AK: client to p.d. - "you're an idiot too, pal"
In "How to Be Excused from Your (Own) Trial," Steve at Alaskablawg links to an "interesting decision," Douglas v. State of Alaska (pdf file here), where a defendant got booted out of the courtroom and even was barred from returning to the courtroom to testify, because he just wouldn't shut up.
Steve says,
If you are facing criminal charges and you are frustrated with your attorney, the prosecutor, the court, or whatever, I would strongly urge that you read this decision and realize that this is a great demonstration of how to NOT demonstrate your frustration...
I say, wow, the guy said all this stuff and then punched his p.d., and the lawyer wasn't conflicted? We truly are the lawyers of last resort.
2 Comments:
A fair question you ask, but there's an answer. A common motion by criminal defendants is to discharge the public defender and get another lawyer. There are lots of reasons, from true ineffective assistance to a desire to pursue a tactic which counsel rejects as ineffective (and it's counsel's call, not the clients') to delay. When that motion is denied, if the way to get a new lawyer every time is to slug the PD, then more PDs will get slugged. There's caselaw in Washington that holds, rightly I submit, that a complaint to the WSBA, by itself, does not create a conflict of interest. Just as a complaint to the CJC does not get the defendant a new judge.
See p.26 of the opinion for the winning "Probably shouldn't have said that," award.
Defendant, after protesting his innocence many times, says another man "raped her three months before I did."
Very thoughtful.
--JRM
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