Monthly Archives: July 2010

The ideal ideal

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A few weeks ago, I had something akin to a job interview. There I sat, on one side of a metal table, in my favorite suit. He sat on the other. The questions came fast and furious: “How many cases have you tried?” I wasn’t expecting that, so I took my time. Too late. “How many have you won?”

“Well, what do you mean by won. That can mean many things” I sputtered the old refrain. “No, no,” he shook his head, “how many clients were found not guilty?” I obfuscated, because I don’t play that game and because I knew exactly what was coming next: “Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you can handle this? I mean, this is my life on the line here.”

It’s times like these that I think it would be nice to be able to say that I’ve won every single case I’ve tried. To be able to boast of a perfect win-loss record (which, actually, I jokingly did after I won my first trial ever). But there are only three ways that any lawyer practicing criminal law can even hope to achieve that record: 1) by being a prosecutor, 2) by flat out lying about it and 3) by being a defense lawyer who picks his cases very carefully.

But as a wise man once said, criminal defense isn’t about picking winners. Picking winners is an idealistic business strategy, one that established lawyers may attempt as a product of their long standing reputation and the desire to build upon that reputation and create an aura. But, in the end, it is nothing more than an ego-boosting business plan.

Which has nothing to do with the reality of criminal defense. The two are at odds, for one shouldn’t become a criminal defense lawyer for the sake of their reputation or win-loss record or to pad their coffers (though that is a necessary by-product). There are some that argue otherwise:

‘Everyone is entitled to be represented by an attorney’ is the idealistic chant often recited by defense attorneys as justification for representing even the most vicious criminals in our society. The concept is unassailable, but idealism is rarely what motivates lawyers who represent guilty defendants. They take the work because trying cases is their livelihood, and they are ambitious to advance their careers. These motivations, while not improper, are clearly not idealistic.

True idealism would be involved in a hypothetical situation such as the following. Suppose a family is brutally murdered in a small town, and none of the six lawyers in town is willing to represent the suspect because the enraged citizens are all convinced of the suspect’s guilt and no lawyer wants to be ostracized in the community for attempting to get the suspect off. Finally, one attorney steps forward and says, ‘I don’t care what my friends at the Rotary Club and the First Baptist Church say. This is America, and everyone is entitled under the Sixth Amendment to our Constitution to be represented by an attorney.’

This, as Mark has already pointed out, is nothing more than the worship of a false God. An attempt to fit the nobler attempts of others into their own baser paradigms. As a public defender, I do not have the luxury of choosing the clients I represent, yet I do my job with no ambitious desire to “advance my career”. The only ambition I have is to become a better lawyer and represent my clients – especially the guilty ones – more effectively.

I may be in the minority here, but it is my opinion that it is easier to represent the obviously innocent client. It takes a much stronger constitution to represent those whose guilt has been presumed in they eyes of all others. It takes more than paying lip service to the greatest fear: that we defend the guilty as well as the innocent because we cannot fathom the horror of an innocent man going to jail.

Because the injustices of the system manifest themselves in more ways than the mere conviction of a man against whom there is little or no evidence. There are the guilty-of-something-lesser, the guilty-but-for-good-reason, those that are deserving of more than cursory process. The ideal is to stand side by side with a man who may well have committed terrible crimes and to say to him: I do not care whether you are guilty or innocent and I will fight to the last to ensure that society treats you with the process and respect that you, as an individual, deserve. Maybe I’m an odd duck, but I want this job because the territory mainly encompasses those that are guilty. To me, they are not the afterthought or the unpleasant tax of doing business.

Until you can truly believe that the guilt or innocence of a client makes no difference to the quality of representation that you provide, you are not a criminal defense lawyer. You are a businessman.

Where were you on April 17, 1966?

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Ask anyone that question and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy (and you might get some interesting responses from those that weren’t born yet). But try it. If you were alive then, think back. Think back to that April day or any other April day that year or the next year or in fact, any day between 1966 and 1972 and tell me where you were specifically between the general periods of any time of day or night.

You can’t. It’s impossible. 44 years have passed since 1966 and 38 since 1972. Yet, for “G.R.H.” of Louisiana it is this lack of photographic memory and the inability to have the foresight to note and document his whereabouts on all those days in those 6 years decades ago that has landed him in jail for the rest of his life.

In 2006, GRH [opinion here] was accused of sexually assaulting a minor, as you may have guessed, between 1966 and 1972. The complainant, 44 at the time of the accusations, had an alleged clear memory of the assaults perpetrated by the defendant, some 40 years ago.

There was no corroboration, no contemporaneous disclosure, no other instances of sexual abuse by this defendant, nothing. Just the say-so of a 44 year old woman, almost an entire lifetime after it allegedly occurred.1

Imagine, as Justice Douglas did, dissenting in United States v. Marion, that the 44 year delay occurred after GRH was arrested and not before. Certainly, none would argue that his right to a speedy trial was not violated. And the concerns with such a delay are certainly mitigated after the institution of a criminal prosecution: you know there is an action pending, so you hire an investigator, document your memories, speak to witnesses and firm up their recollections. When someone is not prosecuted and doesn’t sense one coming (having done nothing wrong), there is no reason why anyone would keep track of whatever alibis they might have had or whatever witnesses may have had to offer.

Justice Douglas, quoting Baron Alderson in 1844: Continue reading →

The freakin’ FCC: obscenely indecent

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Two days ago, the Second Circuit on remand from the Supreme Court, struck down the FCC’s policy on “fleeting expletives” (don’t you love how bureaucrats can make anything sound clinical and boring?) as being unconstitutionally vague. Incomprehensible is also a good word to use here. Here’s a choice paragraph. Don’t worry kids, since you’re on a 7-second time lapse, you’ll only see **** where the expletives are:

We agree with the Networks that the indecency policy is impermissibly vague. The first problem arises in the FCC’s determination as to which words or expressions are patently offensive. For instance, while the FCC concluded that “bullshit” in a “NYPD Blue” episode was patently offensive, it concluded that “dick” and “dickhead” were not. . . . The Commission argues that its three-factor “patently offensive” test gives broadcasters fair notice of what it will find indecent. However, in each of these cases, the Commission’s reasoning consisted of repetition of one or more of the factors without any discussion of how it applied them.

From the WSJ:

The decision doesn’t mean broadcast TV and radio shows will now be littered with profanity, because advertisers and viewers would likely complain. But the ruling will likely end, for now, the commission’s campaign to cleanse the airwaves of even spontaneous vulgarisms with the threat of hefty fines.

Interestingly, the indecent policy doesn’t apply from 10p.m. to 6a.m. and only covers the networks anyway, but when’s the last time you heard someone say fuck on cable television even at midnight?

For some dense it-could-only-come-from-a-law-prof legal analysis of the decision and its implications, click here. For the second grade reading level analysis, read this. As you can tell, I’m all for this decision right now, but if I’m ever subjected to Janet Jackson’s nipple again, I might sing a different tune. I still wake up with a cold sweat in the middle of the night and see tassels floating before my eyes.

The most interesting article produced as a result of the FCC ruling is this one from Reason, asking the important question: “if indecency is unconstitutionally vague, why isn’t obscenity”? Everyone who’s been within 1500 feet of a law school knows the old “you’ll know obscenity when you see it” line. Sort of like how my contracts professor explained consideration to us: “It’s like chicken sexing. You’ll know it when you see it.”

Exactly.

What I find obscene may not be obscene to you, or, more likely, what you find obscene will not be obscene to me. Take this, for instance. It’s both obscene and indecent. Yet there are no fines.

So, ponders Sullum:

What both definitions have in common is an inescapable vagueness and subjectivity that make enforcement actions utterly unpredictable. Both require the application of “contemporary community standards,” whatever those are, and a judgment about what is “patently offensive.” In practice, this means broadcasters are at the mercy of bureaucrats’ capricious tastes, while the freedom of a defendant in an obscenity case hinges on exactly how icky a bunch of randomly selected people think his films are. The results cannot possibly be anything but arbitrary. As anti-porn activist Patrick Trueman concedes in Reason.tv’s video “Obscenity vs. Freedom of Speech,” the films that triggered Stagliano’s indictment are “in many respects typical of what’s available today”—i.e., they are not different in kind from pornography that is widely available in the District of Columbia (where Stagliano is being tried) and throughout the country. Yet as Richard Abowitz reported the other day, the judge overseeing the trial has barred Stagliano from presenting testimony to that effect.

[This Stagliano trial is highly amusing for several reasons. One is that the prosecution couldn't get the damn video to play; the same video it says is obscene. Today, the judge precluded the State from entering that video into evidence.]

Will the Supreme Court agree to review the Second Circuit’s decision? Will they hold that the FCC’s policy is indeed unconstitutional? Will people start saying “fuck” on national TV during primetime? Stay tuned.

But you didn’t come here and read this post for First Amendment analysis. You came for the video. And let’s be real, this entire post is a big fat excuse for two things: 1. For me to say fuck as many times as I can. Fuck.

2. This:

Did I say fuck yet? Fuck.

Deterrent? Not Actually

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all your DNA are belong to us

The story of the role of DNA in the criminal justice system is quite interesting. Heralded as the ultimate in crime solving, DNA has slowly infiltrated the collective consciousness of the entire nation and infected our lawyers, judges and jurors. It’s a double-edged sword, to be sure: DNA can accurately (or maybe not) identify an individual who leaves behind some trace materials at or in a crime scene, thereby implicating or exculpating a suspect. Fueled by DNA based shows like CSI, jurors became more demanding and mistakenly over reliant on the science, producing the “CSI effect”, DNA, on the other hand, has drawbacks that defense lawyers try to highlight – which I’m not sure have sunk in yet – like the fact that you it can’t tell you when it was deposited. DNA is most famous for high-profile exonerations of people already convicted of crimes and serving lengthy prison sentences.

But DNA is much more than that. As the science grows, the uses and implications of the genetic markers grows by leaps and bounds (see here and for the future, see here).

Which is why DNA, and the collection of DNA, is so attractive to law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the evolution of science and technology and the desired application of these new uses conflicts to some degree with the core protections of the Constitution.

Just yesterday, a 3 judge panel of the 9th Circuit heard an appeal in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU challenging the legality of California’s DNA-collection-upon-arrest law. That’s essentially all there is to the law: collect the DNA of everyone ever arrested. (Connecticut tried to pass a similar bill two years ago and it was ultimately rejected.) Under some circumstances, the DNA may never be deleted from their database: Continue reading →

Indigent defense on trial

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...and Gideon cry

The stereotype of the over-worked, under-paid public defender exists for a reason. Even though I’ve personally fought against the stereotype here on the blog and in real life, I must necessarily admit that in a lot of States, the caricature is not a caricature at all, but an accurate representation of the state of indigent defense. Often, the public defender is only as good as the resources and time available to her. The best lawyer may seem incompetent if overburdened and underfunded.

I noted a while ago that a battle was brewing on the state of indigent defense and two recent news items seem to validate that observation. First, via CrimProf, a troubling decision out of Florida, where the intermediate appellate court reversed a trial court’s ruling granting a public defender’s motion to withdraw from one particular case because he could not adequately represent the defendant due to his high caseload. Then, on July 7, the Third District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court, holding that the mere word of a public defender that he was unable to provide constitutionally adequate representation was not enough to establish that the defendant would suffer prejudice:

Our analysis of the record in this case, however, leads us to conclude that there was no evidence of actual or imminent prejudice to Bowens’ constitutional rights. If the trial court’s order stands, all that the PD11 must do to show prejudice is  swear that he or she has too many cases or that the workload is so excessive as to prevent him or her from working on the client’s case prior to the scheduled trial, and that he or she will be forced to file for continuance, thereby waiving the client’s speedy trial rights. This “prejudice” is not the type of prejudice that this Court referred to in State v. Public Defender. Prejudice means there must be a real potential for damage to a constitutional right, such as effective assistance of counsel or the right to call a witness, or that a witness might be lost if not immediately investigated. And this is the critical fact — the PD11 has not made any showing of individualized prejudice or conflict separate from that which arises out of an excessive caseload.

This conclusion is on the back of Florida statute that explicitly prohibits public defenders from withdrawing from cases because of excessive caseloads or inadequate funding:

(d)  In no case shall the court approve a withdrawal by the public defender or criminal conflict and civil regional counsel based solely upon inadequacy of funding or excess workload of the public defender or regional counsel.

Here’s a statute that so blatantly conflicts with the professional and ethical responsibility of a lawyer to withdraw from the representation of a client if he feels he is unable to provide adequate and competent representation. Court, making the determination of whether to permit counsel to withdraw, do so on a case-by-case basis, but to exclude a very real and prevalent reason for that inability to provide adequate representation seems to be problematic on many levels, not the least of which a violation of the separation of powers. Continue reading →

Sometimes a fool is just a fool

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A client who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer. And fools are, by their very description, entitled to make foolish decisions. As those in the legal profession know well, just because a client makes a foolish decision, it doesn’t mean that he’s incompetent. Well, not always anyway.

So recognized the Ninth Circuit in a recent decision in United States v. Johnson. The defendants were tried on a bunch of boring fraud type stuff and they represented themselves, putting for a defense that was gibberish. No, that’s not my characterization, it’s the Ninth Circuit’s:

Defendants Kurt F. Johnson and Dale Scott Heineman were indicted for conspiracy and multiple counts of mail fraud related to their illegitimate  debt-elimination business. They were adamant in their desire to represent themselves and assert an absurd legal theory wrapped up in Uniform  Commercial Code gibberish.

It always tickles me to read words like “gibberish” in appellate opinions. Continue reading →

Innocence on a clock

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When I first turned my eye toward law school and the criminal justice system, the echoing refrain was that we, in this country, were the best. The criminal justice system, the jury system, the resources, the level of intelligence on both sides of the aisle on the bench all combined to create the best that the world had to offer. Law school, immersing us in the vagaries and nuances of Constitutional and criminal law, making us read and learn awe-inspiring quotes from Justices past, only served to reinforce that notion.

We were fooled. Years later, with years of practice and actual experience under my belt, I’ve come to the conclusion that while the system may still be the “best” in the world, it is only so by comparison to the others that are currently in existence (and even that I doubt, but since I’m no comparative law scholar, what do I know?). That makes me sad, both for the systems of other countries and our own.

There are two indelible truths about the system here in the US: it is the criminal conviction system and finality is king (an idea that deserves a fuller post; upcoming).

And when you combine those two inescapable conclusions, you get Lee v. Lampert (pdf). Lee, you see, got stuck in that quagmire that is AEDPA. Lee, you may also see, has proven that he is actually innocent of the crimes of which he stands convicted. And yet, because he missed the statutory, non-jurisdictional, arbitrary deadline for filing a federal habeas corpus petition, he will get no justice. Continue reading →