Even the Sun Shines...

George Coney showed up on time for court today. And he was as crazy as ever. So we went ahead and tried his case And then something strange happened...

The jury watched a twelve minute video of the drug transaction. The camera was on the informant's chest and pointed over the dash and out the front of the car. So we were able to watch the road in front of the car. For twelve minutes. And that was it. At some point, the car came to a stop and we could hear the driver say, "Eighty." The detective said that was the transaction. My client allegedly came to the driver's side window and gave the informant drugs for eighty dollars. But we never saw my client. We never saw my client's car. We never heard my client. I was able to get the detective to admit that if a transaction had occurred at any other time the vehicle stopped, then we would not be able to tell if it had happened. I was trying to suggest that maybe the informant didn't do what he said he did. After all, the video really showed nothing. The detective admitted that fact.

Interesting. But the informant still had to testify. Surely he would doom my client. He took the stand and mumbled his first few answers. He is serving four years in prison right now for breaking and entering. Then he said that he had bought drugs from my client on numerous occasions, but that he couldn't recall what happened that day. And that was it. That was his testimony. On cross, I had him admit that he has been convicted of obtaining property by false pretenses and larceny, among other things. I left it alone at that, because I didn't want to rile him up and get him to start talking about what happened.

Closing arguments are tomorrow. I am starting to wonder if my idiot client might not get very lucky here. We shall see. I should not get my hopes up too high. After all, nine bags of heroin were found on his seat, and he had the marked money. But still, things are looking better for him than I ever thought that could.

We should have a verdict by lunch tomorrow.

Trial Strategies

Jury selection in the George Coney case begins tomorrow at nine-thirty. I will be looking for jurors who are paranoid and delusional. I wonder how many of those I can get on the jury. Of course, perhaps during selection I will ask, "How many of you are willing to find my client not guilty just to stick it to the Man?"

Among the things I have to convince the jury of tomorrow will be the idea that my client could be sitting on ten bags of heroin in the middle of a sunny day and not know it. I told Gary Doe, the prosecutor, that I was going to try one of the following with the jury:

1. I am going to make my argument to the jury, and then turn around and walk back to my table, exposing the ten bags of heroin I have taped to my ass.

2. During my closing, I will say, "Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am aware that some of you may be thinking that it sounds absurd to say that someone could be sitting on top of heroin and not know it. So I ask you now to reach down and feel the bottoms of the chairs you are sitting in. You have all been sitting on heroin for this entire trial."

Gary Doe liked both ideas, and quickly suggested that if I opted for number two, then he would ask the bailiff to arrest the jury.

Diameter: 4

Joe Phillips walked into a mini-mart and demanded that the owner give him some shoes (shoes are sold there behind the counter). The owner would not comply, so Joe walked behind the counter, brandished a knife, and started rummaging through things. He chose some shoes and walked out the door. He changed his mind five or so minutes later, returned to the store, put the shoes up on the counter, and sat on the curb. The police showed up and arrested him for armed robbery. On the day his trial was scheduled several months ago, Joe showed up without any shoes. I sent Joe to the state hospital to be evaluated, and he was deemed incompetent. After being put on the proper medication, Joe is doing much better. Today we were in court and Joe pled to a reduced charge and received two years in prison.

Joe was probably the fourth craziest person I had today.

Coming in third was Buffy. She was back in court today for her pending drug charge. She actually showed up, which was rather impressive. As I stood up to do her plea, I realized that she was not in the courtroom. Her mother informed me that nerves caused her to run to the bathroom and get sick. She was in the bathroom for over an hour. I thought the judge was going to send deputies into the restroom to fetch her. Finally, she emerged. We entered her plea, and she is off to do six months in prison.

Not a good day for my clients, now that I think about it.

The second craziest person I had was George Coney. George is not altogether there. Some days he is incapable of speaking. Other days he is incapable of shutting up. Unfortunately, on those days he has no idea what he is talking about. I imagine that he will be the subject of posts to come as it looks like we are going to try his case sometime this week. The facts of his case are these: cops send informant to buy heroin from George, informant buys and tells police where George is parked, police surround George's car and try to get him to come out of the car, George surges forward and rams one of the police cars, police pull George out of the vehicle and there are ten bags of heroin on the driver's seat, the two marked twenties that the informant gave to George for the heroin are found on George's person.

George wants to try the case and believes that he will be found not guilty. The plea offer calls for him to receive three months in prison and to come out on probation. If convicted, he will probably wind up doing a couple years in prison. When I asked him how I should explain away the marked bills, he responded, "None of those bills had marks on them!" I hope no one is keeping track of my won/loss record.

And that leaves Ghandi McJesus. Ghandi assures me that he is a British secret agent. Ghandi had the good fortune to appear in front of Judge Cribble. Judge Cribble asked him what his rank or something was. Ghandi responds, "I am level 6. Clearance 27. Rated 3A. Latitude 45. Diameter 4...." He went on from there. I still can't get over "diameter: 4." That is one of the greatest things I have ever heard someone utter in court.

Axes with Exes

I thought that I was going to have a custody trial. I don't do a lot of those cases, but I had made an exception in this case for reasons I can't remember. I would call it a strange case, but I guess that all custody cases are strange. I always say that, yes, criminals are crazy. But if you want to talk about people who are truly crazy, then you have to talk about the family law clients.

I represented Mom in this action. Dad filed for custody. A few weeks after filing for custody, Dad moved twelve hours away. That is an interesting strategic move. Not only does he have to prove the kids would be better off with him, he also has to prove that the kids should be taken from the place they have lived their whole lives and their schools. Clearly, my client has an advantage here.

Where my client doesn't have an advantage is the part where she is an alcoholic and has committed several acts that demonstrate her inability to drink responsibly. She also cheated on Dad while they were living together as a married couple. Pretty crappy. She alleges to me that he is abusive to her physically. Upon further examination, she reveals that he is only abusive to her when she is drinking. Not when he is drinking. When she is drinking. Hmmmmm.....you think that maybe Dad's lawyer will spin that as "she gets drunk and starts fights with him?" Just maybe.

Dad's lawyer brings me a printout of texts that my client has sent to Dad over the past year or so. Dad was surprisingly fair in that he included messages that made her look good. Anyway, in her texts she starts calling him by a female name and claiming that she knows about his crossdressing and being a woman in a secret life. I asked Dad's lawyer about that. She says she thinks it is true. Strangely, with all the dirt my client is trying to tell me about him, she never mentioned that. Interesting.

Dad decides that he wants to settle and allow my client to have custody. I am happy because I get to avoid the trial I didn't want to have. My client is okay, but not happy. I think she was looking forward to the fireworks in court. As usual, it was not about the kids for these two. Rather, it was for Dad and Mom to grind some axes.

We had our office meeting today. We have it every Friday over lunch. Sometimes we have it in the conference room, and sometimes we have it at a restaurant. Today we had it at Pizza Hut. Their salad bar was very impressive. Of course, it might have been better if there had been some lettuce. But that is clearly old-school thinking on my part. Pizza Hut has clearly seen the future in salads, and it does not involve lettuce. Or cheese. Or egg.

Details...

Client 1: Burt comes in and is bitching about the ticket he received. He was charged with exceeding the posted speed. He is pissed. I hear a couple of the standbys:
"Must have been a new cop." (He has been on the force for over five years)
"He's trying to fill his quotas."
"He must have been having a bad day or something."
So the guy is fairly outraged at this ticket. The officer tells him he was doing 60 in a 45. Burt tells the officer that he was driving 52. The officer points out that even if that is true, then Burt was still speeding by his own admission. So the officer charges Burt with exceeding the posted speed and not 60 in a 45. He is actually doing Burt a favor as exceeding the posted speed is a less serious offense.

Then Burt tells me that he got another ticket. In this one, he is charged with reckless driving. And what was he doing to get charged with reckless driving? Try 130 miles per hour in a 45. Seriously. So that officer way undercharges him. Is he happy overall? No. All he can focus on is the first unjust ticket.

Client 2: The police report says that the officers are hanging out watching a drug house. They see vehicle park in front of the house. They see a couple of people light up. Then the car rolls away. They get behind the car and run the tag. Expired (PSA -- if you are doing drugs in your car, please be sure to have your lights on and inspection and registration current) registration. They pull the car over. Portis is driving. There are two passengers. They see a crack pipe on th passenger's side floorboard. The passenger gets up and a crack rock falls out of his lap. They question the two passengers and both say that all three of them were enjoying some crack.

My client has no criminal record and he is about fifty years old. He has a full time job. His version of the facts: He is driving along when he sees two people who need a ride. He lets them get in the car. They get in the car and he gives them a ride. Then he gets pulled over by the police. Do people actually think that their lawyers aren't even interested in the truth?

Client 3: Dudley is hanging out at a sports bar. He is out in the parking lot talking to some girls out front standing in the "To Go Parking" spots. A car pulls up and wants to park there because the guy has placed an order to go. Dudley decides to show off for the girls and not move out of the spot. He stands there, refuses to move, mocks the guy, and gives him the finger. After the guy goes to park elsewhere, Dudley goes into the sports bar.

Dudley is sitting at the bar having his drink. He turns around and sees the angry guy from the car quickly approaching him. So Dudley -- realizing that he treated the guy poorly outside and was in the wrong -- hauls off and punches the guy in the face. Dudley is astonished when the "asshole" then goes and has a warrant taken out for Dudley's arrest for assault. Dudley simply can't believe the nerve of the guy.

Dudley: "So Eddie, that's self-defense, isn't it?"
Me: "No."
Dudley: "Why not?"
Me: "Well, he would have to have hit you first. Did he hit your first?"
Dudley: "No. But he was coming at me fast and he looked crazy."

So Dudley thinks that if you do something outrageous and offensive to someone and that person then acts outraged or offended, then you should be able to punch that outraged and offended person in the face. Perhaps Dudley should consider a job that involves making foreign policy decisions for the United States.

Thomas Dennis has a very bad record. He also is a licensed electrician. He brings home the money from his job to support his wife and his kids. Thomas decides that the wife isn't giving him enough back after his allowance, and he feels that he is deserving of a bit more financial freedom. So he does the American thing and gets a second job. Selling drugs.

Well, Thomas gets busted selling drugs. He is offered a split sentence where he has to do four months active time in prison, and then come out on probation. Being an electrician, Thomas is not a stupid guy. So he takes the deal. He shows up for court like a man and goes off to serve his four months.

One week prior to going off to jail, Thomas and his wife have a fight. Nobody gets hurt, but a concerned neighbor calls the police. Thomas gets arrested and charged with assaulting his wife. Thomas is afraid that if everyone knows about this new charge, then his four month deal will be withdrawn. So he doesn't tell me -- his attorney -- that he has been charged with assaulting his wife. I assume he thinks he was being shrewd.

But he was not. In fact, he was being stupid after all. For if I had known about the assault charge when we entered that plea a couple of weeks ago, then I could have bundled in the assault with the deal and not added to his time. Instead, I found out about it today. Thomas is in prison right now. He is not getting any credit on his assault case. It was continued to the officer's next court date -- which happens to be in December. By then, Thomas will only have about thirty days left on his sentence. So if he gets an active sentence to run concurrently with the sentence he is serving now, then any time he gets in excess of thirty days will add to his time in prison.

Dumbass.

Domestic Silence

I had a 71 year old man today who was charged with stalking a 28 year old woman. It was an awful case. The man is very hard of hearing, but he doesn't look like he is 71 years old at all. He looks like he is 171 years old. He and the "victim" in this case entered into a friendship. I have no idea what sort of bodily fluids may or may not have been exchanged at any point during this time, but suffice it to say that at some point my client believed he was engaged to this woman. Within a month of him believing to be engaged, she apparently married someone else. That is just something that can't be particularly common.

Anyway, this is a sort of variation on the old-rich-guy hot-young-girl situation. The difference here is that the old rich guy is not very rich. And the hot young girl is not very hot. So Oldie gets her a cell phone. I think he lets her use his car, too. I am sure he buys her a couple of dinners. Oldie is living a couple hours away. When he comes down to visit her, she does what any girl who just lied to a guy by telling him she will marry him so that he will give her some stuff would do: she calls the cops and has him arrested.

I was really looking forward to trying this case. He had cell phone records showing that she called him dozens of times after he allegedly stalked her. He also brought a witness who was going to testify that she had told the witness (she often communicated through this witness because Oldie couldn't hear a damn thing) that she was willing to drop the charges in exchange for some money. Unfortunately, the "victim" did not show up for court, and the case was dismissed. I can't say I was too surprised.

I subscribe to Pavlov's theory when it comes to people making jokes. I don't laugh at them unless they are funny. Why? Because if I laugh at a person who is not funny, then that person is going to believe that he is funny and continue making jokes. I hope that by not laughing, it might deter the person from making jokes.

My standing exception to this is really old people. Oldie is one of those old people who runs around making jokes all the time. Of course, the fact that he can't hear the jokes he is telling makes me wonder if he would still tell them if he knew what they sounded like. So when a guy who looks 171 years old cracks a joke, I do my fake laugh (I have a terrible fake laugh). I figure it may literally be the last time the guy ever gets to tell a joke, and I would hate for his last joke to have been met with silence.

Shaky

I received another five resumes today. I have narrowed my choices down to two people. I will choose between them tomorrow. Of the five I received today, I don't remember two of them. One of the others was an attorney who has yet to take the Bar Exam. Another has an MBA. The third has worked at a very prestigious strip club for the past two years. All very suitable candidates. Such a shame to have already made up my mind.

I used to think that being overqualified was a ridiculous reason not to hire someone. Now? I understand. The lawyer and the MBA would stay with me for exactly as much time as it took them to find a better job (actually, isn't that the exact amount of time anyone stays at any job?). More specifically, it will be fairly easy for these people to find better jobs. It is a rough market here. This job pays eight dollars an hour. I have received resumes from probably ten or more college grads. Of my two finalists, one is a college grad with a 3.7 GPA. Hell, that is better than I did.

Today I had court with Shaky. Sometimes I get cases appointed by the court. Every time Shaky goes to court, I get appointed to represent him. I had Zelda (my current secretary -- she will be joined by the new one in a day or two) check last week to see how many different times I have represented Shaky through the years. The answer, it would seem, is 22 times. Wow. That's a lot of representin'. He is a homeless guy who hangs out and panhandles. When he gets particularly drunk, he yells at the people who don't give him money. Then the police come and ask him to stop panhandling. Sometimes he yells at them, too. When he does, he gets arrested. It is always for one or more of the following: panhandling, resisting arrest, possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia. My job as his lawyer is to get his case heard in front of Judge Cribble. Judge Cribble likes him for some reason.

And that is a big part of what being an effective criminal defense attorney is about: know your judges. Judge Cribble may hate Hispanics, but he loves veterans. And he loves Shaky. So for misdemeanor cases, I evaluate the case and determine which judge would be the most appropriate to hear it.

So Shaky got continued today. Hopefully, the spinner will come up on Judge Cribble for his next court date. Judge Cribble will accept his plea give him an active sentence for the amount of time he has sat in jail. That means Shaky walks out the door that day. Other judges will look at Shaky's record and give him the maximum sentence.

Can't Touch This

Calling a random number in the phone book and asking someone if his refrigerator is running might be a funny prank. Calling 911 and telling them that you are in a sinking boat which causes them to send out helicopters and ships to find you is not quite as funny a prank. In fact, it can lead to being charged with some substantially criminal offenses.

I started my day by assisting my new client with some pre-arrest issues that relate to his case. On my drive to this meeting, I was listening to the radio. Well, I was trying to listen to my Spanish cds (I am on a thirty year plan to learn Spanish), but I have trouble staying focused for too long. So in between lessons, I will listen to the radio a bit to break things up.

You know how sometimes you hear an old song that brings back some memories or that you can't believe you used to like? Usually, you think you haven't heard the song in years, but the reality is that the song has probably popped up on occasion every year or two. Not this one. Today I heard a song that I believe has not been played since it's popularity in 1990(?). I think that it might actually have been banned from being played for the past seventeen years. And I am not just talking about radio play. I think that it may have become illegal to play this song within the privacy of your own home. Being the free speech advocate that I am, I am outraged that this song was banned for seventeen years. Seventy might have been more appropriate. If I am not dead by then, at least my hearing should be sufficiently shot to be able to make out the lyrics and beat to...

Too Legit to Quit. Yes, that was the lead single off the album of the same name for MC Hammer to follow up his wildly successful, "Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em" album. MC Hammer scored three hits off that album, and they were all just raps over the instrumental of hit songs (Super Freak, When Doves Cry, and Have You Seen Her?). 2 Legit 2 Quit was Hammer's attempt to write his own hit in its entirety. It effectively ended his career.

Do you remember the hand signals? A Ghostbusters-like sequence of celebrities now in the Witness Protection Program begin doing the hand signals for the song. The hand signals are great, and the song sounds like a cross between C+C Music Factory and diarrhea (my apologies to diarrhea).

So the interview process continued today. I actually had a few good candidates today. Among them was a woman who just moved here from Florida and is living at the Salvation Army. She was very nice, and was even well-dressed. One of the hardest parts about interviewing people is finding out things about them that make me really feel for them and want to give them the job based on their need. Last time I interviewed people, I spoke to one woman who had her home destroyed in Katrina and had recently moved here. She was living in a cupboard or something with her family of five. It was heartbreaking. Anyway, I won't be hiring the Salvation Army person, but I sure as heck want to.

From Enemy to Friend?

The search for a secretary continued today. I met with three new candidates, and two of them are certainly worthy of consideration. I have a few more to interview tomorrow. I should have the situation resolved by Monday.

One of the three today was actually the victim in a domestic violence case I had several months ago. I recognized her upon seeing her. The case was a typically stupid domestic violence case (domestic violence is not stupid, but the cases sure can be). A married couple got into an argument. It turned physical. When I say "physical," I don't mean hitting people over the head with a frying pan. I don't even mean punching people. I mean pushing and grabbing. Not healthy behavior, certainly -- but also not exactly criminal in my opinion. She leaves the house because they both realize that they need to be apart. She winds up at a mini-mart not far from where she lives. An officer comes upon her there. He takes her home. When the husband opens the door to greet them, the officer observes a scratch on the husband. Then the officer notices that there are red marks on the wife's arms. So he arrests them both and puts them in jail.

Unfortunately for both of them, it is two days before Christmas. The husband and wife wind up spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day behind bars. The cases wound up being resolved in such a way that neither wound up with a criminal conviction. Ah, the law working its subtle magic on the institution of marriage...

So the wife is in my office today to interview for the secretary position. She was afraid I would hold the incident against her. Not only would I not hold the incident against her, I told her, but I also was counting it as relevant experience for the job.

We'll see. She is nice, college-educated, and intelligent. Of the two potential candidates, she would work for the least money. Sadly in this capitalistic society, that is a factor I will take into consideration.

Wanted: Secretary

The search began today for a new secretary. I interviewed one person. I learned that she has a blog that she has seven hundred-something entries in. I learned that she dresses like she walked past an exploding goodwill store on her way to the interview. I know that she was playing Beethoven on her electronic keyboard this morning. I know that she came to the interview armed with zero questions about my business and zero questions about the job. And I know that her employment status will be the same tomorrow as it is today.

I shook hands with someone with my left hand today. I have never done that. My client broke his shoulder or something on his motorcycle and his arm was in a sling. So, upon greeting him, I reached out and shook his left hand with my own left hand. It felt very strange. It also felt strangely good. I am not sure if there is a fetish for opposite-hand-shaking, but I am certainly going to start one if there is not one already.

On the office front, my secretary of just over a year, Olive, called in sick. It was the tenth time Olive has called in sick in the past ten weeks. As such, I was not particularly pleased. In fact, I was so not pleased that I fired her.

Now, Olive is a person who prefers texting over all other forms of communication. She greatly prefers it to speaking. I provide cell phones and pay for the plans of my employees. I have seen her bill. She texts more than double the other three of us combined. She texts way more than she calls. She never calls me. She always texts me.

Bearing this in mind, I decided to break the news of her newfound employment status via text. Impersonal? Sure. But it is her preferred method of communication, and it doesn't put her on the spot like speech does. I think people tend to say things they regret when confronted with unpleasant news, so I thought that texting her might be effective on a couple of levels.

I sent her a fairly lengthy text. The most important part of it said, "I'm letting you go." Unfortunately, my phone has predictive text as a feature. Generally speaking, I like it very much. She responded to my text with, "You are letting me in? In where?" Not good. 46 apparently defaults to "in" and not "go" with my predictive text. I never bothered to look. So that made things even more awkward than they already were.

Jose's case still was not reached. Again, there were interpreter issues. So it will be handled on a date to be named later.

Meanwhile, I had a couple of probation violations to deal with. One was with Buffy. Buffy was on probation for possessing some meth. She violated her probation by not reporting to her officer, failing numerous drug screens, not reporting to the outpatient drug treatment, not paying her costs and fines, and lastly by being caught again with a substantial amount of meth. She was initially violated about six months ago. Her probation officer was recommending revocation, which means that her probation is revoked and she has to serve the previously suspended prison sentence. Buffy shows up in my office sometime around April and tells me that she is not going to go to court the next day.

"It's about to be summer, " she tells me in her meth-induced rapid speech. "It's my time to shine." Ah, yes, her time to shine.

Well, shine she did. She blew off court, got her mother and sister to lie to probation about her whereabouts, and was on the lam until last month when she got arrested. Incredibly, her mother bonded her out again even though she knew Buffy would be going to prison once her case was heard. Her mother seems to have plenty of money to bond out her daughter, but has very little money to pay for her daughter's attorney. But that is another matter.

So Buffy shows up in court last month. She is definitely headed to prison now. Not only does she have all those violations I mentioned previously, but she also blew off court and went into hiding for the summer. So she shows up last month and announces that she is pregnant. I assume that she is going to tell me that she can't go to prison because she is pregnant (amazing how many young women get pregnant right before it's time for prison). But she doesn't. Instead, she tells me that she does not want to be pregnant in jail so she is going to have an abortion. So, for the first time ever, I ask the Judge to continue her case because a client wants to get an abortion. He continues the case to today.

So we are back today. And when I say "we," I mean me, the Judge, and the probation officer. Buffy is not there. Buffy's mother comes to court and announces that Buffy did not have that abortion, but amazingly had a miscarriage today and is in the hospital. The Judge said he would hold the case open until I have proof that she is in the hospital. Needless to say, my fax machine was not exactly spurting out any medical information by the end of the day. I expect that tomorrow the Judge will issue and order for her arrest for missing court, and her mother will show up Thursday or Friday with some sort of "proof" of her daughter's condition.

In the beginning...

Not only have I never had a blog before -- I have never even really read anyone's blog. Sure, I have clicked a link somewhere that took me to someone's blog entry before, but I have really only read the entry I was directed to. I have never sat down and really read anyone's blog. Nor have I followed one.

But I do get the gist of what is supposed to go on. I talk about what is going on in my life. In this case, it is a blog with a theme -- a legal theme. So I will be blogging about my experience in the legal world.

I am an attorney. More specifically, I am a criminal defense attorney. As you might imagine, I am going to be changing a lot of names on here to protect the guilty. After all, that is really what my job is, isn't it? I protect the guilty. Oh, sure, every once in a while someone is actually innocent and I get to feel extra good about getting their case dismissed or having them found not guilty. But in general, they are guilty.

I am in court nearly everyday. My days are made up of going to court, meeting with clients, and returning phone calls. A lot less time goes into things like the drafting of motions than you might think.

Today I had a client who was charged with a DWI. He was convicted at the lower court, and I appealed the case to try to get him a more favorable judgment. In the lower court, Judge Cribble gave my client the absolute maximum that the law would allow. It was only my client's second conviction for DWI, and it is fair to say that people don't usually get the maximum sentence for their second conviction. Also, my client's vehicle was seized at the time of arrest. So not only is he looking at all this prison time, he also lost a vehicle that he had already paid 15,000 dollars for.

So why, my non-existent readers might ask, did my client get the maximum if he already lost 15K and has only one prior conviction? Good question. Judge Cribble is not particularly fond of Hispanics. Just the other day there was a Hispanic man in front of him and Cribble began the proceedings with, "So, do you speak English today?" It is not a pleasant situation for Hispanics to find themselves in. I have had more than one case that Cribble went overboard on a Hispanic. So I am hoping that the Judge at the higher court will be able to do a bit better for my client, Jose.

Unfortunately for me and for Jose, there was no one at court who spoke Spanish. I have a translator who works for me, but she was unavailable. The Court typically does not have anyone. So his case was continued to tomorrow for sentencing. My ultimate goal for Jose would be that he get an amount of jail time that is small enough to allow him to serve the time on weekends. We shall find out whether Jose has any suerte in the morning.