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?
From Eye on Olympia:
When a "Law and Order" script collides with "The Office"...
The state Commission on Judicial Conduct today decided to censure - or officially call on the carpet for an in-person reprimand - former Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Collen Hartl. Hartl violated the code of judicial conduct, both sides agreed, when she had a sexual encounter with a public defender who appeared frequently in her court...
I can only avert my eyes in awe of the awesome awfulness of a local colleague's Craigslist ad:
FREE CONSULTATION - I handle anything from Simple Misdemeanors to Murder. INCREDIBLE PRICES CAN BE OBTAINED FROM A PREMIER CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY.
Why incredible prices? I had personal issues last year that required me to downscale my practice. I am back, but it will take me sometime to rebuild my practice so I am willing to provide low prices as I rebuild...
I think that "personal issues" is a fine euphemism.
Took Annie to the off-leash dog park in Lakewood today, then took the long way home. We drove through Steilacoom in time to watch the prison ferry arrive from McNeill Island, our own Puget Sound Alcatraz. I've always thought of the boats as an interesting form of prisoner transport; this was the first time I've stuck around to see who disembarked. Tonight it was DOC employees on their way home from the day shift, like any other commuters - it's a full-service flotilla.
Bar mitzvah congratulations today to Nikolai P., son of my cool colleague out at Juvy.
This Temple Beth El goyishe moment courtesy of my 8-year-old: in the buffet line at the reception, Joe points to the Nova lox and says, "I'd like some of that please;" I ask the boy, "are you sure, honey, that's fish" and Joe replies, "Fish? I thought it was ham." Sotto voce, thank G-d.
From the Olympian:
Federal Way judge admits relationship with lawyer, resigns
A Federal Way Municipal Court judge has resigned after hosting a holiday party at which she claimed to be having an affair with a public defender who routinely appeared in her court.
Judge Colleen Hartl quit Dec. 19, less than a week after telling her guests - including five court employees - that she had sex with public defender Sean Cecil, and displaying a text message in which he complimented how she looked in "tight jeans," Michael Morgan, the court's presiding judge, said Wednesday. A news release from the city cited "personal and health" reasons for the resignation...
Update: the story made the ABA Journal ("Judge Blabs About Affair With Lawyer, Then Quits") and made Shelley smirk.
Sorrow next door in the South Sound, from the Seattle P-I:
Camp helps kids grieve for a parent killed in war
Kaylee Sharp-Henderson, 8, is comforted by Sgt. 1st Class William Harlan of Fort Lewis and by Gail Kriete, a volunteer with the non-profit Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, which conducted a "Good Grief Camp" on Saturday at the fort. The program attempts to help children like Kaylee, whose father was killed three months ago by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, come to terms with their feelings...
Urban Monarch seems to be enjoying "The King of Methlehem" by Tacoma author / prosecutor Mark Lindquist. Here's a p.d. - themed excerpt from Google Book Search:
One of the many advantages of being a prosecutor is that you do not have to visit clients in jail. Ted, a public defender for twenty-three years, feels he is serving a penance every time he enters what he calls the Grey Bar Hotel. He is known by other lawyers and some of his clients as "Cocktail Ted" because of his penchant for bourbon lunches that precede afternoon visits...
From the Seattle Times:
Cops posing as Federal Way students buy drugs in schools
Via Seattle writer John Moe's Monkey Disaster blog:
Federal Way High School: Too Freaking Stupid to Notice a 33-year-old Narc
Bison, elk, bighorn sheep and mountain goats, safely grazing this weekend at Northwest Trek, Eatonville, WA.
From the TNT:
Work burnout - Feed the spirit or get used to the taste of ashes
Your job is a drag, your co-workers are baboons and your favorite movie is “Office Space.”
Ever considered that you might be the one with the problem?
You may have heard: on Wednesday morning before class started, Samnang Kok, 17, was shot and killed inside a Tacoma high school. Police arrested Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, on suspicion of first-degree murder.
The Tacoma News Tribune has a page of over a dozen links to stories, photos and videos and more information about school violence in the South Sound.
If you're searching Public Defender Stuff's PD Blog Guide (or suggesting additions and updates), I'm listed there under "really really likes animals."
Visited at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma:
"ET," the Zoo's beloved Pacific bull walrus, has been formally introduced to Joan and Basilla, the female walruses who arrived recently...
From the Tacoma News Tribune (site may require registration):
It’s ‘the end of an era’ as defender retires - Attorney Jack Hill made a long career out of representing Pierce County’s indigent
For more than 30 years, Jack Hill has had a job many people wouldn’t want. He’s led Pierce County’s Department of Assigned Counsel, defending people charged with crimes who often are politically unpopular to defend – men, women and children who can’t afford to pay for an attorney.
Despite the challenges, Hill will retire at the end of the month from a job he thinks has been – and still is – great. “I still like to come in the door,” he said recently. Friday, the 56-year-old father of four will walk out that door at 949 Market St. for the last time...
“It’s a moral commitment at a constitutional level to make sure the system is fair,” he said. “The constitution doesn’t say you have to prosecute people. It says you have the right to counsel. The constitution is about protecting us from government...”
Hill said having a heart operation in the early 1990s made him lose his love of conflict in the courtroom. “This business takes a toll on you that you can’t quantify,” Hill said. “The practice of law – at least criminal law – has not become kinder and gentler. … Living in litigation is as stressful a situation as anything, short of war.”
Since then he’s spent less time as a trial lawyer and more time trying, through cases and lobbying, to reform the law... “Maybe I’m just a social worker at heart,” Hill said...
The latest public defender want ads posted by the Washington Defender Association show job openings for the chief position at both the Pierce County Department ofAssigned Counsel and the Whatcom County Public Defender.
Both Jon Ostlund of Bellingham and Jack Hill of Tacoma will be honored at this weekend's WDA 2006 Defender Conference in Ocean Shores.
A blurb for each:
Mr. Hill serves as the Director of the Pierce County Department of Assigned Counsel (DAC) located in Tacoma, Washington. He is a graduate of Willamette University School of Law. He has directed DAC since 1982. He has received Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association's Liberty Bell Award for protecting the best interests of our children, and the Local Hero Award by the Washington State Bar Association in 2001.
Mr. Ostlund is a 1974 graduate of the Gonzaga University School of Law, and has practiced in Bellingham since then. For the last 19 years, he has been the Whatcom County public defender. In addition to the WSBA board, Mr. Ostlund is a board member for the Washington Defenders Association and the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He served two terms on the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission and has been actively involved in legislative matters on behalf of criminal defense lawyers.
When I was looking for p.d. work on the west side of the Cascades, Jack Hill gave me an hour of his hard-pressed time when there wasn't even an opening in Tacoma, along with some very helpful advice and contacts. Never turn down an informational interview; it can lead somewhere, even years later.
New lawyer will defend mall shooter
Dominick S. Maldonado has a new attorney.
Veteran defense lawyer Ray Thoenig will defend the man who opened fire and held hostages in the Tacoma Mall on Nov. 20. Maldonado is charged with 15 crimes, including attempted murder, kidnapping and assault...
Thoenig, who typically will say little about the high-profile cases he often works on, returned a call to The News Tribune this week only to say, “No comment.”
The man's a mensch.
From the TNT:
Mall shooter must keep his lawyer:
The 20-year-old man who shot seven people at the Tacoma Mall in November will have to deal with the lawyer he has, like it or not.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Linda Lee denied Dominick Sergio Maldonado’s motion for a new attorney Friday afternoon.
“I think we’ve established, Mr. Maldonado, you don’t have legal training to make your own shots,” Lee told Maldonado. “You do not know the law. The defendant’s motion for a new attorney is denied.”
Maybe "make your own shots" wasn't the best turn of phrase for this case.
Judge ‘regrets’ Hawks cheer - Pierce official apologizes for actions during manslaughter sentencing:
The Pierce County Superior Court judge who led a cheer for the Seattle Seahawks during a manslaughter sentencing Friday has apologized...
Judge Beverly Grant opened Friday’s sentencing hearing for Steve Keo Teang by asking everyone in the courtroom to say, “Go Seahawks” before they sat down. When their response was too restrained, she asked them to do it again...
A description of one of the things that criminal defense lawyers do, or try to do - make sense of the senseless. From the continuing coverage of Tacoma mall shooter Dominick Maldonado:
Defense attorney Staurset said part of his job will be to figure out why it happened.
“Anything as horrendous as this must have some genesis,” he said. “It’s my job to make sense of something that’s not easy to make sense of. How does an otherwise attractive man of 20 years old end up with a gun at the mall on a Sunday?”
The attorney said he thinks things in Maldonado’s background – “worse than ridicule” – will explain the shooting.
The veteran defense attorney said he doesn’t yet know Maldonado well, but he knows the kind of client he is.
“I think this is the Columbine client,” Staurset said. “I think his background is exactly like all the high school shooters.”
