I’ve been following the pi — discussion among various folks in the legal blogosphere that was kicked off by this, among other things. You’ll find one part of it here.
I find all this stuff fascinating, for a variety of reasons, but it is an acquired taste. For those who haven’t hung around, any, either in person or virtually: criminal defense lawyers might, from the outside (and I’m outside) seem at times to not be bothered at all by the possibility that their efforts could end up with somebody who has done a terrible, horrible thing (Or, usually, something less than that) escaping an appropriate punishment. And that’s largely because, far as I can tell, they’re unbothered at all by the possibility that their efforts could end up with somebody who has done a terrible, horrible thing escaping an appropriate punishment for the thing that they did.
Not their job. And, for those who that bothers, a bit of free advice: chill. There’s a lot of reasons why that’s in your interest, but let me give you just one: there is a possibility that you, or somebody you care about, could be accused of having done a terrible, horrible thing, and ou’d prefer that you or they not receive an appropriate punishment for something that they didn’t do; even if they (or you) did that terrible, horrible thing, you’d probably prefer that they (or you) not receive an excessive punishment. Either way, you’d want a professional trying to do their best for you. (Not the only reason to chill, but this is going to be long as it is.)
So let me tell you a story. Since I write both fiction and nonfiction, I’m going to stick one fib in there — the rest may or may not be accurate, but I think it is. It’s certainly what I heard, but there was no reason I would have or should have been given access to the various documents, or in most of the relevant rooms, so I wasn’t.
I once watched, from the cheap seats, when a defendant screwed up a deal that, from my POV, was a sweetheart one for him. I could be wrong; I’m an amateur at this stuff. He was offered eighteen months on a fairly serious charge; Aggravated Robbery, in the First Degree. (There were other additional charges, originally, arising out of the same robbery.) Between “good time” and time already served while waiting, he would have been out in about a year. Which is to say that he’s still in prison — level 3, not exactly a fun place — and he would have been out, by now.
As far as I could tell, about the only things going for him were this: this was his first charge in this state (his family had only moved here a month or so before his arrest, and he didn’t make bail); he hadn’t used a weapon, and had some (perhaps good, I dunno; I’m not a brain surgeon or neurologist or, more to the point, his neurologist) argument about diminished capacity from a childhood car injury. And he was not quite eighteen.
There was a lot going against him: he’d been certified to be tried as an adult, for one. And then there was the strength of the ID, a victim who was a voluble and likable crusty little old lady who would have hobbled to the stand, due to the injuries that he and his codefendant/brother had visited upon her while beating her for twenty-three minutes (she could see the clock on the wall while they held her down and pounded on her), the physical evidence (the cops had gotten their haul, pursuant to a search warrant — they’d kept some of the jewelry); his codefendant/brother had already pleaded out, and talked [a lot], and his sister had managed to tick off a local homicide cop by shouting, in public, and in front of witnesses, that he’d get off as the victim wouldn’t be alive for the trial, as well as some other things which got the case more official and unofficial attention than perhaps it and he would otherwise have gotten, and which had led to the arrest in the first place — perhaps not quite for the reasons she told the press, the mother had turned them in. (The only local media not to cover it was the Strib.) And then there was the fact that he and his brother were generally believed to have been the source of a two-man wave of strongarm robberies and muggings, largely (but not exclusively) of the elderly and infirm, over the previous month, in the same area, a string that came to an abrupt halt upon their arrest.
But he didn’t take the eighteen months. Here’s the lie: a casual conversation with a private attorney persuaded him that he could get half of that, and he rejected the deal.
Well, it could have happened that way, which is why the story I linked to reminded me of it. Not the only reason I was reminded of it, but, hey, that’s not what happened.
Here’s the truth: his mother, furious at the “public pretender,” insisted that he shouldn’t go to prison now, as he hadn’t gone to prison on his previous offenses, in another state. He was still, barely, a minor, but was being tried as an adult; the previous offenses, in another state, were as a minor — and, so I was told, nobody hereabouts knew that he had priors until his Mom blurted it out; the reporting from the other state had fallen through the cracks.
Until then. Oops. It definitely influenced the effectiveness of the whole first offense, led astray by the big brother, he’d never been in trouble before and had learned his lesson pitch.
As far as I could tell, it was not a private lawyer making him dissatisfied with the representation he was getting — it was his mother — but it did come down to him being persuaded, by somebody who was not the guest of honor or participant in the proceedings, and who had some serious lacunae in their knowledge (in this case, about the law, rather than the specifics of the case) that a better deal should be available.
His PD was, of course, willing to go to trial, if he’d wanted to. But the deal didn’t get better as the trial date approached; future offers kept getting worse. Not a lot had broken his way — the victim was still alive, for instance. He kept saying no, Mom kept getting angrier, and for various reasons, his sister started giving the victim a wide berth, and while lots of victims can be scared into changing their story or refusing to testify, she didn’t scare.
With the trial just about to start, he ended up taking a deal that got him a sentence that will, when he gets out in 2010, amount to 58 months.
Now, there’s a lot that’s different in this than in the case that the Minneapolis PD points to. The person who talked him out of the eighteen-month deal wasn’t an attorney, but — like the attorney in the HennCo PD’s story — was sure that there was a better deal out there for him, and who queered the pitch for the PD who was, I’d guess, doing his professional best to get him to unwrap the birthday present.
So, he’s away in prison; the little old lady is mostly recovered — some reconstructive surgery. I need to stop by; haven’t seen her for a couple of months. And she is a friend of mine.
She’s gotten some extra time to not worry if either of the brothers are going to come after her. They were kind of angry that she didn’t shut up and forget about it, the sister said.
That freedom from worry ends in 2010? Nah. That’s over.
His brother, who had been around the block more, and who was quicker to plead out, got out last week.
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