Clinic: 1 & 0

One of my fellow clinic students just finished her first trial yesterday, and although she technically lost (her client was found guilty), the outcome (probation only) was much better than could be normally hoped for such a case, so I'm counting it as a win. Also, her judge is known as a lock-em-up judge, so giving the client probation only was about the same as the judge saying he'd had a reasonable doubt. Too bad the judge didn't do his job and acquit, but hey, police officers always testify truthfully and credibly, right? Even when they contradict each other, right? Uh huh. Yeah.

I watched the closing argument and learned a lot. I mean, I've seen a lot of closings in bench trials, but they start to get blurry so this was a good reminder of how judges can be. In this case, the judge listened to the prosecutor w/only one interruption that I can remember. But the defense attorney got only one sentence out before the judge was interrupting. After that, the judge talked more than the defense attorney; he seemed determined to tell her why he wasn't going to believe anything she said. Nevermind that she had evidence that raised a reasonable doubt as to the necessary facts of the government's case. No, that's not important. Despite the government's contradictory evidence, the judge appeared to have his mind made up and was basically telling the defense attorney she had to prove her client's innocence. Um, no, your honor, that's not the way it works. Oh, but yeah, it is. It's just good to be reminded of the realities of the system.

Speaking of those realities, I picked up another case yesterday and got my new client released on his own PR. That wasn't hard b/c the government wasn't seeking a hold, but that didn't matter to my client. As we walked out of C-10 he just couldn't stop telling me what a great lawyer I was. I was flattered, sure, but I hadn't really done anything and parts of what I had done had been whispered in my ear by my supervisor. Still, this suggests to me that this guy has had some really crap lawyers in the past. No surprise there.

So my trial is scheduled for Tuesday and there's no way I'm ready. I haven't been able to secure any witnesses to testify for us and I suspect this is going to come down to another situation where someone makes a claim, my client is homeless and says it's not true, but the complaining witness is an “upstanding citizen” and therefore must necessarily be telling the truth even though the complaining witness has no witnesses, either. So in a he said/she said, the defendant is going to lose. I hope I can come up with some way to change that outcome over the weekend, but it's going to be a busy couple of days.

Oh, and tomorrow I'm going to go help build a Habitat house for a few hours, so, you know, it's good to have plenty to do.

Posted November 11, 2005 12:27 PM | 3L