I overheard this conversation today between a woman whose son had just plead guilty to three counts of attempted murder (with personal use of a firearm and a gang allegation) and the defense lawyer who represented aforementioned son. Let's call the son "Jose". I should also mention here that "Jose" took a deal that got him 8 years in state prison. Holy Christ, was that a phenominal deal. Anyhow, here's what I heard.
Woman: "I can't believe that shit you pulled in there."
Defense lawyer: "Excuse me?"
Woman: "You think we respect you? You need to earn my respect. You can't just walk into court and pull shit like that."
Defense lawyer (now turning bright red): "I'm sorry for whatever I did ma'am."
Woman (now speaking VERY loudly): "Well I can't believe you just did that. How can you behave like that and expect the judge to take you seriously. You need to watch yourself. You need to earn some respect around here. You need to respect my son and my family. I don't know how you treat your other clients but if you treat them how you treated us then I feel sorry for them. You really need to be more considerate of people."
Defense lawyer (looking visibly agitated): "Yes ma'am, I'll work on it."
Ummm excuse me lady, but did you take some crazy pills this morning with breakfast?!? You'd think the guy had just scored her son a needle in the arm or something. I mean shit... "Jose" is clearly a bad, bad dude and with good time/work time credits he'll be out and free to shoot the crap out of whomever he chooses in about 4 years. Respect?!?! If anybody needs to learn respect it's this clearly delusional woman who knows nothing about the law and who needs to learn how to keep her mouth closed in public. And how about not chewing out a damn good public defender when two prosecutors are standing a foot away from him. To be perfectly honest, I don't know how you PD's are able to take crap like that and still continue to do your jobs effectively. I'd be out of there quicker than you can say, "they're all guilty your honor."
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Unfortunately, our so-called "bad apple" clients usually don't fall too far from the tree.
You know, I'm not too sure about the attrition rate for PD's. I'll have to ask my friend about that next week. I'll let you know what I find out, if anything.
This past week an attorney in my office pled a guy to reckless homicide. It was a horrible case and he got 10 years suspended to 5 years probation with a ton of conditions. Most people would be ecstatic with this deal, seeing as how there is a dead body involved. Not this guy's mother. She was so upset and they are now APPEALING! The only thing they told their attorney was that they got a $7 parking ticket and they were upset about that (since the plea lasted two hours.) Ridiculous!
Appeal that?!?!? They have no clue what they're in for. I see several $7 parking tickets in their future.
Ah yes, I am finding that the family and friends of clients are often way more difficult to deal with than the actual client themselves. I still don't know which is worse, the client's family member screaming at you, or the client's family member sobbing and crying and asking when they will be coming home. Ugh. Either way, not a picnic.
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