Yesterday at about 4:30 in the afternoon the defense attorney for the co-defendant on a murder case text messaged me that his client had been found guilty as charged of first degree murder and immediately sentenced to life in prison. "Oh my God" was my response. My client's case is set to begin trial on Monday. I have worked on the case exclusive to all other cases since March. I turned down another murder case so that I could devote time solely to this one.
At 5:22 pm the prosecutor called me. "Talk to your guy, tell me what he wants," he said. "I'm not out for blood." A conviction on a co-defendant usually hardens them. It didn't this guy. I did not see that coming. I had tried to talk to the prosecutor since December, 2016 about a plea. He was never interested. I was re-working my opening statement to the jury when he called. After getting off the phone I immediately drove to see my client.
When late last night I had spoken to my client, to his father, to his mother, to a family friend, and called the prosecutor back and we all had accepted a plea to manslaughter and nine years prison...What a writer writes here is, "it felt like a tremendous weight lifted from my shoulders." But that is not how it felt. I have been representing my client for three years and one and one-half months. I had not realized, I should have but I did not, that I had lived the case for three years and one and one-half months. So what it felt like was that the case had been a panel built into my chest, that is the image that I had then, that it had become part of me physically, and that when we had a plea the panel, part of me, had been removed. It was neither good nor bad, it was just part of me, and when it was removed it was like tonsils, it was no longer part of me. I have never felt that before.
There were times when I thought that this case was going to break me physically, that I just did not have the stamina anymore, at age 62, 63, 64, to put in the work. But it didn’t and I did and if my client called me back tonight, right now, and said that he changed his mind and he wanted to go to trial, I would have told him rationaly, reasonably, that in my opinion, he was making a mistake but I would not have tried to talk him out of it. I would have put the panel back in my chest and be prepared to try the case Monday. For a defense attorney I had a good case and I would have hit the prosecutor like he had never been hit before. I might have won, I might have lost, but a trial is not a game of blackjack and the participants are not playing with house money, they are playing with flesh and blood and life itself.
I did not realize how tired I was. I should have, but I did not. I did not feel unusually tired last night and went to sleep at a usual time, 11:30 or so, but I slept until 12:51 pm today. It has been decades--if ever--since I slept till 1 pm. Maybe the case did come close to physically breaking me. But it did not.
At 5:22 pm the prosecutor called me. "Talk to your guy, tell me what he wants," he said. "I'm not out for blood." A conviction on a co-defendant usually hardens them. It didn't this guy. I did not see that coming. I had tried to talk to the prosecutor since December, 2016 about a plea. He was never interested. I was re-working my opening statement to the jury when he called. After getting off the phone I immediately drove to see my client.
When late last night I had spoken to my client, to his father, to his mother, to a family friend, and called the prosecutor back and we all had accepted a plea to manslaughter and nine years prison...What a writer writes here is, "it felt like a tremendous weight lifted from my shoulders." But that is not how it felt. I have been representing my client for three years and one and one-half months. I had not realized, I should have but I did not, that I had lived the case for three years and one and one-half months. So what it felt like was that the case had been a panel built into my chest, that is the image that I had then, that it had become part of me physically, and that when we had a plea the panel, part of me, had been removed. It was neither good nor bad, it was just part of me, and when it was removed it was like tonsils, it was no longer part of me. I have never felt that before.
There were times when I thought that this case was going to break me physically, that I just did not have the stamina anymore, at age 62, 63, 64, to put in the work. But it didn’t and I did and if my client called me back tonight, right now, and said that he changed his mind and he wanted to go to trial, I would have told him rationaly, reasonably, that in my opinion, he was making a mistake but I would not have tried to talk him out of it. I would have put the panel back in my chest and be prepared to try the case Monday. For a defense attorney I had a good case and I would have hit the prosecutor like he had never been hit before. I might have won, I might have lost, but a trial is not a game of blackjack and the participants are not playing with house money, they are playing with flesh and blood and life itself.
I did not realize how tired I was. I should have, but I did not. I did not feel unusually tired last night and went to sleep at a usual time, 11:30 or so, but I slept until 12:51 pm today. It has been decades--if ever--since I slept till 1 pm. Maybe the case did come close to physically breaking me. But it did not.
