Today I felt like a real attorney

Went to a new court today to help out some PD's from the office I hadn't worked with before. Something about being in a new courthouse and just hitting the ground running made me realize how much I've learned the past couple of months.

I'm constantly astounded by how little many of my clients care about their cases. They show up late for court, blow off interviews, don't take required classes or get into treatment. I've had people get a couple days of jail when they could have had the case dismissed if they would have just taken an alcohol and drug class. The clients are just lazy and unconcerned about how their actions will affect their cases. Today I had probably my favorite example of an unconcerned defendant who is just going to do as he pleases.

One attorney decided to leave court to finish some work at the office and left with me his files (which was fine with me as it gave me something to do in the afternoon). He left me with the case of Mr. Defendant. Mr. Defendant was a new case and all I needed was a continuance, very simple, something I could have handled my first week. His case gets called, I walk up and say "Petition F. Review for Mr. Defendant" look to my right where Mr. Defendant is supposed to be and see nothing. I look back into the gallery and see no one moving.

At this point I tell the court that I haven't spoken with Mr. Defendant, another attorney did, and I will go check to see if he stepped into the hallway. The court moves on to other cases. No one responds in the hallway, no one is in the restroom. I run outside and see the attorney who gave me the file starting to drive away. I get a hold of him and ask whether he actually spoke with Mr. Defendant, or just assumed he was there. He spoke with him, so at one point Mr. Defendant had been present.

I walk back into the court house, check the hall again and then go back to the court room. As I walk back into the court room a couple people sitting in the back start gesturing to me. They are pointing to the front corner to a young man who is sound asleep in his chair. After some light shaking (and some brief concern on my part that he was drunk and passed out) a very tired Mr. Defendant wakes up.

In the other courtroom the female judge went out of her way to take cases handled by male attorneys first. Weird for a female judge to be sexist, but it seemed to help me and my client. She was damn near swooning for my client and gave him a far better sentence than was recommended by the State. The client was of course a complete jackass. God forbid a judge give a worthy client a break.

Trying not to think about it or my head may explode

I now owe the federal government the equivalent of one years starting salary at the PD office I want to work at. In some ways this terrifies me because that's a lot of money and with that salary it will take me a long time to pay it off. On the other hand it reassures me because PD salaries aren't that high, so my loans can't be all that bad as compared to other people. I have friends who owe one years salary at a firm job, so I'm doing all right.

I put in my two weeks notice today. Not because I want to leave, but because I have to. Really hoping I can avoid crying this time. I love the job a lot more than last years internship, but I haven't really bonded as much with the other interns. Part of that is because I have an office to myself and I'm not stuck in the same room as another intern for 8 hours a day. The other part is that the interns just aren't as cool as Senior Intern from last year. She's currently studying to pass the California bar and then will start work at a PD office near the Bay area.

Haha (points and laughs)

Dear Prosecutor,

So sorry you lost that motion and my case was dismissed. Here is why:
1. The very clear case law on point that I cited said I should win. The end.

In the future do you think you could just dismiss these?

thanks,

Petition

I lost my latest trial

but I looked good doing it. I think they must teach the prosecutors in my state to wear pocket squares for trial because the one I encounter fairly often almost always wears one. I happen to love pocket squares so I wore one for my last trial. One nice thing I will say about prosecutors, for the most part the dress better than defense attorneys. Defense attorneys wear the absolute worst clothes. Grey plaid pants + white jacket + cream shirt + green tie = Awful outfit. Not ok for court. Seriously look in a mirror. I don't care how good of an attorney you are, you shouldn't be allowed to look that awful in court. I don't care that your client has paint stains and holes in his pants, he's indigent.

Book Reviews

Awhile ago I read "Defending the Damned" and was a little disappointed in it. It was just ok to me. The author kept calling redirect recross and I would have liked to hear about more than just the murder unit. Also I'm not a huge fan of the court system in Chicago (since it's so corrupt).

Many people suggested I read "Indefensible" by David Feige. While I'm not a huge fan of New York either, I thought this was a much much better book. It helped that it was written by an actual public defender. You can tell Mr. Feige cares about the job and the people he represents and wants others to understand. I liked his candid admissions when he did something wrong. It is so scary that defendants get one shot and there entire lives can be ruined because the luck of the draw gave them an attorney who for one reason or another screwed something up. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. You can buy it from Mr. Feige's website.

After "Indefensible" I picked up a copy of "Gideon's Trumped" by Anthony Lewis at a used book store. This is an old book (from 1964) but it tells the story of Clarance Earl Gideon and his case created my future career. It is so weird reading the book and realizing Miranda hadn't been decided yet. Criminal procedure sucked a lot before the 1960s. It astonishes me that less than 60 years ago people were forced to represent themselves in felony cases. I've had two years of law school and I was barely able to handle a simple misdemeanor case. Before law school I'm not sure I would have been able to fight a traffic ticket intelligently. I was glad to learn that once he finally got his new trial Gideon was acquitted.

PS

5. I'm sorry again about the confusion with your last court date. Things worked out in the end though, your case still got dismissed. Please keep your shit together so we don't see you again. You are to smart to pull that kind of stupid shit.

Letters

I realize this will come as no surprise to any of the real PDs who read this, but I didn't realize that prosecutors didn't know the law. I didn't realize that part of my job was teaching them the law.

Dear Prosecutor,

Why am I asking you to dismiss this case? Well let's consider this case that is directly on point that says the stop is bad. With no probable cause for the stop all the evidence after the stop becomes fruit of the poisonous tree and must be excluded. This stop was based entirely on X. My case says that stops based on X lack probable cause. Thus this stop lacked probable cause. All of the evidence in this case is a result of a search incident to arrest. A search incident to arrest is not valid if the initial stop lacked probable cause.

Sincerely,
Petition

Dear Prosecutor,

Thank you for responding by telling me that I've read the case incorrectly by citing to an older case not on point. In the future I won't be helpful and I won't summarize the case for you. In the future I will just copy and paste the direct quotes that say I'm right and you're wrong. In the future I will treat you like a child. Additionally here is a direct quote from my case directly on point showing you that I'm right.

Sincerely,
Petition

Dear Prosecutor,

No I will not agree to a continuance for you to respond to my motion. I shouldn't have to write this motion, you should be dismissing the case.

Sincerely,
Petition

Dear Clients,

1. Thank you for missing your appointment. I didn't need to meet with you to prepare a defense for your case. I'm such an amazing intern and my supervisor is such an amazing attorney that we are able to prepare defenses without knowing your side of the case. Also it's nice that you didn't show up because I didn't want to wear a t-shirt and jeans, but instead wanted to wear something a little more professional in this heat. I enjoy sweating.

2. Thank you for not returning my numerous calls. Negotiating with the prosecutor has been very easy not knowing if you have completed the numerous things discussed. Oh you weren't going to do that until you heard from me whether the prosecutor would give us a deal? And you were going to learn this from me how? So I was supposed to lie to the prosecutor and tell him you'd done X and if he agreed to the deal you would then actually do X? Ok well allow me to be the first to welcome you to the real world. In the real world things don't work like that. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you that.

3. You are crazy and for the first time I was uncomfortable being alone in my office with a client. I don't believe you, you need medication and lots and lots of counseling. I'm not that torn up over the fact that you might lose your kid because I'm not sure you should be around children. Also I am not your divorce attorney.

4. Why must you insist on taking the crappy plea when I think there is a good trial issue? You are held on other far more serious charges anyway so its not like you would be getting out of jail anytime soon. You wouldn't even have to testify. You just sit there and act pretty while I conduct a trial. The worst that happens is almost identical to the crappy plea offer. Shit more jail time really means is that the judge can revoke less of it when you violate the terms of probation.

Sincerely,
Petition

NOT GUILTY

on the one and only charge. I only second chaired this one, but I'm claiming total victory. I argued the motions in liminie, motions that were made entirely from taking other attorneys motions and placing the defendant's name into them. The judge felt the need to chastise me for them and insult my evidence professor for not teaching me evidence correctly. What sucked is that the judge was right the motion was wrong and misunderstood the rules of evidence. But I did as this job has taught me, stood there and took it, thanked the judge and moved on. I got to object a lot more at this trial than in my last trial.

I left the following as a comment to my previous post, but I feel the need to post it here to better clarify what actually happened in my previous case. I really need to edit this thing a little better.

I didn't wink wink or nudge nudge. Nor did I advise him to lie. I can see how my post kind of came across like that. To clarify I only asked him if his story was in fact more like the story in the police report. When I said "if you were X" I was referring to what was said in the police report, I didn't suggest a wild new story that came out of nowhere. I wanted to make sure he wasn't lying to me to make me think he was innocent so I explained that even if things were like they read in the police report we could still mount an effective defense.

I didn't advise him to lie. I informed him that he didn't need to tell me a better story than the one contained in the police report. I really think he thought that his story needed to be about complete innocence. My questions to him were to explain that even if what he said didn't paint him as 100% angel we could still mount a defense.