Personality Types

In my fairly short time being a criminal defense attorney, I’ve noticed you can basically break clients down into four categories.

1. Admits they’re is guilty, just wants a deal.
2. Admits they did the crime, but it was justified, ie self defense.
3. Swears they’re innocent, and actually are innocent.
4. Swears they’re innocent, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Most of the clients fall into the first category. They know the screwed up, they know there’s no point in wasting everyone’s time and potentially getting a harsher sentence from a jury. Its just easier to take a plea. All they want from their attorney is the best deal possible.

I’ve only come across a few people that claim they have a legal reason for what they did. That’s not to say self-defense, duress, or any of the other justifications under the law don’t happen. They just haven’t happened to my clients. I did try a case where one of my defenses was self-defense. But, the client was Billy from the post below. He wasn’t popular with the jurors. One day I’ll write the story of that trial.

Category number three hasn’t happened to me. I’m sure it will one day, but it hasn’t yet.

The fourth category of clients interest me the most. I’ve had plenty of clients who have told me they’re innocent to begin with, only to end up taking a plea offer. I’m not quite sure why they have to convince me that they’re innocent. Maybe they assume that I’ll work extra hard for them I think they’re innocent and wrongfully accused. I work equally hard for all my clients. Eventually they’ll come around, say they did it, and take whatever deal has been negotiated. Some of them even take the plea, tell the judge they’re guilty, and then after the plea still swear up and down they’re going to be wrongfully imprisoned.

Case in point. The client, a homeless gentleman gets stopped by the police because he matches the description of a guy who stole a bike. He admits he took the bike, and takes the police to where he hid it. The owner of the bike doesn’t want to press charges, and it should have been done. But, at the location where he stashed the bike, the police also found some expensive power tools that were brand new, and still had the price tags on them. Naturally, the police wondered how a guy who couldn’t afford to eat, could afford a new, top of the line drill. A fair question.

When the police go to the hardware store, before they can even ask any questions, the clerk gives a description of my guy and tells them a drill (the same time my guy had) and some other tools that my guy was found with were missing. He gets arrested, duh.

By the time I get appointed and talk with the guy, his story is that someone (he doesn’t know who) gave him the tools, and he’s not going to take a deal. The offer from the D.A. was pretty reasonable considering his extensive rap sheet and the fact he had only been out of prison for a few months before this crime. But, he swears to me he’s innocent. I tell him what exactly the police have against him and that taking this to trial isn’t a smart idea. He says he wants to go to trial.

I suppose its possible that if I found twelve jurors as dumb as my client, I might be able to get him off. I also suppose its possible that some random guy off the street gave my client the stolen tools and its a mere coincidence that tools were missing after my client was in the store. And I suppose its also possible I could win the lotto and go out with Jessica Alba on the same day. But I don’t see any of those things as very likely.

Of course, after he spent a couple more weeks in jail, he tells me that he did in fact steal the tools and he’d like me to work out a deal for him. I guess I’ll have to wait a while longer until I get a truly innocent client.

What I Didn’t Learn In Law School, Pt 1

I’m pre-emptively labeling this as part one, because things I’ve learned on the job, that I never learned in law school will be revisited again.

Over at The Defense Perspective, Stephen Gustitis had a post about using a polygraph as a method of client control. His reasoning goes, criminal clients often refuse to face the facts, even if the prosecution has a mountain of evidence against them. Since they won’t face reality, the client will insist on a course of action where the only outcome is the client spending time in prison, when they could have taken an offer and received less time or probation. If you give the client a polygraph, there’s two potentially positive outcomes for the attorney. The client passes and you can go to the prosecutor with that tidbit of information. Or, the client fails and will (hopefully) decide to face reality.

Where am I going with this? Client control. Extremely important and a subject that was never covered during my law school education. Even in my “practical law” classes when we’d have to roll-play being a client, no one was even the client who wouldn’t take the great deal you worked out for him. Or the client with mental illness. Or the client that just flat out ignores you. Everyone would behave like an attorney talking to another attorney. That’s not the fault of the students, they don’t know how else to behave.

My first experience with an out of control client came at my first trial. Up until then, pretty much all my clients just wanted me to get them a deal. The ones that were trouble, my boss would handle, since he has a lot more experience than I do. But, this one was a misdemeanor, and should have been a pretty easy case for the defense. The first time meeting the defendant was right after I was appointed to him. I asked him how he wanted to handle the case, if he wanted me to work something out with the County Attorney or if we needed to set it for trial. His response was something along the lines of, “I don’t want to hear nothing about a deal, we’re taking this thing to trial.” He probably also used a fair amount of profanity for that one sentence as well.

Whenever I’d meet with or talk to the defendant, we’ll call him Billy, he tended to have a lot of trouble staying on topic. I’d ask him a question and he’d give me a long rambling answer, and I use the word “answer” in the loosest sense of the word.  It was usually a jumble of semi-coherent thoughts about how the county was out to get him, or how the state of Texas was out to get him, or that I wasn’t doing my job, and so on.  He’d always end his diatribe by saying, “We’ve got to get this information out at trial, so the jury knows the truth.”  I’d repeatedly tell him that we had a very simple, and winnable case, and if we started talking about how the state of Texas is screwing him over, the jury would think we’re trying to bullshit them, and wouldn’t appricate that.  He’d agree with me, and then go right back to ignoring whatever I said.

Quite frankly, I had no idea what to do with this guy.  There was nothing in any of my law school classes that even remotely prepared me for dealing with a guy like this.  Stephen’s above suggestion of giving him a polygraph wouldn’t apply since A) Billy had no means to afford a polygraph; and B) our defense was that he had legal authority to commit the acts, not that he didn’t do it.  I couldn’t remind him that going to trial costs extra, since he was a court appointee.  In short, I was stuck.  All I could do was keep telling him that its very easy to talk your way into jail.

The trial was an unmitigated disaster.  Even though the prosecutor, the judge, and my fiancee said I did a good job, I felt like I had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  Billy took the stand, with my blessing.  I told him to testify for two reasons.  First off, he had been waiting five months to tell his side of the story.  There was no way in hell he wasn’t going to get up there and testify about how the county, the judge, the prosecutor, and the great state of Texas were out to get him.  This was going to be his moment in the sun.  It was like Festivus came early for him, he got to air all his grievances.  After the prosecutor got done with Billy, I just wanted to lay my head on the table and wave the white flag.  The second reason I told him to testify was that we’d get two extra defenses if he took the stand.  If I had to do it again, I’d probably tell him not to take the stand, but I know he wouldn’t listen to me.

Was there anything I could have done to keep Billy under control?   I’m not entirely sure.  But I do know that law school does a poor job of preparing people for difficult clients.  I know the rebuttal.  You’re a criminal defense attorney in a rural county.  You’re not exactly dealing with the best and the brightest who are going to listen.  And that’s true, but a class on client management would be very beneficial to new attorneys.

Crusade

The courts are closed today with the observance of Dr. King’s birthday, and since I don’t have any timebombs going off this week, I decided to take the day off. And so the day wouldn’t be completely unproductive, I figured I’d clean out my email, namely sort through all the emails that the ABA and the Texas Bar send me. I figure I’m safe ignoring those, I’m sure if I was in trouble with the Texas Bar, they’d send me a letter, or a subpoena.

In one of the emails, there’s a link to a story about Kristen Wolf, a Boston University law graduate who is on a one-woman crusade to discourage people from going to law school. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, Ms. Wolf said:

I’m on a one-woman mission to talk people out of law school. Lots of people go to law school as a default. They don’t know what else to do, like I did. It seems like a good idea. People say a law degree will always be worth something even if you don’t practice. But they don’t consider what that debt is going to look like after law school. It affects my life in every way. And the jobs that you think are going to be there won’t necessarily be there at all. Most people I know that are practicing attorneys don’t make the kind of money they think lawyers make. They’re making $40,000 a year, not $160,000. Plus, you’re going to be struggling to do something you might not even enjoy. A few people have a calling to be a lawyer, but most don’t.

To Ms. Wolf, I say, preach on!

While none of the criminal defense blawgs I read mentioned this story, Susan Cartier Liebel talks about it in her incredibly informative Build A Solo Practice blog. Ms. Liebel notes that Ms. Wolf didn’t go to law school because she felt a real calling to be a lawyer. Instead she went because she had a liberal arts degree, no apparent job prospects where she could put that degree to use, and had figured that she would make a decent living being a lawyer. Turns out, those starting six-figure salaries are reserved for a precious few, and Ms. Wolf wasn’t one of them and is currently not working in the legal field.

Ms. Wolf’s story sound all too familiar. Law school is filled with people who probably shouldn’t be there. Not because they’re not smart enough, or talented enough, but because they really have no desire to be there or be lawyers. Heck, I probably fall into that category. I went to law school for the same reasons Ms. Wolf talks about in her interview. I had a graduated from college and had a liberal arts degree, the economy was in the tank, the job I had unloading trucks was a dead end. Why not go to law school?

Let’s face it, law school isn’t fun. A relative once asked me what law school was like, and I told him to picture the worst people he knew arguing over the most pointless topics he could think of. My school hasn’t invited me back as a guest speaker for some strange reason. You’re spending a lot of money to get that degree, plus three years of your life. And what happens at the end? Chances are you don’t have that job making six figures lined up for you. Then you realize that those 10 people from your class that are going to make 100K or so have skewed the average starting salary high, and there’s no way you’re even going to earn 60K (or whatever your law school claims for a average starting salary).

Wrapping this up, I really only agree to a certain extent with Ms. Wolf’s cause. Talking people out of going to law school isn’t a bad idea, if for no other reason than to give me less competition. But not everyone who wants to go should be dissuaded. Only those who plan on using law school as a way to escape the real world for three more years. There will always be room for another good, passionate, and committed lawyer.

Ill Repute

At one time in this country’s history, probably before I was born, the law was an extremely respectable field to go into. People viewed attorneys as the good guys, defending the rights of those who needed it. The poor, the oppressed, the underprivileged. Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Atticus Finch probably had a lot to do with it. Then somewhere along the line, the job lost its luster. Attorneys became viewed as slick-talking hired guns, willing to say, do, or sue anything and anyone in there never ending chase of the all mighty dollar. The public perception went from viewing attorneys as Atticus Finch, and more to viewing attorneys as Lionel Hutz.

Why does the public have such a negative perception of the legal profession? There’s probably lots of reasons, way to many to go into in just one post. One reason has to be, and I alluded to it in the first paragraph, the idea that attorneys will sue anyone for any (seemingly) stupid reason.As I was catching up with the news today, I came across this story. The 4th Court of Appeals down in San Antonio ruled that nine chimpanzees and monkeys do not, in fact have legal rights.

SAN ANTONIO — A Texas appeals court has affirmed a lower court decision that nine chimpanzees and monkeys that were brought to the Primarily Primates sanctuary in 2006 don’t have a legal right to sue.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had sought to gain legal standing for the primates transferred from Ohio State University to the sanctuary after they were retired. PETA alleged that the sanctuary conditions were substandard and that it would be best for the seven chimps and two monkeys to be moved to another sanctuary.

So what does this have to do with the public perception of the legal profession? It makes all of us look silly really. I’m certainly not about to take a case from PETA, a group of puppy-killing hypocrites, on behalf of some monkeys. But someone out with the law license felt the need to tie up the Texas court system on behalf of some chimps. The story has already been on at least one national media site and has been picked up on the AP Wire. It’s just one more story with an example of lawyers using taxpayer money to tie up the court system with a ridiculous claim. It makes all of us look bad in the eyes of the general public.

At the end of the story, it mentions that PETA is still considering an appeal of the ruling, even though they have already lost in District and now at the Court of Appeals level. I have no idea what gives them any hope that they’d get a favorable ruling from the Texas Supreme Court, but I have no doubt PETA’s lawyers don’t have any problem wasting Texas tax dollars trying, and making the legal profession look bad in the process.

Although, I suppose it could have been worse. The 4th Court of Appeals could have sided with PETA.