| | Some Things Just Don't Change...Clients are still ridiculously amusing/frustrating/endearing/wretched/inspiring/strange.
Prosecutors still rub me the wrong way.
A client called the office and said he absolutely couldn't make it to court because he was in Maine. When advised that a rearrest warrant would be issued if he didn't get to court in twenty minutes, the line went dead. Twenty minutes later, he arrived, breathless, in court. When asked how he had traveled hundreds of miles in so short a time, he said--serious as a heart attack: "I took a helicopter." Only a PD's client could walk in and tell his lawyer a fib like that with a straight face.
Another client, unarmed but crazy-ish, went into a bank and robbed it by passing a note that said something like, "Gimme some money or I'll shoot." The teller gave him the cash, and our silly client walked out the door believing he had pulled it off, scott free. He might have had a much better chance at getting away with it, if he hadn't written the robbery demand on the back of his probation appointment card: complete with his name, his probation officer's name, the contact number, and his DOC number. We get all the good cases....
A prosecutor came in my office the other day and expressed shock at the fact that I was pulling cases from Lexis and reading caselaw. "What are you doing that for?," demanded the grumpy old prosecutor, "No one here follows the law anyway!" He snickered knowingly and went on embarrassing himself. "You know, if we followed all the rules, the system would come to a grinding halt!" He stood there in my doorway, as if he was waiting for me to fold up my books and just go home.
"I have a lot to learn," I replied vaguely, wishing he would get the eff out of my office.
With a patronizing snort, he squinted his eyes at me and proceeded to insult me. "You know...the two people in the room who never know the rules are judges and defense attorneys." He paused and stared me down. I waited for him to say that he was just joking, or to admit that his effing prosecutors were the ones who didn't know ass from subsection. He didn't back down, of course, so I sat there, staring back into his wrinkled, belligerent face until he wandered out of my office looking for someone else to browbeat with the myths that make his career worthwhile...Only a prosecutor could trespass into the new PD's office to intimidate her with his shocking commitment to ignoring the law at the expense of our "guilty-as-soon-as-they-walk-in-the-door" clients.
Some things just don't change...
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| | Posted 4/14/2008 10:41 PM - 4 comments
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