Damage Control

One of the marks of an experienced defense attorney IMHO is knowing when their job has become damage control as opposed to fighting to win. I don't mean not putting a fair effort into a case - that is part of their job, and part of the system. And I certainly don't mean not looking for times when we as police did make errors, or when the evidence is sufficient for an arrest but not for a conviction (yes, there is a difference).

No, I mean when the case is straightforward, there is no question of the subject's guilt and the police did everything by the book. Then the job of a good attorney is to do everything they can to mitigate the punishment and put their client in the best light before the judge.

These are the cases you see after a bit where they don't call their client to testify, and they frequently don't even call on us to do so - pleading guilty or no contest, stipulating that the evidence is sufficient and hoping for as brief a summary as possible so that the judge doesn't increase the punishment due to what is often offender stupidity.

Unfortunately one of the gentlemen I had in court this week did NOT have an experienced attorney.

Again, there was no question of his guilt - I'd caught him driving drunk, the stop was perfectly legal, his tests were horrible and he made every incriminating statement he could without me even asking questions. Add to that the marijuana he had sitting in the car and told me about, and the attitude he displayed & comments he made during the arrest (and yes, all that stuff gets written down, if not recorded folks) and this was pretty much a slam dunk case. Given that this was his second DUI in a short period the knowledgeable attorney would have done everything possible to beg for mercy from the court and try to keep him from getting too much time to serve.

Instead this attorney (new to the job) tried to fight every little step of the way. They didn't even do a good job of that - no relevant case law, no attempts to try to get his statements thrown out as somehow inadmissible, none of that. Just weak attempts to twist some of my words around for what I observed, and even weaker attempts to tell the judge one thing was said when even the judge would look at her and say "No, they testified to X, not Y." Add to that she put her client on the stand, and pretty much handed him the shovel to dig the hole deeper. Testifying to things like "I really don't remember what all I said that night because I was drunk." does NOT help the situation, trust me.

All in all, it was almost painful to watch. Between what happened that night & the two of them not helping the situation in court he got pretty close to the maximum time to serve for everything, as opposed to something in the middle of the range.

Hopefully some of the other attorneys take her under their wing and teach her these lessons before too long, for the sake of her clients.