Okay I'm Gonna Be All Scholarly and Professional

Just for a bit though. There are some things on the horizon. I am going to slowly address them. Hopefully, when they appear front and center, I'll be ready to confront them in an accepted manner. Ultimately, I think and hope this will get some people to listen, if only for a moment. When I figure out what these things are, I'll let you know.

Just finished reading "Ethical Obligations of Lawyers Who Represent Indigent Criminal Defendants When Excessive Caseloads Interfere With Competent and Diligent Representation." This is Formal Opinion 06-411, dated May 13, 2006, of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee On Ethics and Professional Responsibility. I spent more time typing that title than I do on most of my cases.

Um, I'll read it again, just to give it the benefit of the doubt or something. Sheesh could you possibly publish a more general statement? Talk about void for vagueness!! Howz about void for voidness? Can't say that I was moved by an opinion that states the obvious and simply rehashes what everyone knows: public defenders have too many cases and cannot provide adequate legal representation. Issues of poverty, race, mental health and substance abuse, aggressive policing, and overcrowded jails, to name a few, aren't even close to being mentioned in reports of this nature.

Anywho, get out your lotion and your tissue, cuz next I'll be telling you about the American Council of Chief Defenders Statement on Caseloads and Workloads (August 24, 2007).

Oh yeah, can't forget, I learn at the expense of the accused. The poor. The black. The brown. The Asian. And yes, the white. The abused. The incarcerated. The marginalized. The people who, for whatever reason, haven't "made it" in this glorious system.

Kept Some People Out Of Jail

I learn at the expense of the accused.

I lived in NYC on 9/11. On that day, everything collapsed. The way I looked at the world collapsed. The way I looked at the world came back eventually, but it was a little different. This job is doing the same thing. Industrial and post-industrial democracy, us, the US, the West, democracy, all that shit, fuck it. What a fraud. What a total fucking fraud. This mentality of consumption, individualism, capitalism, whatever you want to call it, is sick and literally destroying the planet. I see people who have been dehumanized since the day they were born. Some day, some way, it will all be gone. I just hope I live to see it so I can die a happy man.

I kept some people out of jail yesterday. I don't know how. These were cases that I picked up from the guy before me. They were finished, except for sentencing. Each person had been through an interview with a probation officer. The end result is your life according to the probation officer. So far, I do not like probation officers. They are akin to having an inattentive babysitter who started smoking at the age of 13 and fucks her boyfriend on your couch while your parents are gone. Your life is reduced to three, four, maybe five pages, your record, no matter how long or how short, and then a recommendation, which is almost always incarceration. Frequently, and not surprisingly, there is a story of abuse and neglect, of violence in the home, shootings, alcoholism, unemployment, death, sickness and sometimes none of that. If I can latch on to something, I might be able to keep you from getting locked up because of the shitty work that the guy before me did. He should be locked up.

We're talking misdemeanor offenses here. Nothing violent. Theft, drugs, that sort of thing. The kind of stuff people have to do to survive. Not always, but certainly frequently. One more time in jail. Maybe this time this "piece of shit" or this "asshole" or this "douchebag" will get a fucking clue and come out of jail with the realization that you can't just steal stuff. Those are the words of one of the Assistant District Attorneys (ADA) that I have to work with. They don't fucking care. They don't go to the jail. You're arrested, charged, convicted, and sent to jail. Fuck you.

I work with three ADAs. One is brand new and having a very difficult time. Can't imagine I was any different. That said, this person is definitely having a more difficult time than me. He went back on a deal. Whatever, shit happens. But, like many ADAs, he is a straight up bully. Without the law, he would be nothing. All bark, no bite. Very little substance, if any. Admits he doesn't want to do any work and just wants to close cases. Forgets files, sometimes up to 25% of the docket. The people I represent are shit, assholes, devices used to clean various body cavities. Hmmm, I'm not a psych major, but I think I see a diagnosis on the horizon. And oh yeah, "My family was poor and I never stole so why should these people?" I'll just remind you that I live in a "city" with an official poverty level of 30%.

One of the other ADAs is very pleasant. We have a very cordial relationship. We move cases and arrive at what I think are appropriate conclusions. We only have court once a month, so there is actually time to do the following: (1) call the defendant and have a conversation, (2) call the ADA and talk about the case, (3) file the appropriate motion, and, last but not least, (4) go to court and resolve the case (eventually). Sounds kind of stupid, but this sort of orderly progression of a case is extremely rare. The norm is chaos. The most serious cases are DWIs with some assaults here and there, lots of family disputes that, unfortunately, end up in court, and violations of probation. Every once in awhile we get some asshole who was fishing without a license. This ADA never makes derogatory comments about anyone. I respect you and hope that we continue to work together in this manner.

You've heard of Driving While Black. How about Working On Your Car While Black? What's next, Fishing While Black? Saw that too. I was talking to some of the guys in jail and asked them what was going on with the sweeps. One said if you walk crooked you get locked up.

Oh yeah, according to one ADA I admitted on the record that I committed malpractice. No shit? The judge said, "Wow, talk about falling on your sword!" I told the truth. If the truth is malpractice, fine. I have over 300 cases. Some dude was in for 18 days on 2 violations. Two other people were possibly involved in this oversight. Whatever, it was ultimately my fault. I apologized to the guy. Not surprisingly, he didn't really care. He was out and going home with a violation. When he appeared at the bench, I said, "Your honor, due to mistakes that I made, Mr. Jones spent 18 days in custody on these charges." I didn't mention anyone else because that would have been a punk move. My entire practice is malpractice as far as I'm concerned.

Nothing

I "learn" at the expense of the accused. Am I even learning? I really don't know. I feel like I know more. But does it help?

R. Kelly is a genius. This is one line from Best Friend from his latest album Double Up:

[Polow Da Don:]Man i been havin trouble wit my car, Besides it's to far, price of gas, man it's hard, and on da real, shit man they be trippin up at that Wal-Mart,feel me?

People can't get to court because they don't have transportation. People, and by people I mean people of color, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latin Americans, black people, brown people, Asians, blacks y boricuas and white people too be gettin' totally hassled when they're just out mindin' their own fuckin' business. They pick up some bullshit charge and guess what? You've got a record. And the door that really wasn't too open to begin with closes just a little bit. But I guess their business is our white business. Its our business to remind you that we control you and what little freedom you might have can be reduced and even obliterated at the drop of a hat. Up against the wall!! At the mall, at the club, on the street, random searches, random frisks, random thisses and random thats and at fuckin' Wal-Mart too. Jesus I wouldn't be surprised to hear that those fuckheads had someone arrested, brought into the store and pressed into service at like thirty-five cents an hour.

Today one of the district attorneys took me to task for not moving cases fast enough. Basically she wants me to make deals and, in my opinion, force people to take pleas. Whatever. People, including me, don't know what is happening. Therefore, I have to teach myself, which really doesn't happen, and then tell the defendants what is happening. That takes time. What happens if things start getting backed up?

What do you call a company that goes into people's homes and looks for suspicious behavior and when it sees some reports it to the police? Time-Warner. And the local gas and electric company. People I represent have been telling me that clubs keep lists of people with warrants. When they swipe their ID cards to show their age, they check the name on the list and call the cops if the names match. These are public-private partnerships. Privatization of security. The next step will be huge parts of the population that will not have access to services provided by these companies. Which is fine, but for all the wrong reasons. Its not like we actually need the crap they supply. Including this blog.

Eye of the Storm

Over 300 cases. This is our "justice" system. It sucks up the "poor," the marginalized, it targets people of color, people with mental health issues and substance abuse issues, and, of course, others as well. I simply cannot understand how something that is so cold and calculating and brutal can continue to exist. Reform is useless. Prison abolitionists, like the people at Critical Resistance, and others, like the Black Panthers, have the right idea.

From a recent Information for Delinquency, which is what a Probation Officer writes up when someone isn't doing what the Probation Officer thinks the person should be doing:

"He displays no fear of the criminal justice system."

This is a 17 year old kid we're talking about. He's a hero in my book. The PO said the defendant "needs to be shocked." Did you help him find a shitty wage-slave job at McDonald's? Did you enroll him in school? No and no. He has to abide by your rules. He has to adjust to your concept of the way a life should be lived. He went down for 120 days.

One set of people dominates another. If you don't live by our rules, we will totally destroy you.
Our rules are generalized abstractions that fail to take into account the particularities of your life. They are objective, reasonable, systematized, and apolitical. Applicable to all persons regardless of income, skin color, education, blah blah blah. Interesting that so much of Criminal Procedure is the product of violent racism. I would argue that the Criminal Procedure Law is thoroughly incapable of providing a structure by which a criminal case can be fairly adjudicated. Individual needs are ignored. The needs of judges and DAs running for election are catered to without regard to the impact on defendants. See "The Racial Origins of Modern Criminal Procedure," Michigan Law Review, Fall 2000, Michael Klarman; and "No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System," David Cole, (The New Press, 1999).

It is simply impossible to know what is going on with this many cases. That said, I do feel like I've managed to reach the eye of the storm. Everything swirls around me. Sometimes I grab something and hang on for dear life. Its like trying to jump on a bullet. There is so much that I don't know. There is so much that is fleeting, unpredictable, vague. Things are happening, but what are those things and what is happening? Things start to gather, pile up, and pretty soon there is a pronounced sense of impending doom. Ever seen footage of one of those monster tornados with all the debris flyin' around everywhere? That's what its like.

Poverty, Squalor, Filth

Four or five new cases today. Each one filthy. Not homeless. I've represented no more than five homeless people since I started. Truly disturbing. All with skin darker than mine. They were arraigned at the end of court, so the only people there were court employees and them. Everyone in the court was white. And oh so polite. White and polite. As long as we're polite, haven't we fulfilled our duties? I mean truly dirty. Living in squalor. And now living in jail.

Statistics show the population of this city has declined by about 14 thousand over the last six years. They also show that about 30% of the population of this city is living below the poverty line. The other day, I was present at the arraignment of a woman who got busted for stealing a coat. Her house had burned down three days before. It was on the news. She had emergency housing for two days. Then nothing. It was cold, 40 degrees the other night. She was cold and took a coat. No one cares.

I told the judge on the record that Mr. Black was constantly getting harassed by cops. Walking while Black. Riding a Bike while Black. Driving while Black. "Oh well, that's not something we can address here, um, blah blah blah, you know, um, well....blah blah blah."

Got roped into a bench trial. White security guard sat on a black woman who was 7 months pregnant. Her friend tried to defend her and got charged with harassment in the second, a stupid violation. This actually went to trial. The judge tried to get me to get her to take a plea, which I didn't do. She wasn't takin' one anyway. Then, when the trial started, he said she was gonna have to represent herself pro se. I said fine, I'll take my coat off and sit behind her and advise her. Think he would've done that to a white girl?

I still have over 300 cases.

Tomorrow I have a Huntley Hearing. I don't know what I'm doing.

This is what I see everyday. Its the same thing as Guantanamo. Maybe without the hood and the extreme forms of deprivation. Nonetheless, the deprivation is gradual as opposed to instantaneous. I would imagine the effects are somewhat similar.

It worked on me and I'm not even in jail. I've never felt so useless and defeated. What I do is futile. Someday, when I snap, I'm going to have a life-sized cardboard cutout of myself made, bring it to court, and put it where I usually stand and see if my cases turn out any differently.

Lineup

Today I went to a lineup. Some people got stuck up. They called the cops. Eventually, the cops or the DA or whoever had them come down to the jail to look at some dudes through a one-way window or mirror or whatever. Two white attorneys, three white people who got robbed, one white investigator, a whole bunch of white COs, and six black dudes in jail, in orange jumpsuits, all of whom had to be in their late teens and early twenties.

It was comical, surreal, and, most of all, depressing. I'm still reacting. Comical because the guys were told to approach the one-way window thing and then turn to the side, then the back, then the other side, then to the front again in a full, clockwise circle. In between viewings, a few were kind of doing a dance thing with the turns. Surreal because they're in bright orange jumpsuits with bright orange shoes. The jumpsuits are huge, these guys are pretty skinny. It looked like they were rehearsing for a play.

And depressing. This was in the jail. They were brought into a room and had to hold laminated cards with numbers on them while facing the one-way window. A group photo was taken. One guy was a suspect. The rest were there because they were supposed to sort of look like the suspect, thus preventing the lineup from being unduly suggestive. Funny thing is, the other guys didn't have a lawyer present even though everyone knows these sorts of lineups are notoriously unreliable means of identification. Even one of the COs said that for some reason he was in a series of lineups and was picked four different times even though he was just one of the guys filling in. Each guy needs to have a lawyer present, as each probably has about the same chance of being picked. During one of the viewings, the person watching asked to see two people again, neither of whom was the suspect.

Complete domination. No one knows what is happening.

Brainmelt

3:33 A.M. That's half of 6:66A.M. Sleep is elusive. I want it more than anything else. Lack of sleep and not knowing whether I've slept. And the day. And the night. And the morning. Spinning wheels hit uneven pavement. It never stops. Names are like clubs, faces and heads detached from bodies, files detached from lives, everyone detached from everyone else 'cause its just a job and if you care too much, the stupidity and futility of it will eat you alive. Very, very quickly.

Parents put their kids in jail. Their 18, 19, 40, and 45 year old children are in jail. I don't know what else to do. We don't know what else to do. If he can get a taste of jail, maybe it will scare him into the right direction.

Maybe it won't. Maybe jail will makes things worse. Its depressing. Last time I checked, depressing wasn't good. She can't be out on the street and I can't have her at the house. But he's not a criminal, he's a drug addict and shouldn't be in jail and her court date isn't for three more weeks and the bail is too high and she's not getting proper medical treatment so we're going to call everyone until we get what we want. Jail was what we wanted but now we want something else. We're going to have the jail personnel miffed at having to pay so much attention to one person, which makes the other inmates pissed because the jail personnel are paying so much attention to one person. We're going to place our trust in you because since the day we were born, we were told stories about the criminal justice system. That it makes things better. Does that put your child at risk? I don't know. I admire aspects of your spirit, of repeatedly calling to make sure things get done. I don't know the whole story and I can see that you are in a tremendous amount of pain. If you, we, society, judges, DAs, legislators, PDs and everyone else are going to put drug addicts in jail, shouldn't there be adequate medical care? Or should we just let them rot and teach them a lesson? After all, for whatever reason, they've chosen not to play this stupid game. I get it. I really do. I'm trying to figure out how to join you. Really show 'em who the boss is? Because we're in control. Can't you see how mass incarceration has made things better?

There's our society and then there is yours. We control yours.

Into the Fire

No training. Over 300 cases. I got to 312 and stopped counting. First week, pay cut due to some sort of "error" that involved hiring me in at the wrong rank. Or something like that.

People aren't getting the representation they deserve. Apparently the caseload is more than twice the recommended annual caseload. Some say that's just the way it is and you'll get used to it and stop caring so much while others, choosing not to mince words, just call it malpractice. Sometimes I tell people to complain to whoever they think will listen. To call the office and complain about me because I did not devote enough time to their case. I haven't heard anything.

I wasn't shown how to do anything. What little experience I had has proven to be irrelevant. Nothing I've done comes close to this volume, this speed. Listen to messages or check email? Write motions or go to the jail? Well, seeing as I can't get beyond an omnibus motion, I'll just go to the jail. A motion takes about 3 minutes. The jail can take hours. Answer the phone or file papers?

I'm guessing half the people that make up my caseload have substance abuse or mental health issues. Sometimes its just pot. Whatever. Sometimes its crack, heroin, pills, booze, cocaine, or a combination of all those. Sometimes it started when they were young. Mom says she could tell when Juan was a little boy that he was different. Now she doesn't know what to do. Some people have serious issues. I am not qualified to represent these people. Some people have issues that are far beyond anything I've ever encountered. I am not qualified to represent these people. But I "do."