Of a Public Defender's Life

On Protests and Free Speech

2010-03-24T18:29:00.003-06:00

I was slightly amused today when, on my way between court and lunch, I see a batch of about 15 protesters. Judging by the signs, they appeared to be protesting Communism. I found this amusing. So much so, that I could not stop myself from driving past again in an effort to figure out exactly what message they wished passers-by to receive. Given the totality of the signage, I guessed they were protesting the recently enacted health care legislation.

Now, I am all in favor of the right that we have to peaceably assemble and speak our beliefs. I don't have a problem with these people announcing their views to Main Street, in spite of the fact that my views differ significantly from theirs; and I even commend people for taking advantage of this right, when so few people are active in politics these days.

However, I have a large problem when such a protest is not a debate or commentary on ideas, but rather an excuse for name-calling and racial slurs. Many of the signs I saw had pictures of what I can only describe as Vaudeville-era "black-face." That is, a dark-skinned face, enormous white eyes, and a ridiculous red grinning mouth. This is offensive to me. If you don't like President Obama, I totally respect that. So say, "Down with Obama!" or "Impeach the President!" or whatever you want. I have no respect whatsoever for people who hold up signs with the clear meaning that because the President is black, we should not trust him. Many of these signs also called President Obama a liar. Now, I don't know if he is or not. But he didn't lie about his intention to reform healthcare. In fact, the reforms that were passed were significantly less than those proposed during the debates. e.g., no "public option" or government insurance plan. If you don't like the healthcare legislation, say so! On none of these signs was there the word "healthcare."

If these protesters desired to protest the healthcare legislation, it would make much more sense to hold the rally prior to the time it's actually law. If their desire was to simply Obama-bash, this is fine, too. But they should actually state what their problems with him are, or they won't convince anyone who doesn't already share their beliefs. From what I could tell, they don't like President Obama because he's a Communist, a liar, and/or because he's black. He's clearly not a member of the Communist party, or he couldn't have run on the Democratic ticket. And since it's unclear exactly what they're saying he lied about, this isn't likely to get them very far. And if their dislike of him is based on his skin color, they should take another look at all those American flags they were waving around, and possibly the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as well.

My Computer's Unplanned Vacation

2010-03-20T16:59:00.004-06:00

So my pretty little computer is back from its unplanned vacation. It needed a sojourn to the Sony workshop because some cable that goes to the left touchpad button either broke somehow or was faulty to begin with. It seems to be all better now. And the warranty covered it. They also seemed to have avoided messing up any of my settings, which is also a plus. (Yes, dad, I did back things up before sending it away...)

So, I was able to download the pics of my stuffed foxes I'm working on. It's so much fun!! They're very fuzzy. Not yet cute, because right now it's just bodies and tails. Plus, they're making me learn all kinds of new stuff.

On Doggies and Sports

2010-02-21T12:42:00.005-07:00

So, I've gotten over my mystery illness, and things have gotten back to normal. Well, at least as normal as my life ever is... My doggies did get a little confused that I went to work every day this week. It never ceases to amaze me how different they are from each other, and yet how well they get along. Betsy's favorite thing to do is play. Play with me or Adagio, play with toys or not, she doesn't care. Adagio likes the playing, but prefers to keep close to me, to get pats, and give kisses, and to sleep on my feet. They even sleep differently! Adagio curls up in a tight ball (complete with nose under tail), and doesn't move or make a sound, even when I accidentally stepped on his tail one time. Betsy sprawls all out (sometimes upsidedown), she's always twitching, and making funny noises, and she'll pop awake to investigate the least sound or movement. I just think it's funny. I keep trying to take a picture of them sleeping together (sometimes they put their heads or paws on eachother), but the sound of the camera turning on wakes Betsy up.

This week I've mostly been knitting my messenger bag and watching the olympics. I like figure skating, hockey, short-track speed skating and half-pipe snowboarding. I can't really get into those sledding events -- luge and skeleton and whatnot. I guess it would make more sense to me if it was more like an actual race, with lots of sleds going at the same time. And the long-distance-type events I just get bored with. (There's some type of cross-country skiing thing going on right know, where they stop periodically to shoot some kind of target with a rifle.) And I just don't understand curling. I suppose if I were raised in Canada I would love it, but I just can't grasp what the goal of the thing is. It's like cricket. Brits seem to think it's the best game ever, but I just can't wrap my brain around it. I don't even understand who's won a match when the nice BBC guy runs down the scores. I mean it's not even a cricket "team." It's a "side." I actually tried to get a Scottish cricketer I worked with to explain it to me, but we both gave up after a while. I guess that although I can converse intelligently about any number of different kinds of sports, there are some which I'm just not meant to understand.

Home Sick (blah!)

2010-02-11T15:56:00.002-07:00

So, I've been home sick since Monday, and it's getting really, really old! There are some illnesses that you can have and go to work anyway, and there are some that you can't. This particular stomach problem is one that I can't take to work! My stomach finally has settled down today, I just feel all weak and wobbly. Might have something to do with not being able to eat much all week. Mainly crackers and tortillas. Still not a good idea to drive to work or stand in a courtroom, but better than the last three days. Hopefully, I can get to work tomorrow. My office will be a mess!! And as much fun as it is to play on the computer, watch t.v., and knit all day long, it really is getting old. Even I can't sleep all day!! I did start working on a cool felted bag. And I've spent lots of time cuddling with doggies. But I'm dreading my voicemail. If I were very good, I'd check it from here. But I'm really not in the mood to hear my clients yelling at me for not being there. It's not my fault I have a malfunctioning stomach! I have at least been checking my work email, to make sure nothing catastrophic has occurred in my absence. And I assume someone would call me on the phone if there was an emergency. Anyway, I don't really have anything exciting to say, as you can probably tell, I'm just bored. I do like this high-speed internet! I can actually watch video without waiting a half hour for it to buffer. Now that you're all at least as bored as I am, if you've managed to make it through this post, I'll leave you alone now.

I Return

2010-01-29T13:16:00.007-07:00

No, I did not stop knitting. I did not leave the public defenders' office. I did not fall off the face of the earth. The short reason for my long disappearance is that my computer died.

Adagio and Betsy are both great. Betsy is 2 1/2 already, and Adagio's nearly three. I can't believe it! It sure doesn't seem like 2 whole years ago that I could pick up Betsy with one hand! They've both adjusted well to my being Adagio's mommy, and there is no friction in my little family, aside from occasional sibling-esque rivalry. They came with me on Christmas vacation -- Adagio's first ever road trip. They were great in the car (slept the whole way) and no one was car sick. I wasn't worried about Betsy at my mother's house -- she'd been there before. But Adagio was much better than I expected. I thought there might be house-training problems, since Adagio'd never been in a place he couldn't go outside whenever he wanted. No problem --

not one! His only issue was the upstairs hallway. I don't think he'd ever been in an upstairs before, and he seemed to think the floor would drop out somehow and drop him back down to the first floor. Strangely, he handled the stairs themselves better than Betsy did her first time. (She's the more adventurous of the two, by far, and it took her about 3 days before she tried them!) Adagio braved them with only about ten minutes of coaxing, he just didn't like that hallway.

I also haven't been idle with the knitting, either. I knitted everyone striped gloves for Christmas, and I knitted myself a green cable cardigan. I also knitted myself convertible mittens. I don't have pics of everyone's gloves, but here are the convertible mittens and the cardigan.

Now, to figure out my next project. I was thinking maybe felting...

And a Happy Snow Day to All, and to All a Good Day!

2008-12-16T09:15:00.003-07:00

It is our first snow-day of the season! And I'm glad they finally closed things -- I went out to get my paper and promptly fell on my butt. This is definitely not a good day to go anywhere in a car. It's supposed to continue snowing through tomorrow, which is no doubt when they will finally decide to do something about the roads. They usually don't do anything until after it stops snowing.

The puppies are loving it. Betsy still is trying to eat all of the snow. I'm not sure why, but apparently, it's more fun than just drinking water. She eats chunks of ice, too. Oh, and Adagio gets to come live with us after the holidays! Her family is moving, and they can't take him with them. I was going to hold off before getting Betsy another puppy to play with, but I can't let them put Adagio in a shelter. They're such good buds, they'd miss each other a lot if they were separated. Adagio's been staying over the past week in an effort to get them used to living with each other.

It seems to be going fairly well. Betsy's still getting used to the idea that Adagio is now allowed in the house. There haven't been actual fights, but Betsy's making a concerted effort to keep me to herself. If I pay attention to Adagio, especially in the house, she will try to start a game with him to get him outside. She then sneaks back in, while he's outside. This is getting less, though. Adagio doesn't seem to mind this at all. He does whatever Betsy wants him to. He's so easy-going, he'll let Betsy chew on his ears all day, so long as he gets his head patted on occasion! That's a retriever for you! So far, my solution is to call Adagio over to me and give him pats, and if Betsy interferes, both dogs go behind the gate in the kitchen. They come in when both are calm and Betsy's allowed Adagio back through the dog door. If Betsy does not interfere, both dogs get pats. If they are both lying quietly in the same room with me, I periodically give individual pats.

Adagio has also been getting some remedial training. He's surprisingly good in the house, for as much time as he's spent outside. He is house trained, and does not get on furniture, nor does he steal things off counters or tables. His main problem is that he just gets so excited about everything, especially human contact! He knows "sit," so he'll sit at you until you pet him. By this, I mean he sits so close to you that if you're not careful, your knees will buckle. He pushes with his head, and prances all four feet (a strange sight, while he's sitting!). If this fails to get your attention, he jumps up, and actually pushes at you with his forefeet. In an approximately 60-65 pound dog, this is not good. (Yes, he outweighs Betsy by a fair amount, but they're about the same height. Betsy weighs under 50 lbs.) So Adagio and I have been working on the jumping up, and it is getting better. Ignoring him is the easiest way: when calm, he gets pats. When excited, he does not! He's not stupid, he's figuring it out. Anything for attention!

On Liberalism and Knitting

2008-11-17T18:18:00.004-07:00

No, there is nothing connecting these topics together, other than I happen to have been thinking about them both a lot lately. Perhaps if I were an English professor, I would be able to come up with something that links these two ideas together. But since I'm not, I won't try.

I've been wondering for a while now, when did the word "liberal" become "bad"? I mean the word "liberal" means open-handed and generous, not literal or strict, according to Merriam-Webster. But all I seem to be hearing about for the past election cycle is how horrible it is to be liberal: how liberals are pro-abortion and even pro-death. Now I've known many, many people in my lifetime who identify themselves as "liberal," politically. But, I know of not one person who thinks abortion is a "good" thing to do. No one recommends everyone have one. And as for "pro-death," isn't it those horrible liberals who oppose the death penalty? Oppose the war in Iraq? Even try to save such things as tree-frogs and spotted owls? All as a result of their dislike of death. It is my opinion that it is myopic, and even mean-spirited to say that anyone is "pro-death," regardless of your opinion of another's view of the death penalty, abortion, or the tree-frog.

Personally, I am opposed to abortion: I believe it to be a sin, immoral, and I believe life begins at conception. However, as I do not run the world (and I have no wish to), I recognize that not everyone will agree with me. Scientists and doctors cannot agree on when life begins! And, as my belief regarding this comes from the Bible, I do not feel that I am in a position to impose my views regarding this upon others. I certainly do not believe it is the place of the government of this country to impose its views on this either, especially not when based primarily on religious philosophy. So, yes, I am anti-abortion and pro-choice. Both.

This country needs liberals. Without liberals, schools could still legally be segregated, the Voting Rights Act would not have been passed, it would be perfectly legal to discriminate against a person because of their race in private establishments, and none but the first ten amendments to the Constitution would be in existence. All were the results of "activism," and flew in the face of strict adherence to the letter of the law, then in existence. However, change for the sake of it is not good in government, either. You can't be changing the Constitution every ten minutes on a whim, and the Court cannot decide to depart from the current law, "just because." It would create the most unstable government in the world!

So, yes, this country needs conservatives, as well, to hold back and say, "Look! This is the Constitution, and this is why these things were put in there in the first place! This is what our country was founded upon." But keeping things the way they always have been, just because "this is the way it's always been" is a danger as well. Nothing makes me more angry about office procedure than the following conversation: "Why do we do this in this way?" "Because it's the way we've always done it." "But wouldn't it be more efficient to do it this other way?" "Sure." "Then, why can't we do it that way, instead?" "Because we've always done it this way." We need both parties in government. Liberal and conservative. We need the liberals trying to move forward and change things all the time, and conservatives trying to hold things the way they are. This way, we never get too far ahead too fast, but yet when change is needed, it can be done.

End of sermon: Now the knitting! These are my July and September socks!

Here's a better view of the green ones, so you can see the pattern, hopefully.

Now, I'm all excited about my winter project: a fisherman's sweater. Cozy and cabley. I got a really light caramel color brown for it. (I only paid around $25 for the yarn!) And, it's the kind of pattern that lets you figure out measurements and shaping and stuff for yourself! I'm thrilled.

Happy Veterans' Day!

2008-11-11T15:03:00.003-07:00

One of the perks of working "in government" is that you get random days off work: Veterans' Day, for example. So today, Betsy and I had our yearly vet appointment to update her rabies, bordatella, and parvo shots (I think there are a couple more in there, too); test her for heart worm; get more chewies; and an all-around check-up. She's apparently in excellent health -- her temp was a little high, due to excitement, and her heart rate was somewhat low. The vet attributed the heart rate to her "athletic" lifestyle. While I'm not particularly athletic, with the exception of a daily walk and an occasional hike, Betsy is. She plays and runs randomly around until she simply collapses. Every moment not playing is wasted, according to her! When she was teeny-tiny, she'd be so sleepy by bed-time that she would sit there in her crate swaying back and forth trying to stay awake! And today at the vets, she made friends with all the techs and one of the other canine patients. She tried to make friends with a large German Shepherd, but he was a little large and loud. She was a little frightened of him, and he wasn't so much in the mood to make friends. No one still has any clue what breeds she might be comprised of, although everyone I've asked about it is pretty sure there's either Australian Shepherd or Border Collie or both in there somewhere. The face, ears, body-size and behavior make that pretty clear. Everything she does screams "I am a herding dog!"

So, after the vets, I had lunch with a friend, went shoe-shopping, grocery shopping, and bought another video game. It was the most efficient shoe-shop I've ever had. In and out in 15 minutes, with two pairs of shoes. I generally hate shoe-shopping, but if it was like that every time, I'd do it more often! It was definitely time, too. My tennis-shoes are 13 years old! (But they are so comfortable! Who needs treads?)

Oh, and a couple weekends ago Adagio re-appeared. I discovered this upon going to investigate a huge commotion of thumping going on at the back door, and I saw two fluffy dog-heads in the dog-door. Eventually, they sorted out who was to come in first (which was what the problem was, apparently) so here's the both of them, panting up a storm, both with soggy chewed-on ears. And yes, Betsy's nearly as tall as Adagio now, but weighs somewhat less. Sadly, Adagio's latest escape resulted in the neighbors finding it necessary to lock her in an ex-pen with a piece of plywood for a floor (so she can't dig out, presumably) during the day. Normally, I'd say that's not so bad, but there's a doghouse in there, in addition to their other dog, making for not much room. Plus, it can't be comfy for a dog to have to "potty" on plywood so close to her bed. However, just as I finished the last sentence, Betsy went over to sit at the baby gate, intensely interested, and I hear this surreptitious "clink, clink." Lo and behold Adagio has come in my dog door, all the way across my house, looking for Betsy! I took down the gate to let Betsy out, and they both went straight outside for their romp. What fun!! I'm now going to try out my new game.

If I Won the Lottery

2008-11-03T18:43:00.004-07:00

I think everyone must think about this from time to time: What would you do if you did not have to work for a living? If you could do anything you wanted, without regard for the cost, what would it be?

My answer is probably quite unique: I'd go back to school! Not to "better myself," necessarily, but to learn stuff. I'd get a masters in history, and maybe a doctorate. American history, probably focusing on either the civil war or the decades between 1917, when we entered World War I and the end of 1941, when we entered World War II. And I'd probably want to teach some classes. Probably high-school or college.

Why in the world do I want to study history? I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that I find it interesting. I don't think memorizing a bunch of dates and places is interesting -- so many people seem to teach history badly. History is not about that. History also isn't about minutia, either: it's not this corps of that army occupied that hill, and this other army sent these guys in this formation to take it with these types of guns, and there were this many thousand casualties. That's not history either. History is about humanity. The decisions people make while they are suffering. Have you noticed that those dates people memorize are always about when horrible things were happening? When you learn your dates in ninth-grade history, it's always about "December 6, 1941 was the bombing of Pearl Harbor" or "October whatever-it-was in 1929 was Black Tuesday the stock-market crashed and began the Depression." The events one learns about are usually incredibly difficult times that shaped those times that came afterward.

What I find interesting about history is how people of those times responded to the crises in which they found themselves: from the small to the great. Some despaired, others made momentous decisions that changed the course of events for better or worse, and yet others simply survived -- living on from day to day as best they could. I think that's why I find the American Civil War intriguing. Those four years -- April 1861 until April 1865 were crucial in shaping our country: probably more crucial than any other event in this country's history, with the exception of the drafting and signing of the Constitution. This country, itself, was tested more than it has ever been before or since. People don't think about it now, but had things turned out differently, we would not have a Federal Government, it would likely be more of an advisory board that coordinates the supreme governments of the States. People would not now have bumper stickers on their cars about "Proud to be an American." It would be "Proud to be a Virginian" or a Rhode Islander, or a Wyoming-ite? Each state would have decided for itself whether to go to Europe during World War I, rather than the U.S. Congress. There would be no federal taxes, nor federal programs.

But unlike the Constitution, the Civil War directly affected the lives of every single person alive in this country. From the end of slavery to food shortages to the massive percentage of men in this country who were away from their families for four years and returned ever-changed, if at all. Everyone felt the impact of war. And one of the most exciting things to a historian, if I may be so bold, is that so many people wrote about it. They wrote diaries and letters. Those that couldn't write often had others write letters to family members for them. Soldiers would dictate to their more literate fellows heartfelt letters to wives, sweethearts, sisters and mothers about being cold or homesick. Sometimes there were just scrawled, poignant notes of missing home and loved ones, but lots of these letters went on for pages and pages. They wrote about why they fought: the Cause, as termed by men on both sides. And there was a Cause -- a higher purpose for those on both sides. The Cause was ironically the same for those on either side. Both sides believed God had pre-ordained their victory. Both sides believed they were fighting for their country, and their freedom. People on each side believed that should they lose the war, the ideals for which their fathers' fathers fought King George would be destroyed, forever.

And so, should I win the lottery, I'd want to learn more: dig deeper, read more. And then I'd want to teach: that is what history's about. It's not about "In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Oh, and about 1917 through 1941 -- I'd want to learn a lot more about that. I know next to nothing about that era. And that was the time the United States grew up. The Civil War made the U.S. a real nation, as opposed to a collection of small nations. The time between WWI and WWII was when we came into our own as a world power: economically and militarily. That is the time during which we went from a new nation, admired but yet to be tested on the world stage, to a nation to which all other nations look.

The Presidency of the United States

2008-10-07T21:36:00.004-06:00

I just watched the debate. And I watched the VP debate last week. Here's the thing. The President of the United States must be a visionary. He must see the country as it should be, and then strive to make it so. It's this whole thing about "experience" that I don't understand. I mean, experience doing what? Being president? As far as I can tell, there is no job in the world that gives a person "experience" with the types of decisions required of the President of the United States. What other job requires a decision about whether to exert the entire military might of the most powerful nation in the world in a given situation? What other position brings with it the sole responsibility for the welfare of an entire nation, and a nation as diverse and great as this one? While the actual welfare of the nation is likely outside the control of the president, he is the one held responsible for it. Who else can launch nuclear missiles? While I admire Senator McCain: his service to the country, his patriotism, and even his dedication to the American People, I don't get the point of his tallying up voting records. And I don't believe that he has the vision required of the next president. How much "experience" did John F. Kennedy have? How much did Reagan have? F.D.R.? George Washington?

Electing anyone, whether known in politics or not, is a risk. While you may know what they did previously, you will never know what they will do in that round room when the proverbial phone rings at 3 a.m. until it actually happens. I don't care how close you are to what is going on in the Oval Office, until it's your decision, it's just not the same. I think the thing is, the President must have the inherent ability to listen to advice from the Joint Chiefs, the House and Senate, his Cabinet, and anyone else he sees fit; he must then process the monumental amount of information at his disposal, and make the right decision, whether it polls well or not. He must do so with the welfare of the American People always at the forefront of his decision, and he must do so with as full as possible an understanding of the global consequences of any course of action.

Another thing the President must do, that seems to be often overlooked these days, is that he must be the standard-bearer for the United States of America. He must give the People confidence in this country, and the core values upon which it was founded: the unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness for all. He must also be able to convey this to American citizens and to the world. The President must have a certain...gravitas.

These are unquantifiable things. The citizens of this country have made good decisions in this regard, and bad ones. I have a soft spot for Woodrow Wilson. He was a great visionary. However, he lacked the second requirement: the ability to convey to others what in the world he was talking about. No one could get behind him or his plans, because no one could understand what his goal was, or why. Other presidents have had the opposite problem: they were all about charisma, and people were completely behind them, but they never ended up actually leading anywhere.

My favorite president in American history? Well, I like Taft, but more on a empathetic level, than as a great president. He was never cut out for that job. But yet, he "busted" more trusts than the "Trust-Buster" (Teddy Roosevelt). He wanted to be a Supreme Court Justice, never president. (His wife and mother ganged up on him to make him run. Twice!) He was a jurist. He liked figuring out fine points of the law, and making case-by-case decisions. He didn't like the publicity, pressure, or the grey areas of leading a country. He didn't like that his decisions affected so many people. He finally got to be a Supreme Court Justice! Under Coolidge, I think.

The greatest president in American history? Easy. Lincoln. Why? He was a rags-to-riches story. The epitome of the American Dream. And he was perfect for that job, in that time. In another time, I don't know. But he made many monumental, and often unpopular decisions. Those decisions both kept the country in one piece, and righted an unconscionable wrong that had pervaded through centuries. By the way, how much experience did he have upon assuming the presidency? I think a term in Congress? I leave you with that.

Really Strange

2008-09-29T18:55:00.003-06:00

Ok, so I checked my email and discovered a "comment" waiting to be moderated on a post from over two years ago that has completely baffled me. (The comment baffled me, my post did not.) It had to be "edited for content," as I would like to keep this blog at least "rated PG." I can't, for the life of me, figure out what this guy's point is. It certainly had nothing to do with my post, other than brief mention of "public pretenders" and private attorneys. See what you think:

K has left a new comment on your post "Public Pretender": If the Public
Pretender is loyal to the same zionist/neocolonial typeregimes as the judge and even your defense lawyer
then how the f*** isthat justice?Justice is that if about twenty
percent of Americans say F*** THE POWERand would consider having long hair or do have
long hair... then abouttwenty percent of this nations municipalities
and counties should startbeing handled by such folk who wouldn't waste
public funds on some uglyrobe and will tell it like it F***IN' is... when
we say that we wouldrather see our sons smokin' joints then
signing their life andconsciences away to the occult orders that have
been running most ofthis nations criminal justice system.

So what, exactly, is a "Zionist neocolonial typeregime"? I mean I recognize "Zionist" and "neocolonial," but have any of you heard of a "typeregime"? I mean I'm not Jewish, and I certainly don't want to colonize anything. Is he saying that all that is needed to achieve justice, is to say, "F*** the power" in court (I'm sure that will help my clients a lot) and have long hair? I've got long hair, and, thus far, it seems to have had little impact. And who (or what) are "occult orders"?

Anyway, in spite of his vehemence, I think I'll stick with my own efforts to achieve justice. While it may be less exciting than pumping one's fist in the air and raving against the Establishment, at least I can see the justice I am able to get for my clients, from time to time. And I can avoid going to jail! (an extra bonus!) Well, to each his own!

an update

2008-09-21T17:30:00.003-06:00

It has been around six weeks since I posted last, and a rather strange six weeks, at that. I guess the strangeness began when my good friend left our office to be a public defender elsewhere. We still email and talk regularly, but it's just not the same without her around the office.

Further strangeness occurred when the cold I came down with mutated into pneumonia. I was out of the office for a week and a half, and was becoming quite annoyed with remaining in the house so long by the end. I've never taken more than one sick-day in a row before, and this was a really odd experience for me. Betsy tried her best to help, but was quite unsure how. Her first instinct was to try to engage me in a fun game, involving running around and such. Obviously, that wasn't happening! She then tried to cheer me up by licking my chin and my ears. A slight improvement, but still... I did get quite a bit of knitting done, and I read a lot.

Oh, and the prairie dogs are back! Well, one of them anyway. A couple years ago, the prairie dog town had to re-locate to the other side of the field (out of view) due to workmen with large machinery digging near their town. But this spring, one came back to reside in the old holes. I was initially concerned, as it struck me as unusual for a prairie dog to live by himself. They're so social with their town and barks and romping around together. But I looked it up and apparently, it is usual for a prairie dog to set up house a short distance from the main group when he's a year or two old after mating season, but before the new pups arrive. It prevents over-crowding in the town, and in-breeding. According to my reading, he'll still make social calls back to the main group. And maybe in the spring, he'll entice a mate from the town to join him and start his own group. Currently, he's concentrating on getting fat, so he can hibernate comfortably through the winter. (He's doing very well at that.)

Randomness

2008-08-02T14:01:00.008-06:00

I'm in a somewhat meloncholy mood -- Billie Holiday's on the stereo. I'm trying not to sing along, as Betsy seems to get confused when I sing.

I'm mainly avoiding household chores. Fortunately, one of said chores is not attending to the swamp cooler again. It seems to be doing its best, in spite of it being around 100 outside for the past few days. My cooler seems to be keeping the house in the 80-85 degree range, which is standard for the things, I'm told. I'm still working on my lacy scarf, but it may actually come to an end at some point. I'm around 2/3 done. I'm eager to get it finished, so that I can start my July socks. They're fantastic! There's self-striping yarn in various shades of blue and white, and the pattern is a sea-shell type of lace.

Betsy is doing great. She turned a year old sometime in early- or mid- July. She is a good buddy to have around for cheering a person up! She's getting much less spastic now that she's approaching dog-hood and leaving puppy-hood. Although I think she will always love a good play. She would play with me twenty-four hours a day if possible! But she is becoming less insistant upon this, and will resign herself to the fact that this is not possible more quickly these days. Currently, she is chewing her new toy under my chair. It had been a while since she's had a new toy, and this one seems quite exciting. It looks kind of like a bright red octopus: fringy at the bottom, and hard-ish on top to facilitate chewing. And it squeaks and bounces. And, it's not stuffed, so we can avoid the de-stuffing - there's a rubber ball type thing in the top. Her favorite games are still fetch and tug. (She'll chase anything tennis-ball sized or smaller.) She's also getting the hang of wrestling without using claws or teeth. She's also a fairly old-fashioned dog: The toy that has managed to keep her attention for the entire time I've had her is Nylabones! I guess they're a classic for a reason.

Where is it?

2008-07-10T19:50:00.003-06:00

Where is it? That feeling that the reason it's great to be a citizen of the United States of America is we value all human beings and the inalienable rights they possess: to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? Where is the pride we had in our ability to look beyond our fears of the unknown and to gladly recognize in all mankind the right to be innocent until proven guilty? To be free of State intrusion into our homes? To speak out our thoughts and opinions as far as we can reach? To be treated with respect and fairness? To be given the benefit of the doubt? Where is our willingness, even eagerness, to stand up for these inherent rights in all others, even those we despise? Where is our conviction that it is better that ten guilty men go free rather than one innocent man sent to jail? Have these things disappeared? Has this Great Experiment failed? Has the Government Of the People, By the People, and For the People truly perished from the earth? Have we been so harmed that we no longer desire these things? Have we forgotten? Or did these lofty ideals ever truly exist in the general populous? Were they simply a bunch of fancy words crafted by Founders and Fathers that did not reflect the popular opinions of that time either?

"Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing.... They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow; The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow." (The Two Towers: J.R.R. Tolkien) I hope this is not the fate of the true American dream as well...

Blah

2008-06-28T16:39:00.005-06:00

****
Update:

There's a hole in the (bucket?) fence! Dear 'Liza, dear liza! Eureka! I've found it! Ok, so it took a lot more looking than I thought to locate the culprit (hole). Naturally, said hole is behind a bush, and not easily noticed. Betsy apparently squeezed through the bush, dug only a little bit, and pushed out the chain link. Solution: One big (for Betsy) rock outside fence, one big rock inside fence, voila! Maybe things can get back to normal! (more or less)

****
Original post:

Ok, so vacations' over, Company has left, and Betsy and I are once again settling into our regular routine, with a couple additional hassles. Betsy escaped again, so I had to make another trip to the pound to bail her out. And, I've been doing battle with my swamp cooler every weekend. (You know, the thing the plumbers were supposed to fix...)

For those of you unfamiliar with Out West, most private homes are cooled with evaporative (swamp) coolers. These are box-type devices that perch on the roof of your house, a pump pumps water to the top of the box, where it trickles over pads, and then a fan blows air from outside, through the wet pads and into your house. Thus, cooling your house (in theory). Well, the plumbers did replace the pump, the float, and some tubing (that takes water to the cooler), and fixed the fan. However, they failed to affix the float tightly enough, so it did not, in fact, float. Rather it filled with water and sank. (The purpose of the float is that when the bottom of the cooler has enough water in it, the float reaches a certain height. This float is attached to a shut-off valve for the water. If the float does not float, the water does not turn off, and thus spills all over my roof.) So after solving that problem last weekend, I then had to determine why the cooler was not cooling as well as it had previously, but was cooling a little. Answer, the pads were not becoming saturated with water because they were in the wrong place. (I had gotten a size too small, and they were at the bottom, rather than the top and so were not catching all the water that was meant to be running over them.) Strangely, the plumbers did not apparently notice this. So, I fixed the pads. Then this weekend, I noticed the thing was not cooling at all. I go to investigate and discover that the hose that's supposed to be taking the water from the pump to the top of the cooler had fallen off its fixture. Don't ask me how this happened. I just hope this won't be a regular occurrence. I'm getting kind of tired of climbing onto my roof all the time!

In addition, Betsy somehow escaped this week, and I had to go bail her out again. I have scrutinized the fence for the past 2 days, and still have no idea how this could have happened. (Adagio's family and I have plugged up all the holes under the fence because they're trying to landscape their back yard.) There are no new holes under the fences, and the shortest fence is about 4 feet. And she doesn't even jump the baby gate in my house, and that's only about 3 feet. The only thing I can think of is that someone must have let her out and then closed the gate behind. There were kids playing near the gate at that point. The last couple times she escaped were because she went next door and the neighbors had left their gate open.

In other news, I am patiently (or not so patiently) awaiting my socks-of-the-every-other-month-club yarn. My throw has not been progressing, due to my swamp cooler problem, and I had to start my lacy scarf over. It's going much faster this time around, though.

Well, that's about the news. Work is, well, work.

More on Pollyanna

2008-06-08T15:53:00.003-06:00

So, it's been a whole week back, and I'm still in an unbelievably good mood. There's still some nonsensical junior high stuff going on at the office, but strangely, I don't care. I mean, I do, but it seems not to bother me at all. I am perfectly capable of avoiding people I wish to, and being civil to them when I'm unable to avoid them.

Even my issue with a certain private attorney, which upset me for the entire two weeks before I left, isn't affecting me much. The issue is this: I received a fax from this attorney a couple weeks before I left saying that he'd raised competency on one of his private clients and wished me to handle the competency portion of his case. (The cover sheet simply said "FAX" in at least 20-point font, as if he was the sole possessor of this new technology.) After speaking with my supervisor to confirm that we do not represent clients who already have private attorneys (duh!), I called the attorney's secretary to inform her that under the public defender enabling statute, we cannot represent clients who have already retained counsel, unless that counsel withdraws and the person qualifies as indigent. Upon my return to the office, I received another FAX from this attorney with another letter telling me if I would handle the competency portion of the case, he would take the case back if he was found competent. Now I have already had experience with this attorney's dealings with competency issues. There have been several cases I know of in which he raised competency with no basis whatsoever, and even tried to raise competency in a couple of mine. (I leave it to your imagination why he might do this.) In any case, my supervisor then emails this attorney informing him that the case is either a pd case or this attorney's case, but cannot be both. If the client wants a pd, he applies, and we enter our appearance, and we handle the case as we see fit. Otherwise, he's stuck with it. So our application person goes over to the jail to see if the guy wants to do an application for a pd. The guy says (quite sensibly) that he doesn't need a pd, he hired privately! My supervisor then emails the attorney again, telling him of this. Hah! I haven't received any further FAXes, and this attorney had better figure out how to handle competency cases, or kiss all that money goodbye!

In other happy news, I finished my happy green lace socks! They're really, really comfortable to wear. I did get my next installment of socks-of-the-every-other-month club, but I was less enthused with them. The yarn's nice, but the pattern is altogether too fancy for footwear. There are 2 cables running up the sides, in addition to a whole lot of lace. I think I'll save the yarn and do something else with it. Meanwhile, I am stalwartly avoiding buying this nifty self-striping sock yarn that is on sale. I should probably finish this lace scarf I've been dealing with on-and-off for around a year. I need to take out a few rows, because Betsy stole it a while ago, which is why I've been avoiding it.

In yet more happy news, Betsy loved her vacation at least as much as I did. She went to this great kennel, where instead of locking the dogs in crates, they split them up in 3 groups by size and temperament and just let them romp about. And believe me, there's nothing Betsy likes better than a good romp! She'll be thrilled to discover that she gets to go back this weekend.

Gotta Love Vacations!

2008-06-05T11:11:00.002-06:00

So, I got back Monday from a whole week away. There were no judges, prosecutors, clients, or courtrooms! It was wonderful! The best part is that the coming back thing wasn't nearly as horrendous as I thought it would be. I'd originally had 5 trials set for this week, but all except one went away, and the last is probably going to. The State lost their complaining witness, and it will be impossible for them to proceed without her. They just haven't figured that out yet. One pled (which she said she would two weeks ago, but didn't then); one got dismissed, as it is the exact same case as is set for trial at the end of the month it just got filed twice, for some reason; and two got continued because the cops are out of town (of course why it took this long for them to figure that out, I don't know).

So I am currently at leisure (somewhat) to wait for the silly plumbers to get back here with their plumbing parts. Apparently the part they were trying to put into the swamp cooler needed additional parts to attach it to the thing, which they had not had the foresight to bring with them in the first place. I must say I'm on my way to losing patience with these guys. They were supposed to come yesterday at 3. However, I got a call at 5 that they were "running a little late," and could they come tomorrow at 8:30? A little late? I got a call this morning at 9, saying (surprise) that they were again running late, but were on their way. At 9:30, they finally showed up, putzed around for an hour, and then came to this discovery about the parts they did not have. They've now been gone over an hour! I'm in a fairly generous mood, as a result of my vacation, but come on, guys! I can't indefinitely with this waiting around for them to get themselves together! Wait a minute...oh good, they're back. Hopefully they have everything they need, this time.

Vacation clearly worked. I'm not even mad at them! I really think I should be. But I seem to be in some strange pollyanna mood, whereby nothing can upset me too much. Such a pleasant change from pre-vacation, when everything drove me crazy. I just hope this mood lasts a while! It's kind of fun.

Because I haven't posted in a while...

2008-04-30T16:03:00.002-06:00

rather than because I have anything interesting to say, I am blogging now. Most of what I have to say is too case-specific to put on a blog, and the rest is too unflattering to people that I work with.

I did notice that my last post was my 100th post! Happy anniversary to my blog!

At work, I'm working on a motion about collateral estoppel. This one requires serious research, as I haven't thought about the concept since taking the bar exam in 2001. How many criminal lawyers even encounter this, do you suppose? But it does make a nice change from the traditional unlawful search and seizure motions. Maybe it'll get granted just for being so original? I doubt it, though.

I came home directly after court today because of a horrendous and inexplicable back-ache. It's the kind where it hurts to move as well as to stand, sit, or lie still. My co-worker brought me some OTC meds, but they have not made a dent. If it's this bad tomorrow, I will swallow my aversion to doctors and make them give me the real stuff.

Betsy's enjoying the spring time immensely. Walks are fun when there are flowers to sniff and other people and dogs and kids on bikes to investigate!! She and Adagio also collaborated to re-form the tunnel under the fence. It is now at least 18 inches deep, as the neighbors keep trying to stop this behavior by putting things like logs under the fence. The ingenious dogs solved the log problem by Betsy pulling the logs out of the hole and bringing them into the house through the doggie door. She seems to take great joy in dragging enormous things around with her. She took my kitchen rug out through the doggie door so that she could place it in the hole she dug for it. She did not bury it, per se, as she did not cover it with dirt. She just thought it needed to be in a hole. Don't ask me how she got it through the doggie door.

Well, I'm going to stop now, as my back is now protesting the sitting posture. I will try the recliner chair.

Good Puppy, Proud Mommy

2008-04-12T18:31:00.005-06:00

Betsy is now, officially, a Canine Good Citizen. She passed her test last night! It was actually pretty amazing. We missed class last week because I had this eye problem and as a result, was unable to think. During the class I missed, it was apparently decided that the test could be moved up a week because everyone did so well at class. Also, Adagio and her family have not been home the past couple of days, so she's been extra rambunctious when I get home from work. I tried to run some of her energy out of her by a quick game of "fetch" in the yard before class, but we didn't have time for much. As a result, she was extra-distractable when we got to class and discovered it was the actual test. Fortunately, 3 or 4 other dogs tested first, so we could walk around the Petco for a little while before it was her turn. She did her sitting and downing very well, and the lady conducting the test laughed at her a little during the "accept grooming" part when she rolled over on her back so her tummy would be brushed. She tried to play with the brush a little, but it didn't seem to count against her. I was mainly concerned about the "walking on loose leash" part, during which she often has a tendency to try to say hi to everyone she meets, rather than walking nicely next to me. But she actually did quite well. I think she'd gotten back into the "class mode" by then, since it was after the down-stay for a minute and a half on the 20 foot lead. The test lady was very complimentary of her "down-stay," too, and said I did a good job! She was surprised at how young Betsy is. She's about nine months old, now.

All in all, Betsy did great, especially since she was much more of a mind-set to play with all the dogs who were testing, rather than actually do her test. Kaily's mom and I let them play together for a treat after the test. And, I got her a big special treat and a new collar for a reward. (She's now outgrown the "medium" size, and is now on "large.") I think I'll see when they start the agility class this summer. Both the test lady and another lady said I should think about it. They're doing that one in the park. Betsy'd love it! It's like being rewarded for playing.

The Perfect Puppy

2008-03-29T17:42:00.004-06:00

It never ceases to amaze me how lucky I was to have picked such a perfect puppy. I must admit, I was frightened the first few weeks that I would not be able to handle such a bundle of energy. I actually picked her because she seemed so calm in relation to the other puppies who were whining and barking and jumping on the fence at the pound. She just sat quietly in the back of the group with her head cocked to one side. Now I know that this is her response to anything she's unsure of. Any strange sound or smell or anything she can't immediately determine whether to be frightened of she responds to by sitting. Her natural inclination generally is to play with anything or anyone available. She loves to fetch and any kind of tug game. She usually lets me win at tug. I can tell when she's not pulling as hard as she can, because she's quite strong and I wouldn't stand a chance! I think she lets me win partly because she is always mindful that I am the top dog, and partly because if I win I throw the thing for her to chase. We've never had a battle of wills, and she has never questioned that I am in charge. And, if I am not available for a game, she's quite content with chewing toys or shaking them or simply running laps around the house. She loves big floppy toys to shake. I've figured out why she de-stuffs all her stuffed toys. She doesn't eat the fluff, it's just easier to make the thing flop satisfactorily without stuffing.

She definitely has Aussie characteristics. I've even seen her doing the "Aussie stare" and creeping up on her toys at a crouch. She guards her "pack" against outsiders as well. She's usually very quiet, but she has two barks she does. One is a warning growl-bark to "intruders" (usually either her own reflection or Adagio coming in the dog-door while we are together in the other room). The other is a kind of barking howl. It's an alert to me that something is occurring. Usually, it's someone at the door or the neighborhood dogs are barking for some reason.

She's also much more into cuddling than Bo ever was. She follows me around the house and loves to curl up on the couch with me. And once the required face-licking is concluded, she'll usually fall asleep there. She really is the sweetest little dog. She definitely needs a buddy, though. She'll be more comfortable with a slightly bigger "pack" (or flock?) to look after. She'd also like to have someone to cuddle and play with when I'm busy but she wants to stay inside with me instead of going outside to find Adagio. But I do wonder if I'm going to be able to find a beastie as perfect as Betsy?

On Spring and Things

2008-03-25T18:58:00.005-06:00

I really have nothing substantive to report, but I'm in a really good mood. Maybe it's because of spring being nearly here. My socks of the every-other-month club yarn arrived, just when I had completely given up on them, and it is so pretty. And the pattern is pretty, too, but apparently very shiny. I am unable to get a picture of the pattern, and instead end up with a big glare. But it's a kind of zig-zaggy lace-type thing. I think the official name for the pattern is something like wandering vines, or ivy, or something. Whatever it's called, it looks very fun. I'll have to cast it on tonight.

I also got an email from my violin teacher that she wants me to play in a chamber group this summer. (To have performances where people have to buy tickets and everything!) I have been kind of in doldrums with orchestra lately, as we haven't played any "real" music since last summer. (I don't consider snippets of great orchestral works with silly words added to be real music.) This chamber music thing should be a blast. I know my violin teacher will pick good stuff to play.

I've also been watching chick flicks. Though not actual chick-flicks, my sister tells me, because none of them star Hugh Grant. More like Much Ado About Nothing and Pride and Prejudice. I think it must be my sister's fault anyway, as she's the one getting married, and getting me into this mood. It's fun and non-think-y, anyway. Just the thing for spring.

Betsy's doing splendid. She loves the warm weather, and we've been taking many more walks than we did when it was cold. I've got her on one of those no-pull harness things to try to convince her that we'll get there eventually, she doesn't need to pull me along like a horse-and-cart. She's in her class now for the Canine Good Citizen test, so she might one day get to have a title! Although I'm not sure whether the AKC gives official titles to mutts. It really doesn't make that big a difference to me, and I'm sure she could not care less. She just likes class. She made another friend, by the way. A highly peppy and playful 3-year-old Golden Retriever named Reggie. They get on great!

I was in such a good mood today that I went by the pet store and saw the cutest little 8 week-old Corgi, and was reminded that Betsy would love a buddy in a little while. But I'm certainly not going to pay $600, and Betsy's not quite ready yet: she's a little over 8 months old. (For you dog people out there, no, I don't know which kind of Corgi: it was the kind with a little tail stub.) I think I'll wait until Betsy does not want to eat everything anymore. When she's over a year, I'll start hitting the pound again. But she definitely should have a buddy of her very own. One that is allowed in my house, and isn't told to "go home" when I come back from work. I'll probably get another puppy, to ease the fitting-in process. Besides, she loves puppies. When there's a puppy at PetCo (where class is) she whines and whines, and wants to make friends.

The only really entertaining work news is that I got another competency guy. I've had this one before. Last time, he was a butterfly and Jesus Christ. (I'm not sure how the two mesh, but there you go.) This time, he needs his bail lowered because he is Medieval. An angel told him he wasn't very evil, just Medieval. He wanted to know why the judge couldn't set him bail commensurate with being only Medieval. (I suggested privately to the judge afterward that he set 3 chickens and a sheep for bail, which would have worked out fine, since he can post that. Ten percent would be like a part of a chicken, right?) Also, two of my competency guys are now cell mates. The good news is that they keep each other company, and both get along with each other, and neither are subjected to the mean-ness of the other inmates. The bad news (for me, anyway) is that they have a phone in the cell with unlimited legal calls, so they pass the phone back and forth to take turns talking to me indefinitely. Both are somewhat paranoid and need constant reassurance, and one has extremely poor memory as a result of traumatic brain injury. You would not believe how circular a conversation can be with these two guys! Especially when the guy not on the phone with me keeps shouting reminders for the other one to tell me stuff that he already told me. I still like them, though. They're a whole lot better clients than some of my "normal" ones!

The Woes of Treatment Court

2008-03-20T19:09:00.004-06:00

I blogged some time ago about the mental health court a judge was intending to start. Well, it has been started, more or less. The basic premise of the thing (contrary to my suggestion) is to make the mental health court a "special condition" of probation, similar to drug court. The participants are required to come to court weekly, attend individual and group counseling sessions throughout the week, show proof of taking medication as prescribed, do community service or keep a job if able to, and take drug tests. Initially, they are required to see a psychiatrist who would (hopefully) prescribe medication and/or adjust it as needed. As we initially had no (read "zero") funding from any source for this program, we began with five participants. Of the five participants, three were "non compliant" with the program. Two went to a 28 day drug treatment facility, and one disappeared before he actually began the program and is pending probation violation procedures.

Now, warning bells should go off. If 60% of the participants cannot "make it" in this program, there is either something wrong with the screening process to admit them into the program, or something wrong with the program itself. There are a couple reasons I see for what is going on. First, the most successful of those in the program (the 2 who both showed up and didn't end up in drug treatment) have traumatic brain injury, as opposed to an illness related to brain chemistry such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, which can be treated with medication. The only reason the two of them could not make it in regular probation is that they have memory and cognitive problems and just cannot process how to show up once a month at probation. These people do not need their medications monitored, etc. Further more, we (the committee) had decided at the beginning that a mental health court would not be of assistance to people with such a disability. They probably could make it through the program fine, but the program would not help them.

The people the program is intended to help are those other three people, two of whom are bipolar and one is schizophrenic. They get into trouble because they either self-medicate (usually with meth), or steal (for the thrill when they're manic, because they believe the things to be theirs, or because they can't hold a job due to their disability), or both. So, the program intended to help the mentally ill get back on track with their meds and housing and SSI is turning out to be simply drug court with extra conditions. The irony is that the service provider is the same as for drug court. My question: Why not just put them in drug court, since that's what's happening anyway? The personnel involved are exactly the same, it's just the participants that are different. This way, the federal grant we just got can be used for a diversionary type of program, which is much more acutely needed anyway.

Here's what I think a mental health court should look like: When a criminal defendant is transferred to district court "on competency," they might be referred to mental health court, especially if they are only facing charges for resisting an officer or battery on an officer. (Many of my competency clients have the police called on them because they are acting strange or creeping people out, the cops show up and they freak out.) If it is decided that such a defendant would be fine if properly treated, they would start the program. Their criminal case would be dismissed without prejudice. They would get a caseworker (which we do have available) to help them apply for SSI and set up housing. They would see a doctor to give prescriptions and monitor the meds and check in with someone to be sure they're on their meds. They would only have to give drug tests after they're meds are fully adjusted and have been allowed to take effect (say a couple or 3 months). Only then would they be punished for using meth or other drugs. The program would last 6 months to a year, and if they completed, their criminal case would remain dismissed. If not, it would be refiled, and we would deal with the competency issue at that point. The incentive to the client would be that they wouldn't have to sit in jail for 3 to 9 months waiting for evaluations or risk a 9 month trip to the state hospital to be treated to competence. (i.e. forcefully medicated) (Note: SSI is discontinued if a person is incarcerated for more than 30 days. Thus, if they had SSI before their arrest, they no longer have it when they're finally released.) The incentive for everyone else would be that we would save the county money by not having them in jail, we would save the state money by not sending them to the hospital, and (with any luck) we would help them break the cycle of committing new crimes as soon as they get released from jail on the old ones. If a defendant is found incompetent, the cases are ultimately dismissed anyway, except for the most heinous.

I mean, it makes no sense for my little competency guys to keep getting arrested, their cases (mostly misdemeanors, property crimes, or tangling with police or jail guards) dismissed once they're found incompetent, released from jail, then arrested again for the same or similar charges with no treatment in the interim. The best example I have of this is my guy that steals cars. He's clearly schizophrenic: he has auditory hallucinations (apparently quite a benevolent person, as my guy laughs a lot when listening to the voice). His cases (he stole 2 cars the same day) got dismissed when he was found incompetent and not dangerous (mandated by statute). Six hours after his release from jail, he stole another car, led the cops on a chase, and returned the car to the police parking lot. He also was arrested for the charge of "pedestrians in roadway," because he was apparently caught when whe was walking down the middle of the road, talking to his invisible friend after dumping the car. He has not been on meds since 2004, when he was committed to the state hospital. Now, there are two solutions to this: Either we can get the cops to quit arresting him no matter how many cars he steals, or we can give him an incentive to take his meds, and adjust them if they make him too listless (his problem with taking them is he doesn't like being sleepy all the time.)

Here's my main point (finally). We don't need "drug court plus" (as I've taken to calling it). We need some way to help my guy with the car problem to stay on his meds so he will quit stealing cars!

End of sermon.

The Show Must Go On

2008-03-13T18:29:00.003-06:00

It has always worked this way: I'll go months without having any trials, or even any trials set, and then suddenly, I have tons! By this time tomorrow, I will have had three trials in two weeks. The way our judges calendar things, usually about one in three trials set actually "go," so you do the math. In addition to being in court constantly, I have three of the neediest clients in the office. They're really sweet, and very incompetent, but they tend to leave about ten messages a day on my voicemail, each. And when they happen to catch me in the office, I'm on the phone with them for a half hour. This is when "Evercom," the jail phone system, cuts them off. Usually, when a client is on the phone with me for that long, I can do something else, while still following what they are saying. But with them, it takes all my focus to figure out what they are talking about.

For example, one of them told me today that his mother is a blackmailer. I'm quite sure he's got no clue what the word means, but I finally figured out what he meant by it. He thinks his mother is preventing him from "being a man" by paying his bills and taking care of his trailer. He just doesn't want to be taken care of in this fashion, because he is a grown-up. His schizophrenia apparently only started manifesting a year or two ago, and he has not figured out that he is just not like everyone else. He wants to work and to drive and to pay his own bills, thank you very much! The problem arises when he comes into contact with law enforcement and ends up in jail because he's scared of them, calls them terrorists, and fights with them. It's hard to hold down a job when you're in jail that often!

Meanwhile, I have been having last-minute plea hearings, trials where the client doesn't show up, trials that get continued at the last minute, and actual trials. My trials actually haven't been that crazy. No interpreters going on strike, or ADAs going completely crazy during closings, or anything. My one last Wednesday was fairly straight forward: possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. (Here, that carries up to 9 years, plus any habitual offender time.) It looked like it would be a decent case, at first. My guy was the driver and only occupant in a car, registered to someone else, and in a fanny pack on the floor was 27 grams of meth, scales, empty baggies, syringes, etc. In addition, there was a purse with a glass pipe. No identifying documents were found in either. (My guy and the registered owner of the car were both male, and thus unlikely to be caught dead with a purse!) My guy had an empty plastic baggie in his pocket, that was not tested for the presence of controlled substances. (He was arrested for misdemeanor DWI, and pulled over for expired tags.) The problem was that the baggie in his pocket had a "brand" on it: a symbol usually used to distinguish a particular dealer. Empty baggies in the bag with the 27 grams of meth had the same symbol. Surprise! I kept the jury out for a couple hours debating it, though! And we have a couple appeal-able issues.

My trial this past Tuesday was just confusing. It was an embezzlement case, where my client was alleged to have stolen $1000 dollars from the deposit at her job in a convenience store. I have never heard of a place that handles cash with such shoddy cash control policies! (And I have worked at several.) No one double-counts the money! Ever! Not the registers, and not the daily deposits. Once the "drawers" (registers) have over a certain amount, they are totaled, balanced, and the money is put in a cash bag, and dropped into a safe. Every morning, the prior day's cash bags are re-counted, totaled, and entered into a computer manually by a manager (in this case, my client). Later in the morning, the same person who did the computer entries re-counts the money, prepares a deposit slip for the bank, and takes it to the bank. The sum total of the State's case against my client was that the computer entry for a particular day's total exceeded the same day's deposit slip total by $1000, and my client was the one to do the deposit that day. The other manager testified that there had "never" been a disparity between the computer print-out and the deposit slip before. And that my client had worked there a year. Now, if I were going to embezzle money, I certainly wouldn't start with $1000! And I would certainly not do it in such an obvious way, when I was the one creating the disparity between the amount of money deposited and what the computer print-out says that I should deposit, when I controlled what the computer said! It makes no sense! The jury came back after an hour with a whole list of questions: Was there a camera on the drop box (no), who had access to the key for the drop box (everyone) what are the cash control procedures, etc. Twenty minutes later, they came back guilty, but with three or four jurors looking seriously disgruntled. I have never seen jurors look so angry coming back with a verdict before! A couple, especially, looked extremely irate. Anyway, very strange. And for once, likely to get overturned on "sufficiency of evidence," since there was nothing more than a manually entered computer total to show the extra $1000 ever existed!

Anyway, this is quite long enough, and I have trial again tomorrow: possession of meth again. My guy's girlfriend says it was hers. Great if they believe her. Horrible if they don't, since my guy's looking at the possibility of 8 years of mandatory habitual offender time if they convict. Well, the show must go on!

A Return to the Normal (more or less)

2008-02-28T18:02:00.003-07:00

Betsy got her stitches out today. Woohoo! She has now been released by the vet to "go out and play" in any fashion she sees fit. So, she celebrated our return from the vets by running laps around both my yard and the next-door-neighbor's yard, with Adagio close on her heels. She was ecstatic! No more being locked in the house!

In other news, court has been very strange lately: We have more than one judge who do not care for the Rules of Criminal Procedure and have decided to make up their own, always to the detriment of our clients. One has decided that she may dismiss defense appeals that are trial de novo, due to failure to preserve issues in the lower court. The lower court is not a court of record, and thus you can't preserve issues anyway. Another has decided that she is able to revoke the probation of people who are not actually on probation anymore, but have been discharged. A third has decided that she does not like the various time limits outlined in the Code, and sets her own, frequently without telling anyone until her new time limits have expired. I have also been dealing with ADAs who seem to enjoy lecturing me about how to do my job, and how unethical it is for me to try to get my clients out of jail. I don't think all these people realize that what they are doing is only motivating me to fight harder in court: a motivation that has been ebbing of late.

I also have a whole pack of competency clients. These cases for some reason seem to come in waves. I love my competency clients. They are (mostly) really sweet and lost. And more than one of them seem to have a crush on me. Normally, something I'm not wild about, but in them, it's quite poignant. After all, how many people have they ever had try to help them in their lives? And it just makes me angry that some police officers seem to just follow them around waiting for them to get afraid and violent. I have one poor guy who was charged with filing a false report. Honestly! The guy is so delusional, they had to have been able to figure something was not right when they took the report. He called me all upset and afraid today because the judge made him "stand in the oaths and give up his rights and his lefts!" Even the not so sweet ones I don't mind. I find I have the patience to listen to their convoluted stories and reassure them and call their mamas and girlfriends. A strange thing of late. Even the guy who wants to kill me because I "raised his incompetence" I have patience with. After all, it's not his fault. No one wants to be thought of as either crazy or stupid. (Though I'm careful to not to say the words "incompetent" or "evaluation" in his presence. I was quite angry when the ADA brought it up when there was no need.)

And, I can look forward to six trials set for next week, with no idea at this point which may be going and which not.

So, things seem to be returning to normal. As normal as they ever get around here, anyway.

Under the Knife

2008-02-22T11:17:00.003-07:00

Betsy had her surgery yesterday, so she is now spayed and micro-chipped! She gets her stitches out next week, and after that, no more vet visits for a whole year! The surgery went great, and today she was her usual cheerful self. Last evening, she was fairly out of it, and confused. She slept from the time I got off work and picked her up at the vets, until morning. I stayed home with her today, except for a witness interview at the DA's office, so I could keep an eye on her. But she's back to her playful normalcy. She even tried to play with Adagio, but I couldn't let that happen. She's supposed to be "taking it easy" for a week. (Fat chance!) While she hasn't been chewing her stitches yet, she has been scratching them with her hind legs. I, at least temporarily, solved the problem by putting her in an old t-shirt of mine and tying the slack in a knot in the middle of her back. She hasn't managed to get it off yet, but she was playing with it for a while. At least it distracted her from the suture line!

Below, she is modeling the shirt, and being trained to "leave" the shirt alone!

Betsy Update

2008-02-17T14:28:00.005-07:00

****Update****
Adagio, the next door dog, has returned! Apparently she was recuperating from being spayed, as there is a shaved patch on her tummy. But no stitches, and she looks fine, so she and Betsy celebrated by having a boistrous play.

****Original Post****

So, Betsy is still growing like the proverbial weed. We went to the vet's last week for her pre-spay blood work, and she now weighs a whopping 40.7 lbs. It actually made me kind of nostalgic. The first time I took her to the vets, she was 8 weeks old, weighed just over 13 pounds, and was so frightened that all she would do was sit straight up on my knee and watch the people and animals come and go. I could pick her up with one hand easily. This time, she's 7 months old, over 40 pounds, and wanted to play with everyone who came by, whether they had 2 legs or four (including a pretty calico cat). This wasn't at all to the liking of the minute boxer puppy, who was plainly terrified of the entire situation, even without the rambunctious Betsy play-bowing and yapping, and doing everything in her power to make the boxer forget her fear and have a fun romp. This seems to be Betsy's solution to every problem. When I had the flu, she decided that what I really needed was a fun play time. So, she licked my face, nibbled on my ears, and pawed at me. I reacted similarly to the boxer puppy, and tried to get across that play was not needed at that point.

Betsy's also maturing. She doesn't jump on strangers anymore (mostly) and she's figured out what she is allowed to play with and what she's not. (Of course, she sometimes takes things that are not hers in attempts to start a game with me, or simply to see how far she can get away with something.) She has also started exhibiting some guard-dog characteristics. However, at this point, she seems mainly interested in guarding against reflections in the glass door and dogs on t.v. It's really quite funny to hear her with her growling and warning-bark and her nose pressed against the glass door to the entertainment center waiting for the "other" dog to make a move. She also guarded me against someone that had been in the house for a couple hours, but she had apparently forgotten he was there. It was hilarious. She greeted him at the door like a long-lost pack member, and then 2 hours later didn't know who he was.

She's also finished her six week obedience class (the grown-up one), and I think I'll put her into the next one, too. That's the one where at the end of it she gets to take her test to get the first AKC obedience degree. (I forget what it's called). She loves class so much, and she's got a special play buddy, Kaily who's going to take the next class too. Kaily's at least as much a mutt as Betsy is. She looks like a coyote. They're such good buds that Kaily's mom and I traded phone numbers so we can set up play dates for them. Kaily loves playing even more than Betsy, and doesn't have much of an opportunity. She's driving her mom quite crazy and is becoming fairly destructive, apparently. And now that Betsy's next door buddy has disappeared, she needs to expend some energy as well!

Snow Day, Take Forty-Four

2008-02-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

Well, not really forty-four, but that's what it seems like. You know, I never thought I'd get tired of having spontaneous days off work. But even I have to admit, this is getting old. You get all in gear to go to work in the morning, have planned the courts you need to be at, and the office work you're going to do, and suddenly you can't. Unless, that is, you feel like playing bumper cars with people who have no clue how to operate a vehicle in the snow. And then, you spend the rest of the week trying to catch up!

I compensated this morning by joining a "sock-of-the-month" club. Well, actually the sock of the every-other-month club, since I know I can't knit a pair every month! We'll see how it goes. (You can cancel any time.)

I believe I have now given up on trying to guess Betsy's ancestry. I even watched the Eukenuba National Championship dog show to try to figure it out. (And also because I like to watch dog shows.) She's still got mosly the coloring of a Rottweiler (her head's turning black again, like it started out), but she's much fluffier than either a Rott or German Shepherd. Her outer hair's coarse like a Rott, but a little curly, and she's got a double coat. So, she's pretty much her very own breed. I did figure out one thing from the dog show: The next door dog, Adagio, is almost certainly a Flat-Coated Retriever. Betsy's much more of a cold-weather dog than I would have thought. Her latest thing is flopping down in the snow, and then eating all the snow in reach, and then picking a new spot to lie down.

Super Sunday

2008-02-03T12:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Super Sunday to everyone! For those of you who do not know, I am a football person. I've watched football on t.v. for almost as long as I can remember, not really caring who won at all. When I was in elementary school, I pulled for the team with pretty uniforms, and in middle school I pulled for the team with the cutest quarterback. (Joe Montana was still playing then, so I rooted for the 49ers.) I tend not to make a big deal about the Superbowl, because "my" team never is in it. But today, I have wings in the crock pot and friends on the way.

Also, it's snowing again, so I'm content to knit my throw, (see below), watch football, possibly with a fire in the fireplace, and stay inside. If it turns out to be too much of a blow-out, we can always switch to the puppy bowl. Betsy will love it. Below, she is watching animal planet.

Snow Day, Take Two

2008-01-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

And it's snowing again! Usually, we only get one good snow fall a year, with a couple of additional dustings. On our last snow day, we had six inches by the time it was through, and that was unusual enough. But today, it looks like we're going to have that much again. There are about three inches on the ground now, and it's overcast, which means here that there will probably be more. There does seem to be a temporary lull in the snowfall now, though. Maybe I will be able to make it in to the office this afternoon. It's fairly strange: I was kind of looking forward to going in today. I don't have hearings scheduled (they were cancelled anyway) so I was going to do some trial prep and write some suppression motions that have been waiting for weeks for me to get to. I even put some stuff in the crock pot to be ready when I got home! But alas, the best laid plans of mice and men do something or other, and since all the schools and courts and everything else are closed, I know there will be no plowing of the roads. Thus, here I sit.

It's weird for me to not go somewhere due to snow. Where I come from a few inches of the white stuff isn't unusual, and we carry on. Places don't usually close unless there are at least 8 inches on the ground, or an ice storm. But in places like that, they actually plow the roads as the snow falls, rather than waiting until the next day like they seem to do here. Thus, again, here I sit.

At least Betsy's enjoying herself. She's curled up under my desk chewing a Nylabone sleepily after playing with the snow for the past 2 1/2 hours. I believe she was trying to eat all the snow in the yard. Her buddy's inside still, so she made do by herself. She's quite good at entertaining herself, so she chased snowflakes, dug holes in the snow, unearthed ice chunks to eat, and for some reason started snorting snow up her nose. On purpose! But now, she's nearly asleep after the excitement.

(Betsy in repose below. It's rare, so I figured I'd best capture it!)

So now, I just have to think of something to do with myself all day. (It's snowing very hard now, so I don't think I'll be able to make it to work, or anywhere else, for that matter.) I actually cleaned house last weekend, and I don't need to do laundry. I don't even have any knitting to occupy me. I finished my last project: My first experiment with "stranded" knitting. Not stranded like on a deserted island, stranded like with different strands of yarn. I do have a lace scarf that I'm about half finished with, but Betsy stole it and I need to fix it. Fortunately, I rescued it before it was demolished, but I will need to pick out a fair number of rows due to dropped stitches. That's just too picky for me right now. What I really want is the yarn and needles for my next project to arrive. I order online a lot, because the yarn selection around town is quite limited, especially if you're doing a big project. I'm going to make this throw in a dark reddish brown color. Ten balls of a gorgeous alpaca blend. Super bulky! (Translation: thick and fluffy and very soft yarn)

I seem to have written a lot, so I think I'll go make oatmeal for breakfast.

On Puppies and Snow

2008-01-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

I am not what you'd call a cold weather person. I live in a desert, after all. I dislike winter and cold weather, and I tend to dislike snow as well. It's cold and wet, and it is usually accompanied by clouds. I need my sunshine! However, I will grudgingly admit that today, I like it. It means that although I did have to go to court this morning, I'm not about to drive accross the county to the office, since the roads have not been touched by plow, sand, or salt, and it's snowed about 2 inches in the last hour. It was all I could do to make it home. I'm also liking the snow because it's the first real snow Betsy's seen in her short life. She loves it. She tries to pick it up in her mouth and play with it, but of course this does not work well. She also periodically looks up into the sky as if to find the source of this strange form of precipitation. But the most fun seems to be just playing with her buddy from next door in it. Partly because her buddy seems to be more clumsy than she does and keeps falling down. This makes her easier than ever to catch!

P.S. In case you're wondering, Betsy's the one with the brown legs, and both she and Adagio have Betsy's tail in their mouths. If you look closely, you can see Betsy's face peeking out from between Adagio's head and her own rump.

Musings on Time

2008-01-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

And so, 2007 is gone and 2008 is ahead. I realize that many people make resolutions to do better for the following year. For some reason, I've never been one to set personal goals like this. I mean I can think of things about myself that I would like to improve upon. But it has never made sense to me to wait until New Year's Day to set about improving upon them. To me, a person's life journey is just that: A journey. One goes along and makes decisions as they come up about who one is and what one does, and these decisions rarely, if ever, coincide with a date on a calendar. Many people also seem to like to look over the past year and evaluate it in some way. I tend not to do this either. The past year hasn't been one I particularly enjoyed, although I did enjoy some things that happened. But why would one evaluate a year? There were some things that happened this year that I will remember forever because they either brought me joy or sadness, and there is nothing wrong with remembering such things. They form a part of who I am and who I will be in years to come. But what is the purpose of an evaluation of a year? As in a good year, or a bad year, or the year when some event happened, or the year of the ______? A year cannot be summed up and evaluated like a test, just like a person or place cannot.

My faithful dog, Bo, died in 2007. That was sad, but that does not mean that 2007 was sad. I also got my first ever puppy, and am learning how to raise her. That is fun, but that doesn't mean that 2007 was a "fun year." I started knitting and playing my violin again this year. And these things will probably be part of who I am and what I do for years to come. But this does not mean those things are the year.

I guess I tend to view years (and weeks and decades) much as I imagine Betsy would. I tend to ignore them. I live my life as it comes: taking pleasure in things of the moment that are pleasurable to me and sorrowing for losses that occur when they occur. I don't feel the need to analyze things that have been, or strategize about things that have yet to occur. The things that have happened, both good and bad, are past. I will remember them, but not dwell on them. The things that have not yet happened, may never happen. But when they do, either good or bad, I will deal with them when they occur, and either enjoy them or not. There is no point to worrying about them until then.

Time is a strange thing. It is moving and constant, but it does not seem constant. Over Time, we have no control. It controls us, in some respects, but we do not need to be enslaved to it. We cannot turn back the clock or move it forward. But why does that matter? Why should we want to? We should see Time as a puppy sees it: It affects us, but it is irrelevant to who we are.

And with that, puppy pictures! See how time flies for a puppy. It is the same toy that she has in both pictures, by the way, so you can see how big she is now. And yes, she de-stuffed her stuffed toy, and that's what all the white fluff in the second picture is about.

Then:

And Now:

And So It Goes

2007-12-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

And so, the holidays have come and gone, and now it's back to the same old grind. Which actually isn't too bad, when I think about it. I got several clients out of jail over the holidays (we only get Christmas Day and New Years Day off), and only one of them has managed to land himself back in jail. While it's not a record for our office, it's fairly unusual for a client to get arrested on new charges less than six hours after being released. It really was kind of silly for the cops to arrest him, as the reason he was released in the first place was that his cases were dismissed due to him being incompetent to stand trial. I doubt that fact changed in the course of six hours. At least the old evaluation is still good, since it's been taking forever to get them done lately.

Betsy is growing like a weed, of course. She's still really cute, and I think she will always be playful. She and the next-door dog (Adagio is her name) are still getting on famously. I was a little concerned initially that once Betsy got older and bigger there may be a problem. Betsy's now nearly six months old, and nearing the rebellious teenage phase. She's also about as large (in dimensions) as Adagio is, but still lighter. But apparently, Adagio's perfectly fine with Betsy being the leader of the two. She's got no problem when Betsy places her forefeet across her back, and when Betsy wants to be mothered by me, Adagio backs off. There were a couple of teeth-baring incidents, but no actual fighting. Adagio must be some sort of retriever, so as long as she gets attention and play, she's happy. I unfortunately have no more pictures of this funny pair, as I lost my camera somewhere in Oklahoma over Thanksgiving.

I still can't believe how good Betsy was for our drive across the country for Thanksgiving. She slept the whole way, and was even good in J's apartment. She would have liked more space to run around in, but we had lots of walks and she got to meet geese for the first time. She was fascinated by them, but wished they were in a more compact group, and kept trying to get them rounded up. It was really unfair that they could just fly away.

Well, that is pretty much all the excitement to report. I will probably talk myself into getting a new camera before too much longer.

Until then, so it goes.

Best Friends

2007-11-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

Betsy has been going over to the next-door neighbors to play with their dogs while I'm at work for some time now. One, in particular, she is inseparable from. This dog is probably about a year old, and looks like a small-ish golden retriever, except that she is completely black. She's a very sweet dog, too. So the time has now come that the neighbor dog has discovered how to come to my yard. She has also learned how to come in the doggie door, as well. After several attempts to fill up the hole under the fence and take her back home only to have her come back five minutes later, I figure I'd let her stay if she wants to. She can get back through the hole under the fence, and when I separate her from Betsy she goes back home. And it is really a lot of fun to watch them play together. They romp about and chew on eachother, and then curl up and go to sleep together.

I kind of feel sorry for the neighbor dog. Her big buddy got picked up by animal control a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't seen him since. (He can leap the 5 foot fence.) I told the neighbors the pound had him, but they apparently didn't get him. And the retriever-looking one doesn't have much to do with their minute chihuahua cross. Her family doesn't seem to spend much time with her either. All their dogs are always outside, and their kids don't even seem to play with them much. They didn't even come looking for her when she's been at my house most of the past 3 days. (She goes home at night.) So really, who can blame her for wanting to come by and play with Betsy and me? There's water, and a nice cool kitchen floor to sleep on, and friends to play with. I wonder why some people have dogs who don't seem to want to spend any time with them?

And this dog and Betsy really are best buds. They follow eachother around and whine for eachother when they're separated. Although before too much longer, Betsy will not be so easy to push around. She's already trickier than the neighbor dog. They were wrestling around together, and Betsy was getting her butt kicked. So she runs away and grabs a stick to chew. When the other dog lays off and isn't paying attention, Betsy jumps her and has her on her back. The other dog makes for the stick, but during a moment's inattention, Betsy grabs it from her again. The stick remains Betsy's.

On Civil Obedience (or Betsy's First Day of School)

2007-11-10T14:57:00.001-07:00

So, in my effort to raise Betsy in a manner which will result in her being a well-mannered, civilized beast, rather than a wild pack animal who is unwelcome in modern society, I signed her up for obedience class. Her first class was Tuesday. I must admit, I was nervous. I'd never been to obedience class before, and we had to miss the first class due to my being in training. She's gotten quite used to meeting new people, so I wasn't worried about that, but she's pretty shy of new dogs. But I should not have worried at all. She was great! After about ten minutes of "meet and greet," she became friends with a Saint Bernard puppy named Sarah. Sarah is two weeks younger than Betsy, but weighs about three times as much. They were really funny together. When both puppies had done the given exercise to the point they were becoming disinterested in it, we let them play together. I could almost hear their puppy conversation when they discovered these two hyper-active Chihuahua puppies, who were about the size of hairless, tailless squirrels, and Sarah and Betsy didn't know exactly what to do about them. So they watched them with cocked heads. Their conversation went something like this:

Betsy: What do you think those are?
Sarah: I'm not sure, do you think they play?
Betsy: I'm going to check and see. (Betsy approaches one of the Chihuahuas cautiously, sniffing and wagging. The Chihuahua squeaks and runs away, and the other one yaps in Betsy's face. Betsy runs back to Sarah.)
Betsy: I'm still not sure what they are, but they aren't fun to play with.
Sarah: Maybe they are mice?
Betsy: No, too noisy.
Sarah: Oh well.

Betsy did really well with her training exercises, too. She responded to her name, she sat and stayed really well (we'd been working on that at home) and she "left it" with much more predictability than I expected her to. She's also been better behaved at home since class. She almost always gets "off" the first time I tell her to, even though we didn't learn that at class, and it's been nearly two weeks since she's had an accident in the house. She also has been better about chasing and biting my clothing and jumping up on me. But part of that might be the time she spends next door playing with the neighbor dogs. I think at this point I may go ahead and leave the hole under the fence so she can go back and forth. The neighbor won't mind since if I block that hole, Betsy will dig another one, and they're fine with her being over there. It also gives her something to do when I'm at work and she's not so lonely all day alone. The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning toward getting her a buddy once she gets a little older. I'll wait until she's done with teething and house training for sure. Maybe when she turns one or so.

My Week in a Nutshell (More or Less)

2007-10-27T17:37:00.001-06:00

Things have been quite busy here, so I've been unable to blog about them. We had our orchestra concert last night. It actually didn't go as badly as I thought it would. And that Puccini mass is really quite pretty. It made me wish our conductor was a little more experience, and more able to give cues as to dynamics and such, rather than just the beat. I was a little miffed that the program didn't say I was the "section leader," but I'm sure my ego can take it!

Work has been quite strange. I seem to have my caseload pretty under control (for once). We now have fifteen licensed attorneys and I only have about seventy-five active cases. That's fewer than I can remember ever having. I still am quite busy, though. I've got three mentees now, in addition to random other people coming into my office and asking me questions. One of my mentees is getting her first felony cases, so of course she has all kinds of questions since she is no longer dealing with only dwi's and domestic violence cases. Another of my mentees seems to have two hours worth of questions every day. The strange thing is that most of her questions are repeats. So I'm not sure if she really needs help or if she just wants to chat. Because if she really needs that much help, she has the shortest attention span of anyone I know. But if she just wants to talk to me about the same cases into eternity, I really am not that interested, and have work I could be doing on my own cases. The third, I haven't figured out yet. She's actually not my mentee, she's my boss'. I don't think he realizes that even though she did graduate from an ivy-league college and practiced civil law for 2 years, it doesn't mean she understands criminal defense in New Mexico. He gave her felony cases right off the bat (a bad idea, in my opinion), and seems to expect her to know how to handle them without assistance. So, I go over all her cases with her and tell her what to expect, etc. But it is quite time consuming!

Another strangeness is that my boss seems to hold me responsible for whatever everyone else does. For example, an attorney (not my mentee) forgot to do something on one of her cases. She told the client about it, and appealed the case based on ineffective assistance. Apparently someone at the da's office did not like this, complained to their boss, who then complained to my boss. My boss then yells at me for about 20 minutes. How I came to be involved in this at all, I don't know. The gist of the conversation was that he didn't believe the attorney should have appealed (why not, I don't know) and that this makes our office look bad. I asked, "to whom," and he said to the da's! Who cares if our office looks bad to the da's? The attorney did nothing unethical or even wrong, and if the da's don't want us to appeal cases, that's their problem. And again, how is it me that he's yelling at?

Betsy's doing well. We went to the vets again for more shots, and she's up to 18 pounds now. She gained 5 pounds in 4 weeks, and is much bigger. Probably 1/3 taller and 2/3 longer than she was when I got her.

Potty-training is still improving. She goes 4 days to a week without accidents! Her genealogical makeup is still quite the mystery. My bf thinks she is part monkey, which I think might be right. She's got a prehensile tail and a knack for mischief. She's also quite the acrobat. She's a great jumper and escape artist. (I noticed this when she stole a hair-tie off the coffee table and then escaped when I went to retrieve it.) She can move! And sometimes she just runs around because it's fun. And then it's bed time...

I will really miss her when I have to go for annual training next week. (No puppies allowed at the hotel.) I was going to board her at the vets, but this shot was only the first bordatella vaccine, and she needs the second one before they'll take her. So she'll be staying with my secretary and her herd of cocker spaniels in the country. She'll like it. The secretary breeds cockers and so knows how to deal with puppies. She's going to fence Betsy away from the cockers during the day, because she's worried the cockers will pick on her. I think Betsy can hold her own with a cocker spaniel!

Oh, and I finished my tandem socks. I just need to re-bind them off because I bound off too tight.

On Law and Order

2007-10-12T18:10:00.000-06:00

So, I have a confession to make. I love the TV show "Law and Order." The original series, not the spin-offs like whatever that one's called where the detective solves all his cases by making the suspect quake with fear and blurt out confessions as a result of the detective's uncanny ability to read minds. And the older seasons. The first four or five. Not the ones where Sam Waterston's assistant is a different bimbo every season. Once Jill Hennessy and Chris Noth left, it was not nearly as good. So, I was trying to figure out why in the world a public defender, like myself, likes this show.

Even though the former Chief Public Defender informed my boss that she did not believe me to be "sufficiently defense oriented" to be a public defender at one point (whatever that means), I certainly am not prosecution oriented. I have too much of a tendency to believe the best in people, I think. You know, "He didn't mean to beat his girlfriend to a bloody pulp. He was drunk and she was cheating on him." Or, "He had to forge $15,000 in checks he stole from his grandmother because he's got 5 kids to support and couldn't make rent with his minimum-wage job." I believe them when they say they'll never do it again, or they'll get help for their addiction problem and walk the straight and narrow. At least I believe they sincerely intend to at the time, even if it doesn't pan out in the end. (By the way, this is also probably why I would be a lousy judge, even if I wanted the power or the responsibility.)

So why do I love this show that is all about the other side? I think I've figured it out. This is the only lawyer show I've seen that treats the justice system with respect. And, it treats public defenders with respect. It treats the law and the Constitution with respect. The detectives are good cops, who try to do their jobs properly, and within the bounds of the law. It's true they really want to catch the guy they think is guilty and "nail" them. But they don't try to nail someone they think may be innocent just to make an arrest. They actually do care about getting the right guy. The ADAs actually do care about justice, as well as the rights of the individuals they prosecute. They will dismiss cases if they become convinced that they can not prove them or if they are no longer sure the guy's actually guilty. Also, while there aren't frequently public defenders on the show (the defense attorney's usually some very expensive private attorney with political ambitions or some other agenda) when they do, they aren't depicted as incompetents. They are shown as competent, or even very good attorneys. There's at least one episode where the pd wins the trial.

My answer to myself is this: I like the show because it is what the justice system is supposed to be. An adversarial system on a level playing field whereby the truth comes out. And this results (usually) in the innocent guy being cleared and the guilty guy being punished. (Although for you new lawyers out there, don't use it to learn rules of evidence or trial techniques!)

A Puppy Update

2007-10-04T17:58:00.003-06:00

So, Betsy is now eleven weeks old. She's growing so fast! She's able to climb onto the furniture. She knows she's not supposed to, since she usually comes right down when I see that cute fuzz-ball curled up on the sofa. She's really getting the hang of potty-training now, as it has been two whole days without any accidents. She actually takes it upon herself to go through the doggie door when she has to go, and then come back in to continue the playing. I'm kind of surprised, since I'm sure I'm less vigilant than I'm supposed to be. I'm still glad that I held off getting the carpet cleaned, though, in spite of my mother's urging! (Bo had trouble keeping food down the last few months, and I had a flood before that.) She has also cut down on the biting. She will still try to mouth me occasionally, but she usually only bites when she's really tired and hyper. But this is getting less, too. I think she finally trusts that I will not disappear or leave her when she's asleep. She's also catching on that some things are toys for her, and others she'd better keep her sweet fuzzy nose away from! I guess eleven weeks is roughly equivalent to a two year old human. At least it seems that way to me. You know, refusing to sleep when they're tired and getting progressively more hyper and unmanageable, and constantly testing to see where the boundaries are. I've been making use of both a squirt-bottle and the "time-out" approaches, which seem to be working.

The more she grows, the more I'm quite sure that she's probably got a lot more Rott in her than anything else. I saw a book on rottweilers at the pet store, and the puppy on the front cover looks nearly exactly like her. Betsy has more fuzz and a little more brown on her head and face, but the rest of the markings are exact. Down to the black triangle in the brown under her chin. She's also got characteristics that I was attributing to either German or Australian shepherd, but that may very well be rottie ones. (I couldn't help buying the rottweiler book.) For example, I had no idea that rotts were as smart as they apparently are. Nor that the herding instinct (which is quite pronounced in her) was so common in rotts. (She runs laps around the house with her toys, and is very good at fetch.) I also had no idea that rotts were as playful as they are. She's got the playfulness down! Here, she's investigating my violin. The case is fortunately quite indestructible!

A Promotion!

2007-09-29T13:27:00.000-06:00

Well, not exactly a promotion, as I don't get paid. But I've been somehow voted principle second violin at our little community college orchestra. Which, I think, is good for everyone involved. Mainly because it doesn't seem like any of my fellow second violins have the ability to watch the conductor and play the music at the same time. I also have a rudimentary understanding of what are helpful bowings and fingerings. The main problem previously, though, had been the section had no leader. The prior principle would not figure out bowings, and he would not pass them back if he did. So we always looked discombobulated, even if we were playing things right. I took it upon myself to arrange a meeting with all the string section-leaders to come up with bowings that actually make sense. And we actually sounded pretty good at our last rehearsal! We're playing 2 masses with the chorus, one by Puccini, and the other an American (whose name I always forget) who simply loves to change time-signatures every other bar. Also, there's a guy who wants to start a string quartet. Fun!

Court Craziness

2007-09-28T17:38:00.000-06:00

So, my DWI trial for my deaf-mute client actually occurred yesterday. It was quite strange. First off, I was quite surprised when there appeared four interpreters to interpret the proceedings for him. (Too many cooks in the kitchen, anyone?) One of the interpreters had worked with him at all his prior proceedings, so I was comfortable that she would at least be able to communicate reasonably effectively with him. An additional issue my client has is that in addition to being deaf and mute, he does not read or write English. This is a problem, as a lot of sign-language has to do with spelling words where there is not an "official" sign for them. And obviously court proceedings have a lot of words without signs. (e.g. plead, witness, jury, testimony, etc.)

I knew this was going to be interesting when, before the trial even started, one of the interpreters expressed concern with my client's understanding of the proceedings. She told me she thought I should raise competency. She also expressed concern about interpreting for my guy's wife, who would be a witness, something about divided loyalties to the client. Now first of all, my client is not her client. Her client is the court, for which she is interpreting. (And I hate it when people uninvolved in the proceedings try to tell me how to handle my cases. Especially people who are not lawyers and who have known my client for about 3 minutes.) My second problem with this conversation was that there was no way I had a basis for raising competency, even had I wanted my guy to stay in jail another 6 months waiting for an evaluation. Now, the guy isn't a brain surgeon, but he had previously understood the basic concept of witnesses testifying, jurors making a decision about whether he was guilty or not guilty, and the roles of the prosecutor, the judge, and me. While he didn't necessarily know those terms, he could definitely grasp the concept once explained with terms he did know. He also had no problem assisting in his defense, as he had made it very clear that he was not driving, his wife was, and he was therefore not guilty of DWI. So, rather than taking the time prior to trial actually starting to help me explain to my client how things like picking a jury actually worked, they spent their time arguing with me about what my client did or did not understand and what I should do about it.

So, voir dire started without my being able to speak with my client at all. Then, in the middle of voir dire, it became clear that one of the interpreters could not use signs that my guy understood. So, rather than simply not using that one, the interpreters wanted to stop the proceedings to confer. The judge, of course, would not. So they had their conference after voir dire. I thought at that time that they were probably going to walk out. They were from an advocacy group for the deaf. Normally, in my opinion, a laudable thing. However, they seemed unable to grasp that their jobs as interpreters is to interpret, and not to advocate. That is my job. So rather than a conference to discuss a manner in which they could accurately convey what was occurring to my client, they apparently conferred about how they could yell at me for not getting the judge to dismiss the case. They kept trying to explain about the "bigger picture" and how I was violating my client's right to due process. Now, obviously the judge was not going to dismiss a case because the interpreters are unable to interpret. He might declare a mistrial, resulting in my client being in jail an extra 6 months waiting for retrial, which I don't want to have happen. He might also grant a continuance to allow the interpreters time to figure out how to interpret, again meaning my client is in jail longer.

So, as calmly as I could manage, I explained to them that if they wanted a continuance, they could ask, but I would not. The judge had made it clear to me that the trial was going to proceed, whether there were interpreters or not and whether they were effective or not. And that it was not my job to advocate for the deaf at large, it is my job to advocate for my client in his criminal case. It is also my job to get him out of jail as quickly as possible, and that would only happen if the trial occurred sooner, rather than later. So, no, I would not ask for a continuance, and I would not ask for a mistrial. If they wanted one, they could ask, but they would not do this. Given that, I told them that it would be better for my client if they got their heads together and figured out a way to interpret accurately, rather than how I should be handling the case. I mentioned that my clients due process rights would also be violated if his case kept being delayed due to ineffective interpreters who obviously had some other agenda, and that if they walked out there would be no interpreters, thus violating my client's rights even more.

Apparently, this was not an effective speech, as they actually did walk out after the first witness. They went on a rant to the judge about not having notice that my client is Navajo (which they did, as I had told his original interpreter before he even had his first appearance) and they would be violating their ethical code by interpreting in a way that my client did not understand. The judge threatened to throw them in jail for contempt if they left, and I reminded them that if they did leave, there would then be no interpreters at all, violating my client's rights even more. I almost wish the judge had gone ahead and thrown them in jail. Maybe that would have straightened them out on what their roles are as court interpreters!

In any case, we ended up getting my client's daughter to interpret, rather than having a mistrial and delaying the proceedings even more. She wasn't the greatest, but she did manage to convey enough of what was going on so my client was able to follow reasonably well, and the wife's testimony (who is also deaf) didn't go too badly, either. After all that, they ended up convicting my guy. According to the foreman, it was because my guy went into the drivers' seat to wait for his wife and daughter to get out of the Wal-Mart, rather than the passenger seat. Oh well. It's not like we don't have appealable issues in this one!

No, I Haven't Quit My Job

2007-09-23T14:07:00.000-06:00

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.

Observations on a Puppy

2007-09-22T13:20:00.000-06:00

So, never having actually had a puppy before, I'm finding it absolutely amazing just to watch Betsy grow and learn and discover the trials and joys of life. We're discovering each other, which is immensely fun! With help, I've narrowed down the breeds I think she's composed of. Australian shepherd is definitely in the mix, as is Rottweiler. Probably chow, as well. There's almost certainly nothing in there smaller than aussie, as her feet have come close to doubling in size in the three weeks I've had her. I took her to the vet's and she weighs thirteen pounds. Fairly good sized for a 9-week-old puppy, wouldn't you say?

She's also got quite the interesting personality. She's quite shy when being taken to new environments or being exposed to new people and dogs. But she does not run away, whine, bark, or bite when she is shy. She sits and watches. (A rott thing, I believe.) If she sits there long enough, and nothing extremely bad happens, she eventually gets up the courage to investigate things, usually by trying to eat them or play with them. (A puppy thing.) She was extremely good at the vet's. After her initial fear of the building itself, she only wanted to play with the vet. Even after having the shot and her temperature taken! She's also made friends with the dogs next door, all except an extremely ugly chihuahua mix, who tries to attack everything. She loves the labs, and tries to get them to play games with her through the chain-link fence. The younger lab will sometimes oblige, while the older one supervises, and disciplines the younger when he feel things are getting out of hand.

I also gave her a bath last weekend. She didn't care for the whole idea, but once her initial attempts at escape were foiled, she sat and took it. And then compensated by trying to get as dirty as possible immediately thereafter while giving me dirty looks.

She's also displaying distinctly aussie characteristics. She loves to hide her toys, and I have yet to find her cache. I think she's buried them. She herds me, as well as attempting to herd such things as ants, and she herds her toys as well. She collects the toys, and they must be within a certain distance of each other. She believes herself to be a mighty hunter. Her favorite toys are those at least twice as large as herself. There's this pillow that Bo used to sleep on that Betsy loves to pounce upon, shake, and drag about the house. It's at least three times her size. Weren't rotts cattle dogs at some point?

As with all puppies, once she has chased, played with, and chewed on all things she can locate, tried to behead them, and put them in her special spot, it's nap time!

A New Addition

2007-09-01T13:39:00.000-06:00

Everyone, meet Betsy!

She's about 6 or 8 weeks old, I think. German Shepherd mixed with at least one other breed. Maybe some rott. After a busy day of riding in a car, going to the pet supply store, and investigating my house, she's now sound asleep on my bathroom floor. How could anyone resist that face?

She was pretty shy at first, but after the initial shock, she started doing regular puppy things like playing with chew toys and stuff. It was impossible to get her to sit still for a picture, but after chasing her around with the camera for a half-hour, I got a couple decent ones. And she likes me, too. She's been following me around since we got here.

I've never had a puppy before, so I hope I do a good job with the training and stuff. She's obviously not potty-trained yet. She's been at the animal shelter her entire life. But I get the general idea, and bought a crate and everything. Bo never was trained to use a crate, so it seemed silly to start when he was 8 years old.

I'll say this, though: There's nothing that can cheer a person up better than a happy, boundy, fat-tummied puppy!

In Memorium

2007-08-29T20:40:00.002-06:00

Bo: November 1991-August 29, 2007

Loyal friend

Faithful guardian

May you be young and free

Be at peace

Forever.

On Prosecutors Who Shouldn't Be Prosecutors

2007-08-17T15:39:00.000-06:00

I've been wondering lately when some of the ADAs I work with are going to figure out how to do their jobs! There are a couple of young-ish ones who have absolutely no clue how to figure out the strength of their cases. Now, you may say I'm being unfair and that they will get the hang of it in a few years. They've both been at the DA's office for over two years now! When are they going to get it together? They don't even start looking for their civilian witnesses until the day before trial. They don't interview any of their witnesses at all. They just take it for granted that what is contained in the police report are the "facts" and those people on the computer-generated witness list will show up at trial and parrot what is in the report. Never mind that I've been telling them for months that their victim is out of town, has recanted, or whatever. You know it's bad when they call me to ask if I know where their own witnesses are!

Cases in point: I got a case a couple of weeks ago with an Aggravated Fleeing and receiving a stolen vehicle plus a mess of traffic violations. We go to the preliminary hearing and the ADA happily tells me that two officers had come to court and he was ready to proceed with the hearing. I tell the ADA that the officers clearly did not follow the procedures for a high-speed chase (an element of agg fleeeing) and that he had no one who could testify that the vehicle was in fact stolen, much less that my guy had any reason to know it was stolen, so my guy would plead to failure to pull over for the officer and the traffic tickets if he'd dismiss the felonies. The ADA then argued with me about whether the pursuit procedures had been followed, so I told him fine, we'd sort that out at trial, but for now, I'd be ok with waiving the prelim on the agg fleeing if he'd dismiss the receiving and release my guy on his own recognizance. No, he didn't want to do that either, as my guy has a host of prior felonies. So, after waiting another half-hour for the ADA to finally make his decision, we have the hearing. Why it took 3 hours to get to this point, I have no idea, but there we were. An hour and a half into the hearing I realize neither of the cops could even ID my client as the person driving the car! Apparently, the ADA hadn't even asked them before the hearing! The whole case then gets dismissed, and the ADA gets a lecture from the judge on preparedness.

Next case: We were set for trial today on a domestic violence case where the victim has both disappeared and recanted. She mailed both me and the ADA a letter months ago explaining that she had lied to the officer and my guy didn't touch her and if she were required to testify that he did, she would be committing perjury. The case drags on. Yesterday, the ADA calls me saying she was (just now!!) reviewing the file and did I know how to get a hold of the victim? I said no, but it wouldn't do her any good anyway, in view of the letter we both received. I asked whether she was now going to dismiss. No, she has to think about it. What is there to think about?! She has no case! Further, why wasn't she thinking about this prior to the day before trial?! She dismissed the case this morning while a jury panel was waiting.

I guess the thing that bugs me is that this kind of indecision is so time-consuming and wasteful of resources. We routinely receive plea offers where it's clear that the ADA has not looked at the cases. The ADAs sometimes offer extremely lenient pleas (which I take in a heartbeat) and then they get in trouble with their supervisors. Or we have nonsensical trials or dismissals the day of trial where the plea offer is extremely harsh and not at all in line with what they can prove. A good ADA is able to look at a case, gauge its strength, and dispose of it accordingly; either by offering a plea that is on par with what they can prove or by dismissing the case. This mamby-pamby procrastination drives me crazy! Why can't they just make a decision, based on the facts of the case, and then they would be able to back it up! Without wasting every one's time with trial settings that everyone knows won't happen. I do like both these ADAs on a personal level, but I can't help thinking they're in the wrong line of work.

Tandem-Socks and Sweater-Parts

2007-08-16T18:05:00.001-06:00

I've been meaning to start my "tandem-socks" for quite some time. See, a while back, my knitting buddies (Y and MD) and I all decided we would knit a pair. (Tandem-socks in tandem, as it were...) According to the instructions, you knit both socks of a pair simultaneously on two circular needles, from the toe up. As I'd already done individual socks on two circulars, I figured two socks would be exactly the same. The only difference would be the toe-up factor. So the three of us dutifully bought our sock yarn and our two circular sock needles. And then we waited. Both MD and Y had other projects they wanted to finish, so I started my lace scarf while waiting for them, having yet to finish the sleeves of a green cable sweater. I vowed that I would in no way have more than two projects going at one time, as this would likely lead to an ever-increasing number of partially finished projects. So, a couple weeks ago, I finished the sleeves of my cable sweater, stitched the shoulder seams, and did the neck. It's now drying in preparation for seaming together and weaving in the ends.

When I finished my sleeves, I decided to look at the tandem socks again and dive in! Y was done with her project, and MD couldn't really get enthused about the Aran sweater she's started (it's still getting over 90 degrees pretty much every day here ) or about ripping out this really cool looking camisole. (It's always depressing to rip stuff out.) Her camisole problem was that while the yarn was gorgeous and the pattern was gorgeous, the two didn't really work together well. (She called it her chain-mail camisole because the yarn knit together quite tightly, while the pattern was light and airy.)

Anyway, while looking at the instructions for the tandem-socks, I became quite alarmed. I just couldn't picture how to start the things! For those of you who knit, you know that you usually have instructions like: Row 1: this stitch, that stitch, do this and that; Row two: do these other things, you now have X stitches; etc. Or you have a chart that grids out the various stitches or colors in a stitch-by-stitch, row-by-row fashion. Never have I seen directions like these! They were written in paragraphs! It began with this long explanation of the concept, then it would tell you what you were actually supposed to do. There were poorly illustrated pictures of needles with stitches on them, that I could not make heads or tails of. (And I'm fairly good at figuring stuff out.) Finally, I just guessed.

It's actually pretty cool how they work. Instead of doing a "provisional" cast on thing with short rows (as is usual when you start at the toe of the sock) you simply pick up stitches along the cast-on row by holding the knitting upside-down! Very unique! And at knitting night yesterday, I helped Y figure it out, so the two of us have begun... (MD couldn't make knitting night.) Now, I'm all excited about my tandem-socks. It's just so cool! And my wool is quite pretty. (As well as machine-washable!) While at the moment, they seem to look more like the ears of a kitten than anything else, I am confident that they shall form ...SOCKS!

If At First, You Don't Succeed...

2007-08-13T21:52:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, I am just stubborn enough to be good at this! I just wish it didn't always take so **** long! In the past two weeks, I've received three favorable rulings from the Court of Appeals.

One was a meth possession case that was reversed and remanded because the State did not have either their drugs or the person who analysed them. The judge simply allowed the report into evidence and the lab guy testified over the phone from his car. The lab guy didn't have the drugs or his report, either, he was just testifying from notes. Of course these notes were in his car with him, so neither counsel could see them. The Court of Appeals ruled that this violated my client's right to confront witnesses against him. (Ya think?) At the time, the judge had told me in chambers that the lab guy wasn't that important, as I didn't have any real questions to ask him! Alas, in spite of the judge's quest for efficiency, we now must re-try a case that's over 2 years old. (And he's served all his time.) But, maybe we won't have to re-do it. I'll take odds on the State being able to locate either the lab guy or the drugs!

The second was the result of a relatively new law called "Aggravated Fleeing," which no one, least of all police officers, seem to understand. It's written in an immensely convoluted fashion. Basically, it makes leading cops on dangerous high-speed chases a felony, rather than just the misdemeanor resisting or evading an officer. The cops, however, need to be conducting said chase "pursuant to the Safe Pursuit Act," yet another confusing statute, which tells law enforcement to make a pursuit policy and gives guidelines on the policy they should have. Anyway, to make a long story short, the cops following the guidelines laid out in the Safe Pursuit Act is an element of Aggravated Fleeing, the state didn't prove the cops did this, so back it comes. This one doesn't much matter, though, since this charge was run concurrent with my client's 7th DWI, which carries twice as much time as aggravated fleeing, anyway.

Last, and my favorite: (This one's published, and they quoted a whole chunk of my cross of one of the cops! They didn't name me, though, I'm just "defense counsel.") The Court of Appeals determined that in a DWI trial, the State has to lay some minimum amount of foundation to show the breath machine was actually functioning properly before admitting the results. The cop just saying, "they regularly check it" does not suffice. I like this one best because it was a very memorable trial in which the judge was constantly overruling my objections without letting me explain them, yelled at me for trying a case with "no defense," and even yelled at my client for not pleading guilty and maxed him out because he didn't plead guilty. (He said this on the record.) This case is now 3 years old, and my client's almost done with his parole by now.

The down side of all this is that the judge was immensely pissed. Normally, I don't care, but he said today he was going to issue warrants to all my clients whose cases got reversed and make them sit in jail for 6 months pending re-trial. Then sentence them to the max again. I felt like telling him that if he'd just conducted the trials properly the first time, he would have nothing to be mad about, but I restrained myself. The sentencing doesn't matter much, since they've already served their maximum time. It just bugs me that he can't get it through his thick head that an "efficient" docket is not one that convicts people as quickly as possible with little effort on the State's part! How efficient is it to still be dealing with these cases 2 or 3 years later? If he had just done it right the first time, they probably would have been convictions that would have stuck! Even if there were acquittals, he could always blame the juries and the cases would still be concluded. And if he really does keep them in jail pending trial specifically because their convictions got reversed, that's appeal-able too! (And very likely to win!)

When We Were Young

2007-08-10T20:36:00.000-06:00

What strange creatures we were when we were young. It's something of common knowledge that children are honest. Perhaps brutally so. But I think that when we were younger, we were highly observant, as well. I look back on observations I made at the age of eight. Or nine. Or ten. At the time, they were perfectly obvious and unremarkable. To me, anyway.

I remember my father taking me to orchestra concerts, beginning when I was about eight. I saw Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg play Bruch's violin concerto around that time. She was probably in her early 20's then. My father asked me what I thought, as was usual. I said that she was wonderful and I loved the Bruch, but why was she so angry? And she was angry. I knew this in the incredibly certain way that kids have. And I'm still quite certain that she was. I hear some of her stuff now, and there is a completely different, more relaxed feeling. Maybe she's grown up a bit from those angst-ridden early 20's years.

There was another time, when I was yet again riding with my father to a concert, but this time we rode with his friend, who played French horn. The French hornist was seeing someone that would be sitting with me in the comp ticket section. She was quite in love with him. (And this was obvious to a ten-year-old!) My father and I drove back alone. (Looking back, I guess that the French hornist rode back with her boyfriend or stayed there.) My dad asked me, as always, what I thought. I remember quite clearly that the thing that stuck out to me most was not the music that was played. I don't even know what was played now. What struck me most was that my dad's friend's boyfriend was exceedingly chatty. He talked about absolutely everything. Except he did not talk about her at all. That struck me as odd, as she was the only thing the two of us had in common in the world! So, I told my dad that I didn't think he loved her as much as she loved him. This was quite obvious to me. But sadly, not to the French hornist until a little while later.

Would that I had that same observational skill now! And that honesty. Now, I would possibly know these things. I would be able to hear and see them, but not speak them. I would second-guess myself. How do we lose this confidence in what we know to be true? Is there a way to get it back? Will I ever again be able to look at a person and know that they are angry or happy or in love? Is there a way to re-learn how to look at a situation and describe it in so succinct a manner? In this way, I guess, I was much smarter when I was ten, than I am so many years later.

A Warm-Fuzzy Moment in the Midst of Craziness

2007-07-19T16:13:00.000-06:00

This week has been insane. The strange thing is that according to my calendar, it really shouldn't have been. Monday, we had regular "pit day." Where they got the name for this, I don't know, but it's where we do pretty much every kind of hearing that does not require witness testimony: pleas, arraignments, sentencings, etc. I had a moderate 6 cases, and should have been done by 10:30. Not so. I had normal preliminary hearings Wednesday and Thursday, 2 or 3 each day. Not bad at all.

The craziness occurred because I was set for a trial today and one tomorrow, on cases that should never have hung around for nearly this long. So my entire week was spent attempting to resolve them. Of course, I have been attempting to resolve them ever since their first "pre-trial conferences" in May at which I received a plea offer for each case that, with a couple small adjustments, would have been fine. I called the ADA on each case immediately after that "pit day," and left messages about what I thought would be a reasonable plea that the clients would take. The plea offers at that point were such that my clients would lose nothing by having trials, and they were easy fixes. (On one, just a sentencing recommendation that the judge was going to follow anyway, since she'd never been in trouble before at all, and on the other a plea combining both pending cases, that really should have been filed together in the first place.) I didn't hear back from either ADA.

Until...

Monday. On Monday, each ADA calls me and leaves frantic messages demanding to know whether I was going to "make" them have trials. Of course, I was in court when they called. (They don't need to attend "pit day.") So, I call each back, leave messages (very specific) on what would make the pleas acceptable. They return the call, but do not actually leave on the message whether they're willing to do what I ask. Of course by this time, I'm on the phone with the clients involved re-assuring them that they won't have to have a trial (neither of them wanted one, with good reason) and just to be by a phone in case they need to come in on short notice to do the plea. This judge won't call off a jury without a plea or dismissal in place in case something falls through. So at the same time, I'm calling the judge's clerk telling her I doubt the trials will happen, but I can't find out from the ADAs whether we have agreements. This goes on all week!! Fortunately, these particular clients are very responsible, want their cases resolved (without trials if possible) and have functional telephones. I finally get what I had been asking for all along from the ADA's (Tuesday, on the one set for trial today, and today for the one set for tomorrow) and am able to schedule a change of plea and get word to my clients for yesterday and today, respectively.

Now, it may not sound like last-minute plea hearings should be that taxing. The hearing itself takes all of 10 minutes, we've got the paperwork and the client, and I'd already told each client what the plea would entail (if I get what I want, which I finally did) what's the problem? Well, our county includes 5 different courthouses in two different towns. The prelims I was doing yesterday and today begin at 8:00 and 1:00 each day. So, to get to the plea hearing, I had to leave prelims, do the plea, go back to prelims, etc. In addition, I had a couple other random hearings (of course at different courthouses than the other hearings) and a mental health court meeting (more on that when I'm less angry with all involved). I've used a half-tank of gas since Monday just driving to various courts and to the office!

Anyway, this afternoon, I finally wrap up the last plea, and only have to worry about next week, which will be as bad, if not worse, since I'm set for 4 trials, and for half of them I cannot find my clients. So, we're doing this plea today, and afterwards, the judge wants to see me in chambers alone. For you non-lawyer types, this is very odd. In almost all situations, the ADAs come, too. If for no other reason, it's so there is not any reason to believe an impropriety is occurring. We're in a small town and a rural area, and we're quite informal compared with most courtrooms, in terms of attire, the manner in which you address the judge, etc. Sometimes the judges just get friendly (in the most benign sense) with the attorneys. But in that case, usually you just chat whether the judge is on the bench or not. You don't get called into chambers for a friendly chat. So, I figured I was going to be yelled at for something. Or at least informed of ways in which I could improve myself. (My district judges tend to be quite "grandfatherly" towards me, which does have its benefits and drawbacks.)

What he actually wanted to tell me was that he knew that it was not my fault that these things kept happening at the last minute. He said he never has any question whether I'm being diligent or honest with the court, and that if I said the ADAs were the hold-up, he knew that it was true. How cool is it for a judge to find me to have that much integrity? And to actually tell me that he found me so. I don't know that I've had a higher compliment in my entire legal career.

Of Lace and Symphonies

2007-07-17T23:49:00.000-06:00

I am trying my hand (or hands, actually) at a couple of new things this summer. I am knitting lace and going to orchestra. The community college has a little orchestra. It even has 4 or 5 french horns and several sundry woodwinds! I haven't seen a clarinet yet, but there's an oboe, a flute, a trumpet, 2 or 3 trombones, and a bassoon. But sorry, Daddy, the bassoonist is quite young. Very good for being all of 15, but he gets nervous, and chokes. I think he has it in him, though! (They drafted high-school kids to fill out some of the lack in that department for the summer...) It's really quite fun. I do miss playing, especially with people.

I played violin from the time I was nine until I graduated college. I used to be fairly decent. Not a virtuoso, by any means, but decent. And it's fun to teach some of my second-violinist cohorts some tricks. (e.g., fingerings and how to mark half-steps and other handy music marks so you don't get lost in endless whole notes, etc.) Some people wanted me to play first (primarily N, who got me into this in the first place), but there are at least twice as many firsts as seconds, and the herd of high-school girls that made up the rest of the firsts seemed to be adverse to switching parts. Even if some of them do play with their mutes on all the time! (for reasons passing understanding). I don't mind. I played second in college and sang either alto or tenor in high school. Contrary to what N says, second isn't really more boring than first, you just have to listen more... With most "real" music, you usually get just as much "tune-time" as the firsts do, it's just lower. (And therefore easier to make it sound really good!) Besides, as seconds, you're more involved with everyone else, rather than just waiting until you can play the pretty tune... Anyway, it's fun, and makes me all nostalgic. And we are playing one piece of "real" music. Overture to Barber of Seville. Always fun. We're doing the quintessential summer orchestra thing a week from Friday: a concert in the park. (how original!) Of course, I'm not sure who will show up, since it's July in the desert. It's either a hundred degrees outside, or there are thunderstorms (with high winds) in the evening. Good planning guys!

My other new summer thing is attempting to knit lace. Lace has heretofore intimidated me. I'm not sure why. Possibly the complex looking charts it seems to require or maybe the very fine yarn. However, about 2 months ago, I saw this gorgeous-looking picture on the internet of a scarf and tam (with pattern, and recommended yarn) which lured me in. And who am I, if not up for a challenge? So I dutifully purchased the pattern and yarn suggested (only $5 for a skein of baby alpaca lace-weight yarn! And the scarf only requires one skein!) and I sallied forth! When the yarn came, I was intimidated again. It was about the thickness of thread. But... so far, so good!!

I seem to be doing ok. There are diamond-y things at the sides, and the North Star in the middle. I will be able to pull out the yarn-overs (the holes that make the design) when I block it to make them more obvious. But you can see the pattern!!! (There's a single point at the top that I haven't got to yet -- it's symmetrical with the bottom.)

So, see, I do something besides work!!

Two!

2007-07-05T21:42:00.000-06:00

Two brightly-colored, springy, fluffy, made-all-by-myself socks! (Ha, ha, ha.)

Granted, the second sock took a lot longer than the first. But I was doing other things than fueling my newly-found knitting obsession. Going on vacation, having many trials, having my family over, trying to remember how to play violin, etc. But somehow, work seems so much more meaningful when there are other things going on in my life. I'm not sure why that is, exactly. But it seems that whenever I can think of nothing besides my clients, cases, and judges; nothing is very fun. Maybe it's about stepping back. Maybe because I now am doing other things that I enjoy, I can step back from my clients and their problems and see them more in perspective. Not to say I no longer care about my clients and their problems: in fact I seem to care about them more. But I no longer live and die by whether they are in or out of jail or whether I lose their trials. So I guess now that I'm doing some things that make just me happy, I can expend more emotional energy on their problems. I have the emotional energy to expend. Does this make sense?

Oh, and part of this feel-good-about-work thing is about a strange encounter I had the other day: I was at the Wal-Mart and this lady comes up to me. She looked vaguely familiar, but for the life of me, I couldn't fathom where I knew her from. It turns out that she was on the jury panel I had for two of my trials last month. Inexplicably, I had two trials, a week apart with the same panel. (That is, the big group of people from whom the twelve jurors are chosen. Here, they use four 60-person panels that serve for a given month.) Anyway, this lady explains that she was on that particular panel, she served on one jury, but not the other. She tells me that she really enjoyed me, that she liked me, and wished me good luck. (It wasn't until several hours later that I was actually able to figure out which juror she was, and remembered that I really liked her too! The State struck her in the second trial.) It just gave me pause to think that Jane Citizen would make the effort to compliment me in that fashion. And it seemed extra-strange that she would do so after being on the first jury, which convicted my guy within 15 minutes! (That part didn't surprise me at all, although I did figure I would have more of a chance if she ended up being the foreman. She wasn't.) I mean it struck me as an amazing thing that a juror on a DWI case (a HUGE social issue here) would walk up to the guilty guy's lawyer in the Wal-Mart and compliment me like that. It kinda gave me warm fuzzies...

Anyway, I seem to be rambling a bit, so I'll stop. I'm waiting for the pics of the socks to upload. There seem to be "blogger connectivity" issues...

Back into the Swing of Things

2007-07-04T17:30:00.000-06:00

I took two weeks off from work the first two weeks of June, so everything was hectic at the end of May as I attempted to not leave too big a mess for everyone else to fix. I then went out of town and did nothing at all work-related for a whole week. It was GREAT!! I didn't even do much knitting. I did nothing productive, and just played. The next week, I didn't do much of anything. I caught up some of my housecleaning, etc., but mostly, just relaxed.

But the last two weeks have been completely crazy. Why is it, that no matter how hard you try to get things set up and organized prior to being away from the office, it still seems like everything's in complete disarray when you get back? Apparently all my judges decided that my cases all needed trials immediately upon my return. Fortunately, only two of them actually materialized, and they didn't really require much preparation. They were both DWIs with no real defenses, the guys just wanted trials. (No one pleads down DWIs in this state, so there really was nothing to lose.)

But this week, finally, I'm finally getting back on top of things. I've put my files in the cabinet, the papers in my files, which accumulated in the past couple of weeks while I'd been in court and trying to sort out my trials. Who knows, I may actually have a chance to return some phonecalls and get to the jail!

Another exciting thing (well, to me, anyway) was that I actually went to orchestra rehearsal Monday. One of the private attorneys has been bugging me for about 4 months to go, once he found out I used to play violin. I played since I was 9, and all through undergrad, but quit about 8 years ago. I started and stopped occasionally the past few years, but nothing serious. Anyway, rehearsal was a lot of fun, and I wasn't as horrible as I feared I might be. While not the best one there by any means, I also was definitely not the worst! We're playing some movie music stuff, but also the Overture to Barber of Seville. N (the guy that talked me into going) even got me over to another violinist's house this afternoon for a kind of group practice. That was also lots of fun, but it did remind me that my fingers are extremely out of shape and wimpy. 2 1/2 hours rehearsal Monday and another 2 1/2 hours today pretty much turned them into noodles. But they are callousing nicely...

Such Is Life

2007-05-31T23:43:00.000-06:00

I watch my doggie
He's sleeping
His right fore-foot twitches
He's dreaming
"Hmmph, hmmph," he barks in his sleep
His breathing increases
His eyelids flutter
All four feet are moving, chasing
His heart is racing
"Hmmph, hmph, hmf"
He's panting
There's a jack-rabbit running ahead of him
My doggie races through the tall grass of his dreams
Unimpeded
He sees the ears of the rabbit zig-zagging ahead through his sleep
He's in pursuit
He's young again
Forward he goes
Chasing... running
"Hmmph!"
He is so happy
Blessed Oblivion!
He sinks further into sleep
His feet stop moving
His breathing slows
Is he still dreaming?
Did he catch him?
Is he still carefree and wild?
He snorts and looks up at me
Something woke him
He struggles to his feet
My baby!
How I wish you could be in that world forever!
Young again
And free
Such is growing old
Such is life

Updating

2007-05-28T16:21:00.000-06:00

Final Update:

Back into English! I'm done with tweaking!!

Another update:

Portuguese?!

An Update:

My months suddenly seem to be back in English, so that's a plus...

Original Post:

So, I've updated my lay-out a bit, so I can use this "click and drag" feature as advertized with the "new blogger." It doesn't seem to me any better, as they don't even have the old template fonts, meaning you still have to mess with the code even if you want to put it back the way it was in the first place. Furthermore, my archives mysteriously ended up with the months of the year in Spanish, for what reason, I haven't got a clue. Maybe I'll just take out the archives altogether and not worry about them being in Spanish. I'll continue with the tweaking, rather than doing what I'm supposed to be doing today.

Good News, Bad News

2007-05-27T12:59:00.000-06:00

How about the good news first? The good news is that last week, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded my client's felony DWI conviction. They agreed with me that yes, the State must subpoena the lab technician who tested my client's blood to testify in person, regardless of the inconvenience of making him drive half-way across the state. The bad news is that the case is unpublished, and therefore, we will probably have to appeal several similar cases before the judges all get the point. Also, my client will probably opt to keep the conviction, rather than go to trial, as he has now served all his time and probation. (He got a pretty good plea deal). The good news is that it gives one a pretty good feeling to say, "I told you so," to a judge who is so convinced all my clients are guilty, and who likes to by-pass all "technicalities" of the constitution in order to efficiently convict them.

More bad news: My trial on Thursday was a complete disaster. The charge was child abuse, and the facts to support it were that my client was drunk in the vicinity of her 18-month-old child. You know it's a bad sign when the Judge politely informs you prior to trial that it would be the best thing for your client if the jury convicts her! The only good thing that happened all day was that the judge excluded my client's "prior bad acts" that the State wanted to use to show that she is a drunk. The judge had at least three grounds on which he should have granted a mistrial, including the officer "accidentally" saying that my client had been to prison, the State saying in closing that since the child was not crying, he was obviously familiar with this situation, and that the jurors had a responsibility to "break the cycle" of something, I'm not even sure what! Oh, the best part was that all of a sudden at trial the child was lying and crawling around on broken glass. I still am not sure where that came from, other than the officer took a picture of the alley this happened in on Monday, and there was glass in the picture. (Of course, since the incident occurred 9 months before the picture was taken, the judge should never have allowed the picture in, but that's life in the big city.) Oh well. Can you say "cumulative error"?!

One!

2007-05-25T18:06:00.000-06:00

One brightly-colored, springy, fluffy, made-all-by-myself sock! (Ha, ha, ha.)

It actually didn't turn out too badly, for a first attempt. (I had a couple of visible errors while getting used to dealing with the two circular needles, and I had never "grafted" before. By the time I got the hang of that, I was nearly done with it.) I was so proud of it, I had to wear it around the office today, even though it doesn't have a match yet. (No court today.) I finished it while listening to a client's rantings. Incidentally, they were the same rantings he had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before... My sock is surprisingly comfy, too. I was concerned that it might feel scratchy or lumpy or something. But it really doesn't. When I got it home, I washed it, and blocked it, and it's drying in the picture.

My knitting buddies have decided to all knit what I've been calling "tandem socks." You knit both socks of a pair simultaneously on two circular needles. The directions looked complicated, but after having knit one sock on two circular needles, and spending a great deal of time trying to figure out how it works by myself before learning that there is a very good book on this subject, I think I understand how the two socks are supposed to work. So, we will be all knitting tandem-socks in tandem.

I still haven't figured out which yarn I want to use from my pair of "tandem socks," though. There's this really pretty self-striping yarn I found on the internet that's treated with herbal oils. (Softens hands while you do knitting, apparently.) They say it won't feel greasy, but I'm not sure I trust it without touching it. I also am not sure how I feel about spending 18 bucks on one ball of yarn! (I did comparison shop, too, and that's the cheapest I found it for.) Additionally, I still have one more sock to do of my pair, and I'm almost finished with another sweater I started, and I bought a ball of this gorgeous yarn to do a pretty lacy scarf which will probably be a Christmas present for someone (I'm not sure who yet, so quit guessing, you guys!)

My Forray into the World of Socks

2007-05-10T11:59:00.000-06:00

So, it seems to be spring now, and I'm growing bored of knitting big, poufy sweaters. So, I thought I would try my hand at socks! I like to wear them, so I figured I would see if it was fun to knit them. So far, so good!

On Tragedy

2007-05-10T10:47:00.000-06:00

One of the problems with blogging about a job like this in a town this small, is that there are some times when you can't write about what you want to. I'm semi-anonymous, meaning select people know who I am, but the general public does not. And I would prefer it to remain that way. For example, I'm not thrilled with the idea of someone at the local newspaper finding my blog, and linking it to me. (They haven't, yet). I figured you all deserve an explanation about why I haven't blogged much in the past few months.

It's mainly because what I really wanted to write about was a certain (quite serious) case that had been ongoing for over a year, and that is now finished. (Caveat: I'm not divulging confidences, this is all public record and most of it was in the paper.) The whole situation is immensely tragic. The original charge was an "open" count of murder, meaning the state could file for the death penalty. My client had stabbed a girl upwards of 30 times with a steak-knife and then shot her with a composite bow and arrow. She had been my client's best friend's girlfriend. They were to be married. She had a 3-month-old baby, who saw the whole thing.

My client had been released less than a week before this from a mental health hospital, in a town far from his home, with no money, no transportation, and his prescriptions. Not the actual meds, just prescriptions on pieces of paper for his anti-psychotic medications. He had begged them not to discharge him, he was afraid he would hurt someone. They discharged him anyway.

His hope for the outcome of all this was to be sent to the State mental health hospital forever, so this would never happen again. He was extremely remorseful, and initially wanted to receive the death penalty. The only way to get him to the mental hospital would have been to have the judge find him incompetent to stand trial and dangerous. However, by the time the competency evaluation took place, he had been stabilized and was competent.

Ultimately, he pled to second degree murder and tampering with evidence, and was sentenced to 26 years in prison. He absolutely did not want to put the victim's family through a trial, even though he had a viable insanity defense.

The sentencing hearing was gut-wrenching. Ten of the victim's family members spoke. I have never sat through a longer, more difficult hearing in my life. The most tragic part of this whole thing is that all of this could have been prevented. One life was extinguished, another destroyed, and innumerable lives were changed forever. All the result of the lack of proper mental health care.

A Response to Futility

2007-04-22T12:20:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure what it is, but lately, so many people around me are acting as though everything is futile. Maybe it's the job we do. Or maybe it's got something to do with a 23-year-old kid gunning down over 30 people for no reason anyone can comprehend. But over and over again, I keep hearing that there's no point to working up a trial (for example) because we're just going to lose anyway. Or why should we get involved in anything, because no one is going to listen.

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course if you go into a thing believing it will fail, you aren't going to put all you can into it. Therefore, it probably will fail. If you speak out on something believing no one will listen to you, they won't. Why should they, if you don't believe what you say is important enough to be listened to?

I can't tell you how many trials I've won that I thought I was going to lose. I also cannot tell you how many clients I've had who lost their trials and thanked me profusely for trying for them, even though it didn't work. I've also had clients who wrote me letters while juries were deliberating, that said, in different words, "no matter how it comes out, thank you for helping me." I've had clients that took plea bargains, rather than going to trial, and ended up in prison who still wrote me letters about how they appreciated what I'd done for them.

I know it's an over-used cliche, but life really is a journey. It's not only about results. Don't get me wrong, results are great. I'm happy about good results and upset about bad ones. (It's the perfectionist in me, I think.) But that's not all there is to either this job, or to life. When I'm on my death-bed and I'm thinking about the life I've led, I'm not going to say, "I wish I'd won that trial," or "I wish I'd made more money." I'm (probably) going to say, "I wish I'd been kinder to more people," or "I wish I'd tried harder to help them." I don't know if you all have noticed, but the people around you notice when you try to help them. Especially if there haven't been many people who've tried to help them in the past. And isn't that what this job, and this life, are about?

When put in this context, how can anyone say something is futile? We have no way of knowing what the "results" will be of our actions, or how our actions will affect those around us. Our purpose is simply to try. To help. To show kindness.

Procrastinators of the World, Unite!

2007-04-16T19:48:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I've always been something of a procrastinator. I studied for exams the night before, I wrote papers the night before. It took me until two weeks before the bar exam to start studying for it! I've tried to be better about this. I try to prep my trials earlier and pay my taxes before April 15. Nevertheless, I still am reviewing my jury panels the day before trials, and I just now finished filing my taxes. A whole day early! Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that I thought tonight was the deadline, rather than tomorrow...

Maybe this is just the way I'm wired. When cramming for a trial, I come up with some of my best stuff at 10 or 11 the night before. On the rare occasions when I actually start writing a docketing statement (like a statement of issues for the Appeals Court) prior to the day before it is due, I can't get myself to focus on it. I find myself staring into space or not having a clue how to begin. Maybe I was just built to do everything at the last possible moment. (Although I wouldn't recommend it for paying one's power bill. It tends to result in a dark house and extra fees.) And anyway, what's so wrong with procrastination? As long as the thing gets done eventually...

A Good Week

2007-03-31T10:51:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, but I didn't really have that much to say before. Now I do! Wednesday, I finished my second knitting project! It's a bag to hold my knitting. (Yes, those are knitting needles at the top.)

I should have probably done that before, because it was getting annoying to carry around my sweater in a big gym bag. But that's done and I can now move on to something more exciting. I finished the bag in about a week, mainly because I was in a hurry to move on to something else. It was incredibly boring rectangles. And this Cousins woman cannot even manage to measure rectangles accurately. (7 1/2 + 7 1/2 + 11 does not equal 32). In any case, I am going to the knitting store today to get yarn to start something more fun. Something with cables, probably, and a pattern by someone besides Suss Cousins!

In other exciting news, I won my trial on Thursday! It may not seem exciting, since it was just a drug possession, but as it's been since September 11 that I've won a trial, it was exciting to me. I felt kind of out of practice, to tell the truth. That was the first trial I'd had since mid-December, and that trial was quite boring. My guy's defense in that case was he wasn't that drunk (never mind the .22 breath score). My Thursday trial was the strangest drug trial I've ever seen. To begin with, the State didn't have their drugs. The drugs were at the independent laboratory where we had sent them for re-testing, and the judge inexplicably wouldn't continue the trial. It was the prosecutor's first ever drug trial, so she had a hard time laying the foundation for the drug test results without the actual drugs. In other words, she kept forgetting that you have to show that the things the lab tested were the same things the cops had seized from my client's car. She had to re-call both cops to the stand after she had already excused them. Additionally, the cops' testimony was quite confusing, as they had searched numerous bags and boxes in my client's car, pursuant to a search warrant, and couldn't keep straight exactly what items came out of what containers. They mixed up what they had taken from where when they were packaging their evidence initially. This turned out to be important, as my client testified on the stand that three of the bags (it turns out the three bags containing paraphernalia and the stuff that tested positive for meth) were a friend's. My client was keeping the friend's stuff in her car because the friend was moving out of her boyfriend's place and didn't have anywhere to keep her stuff. All in all, a very good result, but a very convoluted trial!

And now, I will celebrate my happy week by buying more knitting supplies!

My Accomplishment

2007-03-17T22:24:00.000-06:00

Well, I am all stitched and weaved-in, and lo and behold! My sweater looks more or less as it should!

As compared with:

There seem to be a few bobbles here and there, but it is able to be worn in public! Not bad for a first effort, if I do say so myself. Well, a first effort in 23 years or so. It's so much fun to start something and actually be able to finish it! And since I have two skeins of yarn left, I think I may do a matching scarf or something. I realize it's a little backward to do a sweater as a first project and then a scarf after, but that's just sort of what happened. Yay, me!

Yay, Team!

2007-03-17T13:14:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, it is true, I become frustrated about how things are done at my office. However, yesterday I realized exactly how lucky I am to be in the office I'm in and to have the boss and co-workers I have. One of our magistrates had been looking for a reason to hold one of us in contempt for quite some time, now. She has been threatening to do this for ages. Primarily because she believes that we should be representing everyone who doesn't hire an attorney, regardless whether they have applied for a public defender, qualified for a public defender, or even want a public defender. Let's just say that the issue came to a head yesterday. The upshot was that my boss went to jail so that my co-worker wouldn't have to. Now, that's a good boss! He has always backed us up when we needed him to, whether it was in front of judges, DAs, or the state big-wigs. We know that we can stand our ground and do our jobs to the best of our ability, without worrying about being hung out to dry. And I hope he knows that any one of us would do the same for him. It's really great to be part of an office like this.

This Job is Hard

2007-03-12T15:36:00.000-06:00

I never realized how hard it would be to plead a client out to second degree murder. Losing big trials is hard, watching your clients get sent to prison for long periods of time is hard. It never occurred to me how hard it would be to have your client take a plea like this. Should I have pushed him harder to go to trial? What if I really could have gotten a jury down to manslaughter? What if I could have gotten him acquitted altogether? What if? What if? What if? I will never know whether I really helped him or really screwed him over. He thinks I helped him, and thanks me every time I see him. I am not so sure...

Spring Has Sprung!

2007-03-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

Or, at least it is in the process of springing. Yesterday got up to 70 and was bright and sunny, so we had lunch outside and I got my first sunburn of the year. It would have been the perfect day to watch for baby prairie-dogs in the field behind the office, but there may be a delay with that. You see there were workmen last week digging a trench through the prairie-dog town with a backhoe, and yesterday they were laying some kind of line. Like a phone line or T1 or something. It was hard to tell what exactly. But the good news is that I didn't see any sign that any prairie dogs were hurt or killed. They probably just moved to the part of their town in the field across the fence when they heard the noise. (They had expanded their town considerably last summer, and there were lots of holes quite a distance from where the workmen were digging.) Nonetheless, I do miss watching the little fuzzy heads popping up from the holes. And it's just the right weather to watch for babies, too. But there are baby sheep and goats in a field on my way to work, and I think in another couple weeks they'll put horses and cows back in the field by the office. With any luck, there will be baby ones to observe frolicking about. Today's not as pretty as yesterday. Clouds are gathering and it feels like it may rain. Yet another sign of spring! Although I'm not a big fan of rain. I can't wait until summer! Endless sunny and warm days where I can leave my windows open all day! Until then, I think I'll work more on my sweater so I can wear it at least once this season. All my parts are dry, so I can finish stitching the sleeves together and figure out the neck part.

The Moment of Truth...

2007-03-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

...is near!

Ok, so this is not going to be an exciting post about a hotly-contested, long jury trial and a verdict that takes forever. What it is about is that I finished knitting all my sweater-parts! A back, and a front, and 2 sleeves.

Sleeve #1:

Sleeve #2: (The picture is at a weird angle, but the sleeve looks just like the other one...)

Front and back:
I am currently engaged in the excruciating process of waiting for the various parts to dry after blocking them. Only then will I be able to sew the sleeves to the front and back and see if they fit together properly. Only then will I know for sure whether I will come out with an actual article of clothing able to be worn in public or a fuzzy, oddly-shaped, small type of blanket. I did do all the stuff I'm supposed to: I measured lots, looked at the schematics (which included fewer than optimal details), patted, prodded, matched things up, and more. So I am fairly confident that it will come out right, in spite of the poor directions. In addition to some simple printing errors where measurements are concerned, the schematics were not very detailed and left out some important dimensions. Such as, it says how wide the front and back are supposed to be at the bottom, but not how wide at the widest point. Nevertheless, I, the eternal optimist, am looking forward to having the collar well along this weekend, and I may even get to wear it a couple times before the weather changes to actual spring. In the meantime, I shall patiently (or not so patiently) wait for my parts to dry, and imagine it all fitting together perfectly! Supplemented, of course, by frequent visits to test whether they are any dryer than they were 5 minutes ago.

The Latest

2007-03-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't been posting about work lately. I guess partly because I've been distracted by non-work related things, and partly because the interesting things that are happening at work I can't really post about. Here's what I can post about:

Nearly everyone in the office is sick. We've been passing this cold around all winter. Everyone gets it about once every 3-4 weeks. Unfortunately, now it's mutating into pneumonia and bronchitis. (At least 2 of my co-workers have those lovely illnesses.) Those of us who are not deathly ill have been rushing around covering for the ones who are. I guess it promotes teamwork, or something, but I'd much prefer everyone being healthy.

We got our performance reviews Friday, and (yay!) my boss is apparently not going to fire me.

I've caught up on nearly all my random paperwork, and am now spending my non-court time actually writing substantive legal motions. This is much more fun (and fulfilling) than sorting random papers into their appropriate files and filing motions for furloughs. (All I want for Christmas is a real secretary who can do this for me!)

One interesting case I have that's going to trial (most likely) is kind of on hold while we attempt to hire an investigator. Our prior investigator (who was great) quit a couple weeks ago, and I'm holding out for his replacement so someone who knows what they are doing can get into this. The case involves title loans, and I don't know much about that kind of thing.

The jail actually transported my client to my office on Friday, as the judge ordered, so he was able to watch a video-tape pertinent to his case. We had tried to arrange this a month ago, but the jail either lost the judge's order or never received it, so it didn't happen. It's amazing how co-operative the jail can be when they receive an order to show cause why they didn't obey the judge's previous transport order! Anyway, my guy has now decided what he wants to do. The whole situation's really sad, and with what he's decided, he's probably going to prison for a long time. He's such a sweet guy, too, now that he's been on his meds for a while. I really wish I could do more for him. It almost made me feel worse when he thanked me...

Irked!

2007-03-01T13:54:00.000-07:00

I'm home sick today, and so I thought I would use some of my down time trying to figure out where I went wrong with my knitting. I picked this particular sweater to try because it looks relatively fool-proof, and like I could finish it before the turn of the century. Of course, this only works if the instructions are correct! Not so much... This Suss Cousins person may be hot stuff in Hollywood, but if she spent a little less time name-dropping and a little more time measuring her patterns, this would all be much easier! Granted, I'm pretty new at this, but it stands to reason that if your gauge is correct (4 stitches to an inch, exactly!), then the measurements for the entire thing should be correct. Again, not so much. I just hope it comes out in the wash, as my mother says... Stay tuned!

My Trip to Treatment Court

2007-02-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

Also called "mental health courts," treatment courts have been popping up throughout the country in an attempt to deal with mentally ill individuals who become involved with the criminal justice system, but really don't belong in it. I've had some experience dealing with mentally ill individuals in the context of my job within the criminal justice system, and I am in complete agreement that the courts, jails, and prisons are unable to either help the mentally ill people that come afoul of the law or protect the community. My personal feeling is that if there were some way to help the mentally ill become stabilized over the long-term and integrated into society, society would then be protected from them, and there would be no need to warehouse these people as is currently being done to a greater or lesser extent.

My view of this seems to be shared by our newest district judge, the chief deputy district attorney and our court administrator. As a result, we have been meeting to discuss creating a treatment court here. As part of our investigation into the viability of this, we took a trip to a treatment court in another jurisdiction yesterday. It was exciting to see the participants complying with their medications, and thereby complying with their probation, stabilized, and happy. The program we observed appears to be helping the people in the community, and I commend them for doing such a good job with it in such a short time. (The program is only about 6 months old.)

However, the more we spoke with the judge in charge of the program, the more frustrated I became with the lack of resources we have here. The program I observed would never have got off the ground if the treatment providers in the community hadn't backed the program immediately and enthusiastically. Virtually all the services in the area were on board and doing what they could to help, and that's great. But here we have almost no services at all. There is one program that provides caseworkers to help the mentally ill find residences, get on disability, etc., but they are so under-funded and overworked that the turnover is astronomical and the staff is poorly trained. I believe we have 2 therapists in the private sector, and it takes months to get an appointment, even if you can pay them or have insurance. I don't even know whether they take medicaid or medicare, but I doubt it.

Another concern I have is that the treatment court I observed is a part of probation. This means that the participant must have (at some point) been competent to stand trial or plead guilty to a crime. That's all fine, and everything. But the clients that I have had that I'm most concerned about aren't competent to stand trial or plead guilty, even when they are taking their medications. When they are taking their medications, they are no longer dangerous, so they don't have to be locked up. But when this occurrs, their criminal cases are dismissed, and there is no one to monitor whether they continue with their medications or not. So, as soon as they're off their medications, they get in trouble with the law again. The clients I have that are competent when they're on their meds are placed on probation (usually) and they're monitored by their probation officer. Some times this works and some times this doesn't, but at least they're not completely on their own, like those whose cases are dismissed.

What would be more helpful, I think, is a program in which someone whose case is pending is monitored by a treatment court, and then their charges are dismissed when they successfully complete it. It would be an alternative to them being found incompetent while sitting in jail for months and then going to the state mental hospital. The mental hospital would appreciate it, since they're always short of beds; and the client would appreciate it, since they wouldn't have to sit in jail waiting for a competency evaluation to be completed. I think there's a treatment court like that in a different town in the state, so I'm going to push to observe that next time our little team meets.

But our trip was a good learning experience!

Cozy

2007-02-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

So, it's gray and rainy and about 50 degrees outside today. One of those days where you want to curl up with some hot tea, jazz music, and a good book. Or maybe my knitting. It makes me think that it's almost spring-time, but I know not to get my hopes up. After all, we haven't had the Saint Patrick's Day blizzard yet. (It always seems to snow here in the middle of March, even if there have been a couple of days in the 70's or even 80's in February.) Normally gray days make me sleepy and depressed. Why else would I live in the middle of the desert, the land of perpetual sunshine? But today, the gray-ness makes me feel oddly good. Quiet, serene, and somewhat introspective. In a word: Cozy.

Appreciation Unlooked-for

2007-02-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

Every year (mostly) the local bar association holds a dinner-dance party thing for all the lawyers in the county. It's usually kind of fun, since you get to talk to other lawyers who you don't necessarily see regularly, and you get to watch the older generation loosen up a bit. We younger-generation public defenders don't really frequent the same social circles as the older, more established attorneys do. There's usually a cocktail party thing prior to the actual dinner, and last night, a bunch of us went back to the cocktail party after the dinner to kind of hang out for a while.

Anyway, when we were heading out and saying our good-byes and thank-yous, an attorney I don't talk to very much began a conversation with me. I mean I know him to say hi to, but that's about it. He started out by informing me that civil practice isn't about chasing money. His practice has made him very comfortable, don't get me wrong. But nothing compared to what our host had, at least judging by the house we were in and the vehicles in the driveway! I honestly think that the lawyer I was speaking with really enjoys doing what he does, and would do it even if he wasn't going to have his father's practice handed over to him in a few years. Then, kind of abruptly, this attorney holds out his hand over the bar for me to shake it (he was acting bar-tender at the moment) and thanks me for doing what I do. I must have appeared a little confused, because he then tells me of a guy who called him this week needing an attorney to represent him in a criminal case, and it took him all of 2 minutes to realize that there was no way this guy could pay him. So the attorney informs the guy of this, tells him to get a public defender, and then hangs up the phone. I don't believe this was out of greed or anything, this attorney does take his fair share of pro bono cases. The attorney then reaches out his hand for me to shake it again, and tells me that he really appreciates what I do, and he thanks me again.

The first thing that entered my head in response to this conversation was that I don't do this for him, I do it for the guy on the phone. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe I do do it for him, in a way. I really am glad that he can practice the type of law he enjoys without feeling obliged to take this guy's case when he has no desire to do so. I'm also happy that he can refer this guy to our office without worrying whether he will receive good representation. I realized then that I not only do this to assist our clients, I do this to assist the community by fulfilling a societal need that most people would prefer to ignore altogether.

A Knitting Update

2007-02-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

And so, my trip to the yarn shop was a complete success! I got bunches of cuddly blue yarn to make a sweater with. A nice easy one, with minimal complications. Below is my goal, except that it won't be orange:

I got some needles made of bamboo, and lo and behold, they're actually the right size! My mother always used aluminum ones, but they only had bamboo at the store. I think I like the bamboo ones better anyway. They're not so cold and slippery. I tested the gauge (how many stitches to an inch) last night, and I was right on target. That is, after the first couple rows where I was trying to remember how all this works. The only thing I had to ask MD for help with was the beginning part, where you put the stitches on the needles (casting on). She was even impressed at my speed and even-ness! I was so excited that I did 6 rows last night, and I think I'll do more while the Superbowl is on. I think this is going to be fun!

"Won't My Mommy Be So Proud of Me?"

2007-02-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Well, this may come as a shock to those of you who know me, but I'm planning to start knitting. I've never been anyone you could confuse with Martha Stewart. I tend to get impatient with picky crafty things. You know, the little mini-pom-poms that refuse to stay glued together, or needle-point where you have to count everything exactly and put the needle in precisely the right location, and what do you do with needle-point once you're finished with it, anyway? Knitting, though, seems like something I could handle. It's not so precise that you have to think about it that much, and you can do it while other things are going on without losing track of where you are. You see, my mother has always knitted, and she taught me how when I was very small. When my sister and I brought books everywhere with us, our mother brought her knitting. After supper, my sister, sometimes my father and I would be reading our books, my mother would be knitting. Granted, the last thing I recall knitting was a dress for my Barbie-doll. But it had a cable and everything (the little braid-looking things on sweaters). I'm pretty sure I remember how to do the basic stuff.

So, what brought this on, one might ask? Partly the realization that I need a hobby in the worst way. Something that's not just watching t.v. or playing video games. Partly, it's because my friend MD knits, and she's been talking about starting a group thing where a few of us go to a local coffee shop, help each other knit, and talk about anything non-work related. So, I'm on board. It sounds like a nice change of pace from going out to the same bar with the same people all the time, or secluding myself at home to watch the same movies over again.

So, I'm all excited about going to the yarn shop this afternoon with MD to get yarn, needles and a pattern book. (Preferably one that includes basic how-to instructions also, in case I can't remember as much as I think I do.) I'll keep you all posted on the progress, and maybe include a picture if I ever finish my project.

Happy Snow Day!

2007-02-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

Now, normally, I'm not much of a snow person. I like sunshine and warm days. However, I can't deny that snow is pretty. And if it means I get to slack off for a couple hours while waiting for New Mexico's snow removal technique to take effect, that's even better. In case you're wondering, New Mexico's snow removal technique appears to be to wait for it to melt. No doubt that's the most economical approach, but it doesn't always work. This is especially the case on days like today, where it's overcast and not expected to get above freezing. If it were just the inch or so of snow, I'd go into the office and get some stuff done. But since there's about a quarter inch of ice under the snow, I think I'll wait and see whether they're going to call off the entire day. (The snow that fell yesterday melted a little and then froze again overnight, with more snow falling over it, and more snow is supposed to fall later today.)

I do have to go in at some point today, as I have a client getting transported from the jail to watch a video pertinent to his case. He's trying to decide whether to take a plea on quite serious charges that could result in his being sent to prison for 20 years or so. I've been trying to talk him into letting me try it, since there is a good defense, but his biggest fear is getting acquitted. How's that for strange? He's a sweet kid, too. Ah well. I should see whether we're still on a 2-hour delay.

On Empathy

2007-01-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

As part of my new lease on life and my job, I have been thinking a lot about what may have caused my recent spate of burn-out, and in this way, hopefully, avoid it in the future. After meeting with several of my clients at the jail this week, rather than sending them letters or calling them on the phone, I think I may have figured it out. The root of my problem seems to have been that I had grown detached from my clients, and, as a result, I no longer wanted to help them. While pondering why this came to be, I began thinking of the difference between two nearly synonymous, but very different words. Empathy and Sympathy.

According to Marion-Webster, "empathy" is "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner." "Sympathy," conversely, is "an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other." In short, "empathy" is being understanding of and sensitive to the feelings and thoughts of another, whereas "sympathy" is sharing in and being similarly affected by those thoughts and feelings.

My conclusion is that I had previously been too sympathetic with my clients, causing me to become emotionally drained. One cannot survive long if one is constantly feeling the same things as so many troubled and down-trodden people are feeling. This exceeds my capacity and overloads my emotional resources. The answer is to be empathetic, i.e. understanding and being sensitive to my clients without sharing and participating in their feelings. Perhaps some are capable of sharing in their clients emotions. However, I have discovered that I am not. I cannot do my job effectively if I am constantly on this emotional roller-coaster of other people's problems. So, with this new understanding, I hope to be able to continue this noble work to the best of my ability for many years to come.

To Life!

2007-01-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

So, I am currently sitting in my cozy house, watching snow fall outside, and drinking English Breakfast tea. This is the life! Even better, my recent episode of burnout has not returned. I'm anticipating going back to work on Monday to attempt to get justice for my clients. I was writing pre-trial motions in my head while cleaning house, and I'm looking forward to soup and Animal Planet this evening. It makes me wonder why I was spending so much time and energy being angry and frustrated. This is better by far!

To life, to life, l'chaim!

Happy MLK Day!

2007-01-15T14:13:00.000-07:00

I never really thought before about the similarities between the fight for racial equality and the fight for justice for those accused of crimes. But the two battles are similar. As public defenders, we try to protect the rights of those who many people wish had no rights at all. Dr. King fought for equal rights for people whose rights were ignored because of their skin color. As public defenders, we do not fight in a battle field with armies, but in courtrooms across the land. Dr. King also did not use violence to make his point, but fought with demonstrations and marches such that he could not be ignored. Both battles involve standing up for what you believe in the face of overwhelming dissent. Both battles continue on as progress is measured in small, barely noticeable increments and both encounter numerous, seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I am proud to be part of this great battle the goal of which is to enable every person to have the protection of the rights guaranteed us in the Constitution of these United States.

The Blahs Have Passed

2007-01-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

I guess the main reason I hadn't been posting much for the past month or two was that I couldn't find anything that exciting to write about. Has anyone had that feeling that everything you do you've already done hundreds of times before? Well, that's kind of what I felt like. I was bored. I was getting bunches of DWI and drug cases, with a few burglaries thrown in, but there was nothing exciting to do with them. Even the ones that went to trial were boring. I thought if I heard, "but the drugs weren't mine," or "I wasn't really drunk," one more time I was going to throw something at whoever said it. I'd gotten to the point I was just tuning out my clients who called me to complain that they needed to get out of jail because their mother was ill, or they had to support their families, or they were going to miss their kid's birthday. I just couldn't escape the feeling that I was doing the same things and having the same conversations over and over and over again. It was getting to the point I couldn't work up the energy to do the simplest tasks. I didn't want to file my files, speak with clients, or write the simplest motions that take all of 3 minutes. This, of course, made me feel like I wasn't doing my job well and made me more discouraged and frustrated.

Thank God for vacations!

It turns out that all I really needed was some time away from here with my family and some R & R. I didn't have to think about my clients, or the law, or anything at all for an entire week. Just what the doctor ordered! I've been back at work for two weeks now, and have been quite productive. I've been preparing my cases in a timely manner for trial, returning my clients' phone calls, and my desk is so clean that one of my co-workers was worried that I had quit. And I even got a great new toy for my birthday. My parents gave me a digital camera, so I can post pictures!

This is Bo. Bo, this is the blogosphere. He's in his favorite spot in front of the window. He's a sixteen-year-old chow-shepherd cross, and my best buddy. Ain't life grand?

Home for the Holidays

2006-12-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

As I'm writing this, I'm in the house I grew up in. I am spending time with my family for the holidays. It's always strange for me being home. Maybe because I've lived somewhere else for so long. I went as far away from home as I could get to go to college, and then I went even farther away for law school. I lost touch with nearly everyone I knew here. In a way, it seems like just last week I was sneaking in the door late at night, hoping not to wake my parents. And in another way, it seems like this is not really the same place I lived in at all. I mean, this is the same house, but the kitchen and both bathrooms have been re-modeled, and there is a lot of new furniture. Only one of the houses in the neighborhood contains the same family that it did when I lived here. They put in new, brightly colored play equipment in at the park a block away. They are about half-way finished demolishing the auto-body plant that I walked by every day on the way to school, picket-lines and all. Kids I used to baby-sit for when they were three years old are now juniors in college. It feels like I somehow fell asleep for ten years, like Rip Van Winkle.

But at the same time, it can't be that strange. I mean, throughout this post, I've been calling this house, this place I am now "home": a place I haven't lived since I was eighteen. They say, "Home is where, if you have to go there, they have to take you in." I didn't have to come here. I chose to. My family's here, and I wanted to spend Christmas with them. If "home is where the heart is" (sappy though that saying is), then I guess my heart, at this time, is here with my family. As it should be at this time of year.

A Mental Health Update

2006-12-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

I'm apparently not the only one concerned with the mental healthcare (or lack thereof) in the criminal justice system.

*******

I was somewhat encouraged this week with regard to our new judge and competency cases. I had my 3 "dangerousness" hearings on Thursday, to which I referred previously. She actually agreed to dismiss two of the cases, as the State conceded that the clients did not meet the definition of "dangerous" in the statute, and the third she sent to the state mental hospital to treat to competence. I was surprised that she agreed to actually dismiss the cases, rather than wanting the State to dismiss them. I was hoping she would dismiss the third case, since the client had already been to the mental hospital on this case, and upon return to jail refused her meds and became incompetent again. But, at least, she's out of jail for a while. And who knows, maybe this time she will actually stay on her meds.

The really good development occurred after the hearings, when the judge asked the Deputy DA, me, and the court administrator back to her chambers. She wanted to discuss setting up a mental health court, and it seems that she really wants to go through with it. As I said in the post linked above, my only reservation with this is that we don't have a lot of services in this community for the mentally ill, and without adequate services, I don't see how a mental health court would work. But both the court administrator and the Deputy DA agreed with me that services in the community were required for this to work. So, I feel better about this now. The administrator is going to get us some procedures manuals from other mental health courts in the state in the next couple of weeks so that we can see how theirs work. He also wants to schedule a field trip to a mental health court sometime in January to see what it looks like. In the meanwhile, he's going to explore funding sources.

My boss even said I could represent our office in whatever committee gets formed to implement this. It is exciting to be able to help address a problem that the justice system is unable to adequately cope with, but that affects the justice system and those involved in it on a daily basis. I invite anyone to comment with ideas of what works or doesn't work.

'Tis the Season

2006-12-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess it's officially the Holiday Season. I can tell this because the weather is cold, the mall is packed, plane tickets are expensive, there has been a marked increase in my shoplifting and larceny cases, and I have a cold. That's ok, though. I'm kind of in the mood for the holidays this year. Some years I'm really not that interested in Christmas. I mean it's kind of a hassle to do all the preparatory shopping, and I frequently end up with a lot of trials set for the first couple weeks of December because the judges want to go out of town for the holidays and they don't want to let the time-limits run. But for some reason, I'm actually "in the Christmas spirit" this year, whatever that means. It may have something to do with the fact I get to spend Christmas with my family this year. Or maybe it's because I had a whole bunch of trials set September through November, and there aren't any left for December. Or maybe I'm just fickle.

Whatever the reason, I think I'll just enjoy this feeling as long as it lasts. I will play Christmas carols on the stereo, surf the internet for Christmas presents (I never could stand the mall), try to be nice to everyone, and be happy no matter how many bah-humbuggers there are out there.

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-11-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

I have been very bad about posting lately, partially due to being insanely busy at work, and partly due to my general slackerness. I am hoping for this to change in the days to come. I have now finished all of my docketing statements, and I don't have another trial set until December 8. The trial probably will plead out before that, if I can get the prosecutor to give me a slightly better plea offer. Docketing statements are the worst part about losing trials. They are a statement of what happened at the trial court and a list of issues you want addressed on appeal. Now that these are out of the way, all I have to do at work is deal with the immense pile of stuff on my desk that accumulated while I was losing trials and writing docketing statements. To give you an idea of how much that stuff amounts to, I have about 20 files waiting to be put back in the cabinet, about 10 new files to review and figure out what needs to be done with them, and about 50 that went to court in the past couple of weeks that need notes in them of what happened and also to be returned to the cabinet. (In case you're counting, yes, that's about 80 files sitting on my desk in addition to however many are still in the cabinet.) This is not mentioning the 5 or 6 inch stack of random papers that must be sorted and put in their proper files and a few suppression motions that should be dealt with at some point soon. It's amazing that as busy as I've been, my desk looks like I've been doing nothing for the past couple weeks.

All of that aside, I now have a nice four-day weekend in which to relax, not think about work, watch football, eat turkey, come up with vague ideas for Christmas presents, and remember friends and family. After all, isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about?

On Micro-Management

2006-11-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

Micro-management is the bane of any office. It is contrary to a productive and congenial working environment. It forces employees to spend their time and energy on minute and petty tasks as opposed to what their actual jobs are. It pits "management" and "workers" against each other because of "management's" desire to check up on and nit-pick every aspect of how the "workers" do their jobs. It breeds mistrust on both sides, since "management" always suspects that the "workers" are not following the rules and the "workers" are always looking over their shoulders to see if Big Brother is watching. It is a waste of time, resources, and energy with no benefit.

We are professional people. We are attorneys. We show up to court when we are supposed to, and we show up prepared. We file our motions on time. We communicate with our clients whenever possible. If we did not, getting written up by the Boss would be the least of our problems. Much bigger problems would include being held in contempt by judges, being sanctioned by the Bar Association, having bad reputations in the legal community, and being sued by our clients or their families.

As none of these things have happened to anyone in our office, why the sudden need to audit how many breaks we take, our computer usage, and our telephone calls? Why should anyone care if we show up to the office 10 minutes late, stop for coffee and a bagel on the way back from court, leave the office at 4:40 so we can get to the bank before it closes, or surf the 'net when our brains are too fried to accomplish anything useful? According to the Boss, he has Information that the attorneys are not working 40 hours a week! This strikes me as amusing, or it would if it were not so asinine.

When I went to the office last Sunday, an attorney and a paralegal were both there at the time I was. When I go in this weekend to write 2 docketing statements, I expect to see at least one other attorney there at the same time I am. I can't remember the last time I left the office at 5:00. I defy anyone to prove that I don't put in my 40 hours!

The thing that bugs me the most about this is that the issue doesn't seem to be whether we are doing our jobs competently. The issue seems to be how much time we spend at it. And this is just ridiculous! It serves no purpose! The issue should be whether we are zealously and competently representing our clients. It should not be whether we are at our desks from 8 to 5 Monday through Friday. Why can't the Boss just trust that if we are doing are jobs correctly, we are putting in our 40 hours? This way, he doesn't have to worry about checking up on us all the time, and we can concentrate on our actual work, rather than worrying about whether he'll notice that we got back from lunch 15 minutes late.

Has it Really Been Five Years?!?

2006-11-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

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.

*******

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.

On Mental Health

2006-11-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

As I have said before, I have a soft spot for my competency clients. Others have also posted recently on this subject, and I feel it is one that must be dealt with if, for no other reason, very few people seem to understand or care about it.

An example:

I had my first competency hearings in front of a brand-new judge yesterday. It was appalling! It was clear within minutes that not only had she not bothered to educate herself about how these types of cases are to proceed through the court system, she would not listen to me as I attempted to explain how they are supposed to work. And I wasn't using my own words, I was reading the statute book! "If a client is determined incompetent, charged with a felony, and not at that time determined dangerous, the case must be dismissed." Misdemeanors are dismissed on a finding of incompetence, period, regardless of supposed dangerousness. Instead, she found all my clients incompetent and set them all (including the misdemeanors) 3 weeks from now for "dangerousness hearings" (no such things exist in New Mexico), keeping the clients in jail in the meantime. This, of course, put them outside the statutory timelimits. I did have one client out of jail, and I was interrogated as to why he was out. He had bonded out on 2 misdemeanors and was released without bail on the felony. The judge was distressed that he was out of jail because, she said, we can't have incompetent people running around, she started to say, "when they are dangerous" and changed it to, "when they might be dangerous."

What are we, back in the 19th century, a time when the mentally ill were greatly feared and locked up for no reason other than a few chemical imbalances in their brains? Hasn't society progressed beyond that point?

I finally figured out what this judge's deal is when, after the hearings, she started talking about setting up a mental health court. I know these exist in other places around the state. And I generally think them to be an excellent idea. However, in order for them to work, there must be services in the community for the mentally ill. For what good is the court checking to ensure that someone is taking their medication when the person is homeless and unemployed and have no means by which to obtain either housing or an income and no one to help them get to a doctor and become stabilized on their meds? Upon voicing my views about this with the judge, she was not swayed, or even interested. So, if she has her way, we will soon have a court program that punishes the mentally ill for not remaining on their meds when they have no means to do so, and she will have set up an ineffectual program that will look good to her political higher-ups and help her climb the political ladder because she will have single-handedly gotten those "crazies" off the streets.

I hate politics. Especially when those sacrificed to it have no choice in the matter.

Democracy

2006-11-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

As much as I complain about the state of our country: about how the "justice system" seems so rarely to dispense actual justice, and how politicians can be corrupt and petty and can seem to only care about furthering their political careers instead of serving the public; I am reminded today of how great it is to be a citizen of this country. We have a voice. We have a say in how we are taxed, who makes our laws, and who enforces them. Even though it often seems that my voice is swallowed up in the sea of those who view the world differently than I, I can still make my voice count. Because I can make known through the ballot box that I desire change; that I am not swayed by fancy, high-priced advertisements on t.v. I know who I want to represent me in the legislative bodies of this country. I know who I want to lead this country and this state. I know who I want to sit on the bench and make rulings that affect the lives of those who come into our courts. I can express this.

The ballot box is more effective in expressing this than if I were to stand on the street corner with a sign and a mega-phone announcing my views to all who would listen. Because the people who would listen to me on my street corner are not necessarily in a position to do anything about what I want. Through voting I, along with every other citizen of this country, can make this country into what we want it to be. My vote does not have more weight because I am somewhat educated. It does not have less weight because I cannot trace my ancestry to a king. We are all equal when we cast our ballots. This is what a Democracy is meant to be.

Even if a majority of people do not agree with my views and none of the people I voted for win tonight, I am still proud to be an American: A citizen of this great country. Because I know that an armed militia will not storm the capitol. I know that the people who are voted out will leave and go on with their lives, and that the people who are voted in will not be assassinated before they can assume their duties. I know that the Rule of Law will continue to be enforced. As long as the Rule of Law is enforced, the people will have a voice. This is Democracy. This is why this country, and the principles behind it, will endure.

Probation Violations (or not)

2006-11-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

Well, Friday was a fairly good day. I had only 2 probation violation hearings, and got both of my clients back onto probation. Both of them had been in jail awaiting their court hearings for between 2 and 3 months. This is due to the fact that they cannot have hearings until the prosecutor files a motion that explains why they want the judge to find that the client violated his probation. Usually this entails alleging that the client did not report to his probation officer, the client acquired new criminal charges, or the client won't stop using illegal drugs. However, prior to when this motion is filed with the Court, the probation officer files paperwork alleging the client violated his probation. This paperwork has the effect of holding the client in jail without bail pending a hearing on the probation violation. There is no set time limit for how long the prosecutors may wait before filing their paperwork, so this is why the clients end up sitting in jail for months awaiting the hearing. I have yet to find a way to get the prosecutors to file their motions in a timely manner. Obviously, I cannot file a motion asking the judge to find my own client violated his probation!

This is particularly annoying when you end up with cases like I had on Friday when there really is a legitimate question about whether they violated their probation or not. The first guy I had was living in a different town when he was first placed on probation and he was already on probation in the town he was living in. His understanding was that he would be unsupervised on his probation here, and supervised by his probation officer where he lived. He had been to rehab and in all other ways complied with his probation in the town he lived in. But, he did not check in with the probation officer here. Unfortunately, his understanding was incorrect. He was supposed to check into probation here and then get it transferred to the town he lived. His probation officer here, for whatever reason, did not believe him and thought that he should go to prison for this. In my opinion (and in the prosecutor's as well) this misunderstanding was not worth sending him to prison over, so both of us asked the judge to put him back on probation, which he did. However, due to the lag in filing the paperwork to get his hearing, he spent a little over 60 days in jail behind this.

My other guy was a little more complicated. He was arrested because the police got a call that he was threatening to blow up his house (and himself). He was off his medications at the time. This resulted in a 2 hour stand-off with 4 or 5 different law enforcement agencies. When they entered the house, there was no one inside, but there was gasoline everywhere. So, they issued a warrant for his arrest. But since they couldn't really charge him with a crime, the warrant was for violating his probation. How he violated it, we're not really sure, since there's nothing in the probation agreement that prohibits dumping gasoline throughout your house. So, he gets pulled over and arrested while on his way to his monthly check-in with his probation officer. It then took about 2 months for the prosecutor to figure out what to allege he did to violate his probation, during which time he was in jail without bail. They finally settle on failing to report to his probation officer. Of course he couldn't since, he was in jail. His probation officer just wanted him back on probation, but couldn't really say so due to the publicity that the stand-off situation received. It took another month to get him into court. Finally, on Friday, the DA decides to go ahead and dismiss the probation violation charge and let him out. He had been in jail for over 3 months at that point for not violating his probation.

It just bugs me sometimes that guys like this who are really trying to do what they need to do to get through their probation end up serving months in jail for no real reason.

Election Time

2006-10-31T18:09:00.000-07:00

I dislike election time for more reasons than just the annoying commercials. In our state, judges are elected. Here, magistrates handle misdemeanor cases, probable cause hearings, and set bail for all cases. They are not required to be lawyers (or have any more education than a high-school diploma or GED). They run in open elections every 4 years. As a result, as the election gets closer, there is no longer any point to actually having the probable cause hearing, or arguing to lower a client's bail, which usually is set sky-high to begin with or denied altogether.

The district court judges (the courts of general jurisdiction) are a little better. They, at least, are required to have law licenses. They are determined by an odd mixture of appointment and election. They are initially appointed by a selection committee, which gives a list to the governor's office, and the governor appoints who he wants. The first election cycle thereafter, the judge runs in open elections, and for "retention" (a yes or no vote) every 4 years afterwards. I guess this system was set up in the hopes of getting the best of both worlds in terms of election vs. appointment. However, it's still extremely political. The reporters tend to show up more in court as Election Day approaches, and no judge wants to see his name in the paper next to a story about releasing criminals or rampant crime.

I so dislike politics! I would think there would be some way judges could just look at case and the law, and make his decisions only based on those things, without thinking about what the paper would say, or what the public thinks. When has the public ever understood the law? It's arcane and picky, with all kinds of nuances that escape the understanding of anyone not trained in it. This is why one must be licensed before practicing.

But, alas, if judges were not elected, they would have to be appointed. This would mean we could never get rid of a bad judge, and they would never be answerable to anyone except their political cronies. So, I will wait out this storm, and, come November 8, many judges will find Motions to Review Conditions of Release on their desks.

Public Pretender

2006-10-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

As I sadly have no baseball games to watch as a result of the most fantastic example of crash-and-burn I have ever witnessed in the Word Series, I have been amusing myself by keeping up with the public defender vs. private attorney debate on the blogosphere, and here, and here ,and don't forget this one, all brought on by this article. Rather than commenting on everyone else's blogs (although check out some of the comments already there, they're pretty good), or on this singularly uninformed woman's article (she seemed to get quite snippy at the comments of others), I figured I would say what I think in my own way.

I think people should know something of what they are speaking about before purporting to give advice on a topic. Especially legal advice. After all, this is what lawyers are for. This woman seems to be something of a cross between Martha Stewart and Dear Abby, given her other articles, e.g. edible craft projects for kids and tips for washing walls. Her knowledge of public defenders and criminal defense in general can be seen from the title of her article, "Should I Hire a Public Defender?" One does not hire public defenders, as they are free by definition. While different jurisdictions have different rules about qualification for a public defender, they are required not to charge people with no money to pay them. One of my favorite lines was, "Unless you want to risk spending time in jail, hire a lawyer directly, even if it means making payments to the lawyer, charging the expense, or borrowing the money to secure good legal help." Now, if a person charged with a criminal offense actually has any of those options open to them, they are obviously not indigent, and therefore should not have the services of a public defender in the first place. Additionally, if they are not facing the risk of jail time, they also are not entitled to free legal representation. I would also like to know her basis for the assertion that, "Since a public defender is paid by the state, a public defender isn't earning as much as a lawyer hired directly. A public defender earns about $65 an hour on average." If anyone knows any public defender making that much, could they please let me know where they are working so I can apply with that office? Now, I'm pretty bad at math, but according to my off-the-cuff guess, that's at least three times what I make.

The article then goes on to say what we in the profession are used to hearing: "Public defenders push their clients to plead guilty, even when guilt is in question. A client pleading guilty is an easy case for a public defender." Now, obviously, a case that results in an early plea is an easier case and takes up much less time than a case that goes to trial, especially if it goes to trial with many witnesses and exhibits. It's not just an easier case for a public defender, it's an easier case for any attorney. The difference is this: We get paid the same, whether we spend all weekend preparing a case for trial, or if it pleads. I have told my clients in the past, especially on cases where there really isn't a viable defense, but he's not that thrilled with the plea offer, that I honestly don't care whether we have trial or not. I like trials. This is part of why I do this. On the other hand, private attorneys charge by the hour. If your case goes to trial, he gets more money. But usually not enough more to make it worth while spending the billable hours on a drug possession case, when he could be doing a will, or a divorce, or a bankruptcy for which he gets a flat fee and they take about 10 minutes. Further more, if you can't afford to pay him enough to make it worth his while to do the trial, see how fast you end up pleading! Or he'll withdraw from representing you.

Now I know some public defenders who do push clients to plead guilty. They put in their 8 hours, and take home their paycheck like this was some kind of factory. I know public defenders who haven't had a trial in 3 years. I also know private attorneys who behave this way. They take all they can get from the client on retainer, spend 10 minutes with them going over they plea, and then 10 more doing the plea, and then they're done. I've known private attorneys who promise people that if they are hired, they can get the defendant out of jail.

All this being said, I've never felt offended by a client who asks if I will fight for them. He has a right to know. I've never felt offended when a client hired private counsel. I have felt sad on occasion, because I knew what kind of lawyer he hired, but never offended. One of my sweetest juvie clients came into my office for his initial appointment with his mother. The case was going to trial because both the kid and the mother were adamant that the kid was innocent, and he probably really was. His mother kind of grilled me, but in a nice way. She asked me how long I'd been practicing law, how many trials I'd done, and things like that. She asked me forthrightly whether it would be better for her son if she hired a private attorney. I told her it depends on the attorney. I also told her that yes, I do have many clients, and it sometimes does take a while to return phone-calls, etc. If what she wanted was daily updates on the status of the case, I cannot provide that. But I will take the case to trial, if that is what the son wants, and I will prepare for trial, and do everything I can do to see that we win. I then went into specifics on the steps I would take on her son's case. She was happy with that explanation, and we did win the trial. Now it is true that I'm not the best at the hand-holding aspect of this job. I'm simply too busy. But I don't hold it against someone if they think that is what they need. Or if they think an attorney they pay will work harder for them.

What does really tick me off about this public pretender reputation is when people who should know better spread this around. There was a incident not too long ago in which a well-know private attorney informed a full courtroom that the reason one of my clients was in jail was because she hadn't hired him, but had me. And I was only a public pretender. I honestly thought I was going to slap the man! It also looked like the judge (who likes me) was considering hitting him as well.

Scapegoat

2006-10-28T13:51:00.000-06:00

I was wondering this week why it is that public defenders are always blamed when things do not go smoothly. I mean, it is hard to negotiate a plea bargain in advance of trial when the prosecutor refuses to return phone-calls until the week of trial. Nonetheless, it is somehow my fault when we must schedule a change of plea the day before trial. When the State provides a witness list with 6 new witnesses the week before trial, and I request a continuance to allow time to speak to them, the Judge becomes angry that I did not interview them earlier and denies the continuance. He then tells me, when I file a motion to exclude the new witnesses as they were not timely disclosed that I filed the motion in bad faith! When my client wants his day in court on a case he is likely to lose, the fact that the judge and the DA must "waste" time on the trial is my fault. Don't I know that my job as a public defender is to brow-beat my client into taking a plea that he doesn't want to? When the judge schedules trials every day for 2 weeks, it's my fault that he has to have trial every day! When the prosecutor submits incorrect paperwork to the court, it's my job to fix it. When the court loses track of a case and it takes forever to get resolved, it's my fault for not bringing it to the Court's attention. Never mind the fact that it was never my case to begin with. When a defendant never applies for a public defender, and does not come to court, it's somehow my job to get him notice for the next court date. Forget the fact I haven't got the foggiest notion where he might be or how to get a hold of him. When 10 new cases are added to the morning docket a half hour before court, it's my job to handle the cases for the attorneys who are not present because they had no idea those cases were going to be called. When the psychologist who does our competency evaluations is slow in getting the reports finished because she was in a car accident and required several surgeries, it's my job to get the reports to the court in a week, or else the court will hold the hearings anyway. Because, of course those public defenders are always raising competency to play some kind of game.

It's just that I get so tired of doing my job in addition to so many other people's! I wish I could just answer for things that are within my control, instead of answering for other people all the time. I mean how is the court's calendar my problem? How am I supposed to get prosecutors to produce discovery and negotiate pleas with me in a timely fashion when they can't manage to look at their files more than a week before trial? Why am I held to answer for how other attorneys handle their cases? How is any of this my fault? Why must I spend half my time trying to fix all of this?

Well, that was quite the rant. I'll be better tomorrow.

Well, I did it!

2006-10-26T19:24:00.000-06:00

So, at the staff-meeting on Tuesday, I was actually able to explain a little bit on how to do competency cases. I made hand-outs of FAQ's and didn't even get corrected too much. My main concern was that the more experienced attorneys in our office from other jurisdictions would interrupt frequently and correct me with incorrect information. Fortunately, this did not happen as often as I feared it would, and when it did, I was able to cite current law about why I was right and they were not. The best part was that I was able to do this in an appropriately respectful manner, so that they did not think I was just being uppity. All in all, it went much better than I feared.

Another good thing occurred when one of our newbie attorneys got her first competency case and made contact with the client's caseworker. The caseworker, it turns out, is involved with the beginnings of a state-wide coalition of various court, law enforcement, and mental health agencies to try to find a solution to this problem of the mentally ill who are indigent and keep ending up in the court system. The newbie gave my name to the guy and I am hoping to be able to get involved in trying to address some of these issues. You know, I do like helping my clients. But, it is good to sometimes be more involved in the "big picture" when one has the opportunity.

Now, I am going to leave work behind and watch the rest of Game 4 of the World Series! (My word, it looks like the Tigers are ahead 3-1 at the end of the 3rd inning!)

Me, the Teacher?

2006-10-21T13:45:00.000-06:00

As a result of my last post, and the various helpful comments on it, I have been thinking more about my competency cases. Our competency section of the criminal code is quite confusing and not well written. None of the DA's seem to have a firm grasp on how it works, and never seem able to prepare the various orders required for different phases in the proceedings correctly. We've had people hanging out in jail for extended periods after the judge decides to send them to the mental hospital waiting for the DAs to write an order that is acceptable to the hospital. These types of cases also seem to confuse the court staff, because it seems they open a new civil case every time competency is raised in a criminal case already in District Court. This means that once the competency issue is decided and the criminal case either continues or is dismissed, the civil case just hangs out on the court docket indefinitely. In addition, when I was going through the cases transferred to me from an attorney who left our office, I ran across evidence that he had only the vaguest idea what competence to stand trial means, never mind the proper procedures he should have followed in the process. After talking to various other attorneys in our office, it became clear to me that I seem to be the only lawyer in our office with a good understanding of both what competence to stand trial is, and how to proceed when this becomes an issue.

I therefore, for better or worse, volunteered to give a sort of mini-tutorial to our office on how to handle competency cases. Perhaps once our attorneys all understand how this works, we can get these cases dealt with in the proper way, rather than this hit-or-miss approach that seems to occurring now. In addition, maybe we can get the new judge to understand how this works also, and in this way avoid these unnecessary status conferences she has been scheduling to find out why these cases seem to take forever. There is even an off chance we could avoid our clients being in limbo indefinitely while waiting for the proper paperwork to be filed, or having their cases take forever due to competence being raised when there was no need for it to have been.

This all seems good on paper (or the computer screen). I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Now all I have to do is try to find a way to explain to 10 lawyers (most of whom think they know more than me) how this all is supposed to work. Wish me luck!

Catch-22

2006-10-18T18:08:00.000-06:00

In my line of work, I come into contact with a fair amount of people who are mentally ill. It may surprise some people that this is the case, but in a state like New Mexico, services for the mentally ill are extremely limited, especially if they are indigent. Thus, many people who are bi-polar, schizophrenic, and mentally retarded end up in the court system. They get arrested when, for example, they are asked to leave a restaurant and will not do so because they believe they own the restaurant. Or, they get into a fight with the manager of the restaurant because they believe the manager is trying to poison them. Or, the police try to write them a ticket for pan-handling but they believe the police officer is going to shoot them, so they fight with the police officer. Or they just simply have nowhere to go and no way to get there, so they are arrested for loitering.

Generally speaking, I like my "crazy" clients. They generally aren't what one thinks of as criminals. And, even if they are with it enough to figure out who I am, they like that I am trying to help them, even if they can't figure out what I actually do for them. The idea that someone is on their side is usually fairly foreign to most of my mentally ill clients.

Under the Constitution, and the laws of New Mexico, a person cannot stand trial if they don't have a sufficient concept of what is going on, or if they are not grounded in reality sufficiently to help their attorney. If they think I am a member of an anarchist society the purpose of which is to hurt them in some way, or if they have no idea (and cannot learn) that the reason that man on the tall throne is wearing a dress is that he is the judge, the State is prohibited from proceeding in the criminal matter. When this occurs the judge can either dismiss the criminal case, or send the defendant to the state mental hospital to be "treated to competence." Usually, the "treatment" consists of medicating the person (with or without his consent) until either he is capable of understanding what's going on or 9 months have passed and the person still cannot understand the proceedings or assist his attorney. Either way, the person then is sent back to jail and the judge can do one of four things: He can dismiss the case if the person remains incompetent to proceed. He can proceed with the case if the person is now competent. He can commit him "civilly" to the state mental hospital, i.e. with no disposition of his criminal case, if he remains incompetent but is dangerous. Or, if the client remains incompetent and is charged with one of 8 very serious crimes, the judge can have a mini-trial about whether the person committed the crime he's charged with and sentence him to the "criminal" side of the mental hospital if found guilty.

The problem is this: If the criminal case is ultimately dismissed, the court no longer has authority over the client. The court cannot supervise the person to help him apply for disability, get to a doctor, get his medication, check that he's taking his medication, or find a place to live. The client is back in the same position he was in when he picked up the criminal charges in the first place, whether for things like loitering or vagrancy, self-medicating with illegal drugs, or wandering into other peoples' houses thinking it was their house.

Even if the person becomes competent through this process, either by a trip to the mental hospital or just getting on medications while in jail, there's definitely no guarantee that he will remain on his medications. I had one client that was fine when she got back from the mental hospital, so the judge let her out as soon as she got back and ordered the criminal case to proceed. She immediately quit her meds, and picked up new charges. So, before the case could progress through the system at all, she was incompetent again, and is now set for another trip to the hospital. This could go on indefinitely! And it probably will.

I like my incompetent people. But there has to be some way that we can get services in Podunk, New Mexico so indigent mentally ill people can get medication, stay on medication, and not have to resort to stealing or pan-handling for their livelihoods!

I mean I've had one guy three different times in 4 years. When he's off his meds, he beats up his girlfriend and the cops when they come to arrest him. His girlfriend can keep him on his meds for about nine months at a stretch. After that, he either picks up battery charges against his girlfriend or the cops. Then he goes to jail. Then he goes to the hospital. Then he comes back from the hospital and his case gets dismissed, because if the medicate him to the point he's not talking to invisible people, he's unable to sit through court. Then he stays on his meds for a while. Then he gets off them. Then he picks up new charges. Repeat process ad nauseum.

It's so frustrating that the "system" is unable to cope with this poor guy, and all my other clients like him.

Making Do

2006-10-16T20:20:00.000-06:00

One think I've noticed since becoming a public defender is that one is always making do with less than optimum circumstances. There are always too many clients and not enough resources. This can be quite frustrating. A case in point: Last week our server went out. We save all our documents to the server, rather than to the hard-drive, so that we all have access to each other's old motions. However, without a server, we had to rewrite whatever we needed like stock motions for transport, continuances, jury instructions, and the like. In addition, the printer runs through the server, meaning without the server, we could not print anything. Thus we couldn't file anything anyway, even if we did manage to complete it. Add to it, the server makes this high-pitched, continuous, beeping noise when it is not working. It drives one insane! We finally thought we were out of the woods when the IT guy showed up Thursday to fix it and our files were re-loaded to the server from the back-up on Friday at about 4:30.

Our momentary bliss, however, was not to be. I come in after court this morning to the familiar high-pitched beeping noise. Now, not only is our server down, but something is up with the T1 line as well, meaning we have no access to the internet. So, when our clients ask when their court date is, why they got picked up on a warrant, whether the judge granted their motion, or any other thing that they like to call and ask about, no one can tell them! The receptionist cannot even tell them who their attorney is!

This in addition to the fact that we have been waiting for phones for 2 new attorneys and an intern for 2 months, we've been out of yellow pads and accordion files for 3 months, and personnel has switched to computer-based time-sheets that can never manage to pay anyone the proper amount.

Now that I have vented a while, I feel better. On the plus side, I have had lots of time to file my files, put the papers into the files, return various phone-calls, and catch up reading the bar-bulletin. If only that insane beeping noise would stop.

An Update:

We finally have a server and the internet! Will wonders never cease. This, of course, doesn't fix the shortage of pens, yellow pads, phones, or the paychecks that keep getting messed up. But it is progress!

A Foul Weather Fan: an Update

2006-10-14T18:47:00.000-06:00

The Tigers are going to the World Series!!!! Who can beat a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 9th?

8 Ways to Make a Difficult Job More Difficult: or 8 Ways to Turn a Law Office into a Middle School

2006-10-14T11:52:00.000-06:00

1. Come to the office approximately one week out of every 4, and get angry with the entire office when you feel like you are left out of the loop.

2. Listen to no one at the office except for the one person who blows everything out of proportion so that you think that the entire office is collapsing when, in fact, it is not.

3. When people try to tell you that the entire office is not collapsing, yell at them for wasting your precious time, which should be spent fixing problems that are not there or dealing with cases that you delegated to someone else.

4. When employees do come to you with a real problem, yell at them for complaining too much and avoid fixing the problem until it becomes impossible to avoid.

5. When there is a problem with another employee, speak about it with the one person who can do nothing about it and thereby ensuring that the problem never gets taken care of.

6. Never listen to suggestions about how to solve problems, and instead throw up your hands and resign yourself to the fact that no problem will ever be solved.

7. When you come up with a brilliant new plan to make everything work better, and other people explain to you certain problems with your plan, ignore the nay-sayers and go ahead with your plan anyway. This way when your plan fails, you will be able to blame it on people not being behind your plan.

8. Above all, never try to solve problems yourself. This both ensures that there will always be a problem to complain about, and that there are plenty of other people to blame for not solving the problem.

A Foul Weather Fan

2006-10-13T18:27:00.000-06:00

Yes, I am a sports fan. All sports. Football, baseball, hockey, and basketball. Possibly because one of my earliest memories was watching football on Sunday afternoons with my father. I liked football best because there is more action involved than baseball, and it was easier for a four-year-old to see what was going on than with basketball. All those tall people crashing into each other was hard for me to sort out at that point. With football, though, a four-year-old can tell that where the clump of people are on the ground is how far the ball got, and the goal was to get to the pretty colored part at the end of the field. Besides, the nice men in the stripy shirts put the ball right there between each play for the camera to see.

One drawback to living in New Mexico is that there are no sports here. So, I continue to cheer for the teams I grew up cheering for. The home team! Unfortunately, the "home" is in Michigan, where the only routinely good sports team plays hockey. They don't tend to televise (or care at all about) hockey in New Mexico. Nonetheless, I continue to watch football whenever I can, and groan at the fact that the Lions seem unable to win a single game. I look for the scores of the Pistons and Tigers in the paper every week and cheer when they break .500. (The Pistons tend to be somewhat hot-and-cold, and the Tigers tend to be plain horrible.)

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!! The TIGERS! The very ones that my grandfather called "that bunch of clunky lunk-heads!" (Well since that was fifteen years ago they aren't really the same ones, but they still tend to play like a bunch of clunky lunk-heads.) The Detroit Tigers are now one win away from the World Series! I can actually cheer for them! Out loud, and in public! They put the games on t.v. and I can watch them. This year was the first year I actually watched a baseball game all the way through since the late 1980's.

It's kind of nostalgic, really. I used to watch baseball games on Saturdays at my grandparents' house. My grandfather drank Old Milwaukee and I drank coke. My grandmother made popcorn in a big pan and put lots of butter and salt in it. My grandfather got the great-big bowl, and I got a little one. At that time, I knew almost the entire line-up of the Tigers. Somewhere in that time two Tigers had over 50 home-runs in one year: Mickey Tettleton (catcher) and Cecil Fielder(1st base). Alan Trammel (shortstop) had one of the best batting averages in the majors.

I now know why baseball is always so popular. It really does make you feel like a kid. It takes you back to summers spent outside at the playground. Getting to stay up late for church picnics or softball games. A time when a hot-dog was absolutely the most wonderful food, and popcorn was a treat.

Well, here's to the Boys of Summer!

An Addendum to a Note

2006-10-13T18:16:00.000-06:00

Once again the filters on our computers at work leave me in a state of confusion. Inexplicably, I can now get to the blog every time (well, since yesterday, anyway) but apparently the headings in the sidebar are blocked. Not the links, just the headings. It leaves these white boxes, instead of "Other blogs" or "Recent posts," or whatever. Perhaps the words are the problem, or the font? No telling. That's the State of New Mexico in all its technological glory! I give up. But at least I don't have to waste time trying to figure out what happened to the code, since they appear on any other computer I use!

A note

2006-10-13T09:10:00.000-06:00

No, I am not sure what happened to the headings in the sidebar. I have not had a chance to fix them, but will try to get to it this weekend. Until then, use your imaginations! Also, I have not posted as much as I would like this week due to the fact our computers at work have been subject to massive filtering efforts as well as server problems. Whether I can get to my blog seems to be dependent upon the weather.

A Disclaimer

2006-10-08T18:02:00.000-06:00

It occurs to me, that some people who find my blog may be expecting something different than what is here. Let me explain:

I am a public defender, and very proud of it. I love what I do, and would not do anything else for any money. I do what I do because it is in me to do it. I've known it is what I was meant to do since the age of 13, an age where most kids do not know what a public defender is. My work controls much of my thoughts, emotions, and time.

However, there is much more to me than being a public defender. This is a blog about my life, hence the title, not only my job. Being a public defender has formed and shaped much of who I am, and will continue to do so. It does not encompass all of who I am. Therefore, do not be surprised when the occasional political rant appears, or I digress about other things that are important to me. I hope that this does not discourage anyone from reading what I have to say. That being said, I will continue to post what I like, whether it is related to being a public defender or not. I began this blog for myself: to say what I want to say, with little thought to making any type of public statements or pleasing anyone else. If anyone doesn't like what I have to say, or is offended by it, I am truly sorry. You have a right not to like it. But I also have a right to write it.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble...
U.S. Const. Amend. I

The Fence

2006-10-07T16:48:00.000-06:00

Would you like to know why this latest development in the "immigration problem" bugs me so much? One reason is that for the past six or seven months, those in Washington have behaved as though this immigration dilemma is some newly discovered crisis! It is as though the fact that people from all over the world are desperately trying to get into this country is something they personally discovered and that this had never occurred before September 11, 2001.

Immigration was a large part of the political scene as early as the 1820's. It was thought that the United States would be overrun by those from other countries. It was feared that such an influx of people would destroy the economy by providing cheap labor (thereby taking jobs that those born citizens "deserve") and draining the food supply and that, as a result, the country would be unable to sustain itself. It was also feared that the influx of impoverished people would result in rampant crime. Sound familiar? This was 190 years ago! None of these doomsday scenarios have happened yet. I don't see any reason to believe that all of a sudden this country will collapse as a result of a growing immigrant population.

Here's another reason this fence idea bugs me. Even if a mass exodus from Mexico and other Central and South American countries to the United States were to occur, and even if the result would be a complete destruction of this country as we know it; what makes anyone think a fence will stop it? Would it have stopped the airplanes on 9/11? People now are so desperate to cross the border that they are willing to risk being shot by border guards, dying of starvation and thirst crossing the desert, and being robbed, raped, or killed by coyotes. If people are that desperate to come into this country now, they will find a way or die trying, fence or no fence.

My question is this: What is so wrong with the people who are trying to come to this country that the greatest country in the world cannot accommodate them? Are they not people, same as any citizen of this country? Don't they also have the same inalienable rights that we do? When that phrase was written into our Declaration of Independence, no one was a born citizen of this country. This country did not exist! All were citizens of a different country. Wasn't the point and purpose of this country to allow a place for everyone to try to find a better life? Including the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, Irish trying to escape the potato famine, Southeast Asians trying to escape their war-torn countries, those from behind the Iron Curtain, and everyone else who comes to this country just looking for a better life.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free!"