Comments on: Congratulations, Scoplaw & MissTyrios! (But it’s always about me and what about me!?)

By: the imbroglio » Blog Archive » Sadness! Audacity’s Gone!

the imbroglio » Blog Archive » Sadness! Audacity’s Gone! — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:27:37 +0000

[...] on football, travel, and indigent defense. Plus, she only recently responded very helpfully to my whining about never going to trial and now her post is just gone, pfft! Like it never [...]

By: ti

ti — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:49:49 +0000

Thanks everyone for responding to this. I know that trial is not the measure of a public defender, nor is it ever good to push to trial for yourself when it’s not what your client wants or sees as being in her best interest. There are many reasons trials don’t happen, and those reasons differ by jurisdicition. Here, for example, we basically have a felony 2-strikes law: Get a second felony w/in 5 years of release from your last felony and your mandatory sentence automatically becomes 5 to life. So those cases almost never go to trial for very good reasons…

I’m still thinking about this, but I do know that I would like to have the experience one day to confidently take any case to trial if that’s what my client wants. How that happens I don’t know. Maybe it never does….

By: Scoplaw

Scoplaw — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:50:43 +0000

First off, thanks for the congrats.

Second, I’m not sure trial for trial’s sake is a good thing. Here, it allows us to keep a certain amount of pressure on the prosecution and thus to keep the pleas reasonable. Otherwise you get nobody taking the pleas, 61 cases set – 40 or so nolle prosses, a handful of very good pleas, and some trials.

The experience is nice, but I’m not sure how much one really learns from one trial to the next? I mean, in the sense of implementing something in the next trial? Does having 5 trials under your belt make you any better then when you had four? I’d guess not all that much. There’s always a new wrinkle or twist that pops up. You’re always dealing with new witnesses and new faces in the jury box.

I have to echo Nonya in that it’s weird how attorneys from both sides “rank” other attorneys based on “trial chops” – whether or not those chops actually work. It’s like a weird popularity contest or something, but it results in defendants getting different plea offers. I think I’m seen as intellectual and condescending – but I’m not in this job to make friends with the state.

You’re good my friend – you’ll get those wins soon enough.

Best,

Scoplaw

By: I'm embarrassed to say

I'm embarrassed to say — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:29:51 +0000

I have been practicing for 2.5 years and not once have I ever had a trial. This is not uncommon in my area, as the volume is too high to try many cases, but most people at my level have one jury and one bench under their belts. I have zero. It makes me feel shitty about myself and it makes me not want to wake up for work in the morning.

By: nonya

nonya — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:58:01 +0000

Correction: The last sentence should read, “Sorry I can’t divulge my name or where I work as my boss would have a cow.”

By: nonya

nonya — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:26:04 +0000

I’ve averaged 6-14 felony trials a year, from shopliftings above a certain amount thru life eligible cases.

Talking with others in my office over the year, a good general rule of thumb here is iff we draw a capital case we are out of rotation and will only do that case (or any other capital case they feel like dumping on us). In an especially good year you might get 2-4 trials, in an exceptionally bad year 16-20 trials. Trial calls several times a month with as many as 8 cases for one day is not unheard of, although rarily you won’t know exactly what case will be tried in any given week.

If you are on a winning streak you do fewer trials, on a losing streak you get buried. If you are perceived as “weak” you get more trials, if you are perceived as “strong” or “nasty” at trial you get fewer.

Sorry I can divulge my name or where I work as my boss would have a cow.

By: To Answer the Question* « Audacity

To Answer the Question* « Audacity — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:31:19 +0000

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