Friday, August 22, 2008

Badboy

I had a client today with a pretty large tattoo on the inside of his forearm. Not too unusual. This tattoo said, "Badboy" though, which is descriptive and informative.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Slow posts

Posts here seem to slow down as my schedule gets less hectic. When I am busier at work, I look busier in the post department. That seems a little backwards to me, and I've only just realized this phenomenon. Everyone else seems to not post when they're busy, or when they're working more hours. Weird.

Needless to say, business has been slow lately. I'm going to be out of the office next week, which means I've handed my trial calendar over to a co-worker. She's in the division I came from, but she's got trial experience with felonies. I normally wouldn't want to dump trials on someone, but my judge is very irrationally anal-retentive about scheduling and would never move a calendar. Unless of course you are a fellow prosecutor, and then you get whatever you want. So, trial week stays the same, I will just be missing all the fun. I've still prepared my files, called defendants, tried to find witnesses, and all the fun prep work. But there's only so much to do when the only witness is your step son and the only testimony will be, "he punched me."

My co-worked pointed out that everytime I am on the eve of a trial calendar I say, "I'm a terrible lawyer and I need a new job." She says it's just the stress. I say I'm being practical. We'll just agree to disagree for now. This calendar is different of course, I'm not trying the cases. I doubt that there will be any trials anyway. Nothing has been going lately. Though that's probably because I've been preparing for trial. There's a strict law of the universe that goes along with misdemeanor cases. The more you prepare for trial, the less likely it is to go forward on the day of trial. So, the client who is most positively sure that his wife won't testify is the client who is most positively going to have to have a trial. The more sure you are that the state won't find that witness, the more likely they are to have that witness and two of his friends. That's just the way it works.

Friday, August 08, 2008

"I did hit her, but..."

Today I had a client in tears telling me that he had been in and out of jail for several months based on "these females" and lies. He was pretty upset in the holding cell outside the courtroom, and didn't want to enter a plea that would give him 60 days to serve followed by probation. That's far too long to spend in jail for "these females." So we had a bond hearing to try to get his bond reduced to something he may be able to make. Before the hearing I told him not to talk about the facts of the case itself, and not to make any admissions because they will use those against him. During the bond hearing he insisted on talking to the judge, so I reminded him not to mention anything about what happened on the night he was arrested. He told the judge that he had a job and that he wanted to get out, and then he said, "I mean, I did hit her, but..." and then I cut him off. Good work. If you were trying to get your bond denied and trying to give the State evidence to use against, you... mission accomplished!