a public defender

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

As public defender offices across the country are cutting budgets and closing up shop, and at the same time that SCOTUS gave fresh guidance on when the right to counsel attaches, it is important to reflect on the place of the public defender in our criminal justice system today.

With almost 13% of all households in the US falling below the federal poverty line (and 20% earning less than $20K a year), the number of indigent defendants is astronomical. Connecticut public defenders alone were appointed to over 80,000 cases in ‘06-’07 (and that’s not including appeals and habeas corpus cases). Our public defenders represented over 75% of the caseload of Part A courts and roughly half the caseload of Part B courts.

That’s a lot of work and a lot of individuals who’d go without counsel if the Supreme Court were to roll back Gideon, as some have suggested in the last week.

The anti-appointed counsel position is one that I’ve never understood. And I don’t say this as a public defender, but rather as a lawyer and a citizen.  There is no logical reason for not having appointed counsel in a criminal justice system where almost everything is a crime with harsh penalties (or any other adversarial system, for that matter).

What would these anti-Gideonites have happen? That only the rich can afford counsel and the rest get railroaded? That the State have to put on its case with minimal - and often counterproductive - defense? That individuals who have no knowledge of laws, and often little education, have the responsibility of wading through intricate legislation in order to defend themselves? Imagine telling poor people that they have to diagnose themselves and perform surgery on themselves.

The result of any such ruling would be devastating. As if there aren’t enough cries already that the system is heavily prejudiced against minorities and the poor. As if there isn’t a perception already that you can buy justice. Imagine the resultant impact on the moral and social fabric of the country if the Court were to all of a sudden decide that the poor man (read: in most cases the minority) would now have to match up to the awesome power of the State all by himself. Nothing short of revolt, I tell you.

And such anti-appointed counsel positions have no basis in reality or the text of the Constitution. SCOTUS had already construed the Sixth Amendment to mean that the Federal government must provide counsel to indigent defendants, in Johnson v. Zerbst. The essence of this right is well-summed up by Justice Sutherland in Powell v. Alabama (which preceeded Betts):

“The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence.”

Justice Clark, concurring in Gideon:

That the Sixth Amendment requires appointment of counsel in “all criminal prosecutions” is clear, both from the language of the Amendment and from this Court’s interpretation. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 (1938). It is equally clear from the above cases, all decided after Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 (1942), that the Fourteenth Amendment requires such appointment in all prosecutions for capital crimes. The Court’s decision today, then, does no more than erase a distinction which has no basis in logic and an increasingly eroded basis in authority.

To end this post, I’ve uploaded the audio of the oral argument in Gideon v. Wainwright, which you can listen to after the fold below. Be warned, though, that oral argument lasted for over 3 hours!

To those of you to actually listened to our Chief’s words today at the annual meeting and decided to check out the blog, I say heartily: welcome!

Poke around the site; you’ll find plenty to keep you entertained. Remember, she said it’s okay to look!

If you’re looking for the post she cited, it is here.

Stick around, comment, come back regularly.

To the chief: Thanks for the kind words

Don’t feel so lonely, Minnesota. You’re not alone. As a wave of cuts in indigent funding seems to be sweeping across the country, Floridians are next in line to be submurged under the tides of cutbacks.

The Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office plans to begin turning away thousands of cases in the coming weeks, arguing it is so short-staffed and underfunded that attorneys can’t effectively cover their assigned cases.

”We’re dancing as fast as we can. We can’t keep this up. We don’t have any alternative,” Public Defender Bennett Brummer said Monday, noting that his attorneys are required by the Constitution to provide adequate representation for indigent defendants.

Brummer’s plan: Refuse most felony cases. The office will continue to take cases in juvenile and misdemeanor court and the most serious felony cases — first-degree murders and capital sexual batteries.

Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein is considering a similar measure.

”No public defenders office can provide effective assistance because we are overwhelmed with cases and have inexperienced lawyers and have high turnover,” Finkelstein said. “There is a line as public defenders we cannot walk across. The judicial system is crumbling.”

Scoplaw reports from the front lines.

What is going on here? Off the top of my head I can list 5 states with indigent funding problems: Florida, Minnesota, Kentucky, Nevada and New York. I’m sure I’m missing a few.

45 years after Gideon’s promise, it seems that Minnesota is going backwards. It always astounds me when I read stories from other states about their public defense systems and their inadequate funding. Makes me feel lucky and proud to be in CT.

But this is utter nonsense. Apparently, there was a problem with the budget in MN and funding for public defenders fell short by $4.7 million. This renders them unable to fill the 19 already vacant positions, but might lead to cutting sixty-one (61!!!) current positions.

“In a state where our public defenders already work well in excess of caseloads recommended by the American Bar Association, these new staffing reductions will certainly have an adverse affect on the speed and quality of the entire justice system,” Stuart said.

The public defense board provides criminal and juvenile defense services to people who can’t afford to hire a private lawyer. Stuart said there are currently about 525 attorneys are working as full- or part-time public defenders across Minnesota, handling about 170,000 cases a year.

Funding for public defense work comes entirely from the state in most counties. Stuart said the board operated at a $1.4 million deficit this fiscal year, which ends June 30, and was staring at a $1.9 million shortfall for next year even before the loss of $1.5 million in state funding for 2009.

This is not a good situation. The ramifications of this go far beyond simple unemployment for a few lawyers. This could lead to a complete and total breakdown of the criminal justice system.

I’ll let Accident Prone, a public defender in MN explain:

Prosecutors aren’t facing any sort of staffing cuts. They will still be charging cases. Judges will still be sitting on the bench to hear those cases. Cops will still be arresting my clients on the streets and filling the jail. But with 12 less public defenders in my district, those clients cannot be assured adequate representation. The whole criminal system will suffer. By law, indigent people in Minnesota must be represented by someone employed by the Minnesota Board of Public Defense. There is no such thing as private-bar appointments. As I sit here with at least 25 open felonies (and a slew of misdemeanors) on my desk that include Criminal Sexual Conduct and Attempted Murder, I wonder how I could take on more and still spot every legal issue, do all the investigation, and prep every trial with the level of comprehensiveness I find necessary.

This is completely irresponsible. Defendants will either be forced to take awful deals or go to trial without lawyers, thus denying them a basic Constitutional right. Prison populations will swell and there will be a lawsuit, either about overcrowding or the failure to follow Gideon.

But, ofcourse, a new parking garage for the Mall of America is more important than the right to counsel.

Some interesting CT stories from today that I’m really just too lazy to make into full-fledged posts.

First, New Haven public defender Tom Ullmann gives the New Haven police department a piece of his mind and takes a few swings at the State’s Attorney’s office too:

Defense attorney Thomas Ullmann has charged that some members of the New Haven Police Department’s Detective Bureau are “incompetent, unprofessional and untruthful” in handling witnesses and investigating crimes. Ullmann, said the detectives’ performance is “at its lowest level in the 30 years I’ve been here.”

Ullmann accused the detectives of “a rush to judgment, not being thorough, not following up on obvious leads.” He said there was “a shocking lapse of asking witnesses investigative questions, such as who had been drinking or doing drugs.” Ullmann added, “Their attitude was ‘the less we know, the better.’ This feeds into their tunnel vision on the case.”

He alleged the Detective Bureau has “a history of suggesting information and providing facts to witnesses and failing to investigate facts pointing in a different direction.” He said in some cases witnesses have been “harassed.”

Moreover, Ullmann charged, “This culture doesn’t exist without some enabling by the state’s attorney’s office. This doesn’t happen without the prosecutors winking and nodding and looking the other way.” He added, “There are some really good prosecutors here, but sometimes people close their eyes to this stuff.”

Yowza!

Second, the Appellate and Supreme Courts might be in danger of losing heating and cooling May 1st onwards. The Supreme Court recently rejected emergency appeals filed by the State to compel the service provider to continue providing past the expiration of the contract on May 1.

On March 27, Hartford Superior Court Judge John J. Langenbach ruled that TEN Company has no obligation to supply the state buildings with heat, or the chilled water that runs air-conditioning systems, after its contract expires.

Langenbach said he could find no legal authority to “force TEN to continue a business relationship with the State that it wishes to end because the State may suffer harm as a result of its failure to plan for the expiration of that relationship.”

The State apparently figured that there’s no way TEN wouldn’t provide heat and a/c, so they have done absolutely nothing to prepare for this.

TEN offered to sell the piping system to the state, but officials didn’t make an offer. Wrote Langenbach: “The State has not taken a single step to begin the process of procuring an alternative source of heating and cooling for the eight buildings.”

Actually, it’s not entirely true that the state has failed to act. “Well, we filed an injunction. We also sought some legislative relief. So those are the things we’ve done,” one state official told Langenbach.

Public Works officials contend that a permanent system would take six years to install, and even a temporary solution would take two years to implement. But Langenbach gave credence to TEN’s general manager, Derek Rudd, who testified that temporary heating and cooling could be put in place “fairly quickly.”

Luckily, the current term of the Courts ends on April 30 (although the next one starts mid-May!). This should get interesting.

Today, SCOTUS heard oral argument in Indiana v. Edwards, which focused on the application of Farreta. Indiana argued that pro-se defendants who cannot communicate coherently with the court or the jury can be denied their right of self-representation.

Yesterday, Prof. Erica Hashimoto (who I think is the individual referenced by Justice Breyer at page 35 of the transcript) had this post up at Concurring Opinions. The post argues, essentially, that the right of self-representation is critical because indigent defendants are often represented by incompetent “indigent counsel” and would be better off representing themselves. She apparently has some history in this area, having authored a January 2007 paper on this topic. The findings of the paper are that pro-se defendants far just as well (or poorly) as represented defendants, if not better.

She does not some limitations in the study - the big one being lack of much data. Her sample size seems to be pretty small too. One limitation I did not see mentioned in the study is the strength of the state’s case. It is very possible that in a lot of pro-se cases, the state recognizes its weaknesses very early on - perhaps the first court date - and offers to either nolle, dismiss or favorably resolve the matter. I also did not see any consideration given to states that do not appoint counsel for misdemeanor charges.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. The essence of her argument seems to be that, generally speaking, defendants with money can fire their privately retained lawyer and hire another more competent lawyer to represent them. This is a very flawed argument. Anyone who practices in a GA or JD in CT (or any other trial court in any other state) can attest to the number of times a non-indigent defendant has stood before a judge, asking for more time to hire a new lawyer and fire his current lawyer. Almost always, the defendant does not come up with the money and has to go with the lawyer that he is “unhappy” with. Just as if he were represented by a pd that he does not like. He is just as stuck with the private as he is with the pd.

Further - and I’m hoarse from repeating myself - “ineffective” lawyers come in all shapes and sizes and statuses. Private attorneys can be awful, just like public defenders. And while it is very, very difficult to “fire” your public defender, it can and does happen.

I don’t care either way about the right of self-representation. All my clients can represent themselves, if they want to. I will wish them the best of luck and move on. When called upon to represent a client, I will do everything in my power to secure a favorable outcome. But that’s just me.

I guess I don’t buy this idea that the right of self-representation is critical because of public defenders (or appointed counsel). It is critical because every person should have the ability to decide for himself or herself what he/she wants to do. Do we really need another reason?

Edit: By the way, if you want to get an idea of just how “crazy” Edwards was at the time of his trial, sift through the Joint Appendix. Let me know if you follow any of the motions filed.

Well, they’re at it again. The law firm that can’t seem to sell itself without dumping on public defenders has another post up [Update: I just noticed that their post is actually dated April 10, 2008. Heh]. This post actually makes some valid points and seems more like a blog post than a marketing advert. At least until you get to the middle, that is:

A vast majority of the people that end up in prison are represented by the public defenders offices throughout the state. In many cases, to know fault of their own the public defender cannot provide the level of legal defense that should be received by anyone facing jail time. Thus the jails are full of poor people, mostly minority who could not find the funds to retain private counsel.

There are so many things wrong with that paragraph, least of all the spelling.

The implication here is that if you’re poor, you’ll go to jail. If you’re rich (or have money to hire this particular law firm), you won’t. Doesn’t matter whether the State has a strong case; wave some greenbacks in the prosecutor’s face and he’ll go straight to his knees.

This also seems like false advertising to me. They’re promising things they can’t deliver. Are they really saying that prison overcrowding would not be a problem if everyone was represented by private counsel (or perhaps just their firm)? They seem to be implying that every case is winnable, if you have the money to hire a lawyer.

Does anyone know how good this firm is? Anyone heard of them? Any readers from the West Coast? Why do they keep doing this? Did one of them get fired from the PDs office?

In a similar vein, see recent posts from Norm and Scott.

In other news, public defenders are also the cause of black holes, crop circles and Dick Cheney’s sneery disposition.

Way back in April, 2007, public defender Sherri Jefferson was convicted of contempt and sentenced to 30 days’ imprisonment. That led to her resigning from her position as a public defender and appealing the trial court’s imposition of the sentence.

Now, the Georgia Supreme Court has issued their decision In re: Sherri Jefferson [pdf], reversing the conviction for contempt. In doing so, they enunciated a new standard for evaluating whether contempt proceedings were appropriate and the standard to use in deciding whether to hold someone in contempt.

Initially,

the judge found two of the eight statements in question to have been contemptuous on the basis that the statements impugned, disparaged, and attacked the impartiality of the court and thereby undermined its authority, respect, and dignity.

Enunciating the new standard, the Court held that:

An attorney may be held in contempt for statements made during courtroom proceedings only after the court has found (1) that the attorney’s statements and attendant conduct either actually interfered with or posed an imminent threat of interfering with the administration of justice and (2) that the attorney knew or should have known that the statements and attendant conduct exceeded the outermost bounds of permissible advocacy.

and gave some guidelines:

(1) the extent to which the attorney was put on notice prior to the contempt citation that a continuation of the offending statements would constitute contempt; (2) the likely impact of the offending statements on the deliberations of the fact-finder, which calculus incorporates both the nature and timing of the offending conduct and whether the fact-finder is a judge or jury; (3) whether the offending statements occurred as an isolated incident or constituted a pattern of behavior; (4) the significance of the particular issue in question to the case as a whole and the relative gravity of the case; and (5) the extent, if any, to which the trial court provoked the offending statements with its own improper statements.

Now it returns for reconsideration. I’m not so sure she should be found guilty of contempt under this standard.

Kentucky governor Steve Beshear’s proposed budget includes an increase in funding of $38.6million to pay for a new 816 bed facility to make room for the projected 6% increase in inmates over the coming years. In this age of overcriminalization and harsher penalties, it seems logical. You have to house them somewhere. What is not logical, however, is a corresponding cut in funding for prosecutors and public defenders.

The budget for public defenders would drop 3.6 percent from current spending, with declines of 2.6 percent for commonwealth’s attorneys and 1.7 percent for county attorneys.

Prosecutors and public defenders said yesterday that increasing room for inmates while decreasing budgets for those who represent and prosecute them makes little sense.

Ernie Lewis, head of the Department of Public Advocacy, said his lawyers are laboring under huge caseloads that far exceed national standards, and they couldn’t handle more cases if budget cuts force him to lay off staff. “Our belt is already so tight that we have no room for budget cutting,” he said.

Lewis said public defenders may have to decline to represent some poor people charged with crimes. “We can’t do more cases than we can ethically handle,” he said.

This just doesn’t make any sense. A decrease in funding with an increase in defendants will result in higher workloads and lower performance. Justice, it would seem, is not high on the agenda.

Yet another twist in the story, however, is a task force assembled to study the penal code and suggest alternatives to incarceration:

Beshear announced a proposal to create a Criminal Justice Task Force, comprising representatives from across the state and all areas of the justice system.

The group will review the state penal code and sentencing guidelines to look at more appropriate punishments and recommend ways to manage the judicial system, he said.

Beshear said he hopes the task force can have some recommendations by the legislature’s next budget session and perhaps find alternatives to incarceration for some defendants.

Shouldn’t they do that first, before they further damage the state of the criminal justice system?

Radley Balko has this fantastic piece in Reason, making a compelling argument for greater funding for public defender offices nationwide.

His starting points are the high-profile DNA exonerations, the Duke lacrosse case and Kevin Davis’ Defending The Damned [Davis was profiled on our sister blog, PD Stuff, here].

The piece first explores the prevailing perception of public defenders and why it is mistaken.

[Davis’ book] should make readers reconsider the contempt routinely heaped on public defenders. Perhaps, given recent headlines, there’s actually some merit to the public defender’s familiar complaints about inadequate funding, heavy caseloads, and prosecutorial misconduct.

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black once wrote, if the state aims to take away someone’s freedom, the defendant has an “absolute, unqualified right to compel the State to investigate its own case, find its own witnesses, prove its own facts, and convince the jury through its own resources. Throughout the process, the defendant has a fundamental right to remain silent, in effect challenging the State at every point to ‘Prove it!’?”

He then tackles the central point: Funding.

Most public defender’s offices don’t have those resources. A 1999 U.S. Justice Department study of the country’s 100 most populous counties found that 97 percent of their law enforcement budgets went toward police, courts, and prosecutors, with the remaining 3 percent going to public defenders. That study didn’t include less populous, rural areas of the country, where the public defender position rotates among private-practice attorneys or is filled by a single lawyer in private practice who receives a stipend of a few thousand dollars per year.

Finally, he artfully tells us why it is imperative that public defenders should have the same resources as prosecutors:

The fundamental function of government is to secure the rights of its citizens. There has never been much problem generating support for the law enforcement side of that responsibility: courts, police, prosecutors, and prisons. The government seems eager to protect us from criminals. But it’s also obliged not to violate our rights in the process.

If we’re serious about giving everyone a fair crack at justice, indigent defendants need access to the same sorts of resources prosecutors have, including their own independent experts and investigators. If we’re going to generously fund the government’s efforts to imprison people, we need to ensure that everyone the government pursues is adequately defended and protected from prosecutorial overreach. The ongoing stream of exonerations in felony cases suggests we’re a long way from that goal.

Tip of the hat to Skelly. The comments to Balko’s piece are also very interesting. Be sure to check them out.

The big news of the weekend thus far, for me at least, has been the announcement by the NYCLU that it is filing suit in New York, alleging Constitutional violations by the State for its failure to provide adequate resources to public defenders.

From the press release:

“Every day, in courtrooms throughout the state, New Yorkers are denied justice simply because they are poor. Justice should not depend on your ZIP code or the size of your wallet,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “We filed this lawsuit today as a last resort, in response to the constitutional deficiencies identified by a commission appointed by Chief Judge Kaye to evaluate our public defense system, and the failure of lawmakers to compel the state to repair what is clearly a broken and unjust system.”

The class action lawsuit charges that a lack of adequate funding, oversight and statewide standards is denying New Yorkers accused of crimes their lawful right to competent, qualified and timely representation at all stages of the justice process, a violation of the U.S. Constitution, the state constitution and the laws of New York.

It is extremely annoying that it has to come to this. New York could have, at the very least, learned from Connecticut. It was a CCLU and ACLU lawsuit in Connecticut - Rivera v. Rowland - that forced the legislature to increase funding by millions and double the number of positions in the system. The settlement of that lawsuit led to a wholesale revamping of the public defender’s system in CT, with better pay, more positions, more training, lower caseloads. This was in 1999. Now, almost 8 years later, New York is facing the same crisis.

It is great, on the other hand, because this will undoubtedly force New York to take action. New York is one of only 6 states remaining that have no statewide responsibility or oversight mechanism for public defense and remains among a minority of states, including Alabama and Mississippi, that have failed to join the movement toward full state funding.

Make no mistake: this is not a panacea. Caseloads will still be high, public defenders will still be understaffed, berated and maligned. However, they will be in a better position to fight those charges and the charges brought by the State against indigent defendants.

For more, read the ABA’s report entitled “Gideon’s Broken Promise” and The Spangenberg Group’s report to NY’s Indigent Defense Commission.

Just received word that the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007 passed as an amendment to S. 1642 [pdf - scroll to page 600] by a vote of 95-0. This loan repayment bill had earlier passed the House.

Here are the main points:

(i) $10,000 for any borrower in any calendar year; or

(ii) an aggregate total of $60,000 in the case of any borrower.

Thanks for all the e-mails pointing me to the public defender study. I guess since the NYT published an article about it today, Big Blawg is posting about it. However, the study was first made available almost 3 weeks ago, when I posted about it here. For those who missed it the first time and want to know what its about, read my post linked to above and then here are some new posts about it.

The news story does have one interesting quote, though:

David Carroll, the research director for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, said the study’s most important point was economic. “There is,” Mr. Carroll said, “a cost savings in establishing staff public defender offices.”

Yes, there is.

 Slate has this powerful piece today about the state of the criminal justice system in New Orleans and the role of big law in assisting its resurrection.

Law firms are the cavalry of the legal world. Disaster strikes, and the firms, with their thousands of lawyers and millions of dollars, ride into town to clean up the mess. But what happens when the cavalry doesn’t show?

That’s the situation in New Orleans, where almost two years after Katrina, the criminal-defense system is still in a state of emergency. Public defense was never the city’s strength: When the levees broke, there were about 7,000 criminal defendants waiting to see a state-appointed lawyer. Immediately after the storm, the city jailed roughly 5,000 of them, many on shaky legal grounds. Most remained locked up for over a year before speaking with a lawyer. The public defender’s office is slowly working through the backlog, but is still overwhelmed. It’s a situation public defenders bitterly call “Gitmo on the Bayou.”

The initial help did arrive: law students taking trips down to NOLA; public defenders from other states spending months helping out. However, as the article points out, that is a piecemeal and slow process. So whither the money and clout of Big Law?

To be fair, big law has done a lot for the region. Firms donated thousands of hours to the legal rebuilding effort, sending lawyers down to help with FEMA appeals, small-business recovery, and Road Home grants. The Mississippi Center for Justice, a Jackson-based nonprofit founded in 2003, convinced 19 law firms to donate 8,100 hours last year, adding up to a value of $3 million. Most of this work, however, has been on civil matters.

So as the criminal justice system goes to waste; defendants sit in jail for over a year without once talking to a lawyer; judges find the funding system unconstitutional, can Big Law do anything to help? The article suggests that Big Law can file a lawsuit.

Firms are great at impact litigation. Be it a suit against a city, state, or large public institution, firms have pushed the law forward in amazing ways through large-scale litigation. They can do the same in New Orleans. The current system raises some serious constitutional questions.

Hence the question: they can, but should they? I think yes. They have the resources - financial and personnel - and there is no greater service than assisting the community. The criminal justice system in NOLA is a travesty and someone - anyone - should do all they can to help. Gideon’s promise needs to be fulfilled.

The WSJ blog has more and PD Stuff has lots of coverage of New Orleans.

Technorati Tags: new orleans, public defenders

That is the question. Scott of Simple Justice writes about this LA Times article (via Carolyn Elefant) regarding the impact of body art and expression in today’s workplace.

Once associated with drunken sailors, felons and Hells Angels, tattoos have gone nearly mainstream, putting employers in a bind. How to write rules that won’t alienate un-hip customers on the one hand or eliminate talented workers on the other?

Different standards have emerged. A pink rose discreetly inked on an ankle might pass muster at a hospital but not a day-care center; an eyebrow stud will be viewed as charming at one store and a blemish at another.

Law firms are also taking notice:

Many law firms also prefer conventional looks, as Nicole Wool discovered. Six years ago, on her second day as an associate with an L.A. entertainment firm, one of the older partners took her aside and told her to take out her tongue stud.

“I felt so embarrassed,” recalled Wool, 32, who now works for Dr. Tattoff, a chain of tattoo removal studios. “It made me feel like I’d done something bad.”

Being of the more conservative persuasion, Scott writes:

Sexy or rebellious? Well that’s a message I want to send as a lawyer, and receive as a client. After all, who cares if my lawyer is a dope, as long as he’s sexy. There is a message here, but not the one intended by the nice fellow with a half dozen piercings. It says “I’m self-indulgent and immature.” Put aside the sorry reality that there’s nothing worse than some old tattoo on some saggy old body part that nobody will ever be able to look at without retching at some point in the future. It’s like wearing bell bottom pants in the ’60s, but never being able to take them off. Your judgment will forever be showing. Your poor judgment.

I have to say I agree. While I personally am not against these forms of self-expression, I don’t think they have a place in the courtroom. Whether we like it or not, we are treated differently by people based on how they perceive us. In our line of work, it is imperative that we are seen in the best light possible. Most of the times, we are in Court on behalf of someone else and if we are to be presenting someone else’s case to a judge, a jury or a prosecutor, then it behooves us to put our best foot forward. We engage in a profession - a serious profession, and must treat it as such.

As my generation would say: Cover that sh*t up.

Previous coverage: A while back, I considered whether we have a “look”.

 Loading ...