Has it Really Been Five Years?!?

An Update:

My co-workers did make me a T-Shirt to commemorate. It says, "I've been a public defender for 5 years and all I get is a lousy T-shirt." It was sweet.

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Original Post:

Yes! Much to my astonishment, and to the astonishment of the former Chief Public Defender of New Mexico who said she did not think I was "sufficiently defense oriented" for this job, today is my fifth anniversary as a public defender here in Podunk, New Mexico. (Well, technically, it's not until Sunday, but I'm blogging now and may not be in the mood then.) I am not expecting a watch or a plaque or anything, because I doubt that anyone who would be in a position to give me those things has noticed. But that is fine with me. If I were doing this for recognition, I am in the wrong line of work!

Regardless, this has caused me to be somewhat introspective today. This was the first job I had out of law school. When I began, unlike many others who graduated with me wanting specifically to be public defenders, I was not interested in Making a Difference in the cosmic sense. I did not want to bring Justice to the world at large. I did not have an Ideology I wanted to put into put into practice. I did not want to Fight the Power. Those things were, and still are, too grand for me. I am a small person with a small reach. I do not have, nor do I want, power, fame, or influence. I cannot hope to Change the World.

I can, however, help people. Not People, as in all people, but individuals. I help them to navigate this bizarre and arcane world of courts and laws, which is hard even for educated and articulate people to deal with, much more so for the poor and uneducated. I speak for them, even when no one else will. Not to the legislature, or to the media, but to the man who has the big hammer and the power to take them from their homes and families. I cannot say I've made my clients into law abiding citizens. But I can say that I have changed some of my client's lives for the better. And that is plenty of reward for me.

I had one client a year or two ago, probably about 20 years old. All the police officers knew him and his family. The police were always so sure that he was using and/or dealing drugs (they were probably not wrong) that they would constantly question him, search him, and arrest him. They were so gung-ho about sending him to prison that they neglected such niceties as having probable cause to arrest and reasonable suspicion for searches. The first case I represented him on was dismissed by the prosecutor after I filed a motion to suppress an illegal search. While this was pending, he picked up another. This one the Judge dismissed because of an illegal search. While both of these were pending, he picked up a 3rd case with an illegal arrest. This one pled down to a misdemeanor with no jail time and no probation. When all was said and done, all his felonies were dismissed. The best part about this, though, was not the outcome of his criminal cases. He had somehow come through all this with a new lease on life. He resolved to get clean, stay clean, get a legitimate job, and support his new wife and child. He wrote me a poem. It wasn't Shakespeare, but it was sincere. In it, he thanked me for helping him. He wrote that if I had not stood up for him, he would not have had any desire to change. The idea that there were people who could help him on the right path showed him that the world was not always out to get him. He wrote that I helped him to see that there is more to this world than courts and jails and drugs and gangs. He hasn't been arrested since. This is why I do this.

Even if I never get another acquittal. Even if I never have another client thank me. I helped someone change their life. This makes it all worth it. This is why I am proud to be a public defender.

Of my friends who wanted so desperately to be public defenders in law school, only one is still a public defender in addition to me. All the others moved on when they discovered that to Change the World, you need more power and influence than you have being a public defender. They were frustrated by the perceived futility of what we do. They were depressed by how far reality can be from their shining ideals. I am not. I have known for a long time that this world, and the justice system, are not perfect. And as long as imperfect people are running the world and the courts, they probably won't be. But I am happy knowing that as small and insignificant I am, I can do things that sometimes make a large difference in the lives of individual people. And I do not care that no one has ever heard of the people I have helped. I do not care that it is rarely front-page news (and when it is, usually the headline is something like, "Criminal Gets Off on Technicality"). The bottom line is, this is fulfilling to me. And it does make a difference (small letters). And I look forward to posting in another five years how I have been doing this for a decade.