September 24, 2008

NY: 5 boroughs, one p.d. blog

An addition to the blogroll, from some real "Raising the Bar" p.d.'s:

Five Borough Defense - New York City Public Defenders

How can you tell they're real NYC p.d's? Exhibit A (which does not include my wimpy Idaho-person asterisks):

Another client coming to court every few weeks for a year because some *ssh*le called the cops. Client loses money, promotions. The DA calls at 9pm the night before trial and asks if the client wants an ACD. Client does not want an ACD. Then, on the day of trial, the DA dismisses...

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm wondering if that particular post was in too much of a local parlance to be understandable by lawyers (and others) outside the NYC area...

Did you follow it? Did it need a translation?

Just curious...

Unknown said...

Hi. So sorry for taking so long to respond. First - Skelly - thank you for posting the link. Second - anonymous... The post was definitely in local PD parlance. Sorry about the confusion. The deal in NY is that, owing to the fact that we have no speedy trial or discovery laws to speak of, misdemeanor cases which are on for dismissal will routinely take up the greater part of a year. It's insane, and hard for lawyers outside of the area to imagine. It's hard for me to imagine, even though I see it everyday. There is no effective carrot or stick to force a DA to deal with a case expeditiously. Therefore, clients who are not guilty must come to court every few weeks for a year, often costing them their jobs, before the DA finds him/herself before a judge for trial, at which point they concede that they do not have a case, and dismiss. It is infuriating. New York is way behind other states in procedure.