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Whatever made me want or need to write about being a PD seems to have, um, gone. Part of me, most of me, actually feels like I've established some semblance of control over my caseload. Am I delusional? I have roughly 350 cases and have been doing this for a grand total of six months. I know the drill. I know what's going to happen on most of my cases.

This cannot be good. Another thought that plagues me is the fear that I don't know the substance of the law the way I should. With this many cases, the courts are like factories that manufacture mass quantities of dispositions. There really aren't very many hearings, let alone trials. There is essentially no time to sit down with some kind of treatise or practice guide or even in front of Westlaw to just read stuff. Under the assumption that the best way to learn the substance of the law and to hone my cross-examination skills, I try to set as much as possible for hearings or trial, but that's no guarantee that they'll happen. I had three cases set for bench trials last night. None of them went. Though, with each of these cases, setting them was less about strategy and more about desperation. One defendant has serious mental health issues. The judge actually ordered a mental health examination. The second blew between a .25 and .30 and just bombed on the field sobriety tests. So much so that he basically didn't do them. Even a little bit. The third had a resisting arrest charge. The cops were there. There was no way I could do it. She was looking at 6 months. No way.

No one went to jail. And, more to the point, all the defendants were white, between the ages of 37 and 54 and had no previous or only a few previous convictions. These people do not consider jail as an option in their lives. They'll take the deal.

My favorite case is on for motion arguments tomorrow night. I spent a lot of time on my motion, more than any other. Stayed up four or five nights in a row, sometimes until 2AM working on this thing. Bounced it off of friends, appeals bureau, and my supervisor. Assistant District Attorney's response was one sentence long. I was expecting a substantive response. Silly me. Something like "The People deny all allegations and assert that the defendant was engaging in lewd conduct in a public place." Weak.