WA: client in court makes a run for it - what would you do?

From the Spokesman-Review:

Municipal court brawl leads to arrest

A brawl that began when a man tried fleeing a courtroom this morning ended with the man, a deputy and three attorneys falling onto a bench of bystanders, according to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

Micah W. Hasselstrom, 34, ran when Spokane Municipal Court Judge Tracy Staab ordered him jailed with increased bail after he said he didn’t plan on appearing in court again, a news release said.

Hasselstrom’s public defender, Tony Tompkins, grabbed his leg to hold him in place as Deputy John Pederson tried handcuffing him, and a struggle ensued... Public defenders Francis Adewale and Andy Hess joined the struggle, and the group fell onto the bench, knocking a 68-year-old woman to the floor...

There's a lively discussion taking place in the Washington criminal defense bar over the lawyers' actions in essentially effecting an arrest, roughly dividing into "respect the client - let him be free to make his own mistakes" and "protect the client - let him be free at least from a new felony escape charge." Myself, I think I'd go hands-off, but not having been in a moment like that, I'm hard-pressed to second-guess.

WA: Grant County gets it in gear

From the Wenatchee World:

Public defense pilot project posts dramatic results in Grant County

Two years ago, 93 juveniles arrested for crimes in Grant County pleaded guilty at their first court appearance before an attorney was even assigned to them. Last year, only one child did.

Grant County was one of three places in the state chosen for a pilot project last year aimed at providing better defense for indigent and juvenile people who are charged in Washington. The state provided $100,000 to hire an attorney to be present at every juvenile's first court appearance in Grant County.

As a result, not only did those children not plead guilty without knowing all their options, but many of them were able to participate in treatment and counseling programs and received deferred sentences rather than detention for their crimes...

WA: chop chop

We made KIRO TV tonight, and not for a good reason:

Huge Impact Possible With Cuts To Thurston County Courts

Four public defenders who handle a total of more than a 1,000 cases a year are on the chopping block - the result will be a caseload increase for the remaining public defenders with potentially serious consequences.

"They're going to get overburdened, they're going to get stressed out and they're not going to give the kind of defense that they should give," said Sally Harrison, director of the Office of Assigned Counsel...

Video here.

That's it, I'm off to vacation (unpaid - thanks, budget cuts!)

"'Bummer, dude' doesn't really cover it, does it?"

One of my colleagues made quite an impression on Fallout Kid:

The cat that runs the show for Juvenile Law is a nice enough guy... He talked about how he is a Washington State Juvenile Public Defender. He handles a huge f*cking caseload: 100 cases, sometimes 80... (F)or the private practice I work, I sometimes feel like I'm running my ass into the ground with about 60-70 active files. 100? F*ck, that's crazy...

I'll need to check my caseload stats in the morning.

The great recession hits home

Earlier this week all our support staff were reduced to 3/4 time, at 3/4 the pay. Today lay-offs were announced, effective May 31st, for four dedicated young lawyers in my office. The rest of us will do one week's leave without pay and apply what were our COLA's to our health insurance premiums. If only we worked someplace that provides a service to society, like AIG.

WA: cut advocacy for kids now, pay later

From the Tacoma News Tribune:

Cut TeamChild and you put kids, budgets at risk

When legislators consider cutting $500,000 a year for TeamChild, they should ask themselves one question: Do they want the kids it now serves to grow up to be inmates or taxpayers?

WA: Seattle 1919 - we shall be all

Today makes the ninetieth anniversary of the start of the Seattle General Strike. If you happen to be in Seattle Saturday (and you don't have a nine-year-old who would rather feed the seagulls at Ivar's), you could celebrate (or commiserate) with the Seattle Labor Chorus and others, from 1PM to 5PM at the Seattle Labor Temple, 2800 1st Ave. Brought to you by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies. It's free.

WA: Grant County - style p.d. work will cost you more than your bar license

Big news from the Spokesman-Review:

$3 million verdict for wrongly accused man

A federal jury in Spokane has awarded more than $3 million to Felipe G. Vargas who spent more than seven months in the Grant County jail, falsely accused of child molestation. The judgment was awarded against the former Grant County public defender, Thomas F. Earl, who provided “ineffective assistance of counsel” to Vargas...

Verdict rebuffs flat-fee defender contracts

A $3 million jury verdict in Spokane is sending a message to Washington counties, ending their practice of flat-fee contracts for public defenders, legal experts said Friday... Three days after (Felipe Vargas') arrest in November 2003, the alleged victim recanted. Police and prosecutors knew that but took no steps to free Vargas from jail. His public defender apparently was too busy with 500 other cases and didn’t adequately represent Vargas.

Grant County, also named defendant in Vargas’ 2006 civil rights suit, settled last month by paying him $250,000, based on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Moses Lake attorneys Garth Dano and George Ahrend filed the civil rights suit... “The importance of this case is it said, ‘Stop lying to the judges and each other, and don’t put your financial interests ahead of your clients,’” Dano said Friday.

John Strait, a legal ethic professor at Seattle University, testified as an expert. Flat-fee contracts, he said, “are all illegal and unethical for any attorney to enter into... “If there really are 17 counties left, and I doubt it, the lawyers who signed those contracts are subject to immediate discipline,” Strait said. “If you can identify any for me, I will file those bar complaints...”

WA: going in-house in Grant County

Great news from the channeled scablands, from the Columbia Basin Herald:

Grant County creates public defender's department - Defense attorneys to be employees

Grant County is changing public defense into a county department. Grant County commissioners hired Rafael Gonzales to lead the Grant County Department of Public Defense...

Gonzales’ goal for the public defender’s system is to provide the best service for the client and get the best result possible. He said the county has pursued this goal. “I think that this office is the next step,” Gonzales said... “We are set to open the doors on March 1,” he said.

WA: has the BBB heard of this?

Eastside colleagues (Bellevue and Spokane): Rich Eden of RC Eden Carpet Cleaning will do p.d.'s offices; however...

So this weekend I cleaned the Public Defenders office... Even pictures can't do this office justice...

So the thing I guess to do is take pictures of the p.d.'s private property and share them (password - protected) with your carpet cleaning colleagues. Apparently this does not violate the carpet cleaners' code of professional responsibility. I hope that the p.d. didn't leave any files lying around.

WA: medieval ordeal in Ephrata

Professor Turley pays a visit to my favorite old-timey Washington county:

Grant County in Washington has settled an exceptionally disturbing case involving false allegations of child abuse, allegedly ineffective representation by a public defender (later disbarred), and the holding of an innocent man for seven months after allegations were disproved. The $250,000 with Felipe Vargas seems quite modest given the abuse that he encountered in Grant County, which seems to maintain a criminal justice system on a model from the Thirteenth Century...

Profe hasn't kept up with all the changes; Grant County's in at least the Nineteenth Century by now.

WA: "I don’t see a lot of accountability for case mismanagement"

They pull stuff like this all the time, but how often do they get spanked for it? From the Spokesman-Review:

‘Careless handling’ draws ire of judge - Prosecutor’s office fined for late change to charges

The Spokane County prosecutor’s office was sanctioned Monday and fined $8,000 by a judge angry over mishandling of a critical detail surrounding a home-invasion case that could send several men to prison for the rest of their lives.

At issue was a last-minute change Monday by Deputy Prosecutor Eugene Cruz, who altered the date – from April 15 to April 17 – that the robbery and attempted first-degree murder occurred on, effectively gutting defense preparations for the trial...

(C)hanging something as critical as the date of the crime, on the morning the trial was set to begin, was too much, Spokane County Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen said. Further, prosecutors had known for months that they wanted to change the date of the crime but waited until the day of the trial to do it...

WA: we live in a political world

The lege is back in town. From the Spokesman-Review's Eye on Olympia:

(B)y tradition, Washington’s top lawmakers choose theme songs for the upcoming session... Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown read from a Bob Dylan song.

“Broken hands on broken plows, broken treaties, broken vows,” she read. “Broken pipes, broken tools, people bending broken rules.

“Hound dog howling, bullfrog croaking, everything is broken.”

WA: pummelage

The latest in the cavalcade of violence against criminal defense lawyers; up in Snohomish County, this colleague never saw it coming:

See also the Everett Herald, Everett man charged in assault on Lynnwood lawyer - Everett man allegedly punched his former attorney

WA: "it's going to be more expensive in the long run"

From the Olympian:

County workers fight for jobs - Speakers say cuts will be detrimental

Six speakers told Thurston County commissioners Monday that proposed job cuts to balance next year's budget carry serious ramifications. The commissioners are considering a proposal to lay off more than 7 percent of the county workforce — nearly 90 full-time-equivalent employees — because of rising costs and lagging revenue.

Under the budget proposal, the Office of Assigned Counsel — also known as public defenders — will lose eight employees and no longer represent indigent clients in Thurston County District Court. They will continue to represent clients charged in Superior Court. Alex Frix, a lawyer in the office, said the county would rely on private attorneys to take over the caseload. The shift could result in lawsuits over inadequate legal counsel, he said...

WA: new RPC 1.8 (m) - the air up there, state bar version

Yodelling Llama and I went to the same CLE, and both were a bit chagrined to learn that most contracts for conflict defender services in this state are now considered unethical:

Now, I suspect this result of RPC 1.8(m) is an unintended consequence of poor drafting, and no one should really be too worried about losing his license just by getting paid to provide indigent defense services...

...because as p.d.'s we truly do not have enough to watch out for already. At the CLE, this rule was referred to as something along the lines of, "public policy preference posing as professional responsibility requirement" (fine sentiment though it may be).

WA: manicure, pedicure, judicure

I'm still bummed out about work seven different ways, but today the Public Defender Crisis™ was good for a bitter little laugh. From Nicole Brodeur in the Seattle Times:

Short-order justice is served Among the trims in King County Executive Ron Sims' proposed 2009 budget is a reduction in the number of public defenders — those who fight in court for those who can't

If Sims' cuts go through, each half-time lawyer will be responsible for 725 of the expedited felonies. That's an hour and 20 minutes per client... I've had nail appointments that lasted longer than that.

Via Trial Ad Notes

WA: “drug court saved my life”

From the New York Times:

Courts Give Addicts a Chance to Straighten Out

It was not your usual courtroom scene. For one thing, the judge choked up as he described one woman’s struggle with opiate addiction after her arrest for forging prescriptions...

Now she was graduating — along with 23 other addicts who entered drug court instead of prison. Prosecutors and public defenders applauded when she was handed her certificate; a policewoman hugged her, and a child shouted triumphantly, “Yeah, Mamma!”

New haircut boy

Today in a Puget Sound courtroom -

Prosecutor: "Nice haircut"

Me: "Yeah, I'm going back to Idaho"

Prosecutor: "Then you should've got a mullet"

WA: clean your lint filter!

Why I met with my clients outside today, from the Olympian:

Fire closes family, juvenile courts for day

Thurston County family and juvenile courts are closed after a dryer fire filled the building with smoke this morning...