There is no getting over it

Justice Scalia says to 60 Minutes about Bush v. Gore, "Get over it."

 

It irks me so, so bad.  I don't care that it's Bush v. Gore that we're talking about.  The fact that a Supreme Court justice would hand down a decree of constitutional law and then, in response to public scrutiny, dismiss it with the wave of a hand... ugh. 

 

I know that judges are in an unenviable role.  Local judges have to worry about making decisions (to release or not to release?  bail or no bail?  suppress or not to suppress?) that look bad to the public and make great tabloid-like headlines in the newspaper, even if these judges are making decisions that are legally reasonable.  But that's part of being a judge.  Being a judge means making tough decisions.  That's what a judge does.  Our system is an adversarial one, so two parties take opposing positions and the judge rules.  Now, some of the judges I work with prefer not to make decisions, and that type of judge is the one for whom I have the least respect of all.  WE ARE NOT HERE TO AGREE WITH EACH OTHER.  I hate judges who want everyone to just talk it out.  Well, I think the cop's a fucking liar.  You may be surprised to learn that the prosecutor disagrees.  So, no consensus.  Now your turn judge.  Oh, don't want to weigh in?  Don't want to have to decide who wins this round?  Thanks, judge, my barista at Starbucks makes harder decisions in a day than you do.

 

I have several cases that haunt me, cases that I know I was legally in the right, cases in which my clients lives were devastated.  And when I get up there to yell about how unfair it all is, the judges have the response equivalent to Justice Scalia's - Get over it.  So here's my response, here in this empty little tin can of the internet I'm shouting into - NO I WILL NOT GET OVER IT.  You know what?  You made the decision.  You made a bad decision.  You made a decision that ruined innocent people's lives.  YOU DEAL WITH IT.  Don't tell me to shut up to make the problem go away.  Because I'm going to come back every day on every future case and remember what you did.  And you are going to try to make my life miserable because I can't let you forget that I think you fucked up.  I'm not going to get over it, never ever.  And neither will these people whose lives have been ruined.  You made the decision.  The responsibility of the decision lies with you.

 

I know it's hard sometimes to make the legally correct decision.  But if what you're doing is truly following the law, it shouldn't be so hard to take responsibility for that, right? 

 

Justice Scalia's "get over it" response to a decision he made, interpreting constitutional principles, just infuriates me.  Every decision the Supreme Court makes is a big one.  His job is to clarify the most essential rights of our existence.  To try to evade or dismiss as trivial the impact or response to those decisions is not only patronizing but appalling.  This is your job.  If you cannot accept the responsibility of your professional actions, then you don't belong there.

 

There are cases that haunt me, and I will not get over it.  And maybe, judge, you shouldn't "get over it" either.

superrelationships, monogamy, and please stop asking.

A few years back, the Utne Reader had a cover article about SuperRelationships.  I found the article compelling because it explored the question of whether we expect too much from relationships.  This is a question to which I keep returning.  Is it realistic to expect so much from one person?  Can we expect that one person will "get" every aspect of us?

 

In October, I was at a wedding and catching up with a friend I hadn't seen in some time.  I was telling my friend about my recently acquired boyfriend.  I felt compelled to explain that I wasn't sure that he was the love of my life, because even though he was my boyfriend, I feared that people would infer too much from it.  I then began confessing that as much as I adored my boyfriend, I also felt drawn to a coworker with whom I got along very well and who shared a similar sense of humor and approached work much in the same way I do.  I was confused by what seemed to be conflicting feelings - how can I feel that way towards one if I feel the way I feel towards another?  My friend shared something that I thought was so insightful and intelligent that I reflect back upon it often, particularly when the issue of relationships come up in conversation. 

 

What my friend shared with me was her belief that perhaps our society is so wildly monogamous that we cannot accept that there might be one person, not our significant other, who gets one part of us so much better than anyone else, and we feel guilty when that happens.

 

Over the holidays, I again found myself in a discussion about my current relationship status.  When asked whether it was serious, I responded that I couldn't tell.  I knew I cared very deeply for my boyfriend, and I felt that his laid-back, upbeat approach to life balanced out my high-anxiety, intense, sometimes moody self.  I liked spending time with him, but liked that we both kept separate spheres, and were able to join or not join the other when we felt like it.  What I didn't feel, however, was that firecracker emotion, that tingle in the back of my neck, the excitement that comes when you meet someone who sparks some dormant or quiet part of you.  I wasn't sure that he really "got" me, and that we didn't have enough in common for that to ever realistically happen.  So things were good, they were really good, but I wasn't sure they were great, but I also wasn't sure that any relationship ever has that capacity.  My friends shared their stories, of friends who were together but then broke up, no reason other than it just wasn't The One.  It was good, but it wasn't great, and good isn't good enough.  And here we are, embracing or about to embrace our 30s, and still no answers or discoveries with respect to The One.

 

It came up again last week.  A friend who was considering some of her own relationships started asking whether I saw myself marrying my current boyfriend.  She asked if I was happy, or just content, and was being just "content" settling for something less than love that we each deserve?

 

I don't have answers.  I do sometimes wonder about my relationship, and it pains me to admit that.  But for as much as the questioning around me increases, my own questions subside.  The longer I'm in this relationship, the more I see that he gets me much more than I gave him credit for.  He might not debate my socio-political philosophies with me, and we may never be capable of having such esoteric discussions.  But there are other people with whom I can have those discussions, and I don't know anyone else who can calm me or keep me company in the day to day drudgery of life the way that he can.

 

If we expect the superrelationship, then we are looking for one person who gets every part of us, to the exclusion of the people around us who are very capable of providing those connections.  I have seen couples who are good examples of superrelationships, but I am not sure it's for everyone.  And it's not that I don't wish the best for myself or others who haven't found a superrelationship, and I'm not even sure whether I think there is a superrelationship for everyone or not.  But I think it's ok to be in a committed, long-term relationship with someone who gets most of you, and respects that the rest of the parts of you will continue to explore and develop, sometimes or even oftentimes with other people in your life.

 

So am I going to marry the boyfriend?  I don't know.  I'm not anywhere near that place.  The question makes me uncomfortable.  Would I be, if I were in a superrelationship?  Maybe.  There's no way to tell.  I'm not in a rush to resolve the question.  There's so much more fun to be had first.  I know we're good together right now, and right now I think that's enough.

 

What do you think?  Are we expecting superrelationships and supermonogamy?  Are we expecting too much?  Or are we discarding a formerly economic and social contractual approach to marriage and relationships in favor of a true, deep, one-of-a-kind bond approach to marriage?

ask and ye shall...

I just pled with fate and this blog's audience for a big win.  Right after that I had a trial, and right after that I had an utterly innocent client convicted.

 

Kick me while I'm down.

sorry.

This blog is something I've come to just poke at now and again, like a super fancy kitchen utensil that you only need for one recipe that you make twice a year.  Otherwise it sits on the shelf, and I wish I had the energy or the zeal or the words to do something with it.

 

Maybe I will eventually.  Just not lately.

 

Part of the reason might be because I feel driven to leave the job.  Not right away.  Not next month, or even in 3 months.  But I need to get a feel for what's out there, because I need to leave, and the idea of leaving my job is really difficult to grasp.  I thought I'd be here a long time.  And I thought when I left, I'd just go to a public defender in a different part of the country.  Work has been so difficult for me lately - so tedious, so not law-based, so much paperwork and scheduling and administrative bullshit that it makes me feel like my law degree has just led me to be a fucking secretary with six figure debt - that I'm losing my shit.  It never even occurred to me to do anything other than public defender work - and not even as a contract attorney.  When I tentatively mentioned to a friend I was considering hittin' the long dusty road, she started talking civil rights firms and big government work.  No no no, I waved it off.  Just PD work, not that other stuff.  Why not? she asked.  And then I stopped for a moment.  I guess I don't know why not, other than I just never really considered it. 

 

If I'm not a public defender, who am I? 

 

Am I ready to leave before I feel like I ever really got started?

 

My mentor told me, it's times like these that you need a big win.  I don't know if just one will cut it - I think I need a few really big wins to get my revved again.  I feel so far gone already.

unfinished

I can't stand it a minute longer.  I'm so angry I want to cry.  I'm storming out of the courtroom, where I've just wasted an hour of time sitting there doing nothing, precious time better spent researching a legal issue or analyzing a case or writing a motion or talking to a client or interviewing witnesses.  Just an hour today wasted, as I've started to realize that NOT appearing on time has made me a better lawyer.  The wind is cold and I can't get a handle on my scarf that's whipping around in the air around me.  Fuck this.  Fuck this. FUCK THIS.  I'm not meant for this.  I'm not built to just sit there and watch people in black robes and suits say stupid, stupid things over and over and over again.  I hate it, I can't stand it, I don't have the patience for it.

 

Back in the office, I return to my chair, the chair that sees more of me than does my boyfriend or my bed.  On the screen, right where I left it, that motion I've been painstakingly writing, one slow sentence at a time, researching as I write.  I cut, I paste, I cite, I move the paragraph, I'm clicking, I'm typing.  Every once in a while a flash of his small quiet face comes to mind.  Juvenile charged as an adult.  So quiet.  Can't get him to talk.  What ever happened to him that made him so quiet?  So tiny.  I click, I type, I type, I highlight.  I remember back when I saw him, when he first sat down across from me in the activity room.  The activity room filled with silence, with false institutional cheer on the cement walls.  He, in the jumpsuit, not expecting me.  He was expecting the other one, the middle-aged paunchy grizzly soft male attorney he had before.  Instead he got me, an edgy, young, eternally scowling female.

 

When considering sentencing, the court is required to first consider rehabilitative options

and as I typed the sentence I wondered how that was going to be true.  He had never been in trouble before.  I couldn't quite figure out what was to rehabilitate.  It was a bad decision, made quickly. 

an unfolding sense of one's place in the world

That's how my tarot card reading began and ended.  I was asking a lot of questions for one reading.  I wanted to know where I was going next, what I'd be doing next, who'd be there with me.  Will I be lonely?  Will I find someone to marry?  Will I have children?  Will I be a lawyer?  Will my life look the way I think I want it to look?

 

The thing I like about tarot cards, cynic that I am, is that it's not about whether they're true or not. (Although I have had some strangely accurate readings).  The tarot cards reflect back at you want you need to know.  This time it was no different.  The tarot reading didn't answer any questions about the entire unfolding of the rest of my life, just as the reading didn't tell me what to eat for breakfast.  but what the reading made clear is that I have no idea what the hell is going on.  It reflected back to me my own confusion about where I am and where I'm going.  Do I believe that tarot cards predict the future?  No.  But I think they tell you what you might already know.

 

I'm still searching for answers. I am pretty sure I don't have them.  I think I've identified that I'm ready to start planning some changes.  A new geographic location, and new practice.  (I like my job, I don't like my current practice.)  I have absolutely no insight was to what I want as to either location or practice.  And I haven't met anyone I want to marry, or have children with, or consider real estate with.

 

I'm young, but not so young to be this incapable of figuring out my place in the world.  Nothing is unfolding for me, as of yet.  I don't know if I'll go, and if I do I don't know where it will be, but I've decided that whatever this is, it requires a 2 year plan.  Two years from now I have to be living intentionally, and not so passively.  I have to be active and investing my time in something, instead of just continuously waiting for something to grab me and shake me to life.

on being a public defender: apparently we're all liars.

It's strange how much judges and prosecutors really believe that we lie, lie, lie all the time.  I often don't get involved in the "truth" or "what really happened" because no two people tell the story the same way.  This is how defense attorneys get to use the government's evidence to create their own defense without ever having to put on a witness.  It doesn't matter what I think really happened - if the evidence leads to the inference that there was a self-defense issue, then I get to argue that.  The flip side of that is, I have no interest in spinning falsehoods.  I don't need to create testimony or create evidence to create a false 'story.'  The government (usually in the form of the police department) gives me all the false evidence I need.

 

It really gets to me when participants in this very system seem to embrace and support the belief that defense attorneys are liars.  Often times when a prosecutor is confronted with a big booboo, the first response is to accuse the defense attorney of somehow craftily tricking the prosecutor into doing something.  It's strange.  Or when I file a notice of intent to introduce a particular defense, the prosecutor gets all *wink wink nudge nudge* "but you know he really did it." 

 

I can almost accept that prosecutors feel this way but when JUDGES articulate this, it disheartens me to the point of wanting to throw in the towel.  Why do I even show up for work every day?  If even JUDGES think I'm a flat out liar because I represent people who have been accused of crimes, if I'm guilty by association for representing clients who are assumed guilty because they wouldn't have been arrested if they hadn't done something wrong, why do I even need to get out of bed in the morning?

 

And when the government loses, it's always, "The government failed to prove each and every element" but when a defendant loses, it's, "Defense counsel hardly makes out the requirements of XYZ" or "Defense counsel's tenuous argument that ABC..."  I get called a bitch, I get all the adjectives, but the government never gets told that they are silly, ridiculous, and a colossal waste of time.  Furthermore, even if my argument is tenuous, can we please just leave out the bitchy adjectives as a way of acknowledging that IT IS MY JOB to challenge these issues?  That even if it's a loser of an argument, it doesn't mean that I should just fail to challenge evidence whatsoever?  I mean, it's like having a trial and not saying a word because I know I'll lose.

 

Last week I had an oral argument on a suppression issue.  The prosecutor alleged a certain set of facts that, for the most part, I agree with.  Where we differ is that I introduced an entire previous set of facts, that existed BEFORE this second agreed-upon set of facts, that strongly negates the prosecution's conclusion as to what the second set of facts means.  I discovered this first set of facts because I kept looking for a witness until the witness, in a very reluctant and hostile manner, told me what he observed.  Other objective individuals were able to verify different parts of this first set of facts, and I was so delighted to have discovered such great exculpatory material.  (although, sadly, if I can't ever get the witness in to testify, as is probably the case, then my client is in big trouble).

 

The government opposed my motion to suppress, mostly on the grounds that they deny the first set of facts existed because they say they looked into it and could not find any evidence this first set of facts existed.  The judge denied my motion and in the decision, the judge constantly referred to this first set of facts with words like "allegedly" and "defense counsel would have you believe that..."  The judge almost solely used the government's inability to discover my evidence (which is very strange, because it is technically THEIR evidence if they believe their own facts to be true) to deny my motion.  Basically, if the government says it never happened, then defense counsel is clearly fabricating this entire thing.  [Seriously, why would I MAKE UP facts?  I'll argue inferences but to create an entire scenario based on sheer imagination?  Why would I lie?  See above.]  I was so insulted that the judge, in no uncertain terms, called me a liar.  If the judge had denied my motion because there were not enough facts to support it, that's one thing.  But to characterize my argument the way the judge did...

 

I have a lot of words that come to mind in reaction to that decision, but the words I'll choose to use here are, "I'll see you at trial."

on being a public defender: reasons prosecutors make me scream

Most defense attorneys believe that, in general, prosecutors are unjustifiably arrogant about their roles and their individual capabilities.  I've become accustomed to the bravado of the courtroom and accepted the fact that they think the same of us.  Really, it's not personal.  We're just doing our jobs. 

 

But a surefire way to quickly and vehemently enrage me is to make it personal.  And when a prosecutor personally seeks me out to admonish me about how to represent my clients, violence ensues.

 

It often goes something like this:

P:  Why won't your client take a plea?

D:  He's not guilty.  He has witnesses.  As I've told you 4 times before, no plea.

P:  Ok, so what if I drop the plea down [one more notch]? 

D:  Go ahead.  Still not guilty.  Still has witnesses.  Still wants a trial.  Still no plea.

P:  But I just don't understand why he won't plead to XYZ.  I mean, you know he did it, and you have ALL THESE OTHER CASES WHERE YOUR CLIENTS REALLY NEED YOU.  It just doesn't seem right to waste our time and the court's time with a case like this.

D:  [jaw drops. violence ensues.]

 

I've had prosecutors tell me, several times, that I am doing all of my clients a disservice by wasting time and resources litigating certain issues.  Generally the issues I have encountered as a "waste of time" are issues such as 1. a demonstrated alibi, acknowledged by the prosecutor; 2. a procedural error by the prosecutor that results in an automatic dismissal of my client's case.  I've also been told that 3. defense attorneys are doing their clients a disservice by not making them do treatment programs when the clients need them.

 

I get angry when a prosecutor tells me I am wasting their time because my client refuses to concede guilt.  It is downright horrifying how much the "innocent until proven guilty" is one big *wink wink nudge nudge* in the courtroom.  I have two cases in particular where the judge has actually said as much on the transcript.  I really should have ordered those. 

 

But I get nearly BLACKOUT angry when a prosecutor admonishes me about the time I won't be able to spend on all my other cases that REALLY need my time.  And I get nearly blackout angry when a prosecutor tells me that I'm preventing her from helping other defendants because I'm wasting her time by litigating issues on that case.  Or when a prosecutor admonishes me for 'letting' my client get rearrested, or 'letting' my client out of jail without a program in place in the community.

 

I'll set aside the prosecutor's belief that I have some sort of moral influence or flat-out control over my client's life choices - that "reason Prosecutors make me scream" we'll leave for another day.  But I cannot comprehend how a prosecutor can, with a straight face, argue that a case is not worth the court's resources and then adamantly refuse to drop the case.  I cannot comprehend how a prosecutor can tell me that I am actively hurting my client's best interests by NOT advising my client to take a plea when I have at least a 75% shot of complete dismissal.  Or really, the point is, I cannot comprehend how and where a prosecutor gets off by TELLING ME I'M DOING MY JOB WRONG.

 

You don't have to be an attorney to know what I'm talking about.  There are people in life who always seem to think they have some higher authority.  People who are never wrong.  People who tell you, when you feel a certain way about a subjective issue, that you are wrong.  And these people are frustrating because they are locked in some small little world where things are so certain, and you are here in this much bigger world where things are not so certain, and there's nothing you can do to get them to step outside that tiny little world of theirs to take a look around at all the other things that could be.

 

I have received several very, very unprofessional calls or personal tirades from prosecutors calling me a liar and a cheat.  One example (and the most memorable because it was the first and most volatile) originated because they forgot to show up for a hearing scheduled by the court.  When ordered to appear, they were not prepared and then accused me of fabricating the hearing myself.  However, when asked by the judge earlier that morning, their office told the judge that they were ready to proceed on that very hearing.  I think what really happened is that they lied about being ready to proceed, and since the left hand didn't know the right hand lied, the left hand argued back that I made up the fact that the case had been scheduled for a hearing.  The tirade was so unprofessional and filled with personal insults that I considered making a complaint with the ethics committee.

 

I've also been accused of making up, wholesale, a conversation I had with a prosecutor.  When confronted with my screaming rage and evidence of one actual conversation in particular, the prosecutor admitted that conversation occurred but never once apologized for calling me a liar or for openly insulting not only me personally, but my professionalism and ethical duty.

 

There are occasions when a prosecutor's behavior is so unprofessional and ignorant that it merely reinforces the stereotype of their unjustifiable arrogance.  The real evidence of arrogance is when they think it is their place to call me and 'supervise' me personally by telling me what I, personally, should be doing for my clients and why.  Why do prosecutors think they know what's best for defendants?  That seems so strange to me.  They know nothing other than the charges written on the paper - often times they don't get around to speaking to witnesses - and yet they profess to know what's best for my client.  Furthermore, it's no secret that my job is to represent my client's express interests.  So if my client doesn't want to do what the prosecutor is suggesting, why does the prosecutor think that I am somehow a horrid attorney for working on getting my client the disposition my client wants?  It would be one thing if the prosecutor was discussing the "worth of the case" which really means, what this looks like on paper without regard to the actual specific facts of this case.  But in these instances, when accusing me of "wasting time and resources" the prosecutor makes it personal - makes it about me specifically, and about screwing over a specific defendant, and as a result I'm personally being a bad, bad attorney to all of my other clients.

 

This is not meant to personally insult or accuse every prosecutor of being a douchebag.  There are only a chosen few prosecutors that I believe have zero redeeming qualities, and that designation was well-earned by them individually.  Most prosecutors I respect / contempt on a case by case basis, and the prosecutors I respect are not the ones who do me favors but the ones who are professional, reasoned, and capable.  (In other words, if you're insulted by this post, it's not really about YOU.  Unless it is.  In which case, you should really REALLY think before you say something - "Is this about the facts of the case or is this me telling someone else what to do because I think I know more than everyone else?")

resolve: to find or be found.

I think I'm lost.

I recently went to a small political gathering and had the opportunity to discuss world politics and the presidential primaries and Benazir Bhutto's assassination and the economic and political influence of South America with a handful of people. Although I had signed up to attend, I was dreading actually attending. Who did I think I was? I hardly follow politics anymore, I'm resigned to voting third party just as a big Fuck You to our current system of government, and frankly, I'd rather do nothing at all than get all gussied up to speak with smarmy politicians. But I got there and I met earnest people doing interesting things with a variety of professions and interests and I nearly burst with happiness. I started to remember what it felt like to talk about Big Ideas and thinking about Important Things.

It made me downright giddy. I loved academia, I loved having a physical location dedicated to thinking and talking about Big Things. By the end of law school I was sick of talking and thinking and ready to do. But now "doing" is something I've had enough of, after two years of doing it and doing it and doing it well (Thanks LL Cool J) and I'm ready to start thinking again. I want to muse, to discuss, to learn. I want to stop talking about work all the time, or thinking about work all the time. I want to feel like I'm being an active participant in the world and not just going to work and coming home.

I feel like I somehow, somewhere along the way, stopped really living. I've just sort of been getting by, figuring that one day I'll stop being so busy and then have the time to live the way I want my life to be. There have been a few reasons for this. First, I met someone. Having a boyfriend was a great reason to not doing anything anymore. I have someone to lie around and watch TV with all day, someone who will order in takeout and lie in bed late into the day. Second, work took up so much of my time that in the absence of work, I wanted to do as little as possible. Third, I just sort of forgot what makes me happy, and never really thought to stop and update that list.

I learned last year, but somehow forgot again, that work cannot be the only thing in my life. It has always been important to me to work a job to which I am personally and deeply committed. But I need to remind myself that it's also ok to remember that it's just a job, in the sense that there is no way my job can encompass everything that's wonderful about the world. (As a matter of fact, being a public defender tends to encompass a lot that is deeply tragic about the world.)

I feel some long bouts of self-imposed isolation coming on. Or in the alternative, I need to switch up my scene quite a bit. Too much of my personal life is invested in work and coworkers, and too much of my work life has eclipsed any semblance of a personal life. I am ready to get out there and really participate in the world, to learn new things about people and ideas, to try things I've never done before. I'm going to commit to keeping my life and the people around me positive, and to give myself permission to release the things that are not positive, as painful as it may be. I have to keep learning and seeking and moving forward, and I'm ready to cut a bold path for myself in the world.

keep me motivated to work less.

I very suddenly just realized that I've lost myself and it's time for me to get me back.

 

It was a very busy fall, which came after a busy summer.  My work days and work weeks have been longer because I've just been trying so hard to keep up.  I seem to regularly be working 8 am to 7 pm, plus at least one day on the weekends.  I'm chasing the idea that I'll actually achieve a point of being "caught up."  With doctor appointments, family commitments, and just generally needing time to do laundry and eat on top of my work schedule, I haven't had much time to be social, or read a book, or make a phone call just to say hello.  I miss cooking. I miss baking.  I miss watching football.  I miss dancing like crazy to a jukebox that my friends and I have dominated. 

 

My solution to the problems are:

1.  Leave work by 5:30 p.m. at least 3 days a week.

2.  I will not work on the weekend unless I am on trial.

3.  When my friends ask me to go out, "I really just need a night in" will be the occasional answer, not the usual one.

 

These rules won't last forever, but I think I need them at least until mid-January, when shit hits the fan all over again.

 

I baked a double batch of snickerdoodles last weekend.  This weekend, I think it's going to be rugelach and peanut butter chocolate bars.  This week I hope to push out some florentines and some sugar cookies.  If nothing else, baked goods will motivate my friends to come find me, which is the beginnings of a renewed social life.

the best compliment ever

Last night I was introduced to someone who, after telling me her name, looked at me with wide eyes and said, "You look JUST like P.J. from My Boys!"  I stared back at her, my introduction smile frozen, wondering if someone had told her to say that to me.  She said it again, this time with an apology: "I'm sorry, do you know the show?  It's on TBS?  You look exactly like her to me."  I finally shook out of my stupor and beamed.  "I love that show!  She's my favorite!  That is the best thing that anyone ever said to me!"

 

Internet audience, I look NOTHING like her.  But I texted all of my friends who watch the show and told them I had just received the best compliment of my life.  One friend's theory was this:  I act and sound so much like PJ that it is easy to be mistaken for her.  I like that theory.  I accept it because it makes me happy. 

 

I know the past two months have been lacking any substance here on the internet.  In real life, there's been enough to keep me busy but nothing noteworthy in the sense that the story can't be told in a witty paragraph or so.  I had a series of bizarre medical ailments.  Work has been bonecrushingly overwhelming so I've been working many nights and all weekends  I haven't been socializing much at all and since I'm just dating one person now there are no new funny-then-sad dating anecdotes. 

 

I have started a few posts, about deep personal thoughts and struggles, about specific examples of raging injustices I see every day, and my thoughts on the legal profession and criminal defense in general.  Some of them I scrapped until the cases are really and truly over - some of them I just can't seem to write the way I want to communicate it.  I think about scrapping blogging completely, but I can't walk away from a forum where I can write something and know that a few someone's are listening. 

 

Between now and my next post, which could be a while, you should definitely catch up on the past two seasons of My Boys.  Your life will be better for having watched it.

everything needed to be done yesterday; or, how to win $20k and lose it 8 seconds later

I shuffled into the house from work around 8:30 p.m. It was another 12 hour day, one of the many 12 hr days of the six-day weeks I've been working since, oh, August?  I was tired.  I was resigned to spending the rest of my natural life sitting at my desk and getting nowhere.  I've been engaging in the 60-hr a week fallacy for months now.  The idea that if I can just work late for this short period of time, if I go in on both weekend days and work late every night, then everything will be in place and maybe I can work a regular 50 hour week or maybe, if it's a holiday, a precious 40 hour week.  And that day was no different.  A 12 hr day worked, still no feeling of accomplishment or belief that I've actually made a dent in the ever-increasing pile on my desk.  I had 3 hours before I went to bed, and exactly 12 hours before I was to start a trial that I hadn't really prepared because I had 8 other trials also scheduled.

 

When I walked in, I had two pieces of mail awaiting me.  One, my bank statement, telling me exactly how little my 60 hr week gets paid, which is exactly how little my 40 hr week gets paid.  Two, a flyer with a scratch contest.  If I scratch the right number, I get $20,000 or a 10 day Aruba vacation (I could certainly use both).  I scratch the number.

 

It matches.

 

I look again.

 

They match.

 

I look again.  There must be a catch.

 

"No purchase necessary!"

 

No fucking way.

 

"MUST CLAIM PRIZE BY...."

 

Yesterday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love that Thanksgiving is an entire day dedicated to eating and watching TV and socializing in a lazy way.  I wonder if there comes a time in your life when spending Thanksgiving with your friends, your family of choice, instead of your family or origin, becomes acceptable, or more rewarding.  I can't imagine not spending Thanksgiving with my mother, as I'm sure she'd be devastated if I told her I couldn't make it back.  She is proud of the fact that we have never once missed Thanksgiving as a family.  I'd hate to be the one to break her streak.  And it's nice to come back home and see people who come back for the holidays, to catch up and hang out, the only time we're all in the same place at the same time.

 

But.  The hassle of holiday travel.  Lugging the suitcase up and down the stairs.  Wrestling onto the bus / train / plane, stowing a bag.  Sitting in traffic.  Getting the time off work.  Not being able to shake work-related anxiety.  Dreading the return to my house, left in disarray in a packing frenzy, returning to a refrigerator left empty in preparation for the time away, returning to a pile of work that's a week behind.  It seems like just having one or two days off work, to fill my own house with smells of Thanksgiving baking, spending it with the friends in the city who have such limited free time generally, watching football, lounging around, being able to really actually relax - that would be Thanksgiving. 

 

Ah, the vacation conundrum.  Take time off to keep yourself busy with other things than work, or take time off and sit on your couch doing nothing all day, doing nothing to learn more about the world or to try something new.  After two years of work, it seems that I'm the latter type - as much as I'd love to do new and exciting things, at the end of the day, the only energy I have left goes to uncorking a bottle of red wine and planting myself on the couch.

 

I'm thankful to be with my family, to have a job that I love so much that it empties me, to have friends who, after all these years, I still see and enjoy and connect with.  I hope that your Thanksgiving is wonderful in the ways that are important to you as well.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I AM a real lawyer!

I am writing not one, not two, but THREE legal memos in an effort, on three different cases, to persuade the judge to see it my way. 

 

Gosh, I can't remember the last time "law" ever came up in conversation in court.  The conversations are usually about one of two things: 1. What a bad and horrible person my client is based merely on the charges, and 2. why every single one of my clients who is charged with something should take the very fair plea being offered (to which I always respond, "It would only be fair / generous / reasonable if he were GUILTY, judge."  And then they usually snort or snicker with disdain.)

 

With all this law stuff, I'm starting to feel like a real lawyer!  The only reminder that I'm a fake lawyer is the difficulty I'm having with cogent legal writing.  It's true that if you don't use it you lose it.

 

I'm looking forward to hearing "Defense application denied" without any rational factual or legal explanation at the end of these hours and hours and hours of work.

nooooooooo!

Tim Wakefield left off World Series roster.

 

Words cannot express my devastation.

 

When the Red Sox released a charity wine, I bought Caberknuckle.  And I waited.  And waited.  For months.  For the right moment.  Then the moment came, just like I knew it would.  The ALCS.  I wore my Wake t-shirt.  I pre-gamed with my bottle of caberknuckle and a select few Red Sox fans.  I kept the bottle to add to my Red Sox shrine, right next to the Mr. Potato Head.  And Wake pitched an awesome game (at first).  I only regretted that I hadn't secured a second bottle, for when Wakefield helped win the World Series.

 

But alas, it is not meant to be.  #49, you'll always be my #1.

I have a really good story

But I can't tell you until the case is over.  Which isn't going to be anytime soon, and is unfortunate because it was a good one.

 

So instead I'll tell you this one.  I was on my way out of the courthouse when I saw my friend and coworker across the lobby.  He looked like he was filling out a form for a client, and it was lunch time, so I figured I'd wait with him and then we could get lunch.  His client and his client's friend were sitting with him, both young males.  As I approached, one of them said not-so-quietly under his breath to my friend: "Ooooh look who's comin to see you..."  The other one was trying to get the attention of another young female, who had clearly come to court to find a friend or family member that had been arrested.  He kept saying, "Hey.  What's your name.  Hey.  You're cute.  Hey.  What's your name?  My name is Roger.  What, we can't trade names?" and she kept ignoring him.  Then the other kid got into it, just as my friend was finishing up their paperwork.  Finally I ask, smirking, "Are you really trying to pick up chicks in court?  That seems like a terrible idea."  And the first one replies, "No way man!  It's perfect.  They're upset, they're vulnerable, their man just got 10 years, it's perfect timing!"  and the second one says to my friend, nodding in my direction, "Well look who came up to you!"  Ha.

vacation won't help.

Showing up to work every day has become difficult.  I have a staggering caseload, an all-time high number not only for me personally but the office caseload is at an all-time high as well.  Taking time off only exacerbates the problem - because then I come back to work and the same number of cases is there, except a week behind.  Or covered by another attorney and not done as I had preferred.  There's no way to keep up, and no way to predict what will actually happen as scheduled.  So I'm maybe 30% prepared for everything, fully prepared for nothing, and stressed about everything.

 

When something DOES go as / when scheduled, I can then finally fully prepare and abandon my other cases in pursuit of representing one or two people fully. 

 

And that's how my day goes, day after day after day.

 

I was supposed to call Mr. Smith to remind him to keep his appointment.  I was supposed to see if Ms. Lynch actually maintained her treatment program as she promised, otherwise her case will become a lot more complicated.  I promised Mr. Williams that I'd visit him at the jail, because we really need to discuss important elements of his case, but I just could not leave the office.  I meant to finish adding to that DWI motion but I never did, so I guess that issue will be overlooked one more time until I have the time to argue it adequately.  Besides, why argue it fully if the judge denies it every time I peripherally mention it?  I'm not sure whose phone calls I've returned and whose I still need to return.  It never goes away!

 

I am really looking forward to when the weather gets cold, in hopes of arrest numbers going down, and more time for me to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and a book.  Instead, the AC is still running, I'm still sweating profusely, and the work still goes on, and on, and on...

three

Today I took two pleas for clients who I believe were absolutely innocent and who were begging to take the pleas, and I took one plea for a client who was guilty and was indignant and enraged with the system about taking a significantly generous plea offered today only.

 

I don't like to fault my clients for not liking the legal process.  I don't particularly care for it either.  But I'm not a miracle worker.  I cannot get you out of jail just because you don't want to be there.  I cannot get your case dismissed just because you don't believe you should have been charged with a crime.  I cannot convince a judge to give you a 6th try at a program when you showed up once and failed to show up 4 subsequent times, despite repeated admonitions from all parties as to the ONE YEAR IN JAIL alternative.  I cannot beat your case at trial, which you so badly want me to do, if you never once return my phone call and skip every appointment I try to set up for us to prepare your defense.

 

One of the innocent clients had a case that I was sure was a slam-dunk acquittal.  He just didn't want to sit through a trial.  He wanted it over, Now Now Now, and took the plea that would have gotten him out instead of waiting a week to walk out an innocent man.  The other client I believed to be innocent had no way of winning at trial.  There was no doubt in my mind he would have been convicted.  The judge was giving him a really hard time about taking the plea.  We had to try it several times.  I was getting frustrated - my client could only allocute so much because he was innocent.  He couldn't say every detail because he just didn't know the details that he would have been expected to know, had he committed the crime.  I started to fear that my client would be forced to stand a trial he didn't want, to be convicted of a crime he didn't do, and experience and significantly harsher and longer penalty as a result.  In the end, it worked out.  But I didn't feel good about it.

 

I know I'm getting burnt out when I start minimizing my role in this crazy system.  (i.e., I am not a doctor, I am not an immigration attorney, I am not the person who decides your bail.)  I am completely overwhelmed by my caseload and the intense needs of handfuls of my clients. 

on being a public defender: Taking a punch and getting back up again.

I made the sign of the cross when I first came out of there, instinctively, the way my 2nd grade CDD teacher from Puerto Rico did it, with a kiss at the end right before the Amen.  I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the hallway.  On the wooden bench outside the courtrooms, in the hallway.  I was one of four attorneys.  Then one of three, then one of two.  Until I was the last one there on the bench, having handed over my one hope, the one thing that had convinced me that we could win.  I tried to read but couldn't.  I couldn't talk.  I was relentlessly thirsty.  My nerves were shredded.  Everyone else had left for the day some time ago.  I sat there, alone, on the wooden courthouse bench in the institutionally lit hallway.  I sat in the quiet courthouse, hearing the occasional echo of footsteps at the other end, nervous but confident that we would prevail.  There could be no other way.  Silence.  Anxiety.  Pacing.  More water. 

 

And when the news finally came, that things didn't go our way, that justice would not be done, I was there, alone, in silence.

 

I fled the deafening silence, reentering the rest of the world, the world I had forgotten existed because I had been so consumed by this.  I called the boss to report the defeat and confessed that my next move would be to curl up in a ball and weep softly.  By the time I got back to the office, just a few minutes later, I walked into an office with the boss and the three best trial attorneys one could ever want and they had another plan hatched for me.  A plan of action, not inaction.  A plan of attack, not retreat.  And long after the lights had been turned off elsewhere and the courthouse had emptied, the plan of action became action.  Then I turned off the lights and joined my people at the bar. 

 

Satisfied that I had done something, but still achingly disappointed, I joined my fellow PDs at the bar, where they circled their wagons around me.  They helped break that lonely, agonizing silence of the courthouse hallway by cracking open a few $2 PBRs, by aiming goldfish crackers across the table into mouths, and by offering that incredible support of people who know just the right way to help you move on.

Things I've been doing instead of posting

Traveling.  Not in the, Let's see the world! type of way, but more in the, I have a wedding / birthday / commitment / family gathering that I have to be at this weekend, last weekend, next weekend, and the weekend after that. 

 

Working.  Of course.  It never ends.  Current caseload: 120.

 

Playing skeeball and turning in my tickets for plastic rings and fake tattoos.

 

Getting in as much baseball as I can before the season ends.  Let's go Red Sox!

 

Creating a Facebook profile.  How embarrassing.

 

Trying to see if I'm capable of being "in a relationship."  The jury's still out on this one.

 

Getting in as much lobster and BBQing as I can before the season ends.  Yum, crustaceans. 

 

Edy's Butter Pecan ice cream. 

 

My Boys, 10 p.m., Mondays, TBS. 

 

Having a one-woman party on the first weekend evening I've actually been home in months, by unintentionally discovering that my CD player miraculously cured itself and started playing a mixed CD that was created 7 years ago, leading to dancing and singing and searching for other long-forgotten CDs, and in the process coming across pictures of happy memories that were good reminders of why we are all here and what it all means.

 

Things I have not been doing instead of posting:

Going to the gym.

Writing those motions.

Cleaning the house.

Doing laundry.

Cooking.