Hard civics lessons

Can I tell you how discouraging it can be to bring bad plea bargain news to a client? Particularly to the client who pleads with me, "why doesn't that prosecutor want to help me?" What can I tell my client about how rare that kind of prosecutor really is, and that how by luck of the draw, he didn't draw one like that?

Abitrary. Capricious. Not typical of most of my dealings with the local D.A.'s, but the hard edge gets exposed often enough to notice, like the time a prosecutor blew off my version of how my client's witnesses would testify by saying, "any scumbag can get any other scumbags to say whatever he wants them to." "They're right here, would you like to repeat that to their face?" said I.

I feel bad for the clients, but it's worse I think for the family members who haven't done anything - even by such a prosecutor's moral calculus - to deserve this treatment. They sit in court hearing their loved one villified on the record, and joked and laughed about by the lawyers and cops when the judge is off the bench. Worse probably is the social trust that's broken when it's the family who've set this awful machine in motion, calling law enforcement to get sons or daughters "the help they need," and getting nothing but warehousing in return. Worst yet, in my home town, such a call got a beloved child killed by the police.

Bonus links:

Indefensible may be on to something: too much Law and Order, not enough Perry Mason.

Jay Farrar could be singing about half the addicted and homeless clients in my caseload:
"where's the crime in a streak of bad luck?"