A bit of doggerel from Jaime the P.D. Intern at Red Red Whine:
I'm more than a little punchy and can barely keep my eyes open. So, in this totally delirious state, I give you The Public Defender's Tale based upon my time at the PD’s office. Yeah, kind of like the Canterbury Tales, but Chaucer I'm not...
Seattle writer Kelley Eskridge blogs about voir dire (part one) (part two), then gets fan mail from a criminal defense lawyer. Good stuff.
See also Idaho blogger Rob's jury duty perspective.
Something remarkable and sad from The Urban Monk:
Why I Watch People Die
I cannot escape the fact that not far away a man is being taken into a room, strapped down and killed. And he may deserve it or he may not, but he is there not for the lives he took, but because he was the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I know that, and it terrifies me, and it will not leave me alone...
At Nachiket's Corner, Nachiket Deshpande's daughter Tanu has great insight for one so young:
There is a very big tall tree, on top of that there is a jail. There is a police monkey who takes lawyers up the tree and puts them in the jail. The lawyers can't climb down the tree so they can never get out!
Okay, I'm fairly sure that this new blogger is writing fiction:
The Public Pretender
(besides stealing the blog name from someone who claimed it before he did)
(let me rescind that: the old blog is named "Public Pretender," where the new blog is named "The Public Pretender." See, it's like one is "Under Pressure," and the other is "Ice Ice Baby."
All's well here. If any else, the recent folderol at my courthouse has taught me a new diagnosis to describe those of us who do juvenile criminal defense.
Update: this comment from Elizabeth is so good and so DSM-V worthy, it deserved to be moved up front where everyone could see it!
Occupational Defiance Disorder (ODD) is a psychiatric disorder that is characterized by two different sets of problems. These are aggressiveness and a tendency to purposefully bother and irritate governmental entities (otherwise referred to as "the man"). It is often the reason that people seek employment in indigent defense work. When ODD is present with PDS (public defender syndrome), or other psychiatric disorders, it makes life with that person far more difficult.
The criteria for ODD are:
A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least six months during which four or more of the following are present:
1. often loses temper during preliminary hearings
2. often argues with investigators when they arrest a client because they "just had a feeling" he did something
3. often actively defies or refuses to comply with government attempts to violate our clients’ pesky constitutional rights
4. often deliberately annoys district attorneys for pleasure and sport
5. is often touchy or easily annoyed by 1 sentence police reports
6. is often angry and resentful when faced with incomprehensible bonds and sentencing
7. is often spiteful and vindictive towards misdemeanor probation officers
8. often reduces police officers to begging for forgiveness for failing at life and/or crying on the stand
9. is often un-appreciated by clerks when attempting to do the clerks’ job that the clerk failed to do the first time.
10. often defiant to the point of sheer bull-headedness when faced with pretextual tag light and window tint stops
The disturbance in behavior is evidence of clinically significant involvement in criminal defense work
:-) Maybe not just our juvenile defenders
Thank you, Elizabeth, wherever you are!
It started with Blawg Review. It spread to Where's Travis McGee? (where? Afghanistan! Read Brad Parker's dispatches) Now, somehow, it's reached me: the meme of the moment, the Top Ten Best Blawgs project.
It's hardly fair, being limited to a list of only ten, and having to avoid blogs already named (which unreasonably excludes the wisdom of Minor Wisdom and the blonde-ness of Blonde Justice) and non-law blogs (you'll miss the coyote's siren song of Creek Running North, the firebell in the night at Orcinus, the curious absence of monkey or disaster in Monkey Disaster).
So, facing the limitations of the playing field as any good public defender should, here's a list - not the list - of Top Ten Legal Blogs:
* Angry Pregnant Lawyer - co-starring Not So Angry Husband, Angry Boy, and Angry Little Baby. Law makes guest appearances.
* CrimLaw - of course. Defended then, prosecutes now, doesn't miss a thing.
* Grits for Breakfast - "Welcome to Texas justice: You might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride." This blog gets results, reforming Texas courts, jails and prisons.
* Public Defender Stuff - the aggregator of my people.
* Sentencing Law and Policy - my "serious" choice, from Professor Douglas Berman at Ohio State. Essential and influential.
* The Bardd Before the Bar - indigent defense, indignant cats (turn down your speakers!).
* The Imbroglio - Big Sky vistas stretch out in front of this starting-out lawyer.
* The Menagerie - small-size practice, medium-size dogs.
* The Thirteen Juror - with the most recent post titled "How to Be a Successful Homeless People," a rage against injustice just behind a civil Floridian smile.
* Woman of the Law - "I'm a fast-talkin' hell-raisin' son of a bitch, and I'm a sinner and I know how to fight." Not my words, hers.
* Woman Wearing Black - shot a lawyer in Reno just to watch him die.
That's eleven! I'm arbitrary like that. Sad to leave out a few too many other worthy blogs (these among them), but still, here's a pretty good list to get you started.
Update 10/5: after I put this post and myself to bed, I tossed and turned agonizing, how could I leave out The Invent Blog? Or Simple Justice? Or The Underdog Blog? Or, or, or... as I fell into a listless slumber. Small wonder that memes are considered viral: catch one and it'll make you sick!
Update 10/6: this morning while watching Conference on KBYU, I was seized with a compulsion, yea, even as unto a most powerful magnet, to return to this post and bring you the good news of Law of Criminal Defense by John Wesley Hall, Jr., Scoplaw, Do Not Pass Geaux, Fight 'Em 'til We Can't, my blogfather Public Defender Dude, and so many more - check out my blogroll.
At NPR (motto: "we here at public radio couldn't be more pleased with ourselves"), Talk of the Nation's website has streaming audio and a nice long excerpt from "Defending the Damned":
Author Kevin Davis discusses his book, Defending the Damned: Inside Chicago's Cook County Public Defender's Office. Davis shadowed Chicago's elite murder task force, the public defenders who represent accused rapists and serial killers who have the deck — and often the evidence — stacked against them...
Assistant producer Sarah Handel at Blog of the Nation is soliciting your comments:
If you're a public defender, what's the best part of the job? What was your wildest case (that you can share, of course!)?
In honor of Mark Corwin Bruce -
I think back to when I was 13 and visited a courtroom and was fascinated by the process, not the drama. I think back on my career and find myself strangely satisfied about the people whose lives I’ve helped—people whose cases might have turned out differently had they another lawyer who cared less...
- this bit of Roethke:
Is that dance slowing in the mind of man
That made him think the universe could hum?
The great wheel turns its axle when it can;
I need a place to sing, and dancing-room,
And I have made a promise to my ears
I'll sing and whistle romping with the bears.
Back in my homeland, when an officer couldn't find any section of Idaho Code to fit a perceived 'crime,' he just made one up. And, the case went right past the trial judge up to the Court of Appeals. Thanks to fellow Idaho lawyer (and expatriate) Useful Information:
This month, we learn of another unlucky fellow — Blaine Murray, who got stopped by an Idaho Fish & Game officer and cited for the offense of "Violate Forest Service Road Closure."
The citation indicated that "Violate Forest Service Road Closure" is codified at "I.C. 36-401(b)10(C)." But if you take a look, you’ll see that there is no "I.C. 36-401(b)10(C)." Of course, the prosecutor who argued the charge against Mr. Murray recognized that. That’s why the prosecutor moved to amend the charge by adding a "1," to make it "I.C. 36-1401(b)10(C)." The magistrate allowed the amendment, and the wheels of justice rolled on.
Except that there is no "I.C. 36-1401(b)10(C)" either...
More fun in Fremont County magistrates court - where Murray was convicted - here. The opinion, State v. Murray, No. 32394 (Idaho App. Nov. 30, 2006) is here (pdf file). As Useful Info notes:
The Court of Appeals, after careful analysis, concluded that this fiasco "presents the rare circumstance where a charging document fails, under even the most liberal construction, to charge an offense and therefore is insufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on an Idaho court."
"How can a friend of mine get back into court? He had a public Defender & they the public defender told him to flea bargin."
Check out the p.d. - slamming response from a self-promoting "aggresive" attorney.
From Onion Radio News:
Rookie Defense Attorney Takes Overruled Objection Personally
"It's not fair - I didn't see that judge overrule the D.A. when he objected to my line of questioning..."
From Borenstein's Law, a gripping tale of a young man about to break his parents' heart:
Intervention: what friends are for
And yet here he was. Sitting across from me, smiling a benign smile, seeming oblivious to the decision he was contemplating that might lead him on a disastrous path...
Read all the way for the startling conclusion.
Chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d'un poète
(Inside each lawyer are the ruins of a poet - Flaubert)
Disclaimer: this is not a review of "Indefensible: One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice" by David Feige. This is a reaction to "Indefensible : One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice" by David Feige.
Do I like it? Yes. Is it good for the public defenders? Yes.
For me, Indefensible is like an episode of Sliders (the first two seasons, before it sucked), where I've jumped into a world which looks a bit familiar, but is filled with unfamiliar traps and peril, characters and comedy. It's cinematic in its forward propulsion and discursive digressions as we follow our Dante into the fire. I wouldn't be shocked to turn on HBO one night and see Indefensible in place of Deadwood and The Wire.
Feige takes us through a day of courthouse triage, where it seems that he's always running, always late, and always juggling which client or which docket will get the least of his limited attention. Who's assigning this caseload anyhow? Three murder clients at one time, and felony clients, and misdemeanor clients too, all waiting in different courtrooms to be tended to. I love vertical representation as much as the next p.d., but here I'm left with a picture of a lawyer who flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions. Feige is truthful about the doubt and guilt that come from all this hustling, in a nasty system which essentially is structured to make it impossible to render effective counsel to all the people all of the time.
Feige's home base is (or was) the Bronx Defenders, who deserve the praise for their expansive client-centered approach to indigent defense. It's enjoyable and highly entertaining to watch good colleagues doing a good job, and Feige seems good at this job. He ends up as the star of Indefensible, in the fine cinematic tradition of the tough guy with a soft spot, who says, "Some times you just gotta break the rules," as he jumps the metal detector queue on his way to slipping his jailed buddy a pack of contraband cigarettes.
(I would do anything for love(but I won't do that) - Loaf)
So inevitably I start comparing my lazy ass to the heroics of the Bronx Defenders:
* Maybe I should intentionally break the jail rules and risk getting banned from jail visiting in order to establish how sympatico I am with my client? (did that in Ada County with a legal pad, felt manipulated and still got hit with an IAC from the guy; someone in Twin Falls County did it, and we all paid for it with a big new sheet of plexiglas)
* Maybe I should swear at the judge? (oh, sorely have wanted to on occasion - had a colleague who every Monday afternoon had to say "m*therf*cker m*therf*cker m*therf*cker" just before leaving to avoid it popping out of his mouth in court)
* Maybe I should feel guilty for not giving all my clients my cellphone number? (some have it - I only got a cellphone for the first time last year)
* Maybe I should address my clients as "Darling"? (uh, that goes against all my northern European uptightitude, no matter where you stand on the line-drawing issue)
After the twelveth "Darling" or so, it hits me: Indefensible is a romance. Feige seems to have truly loved his clients. Of course, deep affection can bring with it some romanticizing and some gauzy soft focus for those beloved, some idealization of their flaws, some minimization of their nasty habits and some cold fury for their oppressors. Still, who reads a romance for balance? In a world of non-stop Law and Order reruns, it's enjoyable to tune in to Indefensible.
Once again, the zombie blogs hit it right on the head:
“The industry related to the topic of public defender is ever growing. We live in an impressive age where public defender related websites is abundantly attainable. Keep in mind, you’re not going to feel that every tidbit of public defender information educational. “
That is so true... (Who sets up a site like this anyhow? No ad revenue even, just computer-generated drivel.)
A choice quote from the NY Times'
'The Poem That Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later'
" 'Howl' still helps young people realize their actual ambitions... not to become a poor poet living in a dump but maybe to become a physical therapist when you are expected to become a lawyer, or maybe to become a lawyer when everybody expects you to fail at everything."
One day in the Carter Era, my high school Western Civ teacher was standing around with my friends. He turned to each one of them in turn saying, "Yale for you." "For you, Georgetown." When he got to me, he said, "have you considered the Navy?"
That same year, I must have been cutting class and hiding out in one of the used book stores downtown one afternoon, when I found a thin book with a strange, foul-mouthed, fiery poem, barely comprehensible to an Idaho kid. I bought it, read it, and as you see, here I am.
Years after that, Allen Ginsberg came to Boise for a reading. Wish I'd gone up and shaken his hand.
Even though I won't link to them, the faceless robot-powered zombie blogs are feeling some love for us p.d.'s this week:
You know you want the public defenders hook up. public defenders surpasses all others. The hottest public defenders is what you needYou know you want the public defenders hook up. public defenders surpasses all others. The hottest public defenders is what you need
and
Quick there is a public defender. The best there ever was public defender will take you there. The public defender are the finer things in lifeQuick there is a public defender. The best there ever was public defender will take you there. The public defender are the finer things in life
Thanks, robot zombies. Tell my clients. I'll be here all week.
Here's the latest entry in the burgeoning field of LDS public defender fiction -
God's Executioner by Roger Terry:
“The courthouse called first thing this morning,” Tanya tells me. “They’ve got an oddball on their hands.”
“Don’t we all,” I philosophize. I’m a public defender, and oddballs in my line of work are something rare and wonderful like golf balls on a driving range...
We public defenders are a peculiar people.
