Defender's Dilemma: Is it ever better for your client to be in jail?

My first ever client was arrested for the third time last week—thanks to me. I'm really starting to wonder if I'm really helping this guy at all.

Long story short: When he was first arrested on a minor misdemeanor, I was assigned to his case and I argued for his release on his own recognizance while we prepared for trial. He was released with conditions to stay away from a designated area of the city. The next day, he was arrested in that stay-away area and held for 5 days, after which I again went to court and argued for his release on his own recognizance. He was released and we set a date for a status hearing in both cases for about two weeks later. Two weeks later, he failed to appear in court and the judge issued a warrant for his arrest. Thus, last week he was picked up on that warrant and hauled back into jail; luckily, he didn't get any new charges, but the failure to appear is the most serious charge of the three—it carries a minimum of 90 days in jail if he's convicted and as far as I can tell we don't have much of a defense for that. Bringing the story up to date, we went to court last week and argued for his release once more. To my own (and my supervisor's) suprise, the judge let him go on his own recognizance to await trial. We set a trial date for about three weeks out.

After our appearance, I set an appointment with my client to meet the following day to talk about what we were going to do and to impress upon him once again the importance of staying in touch with me and making his court dates. The next day, he didn't show. This is basically what has happened the last two times he was released: I set an appointment, he misses it, and then I don't hear from him again until the next time he's arrested. He's homeless and will not tell me where I can find him on the street (even though I know many homeless people tend to hang in relatively small areas with which they are familiar). I have looked for him in the neighborhoods where he's been arrested but I have never been able to locate him on my own.

Hence, my dilemma: Am I doing this guy any favors by continuing to get him out of jail? Of course, he never wants to be in jail, so he's always happy to be released. However, he's now facing about six times the potential jail time he could have even been eligible for if we would have just pleaded guilty on day one, and honestly, I kind of feel responsible for that. I mean, I've been doing what he wants—getting him out of jail. However, in doing so, I've helped make his situation much, much worse.

So what do you think? And this is a question especially for the public defender types out there: Is it ever better for your client to remain in jail? And does this sound like one of those times? If my client fails to appear for trial in a couple of weeks, I probably won't be able to argue him out of jail a fourth time; I think that will be the end of the line for him. But should I have argued for his release the second time? The third? Is there a limit here, or should you always do what your client wants you to do in this type of situation?

Posted 01:13 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack | 3L crimlaw