Prosecutors want hazardous duty pay?
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A couple of years ago prosecutors in the State floated a bill asking for hazardous pay. They claimed that defendants threatened and stalked them. I remember the public defender’s office submitting testimony to the legislature saying, essentially, “you think your job is hazardous?”, and providing several examples of public defender employees being the subject of attacks by clients.
Here’s the latest story. PD Sue Hankins (who is a very nice lady and a pretty damn good lawyer) was in court with a client who wanted her replaced (and perhaps wanted to represent himself - that’s not entirely clear). His motion to “fire” her was denied, so he turned to her, started yelling and then spit on her.
Reality check, folks. Public defenders are more often the subject of clients’ ire than prosecutors or judges. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve heard clients say: “Well, they’re only doing their job, but my lawyer, man he screwed me.”
They see prosecutors and judges as cogs in the wheel, a part of the system. We, on the other hand, are supposed to be their champions, their protectors. When we don’t give them what they want, they’re angry with us. Sure you’ll have the occasional nutbag that follows the prosecutor home and tries to torch his house, but more often than not, they attack us, they lunge at us, they call us names, they spit on us, they cold-cock us in court. We’re almost always standing next to them or sitting at the table across from them, giving them unpleasant news. They react immediately and almost invariably toward the most accessible person: their lawyer.
So the next time a prosecutor wants to ask for hazardous duty pay, come do our jobs for a bit first.
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I know a great way to prevent some of these attacks–make a rule that if you assault your lawyer and that lawyer chooses not to represent you anymore, you are on your own, i.e, the state doesn’t need to provide you with another lawyer. Before everyone starts screaming about Gideon v. Wainwright, here are a few very good rationales for my proposal:
1) Forfeiture of a right by wrongdoing. Constitutional rights can be waived in such a manner.
2) A guy who slugs his PD in court and forces the appointment of a new lawyer is wasting scarce resources, scarce resources that his fellow criminals need. Every minute that the new guy spends getting up to speed is a minute that some other criminal doesn’t get worked on his case, and you never know, that “other criminal” (I am deliberately being inflammatory by using the term criminal vice accused.) may well be innocent. So why should the guy who slugs the PD get to impose such costs on his fellow criminals?
3) Dignity of the court. Why should a court have to jump through hoops with scheduling etc. when some guy decides to slug the PD? A criminal simply doesn’t get to impose this on a court.
I cannot help but point out that your complaints about your job being dangerous is interesting, given your justification for putting witnesses and their families at risk by giving out the home addresses of the witnesses to the accused. You choose your job–a witness is complying with his or her duty under the law (and therefore has no legitimate choice in the matter). Funny how things change when the shoe is on the other foot.
Hey SPO, what’s your address?
Cute, Long-Time PD, real cute.
And, Long Time PD, I find it interesting that you would make light of the danger to citizen-witnesses. Sounds to me like you’re every bit as depraved as your clients.
You had to stew for a whole 8 mintues before coming back with that? In my depraved world that was what is known as a joke.
Lighten up, Francis.
Given that the murder/assault/intimidation of witnesses is something that happens with some bit of frequency, I’d say that your joke is in very poor taste.
In any event, it would be interesting if a defendant slugged a defense attorney during trial, and the judge simply allowed the trial to go on without defense counsel. I bet the judge would get at least 3 votes on the Supreme Court in his favor. The bottom line, I think, is that one cannot complain that the state didn’t provide you with a lawyer when you prevent the state from providing you with one.
It occurs to me that regular people (read: non-criminal defense attorneys) often think our jokes depraved and in poor taste. The truth is simply that a little humor and a little levity is what often gets us through the day. And if the rest of the world thinks that makes me/us depraved, indifferent, insensitive or ambivalent, that’s okay with me. Because while there are some exceptions, I think that despite our so-called tasteless jokes, we actually do care and do a good job.
Lord, you’re a broken record. Again you miss the point of this post. In comparison to prosecutors, defense attorneys are more often the target of threats and anger.
That was the only point of my post.
I don’t think I miss the point of the post at all. I get it. But you are pointing out how dangerous your job is (and believe me, I don’t support violence against PDs), and that’s a bit rich, given the absolute indifference shown about the dangers posed to witnesses because you guys decide to hand out addresses.
Let’s say I am a witness to a gang-related killing. I am just a bystander, and I know no one involved in the case. You’d hand out my address to the accused. I have kids. You’d risk my kids’ safety and wouldn’t even warn me. Forgive me if I point out that fact after you point out how dangerous your job is.
You guys want ordinary folks to support things to make the criminal justice system better. It’s hard to take anything that you guys say seriously when you support risking the lives of good citizens doing their duty.
I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if some guy were forced to go without a lawyer because he slugged his lawyer in court.