It just seems so much more interesting to talk about fuzzy puppies, than the doings of the criminal justice system in Podunk, NM. But there are things going on. The first is that my second murder case pled out Wednesday. It was a horrible plea offer, and he would not have gotten a worse sentence if it went to trial. But the idea of the State filing for the death penalty scared him, even though there is only the minutest of possibilities that the DP filing would make it past the judge, never mind the jury and the appellate process. But it was what he wanted, so now he's going to die in prison, in all probability. How many people do you know that can make it to 75 years old in prison? But I don't feel nearly so bad for him as I did for my last murder defendant.
More news is that mental health court is underway. It is as I feared. The judge simply wants to create a program so she can say she's created a program, rather than creating a program that can really help the situation. In other words, her belief is that we should go the easiest possible route and have mental health court as part of probation, so we don't have to actually do any planning or come up with new ideas. She just wants it to be exactly like drug court, and have drug court running it, since that program is already in place. She turned a deaf ear to my suggestion about a diversionary program, and pretty much has ignored me since. There's a new ADA participating who can't even tell the difference between the competency docket and mental health court, knows nothing about mental illness, and spends her time screaming at the rest of us about such things as dress codes and whether the participants in the program should be called "clients" or "defendants." And we still have no services here that can actually help the mentally ill. The service provider we are using has only 2 therapists, no psychologists, and a psychiatrist that comes once a month to write scripts.
I had only one trial since I last posted. It was exceedingly strange, as the state "found" the surveillance video of the incident at about 9 the morning of trial, they had to send someone to get it, which took until about 10. Then we both had to watch it and argue about whether to exclude it, declare a mistrial, or what should go on while the jury was sitting there. No one could ID my client other than that he "strongly resembles" the guy on the tape, and my client went crazy in the middle of trial. (Talking to himself, laughing, etc.) He had previously been found competent, but had obviously decompensated while in jail.
And I have a trial Thursday that involves a deaf-mute that cannot read or write English, who was found parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot and got charged with DWI. We've been trying to have the trial since May, but there are recurrent problems getting an interpreter. I really hope to win this one, as he really didn't do it. His wife had driven to the Wal-Mart and was inside when the cops showed up. She comes out and tries to tell the cops that she was driving, but this is difficult, as she's deaf, too!
Anyway, that's the latest with work. I also am continuing to play my violin. We're thinking of getting together a string quartet! But for now, I am going to go to the grocery store, watch the rest of the football game, and work on my tandem-socks.
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2 comments:
Argh! That's annoying about the mental health court. Is it better with or without it?
Glad to hear Betsy's doing well and having great fun.
I don't know whether its better with or without the program. It may be too soon to tell yet. The people who are on it seem to be doing better for the time being: taking their meds and stuff. At the very least, I hope this will force the service provider to actually provide services.
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