Criminal Law

Rah-rah vs. nah-ah

Posted on January 24, 2009
How to best describe us criminal defense types?"Turbo" from South Carolina says we're cause lawyers."Cynic" in Arizona says we're broken lawyers.Here's one vote for acknowledging our own brokenness. I'm closer to Arizona, geographically and otherwise.

ID: city on the hill

Posted on January 23, 2009
The Idaho State Journal is running a series on the Women?s Correctional Center:City on the HillPocatello has a City on the Hill that is part of our community but is a mystery to most of us. It is the Idaho's women's prison that overlooks the city and is largely a world onto itself...

NC: she was the kind of p.d. I wish I'd known

Posted on January 23, 2009
From the Winston-Salem Journal: Amy Byrd fought for the indigent but lost her life to cancer If you knew Amy Byrd, you are either a lawyer, you know one or you have been seated on the wrong end of the defendant's bench in the Forsyth County Hall of Justice...

WA: going in-house in Grant County

Posted on January 22, 2009
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...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Eulogies

Posted on January 20, 2009
This post by Drucie, the former public defender in Temecula who blogs at Thanksgiving Feast, put me in mind of my own clients who've died.

WA: has the BBB heard of this?

Posted on January 19, 2009
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...

Friday cat blogging

Posted on January 16, 2009
Just because it's been a while since they've visited the blog.

John Mortimer, 1923 - 2009

Posted on January 16, 2009
From the Guardian:Tributes pour in as writer, wit and barrister John Mortimer dies at 85 ? Rumpole creator praised for dedication to fair trialsThe worlds of law and literature yesterday mourned their joint hero, Sir John Mortimer, creator of the immortal Rumpole of the Bailey, the crumpled champion of the common man...

All hail glorious people's blog of eastside Olympia!

Posted on January 16, 2009
I just met the heroic Stakhanovite behind Oly Ost: Rolandovich looks much different in real life.

Skelly Wright and the endowed chair

Posted on January 14, 2009
Happy Skelly Wright's Birthday. Judge Wright would have been 98 today. The night school grad probably would be pleased to find a professorship named after himself in the most elite law school in the land.

CA: I'd hang it on my wall

Posted on January 14, 2009
From SFGate.com:We'd prefer a calendar from the fire departmentA lot of, um, unusual press releases and publications cross our desks every day, but this is a first: a 2009 calendar featuring lawyers and clients with the public defender's office.I want one, but it's not available on the p...

LA: "fortunately there were plenty of public defenders around"

Posted on January 14, 2009
A report from Kevin and Stacy on the state of justice and hospitality in Louisiana:(T)hings went pretty good (those little sandwiches they had were GREAT!) until Kevin asked the Chief Justice if her daughter still had that tattoo on her thigh...

WA: medieval ordeal in Ephrata

Posted on January 14, 2009
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...

WA: we live in a political world

Posted on January 13, 2009
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...

WA: "I don?t see a lot of accountability for case mismanagement"

Posted on January 13, 2009
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 chargesThe 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...

ID: Canyon jail due for a cleaning

Posted on January 12, 2009
The ACLU is suing Canyon County over jail conditions, from the Idaho Press Tribune:ACLU files suit against Canyon County jailOfficials expected jail lawsuitCounty plans response to lawsuitSee Caldwell Guardian for more.

1 out of 311,549

Posted on January 12, 2009
Today I considered myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth... Dear Skelly, Congratulations! You have been nominated as a Best Lawyer in South Sound by LegalForce Media Publications. Click here (http://www.legalforce.com/ and some other letters and numbers) to complete your nomination process...

Don't need to convince me

Posted on January 09, 2009
Latest response to the "How can you defend those people?" perennial, from Austin Defender:How Do You Do It?... I don?t know whether my client is guilty. I know what he says, what the police say, and what the evidence shows. I may have an opinion, or a guess, or even a pretty good idea...

FL: orderly transition

Posted on January 09, 2009
Odd news out of Sarasota: newly-elected public defender takes office, no employees are summarily axed, no police throw a party for the p.d. or search the p.d. premises. From WWSB:Larry Eger sworn in as Public DefenderFor the first time in more than three decades, someone other than Elliot Metcalfe holds the position of 12th Judicial Circuit Public Defender...

FL: "gimme that meat ax!"

Posted on January 07, 2009
Damage assessment from the Pensacola News Journal:Public defender cleans house Layoffs began this morning at the Public Defender?s Office in Pensacola. Thirteen employees, including two attorneys, were laid off by noon... Assistant Public Defender John Nugent was set to pick a jury...

FL: cops and p.d. sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g

Posted on January 07, 2009
Lest we forget Matt Shirk, another Floridian just elected p.d., John Wesley Hall at Law of Criminal Defense reminds us:Jax Public Defender has "induction party" thrown by FOPWhen the elected Public Defender getting sworn in has a party thrown for him by the Fraternal Order of Police, something is seriously wrong with the Public Defender's Office...

MO: it is what it is

Posted on January 05, 2009
Early entry for headline of the year, from Missourinet:System for people who can't afford to hire lawyers can't afford to hire lawyers

FL: Shirk disease spreads to Lower Alabama

Posted on January 04, 2009
More tomfoolery from Florida, land of elected chief public defenders, from the P'cola News Journal:Owens shaking up office - Incoming public defender sniffing out staff threatsPublic Defender-elect James Owens says "credible threats" have been made to his safety, and he will have police dogs search the public defender's Pensacola office when he takes office Tuesday...

OH: ensuring effective assistance trumps hurrying the docket

Posted on January 03, 2009
Good news from John Wesley Hall, Jr.'s Law of Criminal Defense:OH11: Brian Jones contempt case reversedWhere the public defender was appointed the day before trial and requested a continuance to prepare, it was an abuse of discretion to deny a continuance and hold defense counsel in contempt for not proceeding to trial where he would have been ineffective per se...

WA: now or later, pay the piper

Posted on January 02, 2009
Local criminal defense lawyer Alex lays out the cost of cost-cutting:Law and Order in Thurston CountyIn short: cutting public defense could lead to more expensive litigation for the county...

Happy New Year

Posted on January 01, 2009

Elements of style

Posted on December 31, 2008
Today I was in detention spending a pleasant hour with a client barely into the teen years, a child really, facing a scary felony accusation. This young person was far enough into the system to use a phrase like being on the outs, yet still innocent enough to use the word "hecka" in place of "hella," because hell's a swear word...

People aren't saints; no, people just are

Posted on December 29, 2008
For a few minutes, put aside your criminal defense lawyer's feelings about domestic violence, and read this moving Dagblog post in memory of Melissa Batten. She was a public defender at one time.

A present for my client's mom

Posted on December 26, 2008
It's Boxing Day, a good day for returned gifts and charitable acts. I'm in the courthouse parking lot after detention hearings, tapping away on my cellphone. I couldn't get every kid released today. After court, one of my client's mothers sat me down and we talked...

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2008

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.