From the Charleston Post and Courier:
Sensational drama unfolding in courtroom
Some tips for defending yourself against a troublesome murder rap: ...Never, ever, begin a sentence "(Let's) say I shot someone five times..."
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.
From the Beaufort Gazette:
Deputy public defender finds 'calling' in job
Deputy Public Defender Trasi Campbell is defending herself today... Now the man she once defended on taxpayer money is sitting in the plaintiff's chair - putting her on the defensive by saying her failure to call possibly key witnesses in his case landed him 10 years in prison...
Tyrone Robinson has applied for post-conviction relief, a type of last-ditch civil action taken by prisoners in reducing sentences, and now Campbell's former public defender colleague, Don Colongeli, is appointed to represent Robinson and is questioning Campbell.
Although Campbell read over the case file the night before, she struggles to remember details of what transpired more than four years - and hundreds of clients - ago. But she is sure she did the right thing. "I did invest in this case," she answers Colongeli. "If I made a decision not to subpoena, the decision was made for Mr. Robinson and with Mr. Robinson..."
Well, what do you think, should former prosecutor Chuck try to become a public defender, or as he puts it:
should i join the dark side?
Public defender dies:
Spartanburg County Public Defender Mike Bartosh... died unexpectedly of natural causes at his home early Wednesday. He was 61...
Solicitor Trey Gowdy... was impressed by Bartosh's faith, which was his basis for standing with a defendant who often had no one else to support him.
"That was what happened with the Chris Hampton case. Mike was there when no one in Hampton's family was," Gowdy said. "He felt it was his Christian obligation to speak for people who had no one -- no matter what sins or crimes they had committed..."
"I still see that man of faith, and he was open about his beliefs," Gowdy said. "I still have that image of Mike, standing next to someone who did not have anybody..."
A good man leaves the ranks to teach Latin:
Robert Lominack became a defense attorney to help people. But starting this year, he’s trying to help before they end up in a lawyer’s office.
The 32-year-old lawyer traded the courtroom for the classroom — along with about a 50 percent pay cut. He teaches Latin..., far away from his work on high-profile death-penalty cases in South Carolina.
“I just got burned out,” Lominack said. "It’s a tough job. It’s one that if you can’t put 100 percent into it, you’ll do more harm than good."
The towering workload wasn’t the problem."It was emotionally draining because your clients were in such a terrible place in their lives," he said.
"I know that feeling, and when you're trying to defend somebody from the death penalty who has committed a horrible crime, part of that job requires a painstaking re-creation of that person's life,"” (David) Bruck said. "And you often see a point when things could have turned out differently if someone had cared about them a little more."
"That weighed heavily on Robert,"” Bruck said. "“I think he thought that person could be him."
Indeed, Lominack said his clients' childhoods made a huge impact on him.
Lominack found that one of his clients was homeless as a child. Teachers learned of the situation and provided him with clothing, bedding and food.
"“They were nice to him when nobody else was,"” Lominack said.
The same could be said of this good servant. Ave atque vale.
Link via Capital Defense Weekly.
From a South Carolina post-conviction relief petition:
... the Petitioner was cast into the abyss of the Public Defenders maw, to be masticated as if grizzle...
I've never been that hungry, nor shall I ever be.
There can be times, and clients, when it's mutual mastication. Ken Lammers knows what I'm talking about, as does every other colleague of ours, I imagine. For some clients it may be that every one else in their perception has jerked them around, so now into the attorney visiting area here comes the latest jerk, the p.d. (and not even a real lawyer). Maybe these clients look at me and launch some pre-emptive mastication as a form of self-defense. Unfortunately, it's hard to shake hands when someone's chewing on my ass. Why the clients who use this strategy believe that it will leave them in a better position than before, I have yet to understand.
I got to thinking about defensive driving after reading Borenstein's Law. I imagined this freeway that we're all driving, and the wrong exits my clients take. Once my client takes a wrong turn off the freeway, it can be fiendishly difficult to find the side streets that lead back to the main road. Take another wrong turn off one of those side streets, and you may never make it back. Now and then, one of the signs on the freeway says, "Exit Only." It's coming up, it's coming up closer, zoom, you take the exit. Now what?
There's a stranger who comes up to you and offers you some directions to get back on the freeway. You don't know whether or not to trust the stranger. Maybe you'll argue with the directions. Maybe you'll display your superior understanding of navigation. Where does it get you?
Or say the stranger shows you a road map. The stranger puts a finger on the map and says, "this is highway X." Look at the map. The number next to the stranger's finger is X. You stand up to the stranger and say, "Oh, you can't fool me, the last person who tried that tricked me, that number is Y." Where does it get you?
Yeah, I can feel a bit lost too, and weary from the road, and I'm really sorry. I'm not the one at the wheel, though.
Update: Listen to CrimLaw. He's not trying to scam anybody. He has the right directions.
Remember, folks,
Public defender's job is to protect individual rights.
It's a profile of Orangeburg County (SC) public defender Andrew Brown.
"At all times, you're dealing with people who have rights," Brown said. "You're dealing with people, regardless of the circumstances, who need your help. I think we are doing the public a service," he said.
And don't forget,
...of those who are proven to be guilty? Brown said he falls back on the motto, "But for the Grace of God, there go I."
Tributes here to some fine old lions who have fought the good fight and finished their course:
Bill Laswell, Fort Lauderdale, FL, "patron saint of hopeless legal cases."
Public defender investigator Wayne Dickens, Asheville, NC.
And from nearer to my homeland, I should have mentioned this remarkable lawyer from Zion much sooner: John Christiansen, Beaver, UT.
Finally, Pete Partee, Greenville, SC:
"You don't get flowers and candy when you're the public defender," Partee says of a job that often put him at odds with the general public. "The public defender's job is a real ministry."
"You get a letter one day telling you they want to kill your client," Partee says, referring in general to the cases where the prosecution seeks the death penalty. "Someone once asked me if every case I took was important. I knew that to my clients, it was usually the most important case they ever had."
Thank you all, gentlemen. Thanks to Public Defender Investigator and Indefensible for the links.
Bonus link goes to sheet music for Si Kahn's "People Like You":
Old fighter, you sure took it on the chin
Where'd you ever get the strength to stand?
Never giving up or giving in
You know I just want to shake your hand
Because people like you help people like me go on
Welcome, visitors from E-dicta and the Charleston School of Law. Thank you, Professor Russell for the link. "Eclectic" is a fine word to describe the array of people and situations you find as a practicing p.d. Let me demonstrate through some of my more eclectic old posts:
- A meth trial with a snarky narc
- How can you not defend those people?
- Vertical Ben
- God damn the pusherman
- Tats that
- Not gonna let them catch the midnight rider
Browse around the archives, have a pleasant visit, and when you're done, check out my cool colleagues in the blogroll to your right.
(Bonus link goes to "Morning Becomes Eclectic," a fine show on KCRW.)
