"Neither Officer Friendly nor Officer Hardass"

From Police Link:

Not just kid stuff: Handling juveniles on patrol

(Y)our interaction with juvenile subjects will have repercussions for future officers who deal with these youths. This is all the more so for juveniles because their ideas, conceptions and opinions of police may still be forming, and how you handle an encounter may have a powerful effect in influencing their lifelong perception of the law and its representatives...

Always helpful to compare the advice law enforcement are given about dealing with my clientele, to the advice I give my kids for emerging unarrested from the same encounters.

One hop

There's a rabbit warren in the bushes next to juvenile detention. Tonight one of the younger bunnies was there for debriefing after I'd stepped out from talking with two clients. Each is about to go away for a long time, a likely ten months for the one, more than two years for the other. The resident wildlife outside seem to have a sense of when I can use a bit of animal uplift.

CA: faint praise

A tribute of sorts to a public defender friend, from Pirate Hooker (not safe for work):

And they say our tax dollars go to good use...

As most of you know, RHBS works at the public defender's office. I love her because she doesn't hide the fact that she hates her job. She doesn't answer her calls, only goes to the jail when she has to, etc...

Pity she hates her job. With those pictures of RHBS embedded in the post, perhaps somebody will recognize her and help her with her problem.

CA: Sacto Sisyphus

From the Sacramento News and Review:

Guilty till proven innocent - Head Sacramento County public defender says the justice system is broken. Get used to it.

His mother went berserk, lashing out at the person who seemed most responsible for the outcome, her son’s public defender, who retaliated with her own outburst of anger. It was ugly. Similar scenes play out at the Sacramento Superior Court on a regular basis. There’s not too much Chief Public Defender Paulino Duran can do about it...

Listen up. This is Sacramento’s head public defender talking. You may need his services someday. He’s telling you our criminal-justice system is broken, perhaps beyond repair...

All the same, remember:

The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

NM: enough with the physical attacks on p.d.'s, now

From KOAT, Albuquerque:

Public Defenders Assaulted At MDC

Two members of the public defender's office are recovering at home Thursday night after being assaulted by a Metro Detention Center inmate, jailers said...

From KOB (with broadcast video):

Inmate attacks women at metro detention center

Two women from the public defenders office survived a brutal beating Thursday morning at the Bernalillo County Metro Detention Center...

This sh*t has to stop.

ID: Duncan DP pro se delay

From the Spokesman-Review's Eye on Boise:

Further delay in Duncan case

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge announced today that even after receiving an evaluation of confessed killer Joseph Duncan’s mental competency, he’s not ready to rule on whether Duncan can act as his own attorney in his death penalty hearings until there’s further review. In a press release, the court announced, “The court has, on its own motion... elected to seek a further mental competency evaluation of the defendant, which will necessitate an additional delay in these proceedings...”

See also Duncan delay will be a long one

"The hardest step - the rest is cake"

A post that really reached me, from Doubtslinger:

As a public defender, you quickly learn to celebrate even the smallest of things. Today was just such a celebration. Today I retired my longest running client...

I'm lucky: I retire my clients when they turn 18. Luckily, many of them never graduate to the adult system.

A fistful of Faretta

From Minnesota Law Blog:

Public defender heroism in St. Louis County

It turns out we had a hero in our midst and most of us didn’t realize it. It is a little reminder... of the good work done by public defenders every day. In St. Louis County, public defender Mark Groettum was attacked by his client, who wrapped his arm around Groettum’s neck and punched him repeatedly in the face. Remarkably, the defendant then requested a new court-appointed lawyer...

Two consequences for such behavior (at least for Minnesota clients):

1. A criminal defendant forfeits his right to court-appointed counsel when he assaults his court-appointed attorney.

2. The district court does not violate due process by deciding, without an evidentiary hearing, that a criminal defendant has forfeited his right to court-appointed counsel when the defendant assaults his court-appointed attorney in the presence of the court...

PDF file of today's Minnesota Court of Appeals opinion in State v. Lehman here.

Minnesota Public Radio shares this colloquy from the trial transcript:

LEHMAN: Well, after what you have read, it seems to me most of them cases require repeated disruptions. That's one disruption.

JUDGE: I understand your position, and the one disruption was sufficient to cause the forfeiture based upon the vicious attack that you chose to engage in here against your attorney this morning.

LEHMAN: Aren't we assuming guilt there? Don't I have a right to a trial on that attack?

JUDGE: Ultimately you will, if there is charges filed, but you did commit the offense in the presence of the Court...

Update: perspective from a colleague who's been on the receiving end -
What protects the defender? A radical difference in rules

ID: rapid response

From the Hagadone News Network:

May 9: Attorneys want out of PL murder case - Attorneys representing accused murderer Keith Brown are seeking permission to withdraw from the case

May 10: Judge: Attorneys must stay on murder case - A district judge is declining to allow defense attorneys representing accused killer Keith Allen Brown to withdraw from the case

ID: supreme Sarah Johnson smackdown

Heckling during oral argument, in front of the state Supremes, perhaps from the state Supremes, reported by Cassidy Friedman by the Times-News:

Supreme Court weighs Johnson case

Idaho Supreme Court justices will have to decide whom to blame for Sarah Johnson's botched defense: the judge or her attorney. Guessing from the blasting that Johnson's absent attorney received, the furious scribbling by reporters and the astonishment of Johnson's family each time a new heckle was uttered, it's not looking good for the attorney.

Members of the state's Supreme Court heard arguments on Johnson's appeal Friday, over three years after an Ada County jury found her guilty... (of) first-degree murder... (At trial), defense attorney Bob Pangburn harped the same line, "no blood, no guilt" - meaning that since no blood spatter was found on Johnson, the triggerman must have been somebody else.

Never did that defense seem more regrettable than Friday when Justice Roger S. Burdick, at Johnson's appeal, called that once memorable line "some silly jingle." As it turned out just before the jury's deliberation, the defense blew into a rage when the judge instructed the jury they could just as easily find Johnson guilty of murder by aiding and abetting someone else to do it because the two accusations are one and the same by Idaho law. To be guilty of the charge, she didn't have to be the one who pulled the trigger.

"Why wouldn't a competent defense attorney say, 'OK, she's being charged with first-degree murder,' (and) prepare a defense that goes either way?" asked Justice Warren E. Jones...

Fair question, that. It'll be asked in post-conviction proceedings too.

WA: Cowboy Mike's trial underway

From the Olympian:

Daughter recalls discovery of mother dead, under bed

... and it gets worse from there.

Friday prison dog blogging

From author Patricia Kelly:

Prison Dogs: Hope Behind Bars

WA: the activist's passive voice - "rocks were thrown"

(photo: Tony Overman/The Olympian)

Two updates on a participant in our latest local civil disturbance, from Eabha the Kiwi:

Danny (Vegas) Willson has been in Jail in Olympia Washington since May 1st and Needs Bail $$

As some of you already know Daniel Wilson (AKA Danny Vegas)... is currently in jail in Olympia, Washington. Danny along with five others were arrested on May 1st for there participation in a May Day celebration in which symbols of the state and Capital were attacked...

Danny Is Out

folks in olympia managed to find enough collateral, so we don't need bail anymore. however, they are still searching for cash for legal fees, etc... danny might be able to get a 'public defender', but there will still be major costs associated with the trial...

If he qualifies for the p.d., what major costs would those be? And what's with the quotation marks, 'comrades'?