A day at the public defender's office

This week I sent a man to prison.
This man was my own client.
My client was a young man who stole some things from the place that he worked. Unfortunately for him this place was a well know store. The store has excellent quality video surveillance footage of the client and another man stealing almost $900 worth of items. This means that it is a felony. The fact that it was a felony and the fact that there was such excellent footage of him stealing the items meant that it was in the client’s best interest to negotiate a plea deal because if he went to trial the DA would ask for a much stiffer sentence and the judge would likely agree.
I understand that a defendant should not be punished because he exercised his right to a jury trial. But unfortunately this is not usually the case. The DA’s office will offer pleas to most (if not all) defendants to save the court the time and expense of holding a trial of someone who admits that they did the crime. The DA’s office will offer a lowered sentence for the person in exchange for admitting the wrongdoing and saving the taxpayers the time and expense of trial. If the defendant does not accept the plea, the lowered punishment is off the table and the DA’s office will ask for a much higher punishment. In essence, this punishes the defendant for seeking a jury trial if he is found guilty. But this is the norm across the country and I can certainly see the argument for this being the preferred way to handle plea deals.
The DA offered to give my client 6 years with 2 years to serve. I negotiated back and forth for most of the day between my client and the DA’s office. Eventually we reached an agreement for 5 years with 1 year to serve, restitution of the value of the stolen items, and my client has to stay out of the store. Banishment from this particular store is not a punishment that most judges in a small town take lightly. The judge asked the prosecutor where she expected the defendant to shop and she replied “Target”. The judge turned to the defendant and said “I certainly hope for your sake that we have a Target in this town by the time you get out of jail.”
At 4:25 in the afternoon I stood with the client as he plead guilty and the judge sentenced him to “5 to do 1”. Then I watched the client walk away with the sheriff on his way to prison.

First Appearance

I stood with my first client in court today.
It was a probable cause hearing. I was nervous and not quite sure what I should ask. I just tried hard to look competent and hope that I achieved at least that much. The judge called my clients name and the sheriff went to retrieve him. At that time, for the first time in my life, I moved from the gallery, through the bar, and into the hot seat. The sheriff ushered in a young man of no more than 17. He shuffled in and sat down next to me in his jail issued stripes, flip flops and cuffs. We had chose to waive the formal reading of the warrant. The judge swore in the police officer and the DA began asking questions. Then she deferred to me. I asked the arresting officer questions and then indicated to the judge that we had no further questions. The judge asked for anything else. The DA said “No.” and I asked for a reasonable bond. The judge found probable cause existed and denied bond. It was by no means a significant event for any one in that court room but me and my client. Being in leg and wrist cuffs, he was far less concerned with how he looked. I know that he wasn’t that concerned with getting a bond set either. His mother and father were in jail also. There wasn’t anyone to bond him out of jail even if they could have afforded to do so. The sheriff took my client away and I walked back across the barrier that had once separated me from the court.

summer classes / internship

My last 2 classes are an internship and an advanced legal research class. The internship class does have a classroom participation component (sort of) that is fulfilled by answering questions and keeping a journal online. I will post some of those journal entries here because it fits both needs. The other (advanced legal research) class is one that I wish that I could have taken prior to writing my rigorous writing assignment. But oh well...

My goals for the internship are mainly to complete the required number of hours in order to get course credit and to observe as much trial tactics and skills as possible. As a secondary goal (which grows into more of a leading goal as the days pass) I need to network and market myself into a job. I want to pick up as much information as possible about the effective practice of law while I am working at the public defender office however. I want to learn how the criminal moves through the system from his arrest until his ultimate freedom if he is eventually released entirely from the “system”. I hope to see how criminal defendants think in regards to their lawyer, and how much of the information that they tell is actually truthful and forthcoming. I want the opportunity, however small it is, to stand before the court as the representative of another person who needs that representation. I want to stand beside him with the compassion that “this is my client and I owe a duty to him to speak for him in his best interest” while detaching myself enough to actually do what is in his best interest. Most of all, I would like the opportunity to taste the success of whatever victory I can achieve for my client, however fleeting that victory may be.

Mexican Bike race

When I came into work this morning one of the lawyers showed me this.
Over the weekend a bike race in Mexico was interupted by a drunk driver (killing one and injuring 10). What a time to have your camera!

Catch up

Alright,
So there has been a long time with little writing because of the extremely busy semester that I had. It was my last full term semester. I had 5 classes, 2 of which were practical skills classes, plus I was writing a rigorous paper (which the law school equivalent of a doctorial thesis). What little time I did have was usually spent traveling back and forth between Georgia and Montgomery.
But now here we are.
Lets catch you up.

1. We got married March 15th and then ran away to the Bahamas over spring break for a honeymoon. We stayed on one of the out islands (Abaco) and had a great time.

2. The semester sucked but it is now over.

3. During the semester I conducted a mock trial during my trial advocacy class against three other students. It went fairly well. I stayed on my feet despite some heavy hits and one low blow. (Their witness lied and kept out a key piece of evidence.)

4. I learned a hard lesson that you can either learn from me now or learn the hard way later. Here it is: When you take a trial ad. class, force the other party to either stipulate to every little thing that you could imagine would make the trial go awry. If they wont stipulate to it, they have a dirty trick planned. Plan to call as many witnesses as needed to get the evidence in and tell them that you plan to do so unless they relent with their little plan. Trial ad is meant to test your court room skills, not your backroom schemes.

5. Hard lesson number 2: Do not write your rigorous writing as an independent study. Take a class, get the grade and the coaching that comes with it. Writing an academic paper completely on your own with no guidance at all sucks!

6. I am now no longer have a permanent residence in the state of AL. Me moved immediately after finals were over. I turned in my apartment keys yesterday.

7. I am now interning / externing (whichever you want to call it) with the Public Defender office in GA. If I am not done with my hours by June 23rd , I will be participating in a murder trial with 3 defendants.

7. I finish with law school at the end of this summer. Currently I am taking one class (advanced legal research) and the internship. This is good because I will be done with my course requirements by July, but is not good because I now have to wait until Feb. to take the bar exam. This means that I wont get the bar results back until almost a year from now.

8. I need a job.

INCOMMUNICADO

MONDAY, MARCH 17, 2008

WEDDING WENT GREAT
STOP
NOW ON BAHAMIAN OUT ISLAND OF TREASURE CAY
STOP
NO PHONE SERVICE VIA CELL PHONES
STOP
BORROWED HOTEL COMPUTER TO SEND MESSAGES
STOP
WILL BE INCOMMUNICADO UNTIL SATURDAY
STOP

Fixed???

We got Jake neutered over Christmas break because we thought that it would help with a lot of problems such as him humping and aggressiveness, etc… After discovering that there is a wide disparity in prices for getting the dog fixed we finally settled on a traveling vet clinic that was tied in with Tractor Supply Company. It was at least half the price of most of the vets that we called and about a quarter of the price of at least one vet.
Anyway, he had stitches that we couldn’t get wet for about two weeks. Which meant that Jake didn’t have to suffer through any baths but also that the didn’t get to go swimming (a favorite Labrador pup activity). So when the next door neighbor kids wanted to hold Jake’s leash the following ensued:

Me: “You can hold his leash but don’t let him get into the pond because he has stitches.”
Kid: “What is wrong with him?”
Me: “We got him fixed.”
Kid: “Yea, but what was wrong with him.”
Me: “We got him fixed.”
Kid: “Yea, duh, I know. Because he has stitches. But what was wrong with him.”
Me: Oooohhhh. Well we got him fixed so he cant have puppies.
Kid: “But he is a boy dog. He can’t have puppies anyway.”
Me: Blank stare.
Kid: “Moooooooooommmmmmm?!?!”

blogs

Because I have not had the time to write very much lately I have decided to simply type a few words as time permits in a word document as they occur to me and then finish them up when I have time and post most of them. So you may start seeing some bulk postings as I am able to finish blogs and post them.

Busy semester

I have to appologize for the lack of updates. It has been a busy semester.

The wedding is planned for Memorial day weekend this spring. More on that later.
Jake is growing like a weed an chewing up everything he can get his mouth on.
Studying for finals now. Evidence is killing me.
Time is tight. I shouldn't even be typing this now. So look for updates after finals are over.
Peace - out.

Princpal's office

This guy is the principal at the high school where one of my class mates attended.
I guess getting sent to the principal's office at this school was ...
Well, just read the story
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1101071principal1.html

Halloween at Law School

Halloween at school
My Remedies professor passes out candy.
To keep with the law school theme it is “Smarties” and “DumDums”.
Keeping with the grading curve…
There were twice as many DumDums as Smarties.

You know a case is bad when it starts off like this...

Blachy v. Butcher 221 F.3d 896
The first paragraph of the opinion says:

Even a diabolical bar examiner would be reluctant to impose this case's complex mixture of subject matter jurisdiction, fraud, real estate, marital property, bankruptcy, tax liens, contributory negligence, equitable remedies, and civil procedure upon hapless law school graduates. Because reality often marches in where creators of hypotheticals fear to tread, however, we are the “hapless” appellate court judges obliged to struggle with this twisted tale of truelife conflict.

I'm

Engaged

Bar Passage rate

By the way.
The bar results came out the other day.
I forgot to mention that the bar passage rate for first time takers from The Thomas Goode Jones School of Law for the June Alabama Bar exam was 92.7%.
We didn't exactly smoke everyone this time. But that is a respectable number.
Congrat's to everyone that made it.

Jake update - A not so proud moment in puppy's life

Jake has picked up a new habit. A very unsightly and unwelcome habit.
Humping.
He has humped a stuffed bear animal a few times over the past week or two. And I saw him humping the neighbor boy dog’s head. I laughed it off.
Nothing to worry about right.
Or so I thought.

Today Crystal was busy putting together the new house and looked up just in time to see Jake playing a little rough with the neighbor kid.

And then he humped him.

She stopped him. She whipped him and yelled at him.
Then he humped the kid again…
And then he ate the kid’s pop tart.
How humiliating. I think the kid will probably be in some sort of therapy for some time.

So…
Jake has now committed a tort and may possibly have to register as a sex offender.
I thought that when Crystal caught him running through the house with a pair of panties that it was just because he got into the laundry that needed to be folded.
It hindsight it may have been a warning sign.
Let me get this straight. My dog has now shown propensity to be a homosexual pedophilic cross dressing rapist. And apparently a repeat offender.
Not good.
What’s next? The future looks bleak. Jake hanging out at the local fire hydrant looking for a pick up. Bailing him out of the pound when the gay dog club gets raided. Puppy Porn. Doing tricks for a bone (yes, even hick southern law students know about the use of the double entendre).

This whole humping thing has got to come to a very quick halt or Crystal’s neighbors are going to shoot the dog.

I was wondering if neutering him would stop the behavior but when I tried looking it up on the internet all I got were links to discussion board websites. Each one praised the values of spaying and neutering (mainly these were lengthy diatribes on keeping the unwanted pet population down).
Look, I don’t really care what someone’s opinion is. I want hard scientific data with percentages and graphs. Is neutering the animal going to keep this from occurring, or is it too late? If the habit is already formed why would I spend a bunch of money on getting him fixed?
What little information I did find was of little help and was reprinted again and again as if the authors of the websites had written it themselves. In actuality they had copied an article and plagiarized it. Being a law student I know that they need to at least cite where it came from. But then again nobody is checking their work for typographical errors or if it follows “Blue Book” guidelines. (Although occasionally some jerk will send an email letting me know about one of mine.)
Well, we still don’t know if getting Jake fixed will stop him from humping.

So what did we learn today?
1. Jake is a sex crime offender.
2. The internet can be a place with more useless self repeating drivel then useful information. And no one cites where they get their information.
3. If you are a kid with a dog with a propensity for humping coming at ya – Run! And at all costs…
Protect your pop tart.

Jake update - dead animals - muddy kids - gnawed valuables

Crystal is moving into a new house. This weekend we spent the majority of our time painting and cleaning and moving. There was an entire team of people putting down flooring, putting up blinds, and all of the other stuff that you do when you move into anew house. Many of these are friends and family, so they brought along their kids. Jake really liked that. I’m not always a big fan of other people’s kids, but Jake generally likes them if they run and yell and don’t pull his tale too much. He is a good dog with kids.

Early in the day Jake and the kids discovered the pond behind the house and played in the mud and muck. Actually I think one of the kids had stepped out of a flip flop shoe and was a little too slow in retrieving it. Jake was quicker. After all, he is a retriever. Never the less the kid was in hot pursuit but Jake had about 3 steps on him and was thoroughly enjoying this game of chase. The chase ended in the pond with the shoe being taken back (I’m sure that a tug-a-war went on because he likes that game too). Anyway, Jake and little kid and the flip flop in question were hosed off in the front yard sometime around mid morning.

The next surprise was somewhere around noon.

The next door neighbor’s kids had left a stuffed animal in the yard. Jake found it and being a retriever, he retrieved it. Now take into consideration that this particular stuffed animal was in the shape of a mallard duck (green head, yellow feet and all). You should also take into consideration that Jake had probably been outside chewing on this for a good half hour or so before deciding that it should be retrieved to his master.

Now let me set the picture for you.
Several women of varying age are inside the house straitening items, touching up paint, cleaning, etc. and in walks Jake carrying a wet and apparently DEAD and rotting animal.
I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. But Jake was not welcome in the house for a while.

Now let us fast forward to Tuesday afternoon.

We step out for a bite of lunch and figure that Jake has earned the right to stay out of the kennel for a little while because he has been well behaved. That was a mistake. I offer into evidence the photograph below which depicts 8 separate chewed items within a 4 foot radius.

1. Jeffers pet catalog torn into shreds one size too large for the vacuum to pick up.
2. My favorite flip flops. Minus the flip, and great deal of the flop has been chewed away as well.
3. Half eaten copy of “Coastal Living” Magazine
4. Small dust broom – chewed
5. Foot stool – now with chewed up corner
6. Collectors edition cup from the Olympic Horse Park near Atlanta, GA. - chewed
7. Gnawed corner leg of my Grandmother’s coffee table that I spent a week lovingly restoring and refinishing
8. Chewed corner of Oriental Rug

Nifong update

Apparently I am not the only one that has a puppy with a chewing problem.
Below is a link to the “Smoking Gun” website which has a copy of the Mike Nifong letter in which he is tendering his law license. It explains that his puppy chewed it up and that his name is misspelled.
He never really respected it anyway. Why not give it to Fido as a chewtoy.

Above is the mugshot from his arrest. I can't imagine that he is looking forward to the propect of doing time with people that he has possibly put away with similar tactics as he used in the Duke rape case. Nifong has now become an example of what not to do as a lawyer (even more so as a DA) and a perfect example of the fact that there are good people and bad people on both sides of the badge.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0815071puppy1.html

Jake Update

So we started house training Jake. I read about a dozen articles on how to do it. I think that it is just one of those things that you have to do to be able to understand how it works. I ordered a couple of DVDs and bought a book. All of it takes time to do and if my DVDs don’t arrive soon I will have to complain to Ebay.

I read a lot of hype about puppy pads. Here me now and believe me later if you must. If you have a lab, puppy pads are fantastic chew toys that come into exactly one million pieces. You would better off using the pads to dry dishes but they are treated with something to supposedly make the puppy want to do his business on it. They were a waste of money.

We also started some basic retriever training with Jake. By “basic” I mean very basic. He is fetching a tennis ball but has the attention span of a drunk squirrel with A.D.D. If I throw the ball too far he might forget it before he gets to the ball. But he is getting better at it every day. You can see that it makes him happy to please you, but if he finds something he would rather do (or as Crystal’s mom puts it – “Saw something shiny”) you can forget about him finishing the retrieve or coming back to you. I think that it is clear that an electronic collar is in his future because he keeps forgetting his name and has discovered a new game that he likes to call “Chase the puppy into traffic”.

We go through about a leash a week with Jake. It is not because he eats them or anything. We just keep loosing them. On second thought. He eats everything but I have yet to see any silver buckles in his poop.

Even though we tried to choose a unique name for Jake, I recently found out that the most popular name for a retriever is in fact “Jake” Luckily for us we have officially named him “Gatormouth Jake the Wondetriever”. I don’t think that one is taken by the AKC yet. But who knows. His paperwork is being sent in and we will find out.

My classes this semester

Mediation Clinic
The mediation clinic that I am taking this semester consists some basic conflict resolution training and then being thrown to the wolves at the county court house. We divided into teams and will hopefully mediate on average two cases a week per team.
The cases are the run of the mill average “You owe me money.”, “No, don’t!” type of cases. Good examples are: as botched home and auto repairs; debt collection; and the like.
We have about 4 or 5 cases under our belt so far. This is good because after the class and if we can accomplish 10 mediations we can go onto the state’s Certified Mediator list and potentially get paid for mediations. (Not likely but it could happen and after all it looks good on a resume). I think the best thing that comes out of this class and the Alternative Dispute Resolution certificate offered by the law school for completing all 4 of the ADR classes (ADR, interviewing and counseling, arbitration, and the mediation clinic – plus another practical skills requirement) is that we walk out of the school with some pretty solid dispute resolution skills. Plus I have got to watch several of our cases that didn’t work out in mediation go to trial. I have been surprised by the fact that who we thought would win doesn’t necessarily win even though they had the best argument and facts. It just goes to show you that going in front of the judge or jury is always a dice roll. If you can settle the case with something that you can live with (not necessarily like but can live with), you should settle the case.

Alternative Dispute Resolution
Mentioned above. This class mainly deals with different ways to resolve conflict (the arguments for against each) and the processes. It is part of the ADR certificate program.
The problem with both of these classes is that I don’t know if I will have conflicts with other classes that I need in order to complete the program and get the certificate. If Jones continues it’s not giving preferential class placements to upper class students I might not get the classes that I need to graduate with the certificate. Or graduate on time at all if they screw me just right.

Evidence
This is probably the hardest class in law school and the most important for trial lawyers to know. It is hard. I hope I get the working knowledge that I need. Due to my former status as a part time student I am taking this class with 2Ls. The professor that teaches this class is well known for ridiculously hard exams. But I have seen few professors with such a mastery of the working knowledge of his subject like this guy does. I had the opportunity to take another professor who was guaranted to have an easier class with less work, easier exam, and higher GPA. But I chose the guy who I thought could give me the best edge when I do hit the court room for real. I hope it pays off in the long run and doesn’t bite me in the shorts in the short term.

Remedies
This bad boy is on the bar exam. What I don’t know however, is what this professor’s exam will cover.

Family Law
So far in family law I have learned that:
A. Common law marriage is a crock of BS that should be outlawed and IS in most states. Alabama however remains on the cutting edge of 18th century legal thought and has seen fit to continue to honor these “sham” marriages. This creates an entire network of new problems because pretty much all you need for a common law marriage to stick is 1.) Have the capacity to enter into marriage; 2.) Have the mutual intent to do so; 3.) in a permanent and exclusive manner (not an open marriage). The marriage doesn’t even have to be consummated or even co-habitation. (AL law requires 24 hours).
B. Co-habitation probably means that they can sue you for $
C. Massachusetts didn’t really want to win the same sex marriage case because if they did so the state’s case wouldn’t look like the arguments were came up with by a 4th grader. There were so many more and better arguments that could have been articulated by the state. Thus….
D. Thank god for the defense of marriage act.
E. Legal Separation is for the birds. If you want a divorce, get a freaking divorce already.

At last! An update!

I guess that it being so long in between updates that I have lost a lot of my readers.
The fact is that I have been so busy that I have not really updated like I should. I mean, come on. This is a blog about law school. Or is it.
I have questioned myself as to what exactly this thing is. And the answer is that I don’t know.
But I guess the best thing to do is put some updates up so that you can know what is going on with me and at the law school and law school life in general.

Ok so here is a personal update:
Jake the puppy (mentioned in an earlier post) continues to grow at an exponential rate. It is funny how I don’t seem to notice this but people who only get to seem him every week or so really are amazed at how fast he is growing. I started noticing when I picked him up the other day and he was much heavier than I remember. Plus he occasionally has an accident inside (occasionally Ha! – it is a constant battle – I am trying to crate train / house break him). These “little” accidents look more like a fat man snuck in and took a stinker on the rug. I am amazed that an animal that small can leave a pile that big. I have decided that it can't be him doing it. It is obviously someone sneaking in and playing a practical joke on me. I would blame it on my girlfriend but the pile is occasionally larger than she is and I don’t think she has a wheel barrow to bring that much dung up the stairs.

We (me and Crystal) have been spending a lot of time on weekends at her family’s barn and at horse shows. (We took Jake and he got more attention that most of the horses. I think I am going to take a litter of muts to the next show and see how much I can sell them to for. Come on. If daddy will buy his little princes a pony what is stopping him from peeling off a couple of hundred for a puppy.
Q: “Do they come with papers?”
A: “Sure, you get your choice of USA today or the Wal-Street journal.”)
Who knows. Maybe I can pay off my student loans.

I started learning how to ride a horse. I mean most people can ride a horse in the sense that you sit on top of it and as long as you don’t fall off you can say that you can ride a horse. I’m talking about riding it the right way. The way you control a American Saddlebred show horse and the way you control an old trail riding nag are as different as driving a car and driving a car with a stick shift. The idea is the same, but the way it works takes a lot more to learn much less master. We took break from this until after the show season ends next week but…
Here is a picture of Crystal giving me some pointers. By the way, the horse’s name is "Lilly".

Speaking of Crystal and the horses. During August we went to the World Championships in Louisville, KY. I showed two of the weanling (less than a year old horses) with Crystal at the World Championships. She didn’t win that class. After watching the video I have decided that it had something to do with me looking like a was fresh off the short bus out there in the show ring with her.

Her and her father showed one of the horses together. It was a 2 year old in hand halter class (this means they led the horse around the ring without a rider and that he is 2 years old). How did they do you ask?
Well they won. That’s right, “I’m in command” (or Junior as we call him) won the class and is now Word Champion.
By the way. If you ask Crystal how many different world championships she has won she will loose count but let’s just say that if your girl friend has won a dozen or so world championships at ANYTHING, you can give me a call and be part of my “My girlfriend is a multi-time world champion club”. Not that I am bragging or anything.

Anyway, here is a picture of Crystal and her dad (I think Crystal got cut out of this pic) and the word Champion “I’m in Command”.