOW facing jail time for contempt, the public defender is appointed.  Five minutes after I am appointed I speak with Ms. Thomas, review her file and find out what happened.  Often the conversation is like the last ten I have had with clients in her same predicament:

Me: Ms. Thomas did you realize you were ordered to do X?

Ms. Thomas: No ma'am, I didn't know that.

Me:  Right here you signed that you read this and understood the judge ordered you to do X?

Ms. Thomas: I can't do that?

Me: Why didn't you do X Ms. Thomas and why can't you do it if I can get the judge to give you a little more time to comply?

Ms. Thomas: I am disabled/I don't have transportation/I have a new baby at home/My job won't let me off/I lost my job right before that court date/I just got a job yesterday/My husband just died/I am ineligible to get my license back/und so weiter.

The significance of Ms. Thomas' last statement?  She cannot comply with what the judge ordered her to do.  She could not comply when it was ordered and no amount of yelling, demanding or ordering from the judge is going to make her comply.  Had I been appointed at the beginning of her case, I could have had the above conversation with her earlier, and we could have avoided the ten, fifteen or thirty days in jail the judge is now demanding.  Had I been appointed earlier, I could have requested the court allow Ms. Thomas do something in place of what she could not do so that she is not held in contempt later.

I need my glasses to see. I don't mean that without my glasses the world becomes a black void, but you do not want to ride in a vehicle with me at night if I do not have my glasses on and I do not know where I am going. Since I need my glasses in order to see, if I do not have them on, no amount of yelling, demanding or ordering me to read something posted on the wall ten feet cross the room will help make it happen. If you want me to do what you order me to do then I need my glasses.

For my clients, I am the glasses.  If one of the things Ms. Thomas was ordered to do was enroll in a court referral program that would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $700, but she is a single mother with 2 kids, and a full-time job that only pays minimum wage, she can't do it.  Even if she could, she cannot do it in the time period that the judge has ordered her to do it.  No amount of yelling, demanding or ordering is going to make her pay it and if she had been afforded the opportunity to place her glasses on earlier, she wouldn't be in the mess she is in.  A mess that the court placed her in.

I have grown to love my job, I have grown to empathize with my clients but I have grown to detest certain officers of the court.  I had a prosecutor tell me once that he didn't even want the defendants money any more, he wanted "her ass" [to serve time in jail].  Her charge?  Making an improper turn and not having her insurance card on her at the time she was pulled over.  He was pissed off because she never paid the ticket.  When she was finally located, he didn't want the ticket paid.  When I asked him what he would 'get' out of having "her ass" he just looked at me and walked away.

I know that I will not do this for the duration of my career, I have things that I want to do for myself and my family that requires more than a public servants salary will allow.  But before I whisk my daughters off to Italy or take my brother back to the beautiful German city where he was born, there are so many others that need to see.  There are so many others that are being allowed to enter into pleas that they cannot comply with.  There are SO many more people that need glasses.

I am the glasses.

(Thank you to EEG for helping me see my role as the glasses.)

Until next time,

Be blessed, be careful, don't confess and don't consent.

~LT

It is not my job...(part 2)

It is a rainy evening and the game is on.  A young man is at his father's home, enjoying the game and some guy time.  It's half-time and the boy has a craving for some snacks that aren't in the kitchen.

"That's fine, I have a few bucks from my allowance, I will run to the corner store and be back in time for the second half of the game."

"Grab your coat, it's raining" he can hear his mother say on his way out the door.  So he grabs his hooded sweater to protect him from the rain and off he goes.

The young man successfully makes it in the store, greets the clerk who is enjoying highlights from the same game he was just watching, pays for his snack and heads back out the door.

He hears footsteps.  Initially he thinks nothing of it, people walk outside in the rain-he's doing it.

But these footsteps seem to be getting closer to him.  He turns his head slightly to peek around his hoody and sees a man uncomfortably close to him so he speeds up.

So does the man.

He runs.

So does the man.

The young man turns around to confront the man "Why are you following me?"

The man replies "What are you doing here?"

The young man tries to, literally, call for help when he is attacked, beaten down and killed....

.......

.......

As a criminal defense attorney, these are the types of cases that make your friends look at you sideways and think (or say) "How could you defend someone like THAT?!"

Well, first of all, I'm not his lawyer.  Second, if you REALLY want justice then you want someone like that to have an attorney.  You want him to have a competent and GOOD attorney.  You want someone in his corner that is going to make sure that the police did their job, the prosecutors do their job, the jury understands their role and the judge does his job.  You want someone like me that is going to make sure all of this happens because when that jury comes back and convicts that man, YOU WANT THE CONVICTION TO STICK!

If he is Pro Se (represents himself) and is convicted, he has a good case for appeal.

If he has a half-assed lawyer that barely does their job, he has a good case for appeal.

If he has a lawyer that allows their personal desire to see this man lite on fire, affect their representation, he has a good case for appeal.

It is not my job to convict a man that I truly believe is guilty.  It is not my job to set my client up for a guilty verdict and it is not my job to further corrupt an already corrupt system.  It is my job to do EVERYTHING in my power to make sure that I am oil in the very rusty machine we call the justice system.  Because being a criminal defense attorney does not mean I am blind to the fact that sometimes "GUILTY" is justice.  Sometimes "GUILTY" is a win.

Trust me, I am a human being that chose law as my profession, not a lawyer that chose to be a human being.  I have emotions, I have opinions and I hope the justice system executes justice AND George Zimmerman.  But I want him to be tried well, so that he may rot in hell.

Until next time,

Be blessed, be careful, don't confess and don't consent.

~LT