Defending Those People: Criminal Law

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Defending Those People

About life as a public defender, controversies at the U.S. Department of Justice, and other criminal law matters.

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Last Entry: August 06, 2009 at 01:25:00

Why Fight for Those People?

Posted on August 06, 2009
I haven't written forever, but have been busy. One thing is on my mind about the job and that is the motivation behind the job now that I'm well into it. Sometimes one would wonder, is the job worth it? Will I do this forever? I am sure this is not a unique thing for indigent criminal defenders...

The Challenging nature of PD work

Posted on May 07, 2009
I've been far too busy lawyering to post anything coherent, but I love using my own site to contain all the other sites I like to read, so I'll keep this up, even if I post rarely.One thing to post: it is extremely expensive for our society to scrimp on providing effective counsel for poor people facing prison...

Vote for Barak Obama November 4th

Posted on October 11, 2008
The choice couldn't be more clear. McCain is such a liar:Evaluating McCain's misleading adsObama brings hope for change. McCain is hoping to win because he can confuse people into accepting the big lie that Obama is Muslim, Arab, a terrorist, or Iraq was connected to 9/11...

Awesome adbuster on Drug War

Posted on August 02, 2007

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How many rape allegations do cops need to face before they get canned?

Posted on August 02, 2007
August 1, 2007R.I. Police Officer Accused of RapeBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFiled at 10:39 p.m. ETPROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- A police officer was accused Wednesday of raping a 19-year-old woman at a deserted police substation, then showing up at a nearby home to handle the woman's complaint after she called 911, prosecutors said...

After client consultation, contact police?

Posted on August 02, 2007
Kan. Prosecutors to Seek Death PenaltyBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESSPublished: August 1, 2007Filed at 5:11 p.m. ETOLATHE, Kan. (AP) -- Prosecutors said Wednesday they plan to seek the death penalty for a man accused of kidnapping an 18-year-old woman from a store parking lot, then raping and strangling her...

What attitude should PDs have towards victims/opposing counsel?

Posted on June 11, 2007
Skelly has a great post that raises a good question. How should a defense attorney for the poor feel towards and treat a victim, their family, or opposing counsel? One view confrontational view is:?When I?m on trial and we?re in a truly adversarial proceeding, I hate the mother of the victim...

Helping children before I need to help them

Posted on May 28, 2007
I've often represented children accused of crimes that will make the delinquent, or worse, adult felons. These are never happy times. Children that face criminal or deliquency accusations usually have had difficult lives. Most people will face a time when they face adversity and must make really tough decisions...

Long time no post

Posted on May 15, 2007
Sorry, been busy with stuff. You know how that goes, defending poor clients when you could really get along a lot easier if you had 1/4 the caseload.Cato has a good map Botched Paramilitary Police Raids: An Epidemic of "Isolated Incidents".And I have to continue my trend of posting about the U...

Gonzales has got to go

Posted on March 30, 2007
This is amazing:The former aide, D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned two weeks ago, told the SenateJudiciary Committee that Mr. Gonzales?s statements about the prosecutors?dismissals were inaccurate and that the attorney general had been repeatedlyadvised of the planning for them...

Firing U.S. Attorneys

Posted on March 21, 2007
The following editorial from Adam Cohen of the N.Y. Times is very apropos:The Bush administration has done a terrible job of explaining its decision to fire eight United States attorneys. Story after story has proved to be untrue: that the prosecutors who were fired were poor performers; that the White House was not involved in the purge...

Work not hard enough? Become a PD!

Posted on March 06, 2007
Time to vent with complaints. Why is it that there are never enough hours in the day? There is always more work to be done. I guess I have it better than most, but I dislike feeling like I have so much more to do. Some others take it just as hard or harder, but some people seem to not care...

Political prosecutions

Posted on March 06, 2007
I have been disgusted, but not terribly surprised, by this story: Ex-Prosecutors Tell of Pressures From Lawmakers. Allowing the executive branch of either party, but particularly the very corrupt as-of-late GOP, the unfettered ability to dismiss and reassign head federal prosecutors is a situation rife for abuse...

Ethical Posting and more!

Posted on February 21, 2007
I saw a PD Stuff post about a Capital Defense Weekly post on ethical blogging. The CDW author's conclusion:After spending a few hours researching on a Saturday afternoon I end up in the same place I ended up when I last looked at this issue before going public almost a decade ago in launching the web site that would become CDW...

Losing idealism, gaining perspective

Posted on February 10, 2007
How much cynicism is too much? When does it become time to leave? I don't feel like I'm there, but I definitely think that all work and no play makes me dull, and dulls my edge of idealism. How much can I help others if I'm tired of 12-hour days?Thankfully I work with wonderful people...

Low point for any PD: Telling your client to lie or lying about doing so

Posted on January 21, 2007
I agree with Rumpy on his take on the whole Art Koch:The attorney for the man sent to Death Row for raping and killing 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce more than a decade ago is expected to testify next week that he told his client to lie on the stand because he was on medication and ''disoriented'' during the trial...

Thoughts about the law

Posted on January 18, 2007
Do police make mistakes? Sure, as Radley pointed out, some serious ones, like roughly arresting the wrong people. A $100,000 payout for what these guys went through? This is why PD work is so important, many times these innocent people don't have great evidence in their favor so it comes down to our skills to protect their rights...

Runner-up in PD Blog awards!

Posted on January 10, 2007
Yah, I picked a good title for my blog! Of course, Injustice Anywhere deserved to win because I think she inspired my title! And, her title is appropriate given that now she's moved already. She really is fighting injustice ... anywhere!

Louis CK makes child abuse funny

Posted on January 10, 2007
OK, I was watching the most recent Daily Show with Jon Stewart after a long break. It was hilarious. From the New Jersey smell story and the fearmongering by the media, to the politicians who bungled Iraq (and the stupid media who cover them), to the politician who proposed that we put armor plates in student's textbooks to prevent school violence...

Thanksgiving for getting thanks for the holidays

Posted on January 06, 2007
When it comes to decide whether to post or do needed work for my clients, I always go with the latter. Oh well. I must admit that the main reason I created this site was so I had a place to gather the links for all the sites that I enjoy reading when I need a break from work! That is always a real pick-me-up, great motivation when I am tired...

Good post by Rumpole

Posted on December 27, 2006
First, I wanted to excerpt this post by Rumpy saying bye to Judge Young:Judge Young could always see the good in almost anybody who appeared before him. That is not to say he was not a tough sentencer. He was, where the facts of the case called for it...

Follow-up on child being 'allowed' to urinate by stormtrooperesque officer during drug raid

Posted on December 16, 2006
I just noticed that Radley Balko had some follow-up wherein the allegedly 'neutral' journalist expressed their extremely strong aversion to anyone using or interpreting the images the took in any way other than the way they were intended. This journalist, Justin Cook, was probably and naturally worried that if he wasn't going to take such a position, he'd never be able to follow the police around...

Why Verizon is only for people who don't mind getting ripped off and treated badly by customer service reps

Posted on December 16, 2006
Go, listen to this conversation with a Verizon rep. The dude is far more polite than almost anybody could be in this situation. They repeatedly ripped me off for hundreds of dollars by changing the rules or misquoting the customer, and then not caring at all when they do that...

Drug War Victims Are Multiplying

Posted on December 11, 2006
Take a look at this picture. I love my country, but not what some people have done to it. We're now the most militarized, most violent, and country the most proportionately imprisoned, all due to the failed drug war in my view. As the Onion headline read, the drug war is over: the drugs won...

Legal foreplay

Posted on December 06, 2006
From crimlaw: getting it in writing.Also, boy arrested for opening present early. Lastly, want a gift idea for the constitutionally minded? Try a t-shirt that expresses your preference to police.

Private versus PD problems

Posted on December 06, 2006
There have been some really good posts on the problem of coverage lawyers in South Florida at JBB. Of course, these problems do not extend merely to privates. After all, I don't know how many times that I've covered for people or had people cover for me...

Giving advice to clients

Posted on November 26, 2006
I hear from lots of attorneys about the difficulty in getting clients to make the right decisions. I hear that. Sometimes, especially when I'm taking over for other lawyer's clients, it can be hard to make them understand that sometimes admitting to something you didn't do is the right thing...

Them's fighting words!

Posted on November 19, 2006
So one PD allegely knocks another in the head with a bottle. They were, surprise, fighting over a girl. Apparently the now fired PD who allegedly used the bottle had been with the office since April 2005. He had recently been promoted to major crimes attorney but got into the embroglio at a Nov...

Dealing with: "Are you a real lawyer?" question

Posted on October 22, 2006
As PDs well versed in the ways of the court, we know that there are plenty of great lawyers out there, not all of whom work for the PDs office (depending on your area - some areas, it might be all PD until you get upwards of paying $20K a case). Also, we all know that many PDs are overworked, so they don't have the time for hand holding that private attorneys can do...

Ode to good prosecutors

Posted on October 18, 2006
I must admit that I'm stealing this idea from somebody else (I can't remember who), but I wanted to put this out there. Wait, I remember it was Rumpole, who just posted another good thought about a life examined. So what is my view? I love fair prosecutors...

Books lawyers should read

Posted on September 04, 2006
From the ABA's recently e-mailed newsletter. Besides the books by Dickens, Harper Lee and Anthonly Lewis, I've read the Dali Lama's book. I highly recommend them and look forward to making time to read some of these:Nasty People: How to Stop Being Hurt by Them Without Becoming One of Them by Jay Carter...

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Posted on August 23, 2006
Gotta love Radley Balko, and especially this wonderful posting on L.E.A.P.. You've seriously got to watch the video. It is astounding.

Slate Article Describes My Daily Struggle

Posted on June 05, 2006
Gotta check this article out:Gideon's SilenceWhatever happened to the right to counsel?By Alexandra NatapoffPosted Wednesday, May 31, 2006, at 5:35 PM ET Judge Arthur L. Hunter Jr. is fed up. The complete destruction of the public-defender system has left more than 1,000 people sitting in soggy New Orleans jails without access to lawyers...

Lock People Up Only When It Would Help

Posted on May 28, 2006
This article in the New York Times makes some good points about solving problems:Taking his cues from family therapy as well as from social ecology, which emphasizes that behavior is shaped by multiple aspects of the environment, Henggeler studies the ecosystem composed by family, neighborhood, schools, peer groups and the broader community...

Props to Ken at Crim Law Blog : How can you defend those people?

Posted on May 22, 2006
A while ago I came back across this good post by Ken Lammers at Crim Law. I am sure that I've heard the term before, but Mr. Lammers motivated or inspired this blog's title. He's got a great post and a great response to the question, how can you defend those people?But I want to disagree with him in part...

Police Misconduct Solution: Black Boxes in Police Cars Recording Everything

Posted on May 20, 2006
Some police routinely lie, and prosecutors and judges buy it. These police are only caught when they get greedy and screw up. Competent lying cops ones can lie for a career and never get caught. Sure, a few judges will wise up and say "I don't believe a thing out of this cops mouth," but too often that doesn't happen...

Prosecutorial discretion

Posted on April 10, 2006
Mr. Steven Wells just posted a good article pointing out the structural bias of appeals, one reason why the state is always full of good case law. This can be a problem, particularly when judges (AKA former prosecutors) won't do anything to protect your client's rights unless you can point out a case on point an all four facts...

Cops behaving badly

Posted on April 06, 2006
Good thing David Feige is following this horrible situation where some cops in South Florida are simply out of control. It looks pretty widespread too.These ugly activities by these cops are a disgrace to not only all the other cops who aren't dirty, but to the citizens that they are sworn to serve...

Mentally ill in prison

Posted on April 01, 2006
I just watched the Frontline episode "The New Asylums" looked inside Ohio's prison mental health treatment. I had seen it before, it is always an eye-opening program, even to me, and I have fairly extensive experience with the mentally ill in several different criminal justice systems...

Good news in Washington State

Posted on March 28, 2006
A judge listened to the ACLU and struck down a modern day poll tax for those who have previously been in the justice system and have outstanding fines and court costs.

Value of death penalty

Posted on March 28, 2006
Does it really provide closure:Criminal trials and the promise of an execution offer a seemingly appealing mechanism to assign blame and channel rage. But many crime victims have reported that the endless repetition of their stories, the formal legal rules, and the years lost between appeals only serve to increase stress and delay healing...

Fixing societal problems, standing with the accused

Posted on March 21, 2006
According to the Times:[T]he huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men. Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined...

Police complaint process

Posted on March 05, 2006
What's the deal with police who discourage reporting complaints that everyone (like Rumpole and David Feige) is talking about. The news reports:[O]n occasion, a police officer and a member of the public they serve don't see eye to eye, and the citizen feels a need to complain...

What do you tell a client?

Posted on March 05, 2006
I really enjoyed Skelly's not too old posting about advice to give to clients.It made me come up with advice for prosecutors, given my experience dealing with good and bad ones.Return calls. Seriously, I know you're busy, but so am I! I return all my calls as soon as I can, even for slow/no returners...

Keeping a positive outlook

Posted on March 05, 2006
As a public defender, my job is to be a constant optimist. "C'mon, my client deserves another chance!" is the chant. I really enjoy that part of work. It helps me stay idealistic. Perhaps PDs,are African at heart? It seems as if hope springs eternal on that continent:Where does such relentless optimism in the face of unyielding misery come from? One glance at the statistical profile of the continent's 900 million people will tell you that Africans can expect to live the shortest lives, earn the lowest incomes and suffer some of the worst misrule on the planet...

Getting around Gideon

Posted on February 26, 2006
Those of us working in the criminal justice system know of the trend for increasing fees, fines, court costs, supervision reimbursement, paying for probation/house arrest. Every politician can see the benefit of sticking it to criminals. However, the Times notes some problems:The sums raised by these ever-mounting fees are intended to help offset some of the enormous costs of operating the criminal justice system...

When Prosecutors Go Bad

Posted on February 20, 2006
I wonder how often prosecutor's lie and cheat to win, as this lawsuit seeks to uncover in New York. What does the lawsuit claim:The suit accuses prosecutors in some cases of presenting false testimony by witnesses about their deals for leniency in exchange for cooperation, according to a copy provided by the lawyer filing the suit...

Who are those people?

Posted on February 09, 2006
In my years of working in criminal courts all over this great nation, what sort of people have I defended? First, aren't they criminals? Well, I never represent a person guilty of the charge they rae facing, well except for sentencing, post-conviction motions, and appeals...

Law and Order Trial By Jury

Posted on January 14, 2006
I don't think I should watch court TV shows ever again. LOTBJ is a terrible show regarding legal ethics! From this first episode I watched, the defense attorney contrives a legal defense by treating his clients like idiots to be led around into unethical /perjurious behavior...