Money matters man.

You know you're a public defender when the judge releases your defendant prior to sentencing and in your head you're screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO."

Contrary to what some film depictions of us will tell you, we are not all about getting people out as quickly as possible.  That is because most people make deals.  Sometimes those deals are very important.  Say you convince the prosecutor that your client really isn't that bad a guy and to reduce the possible max from life to a decade.  That deal comes all to pieces if your client gets out and then violates the conditions of that release.

Those conditions often consist of simple things, but also difficult things, like:
No driving.
GPS monitoring (which costs a lot of MONEY)
Drug testing (which costs MONEY)

You say to your client, who was just told he is released, "can you afford that?"  OF COURSE I CAN LET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.  Oh.  Well ok.

And then, a week later, back in jail, and a month later, prison.

Sometimes the judge will really screw a client over by saying something like "and your attorney will tell you where to go and what to do, but do it before you go home or I will send you to prison" except now your client is being led away, you have 5 clients left to do, and you're honestly not sure where X is and you think, well, I'll call him later? shit.  shit... there he goes.  Gone.
Except you have no working number for that client and you don't get back to your office till after 5 anyway.

Why didn't you just interrupt the judge and say, "Your honor, I don't know if I will have a chance to tell my client where that is."  Why.  And you know the answer is probably somewhere between getting your client away from the judge before he changes his mind, your confusion, your not wanting to have the judge berate you in front of your 7 clients who rely on you to keep them out of prison and whose faith in you is key to keeping them out, your own dislike of being berated and feeling the fool, and ... seriously you were given a few seconds to respond to this and this guy really wasn't up there on your worries today so where the hell did this come from?  WHY IS THIS MAN SUDDENLY FACING PRISON BECAUSE OF SUCH STUPID THINGS???

You also know that EVERYONE AT JAIL KNOWS WHERE X IS.  And you assume your client will get this information from someone there.  But you are wrong.  Oh lord.  You are sooo wrong.

I guess the message here is assume nothing.  But do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be ready to answer every question and fix every problem on a moment's notice?  This is what I do.  I will not say I do it well.  But I will try.  And when I fail, I will tell the judge it was my fault.  More than that, I dunno man.  I just don't have any great answer for you.

......

Getting back to the topic-

You know what else is great about money?  You can hire an attorney.

Your private attorney has time to get his paperwork right.  Ok, honestly, I know a lot of private attorneys fail this because I have to handle some cases where rich people want to steal children from poor people, but at least they have the ability.  I, on the other hand, on probably a monthly basis, fuck up an order somehow, and I have no real excuse except that I am an idiot and I am in a rush.  And now bob is in jail an extra day.  But I heart you bob.

Another great thing about paid attorneys- they can confidently fuck a client all to pieces because of a lack of paperwork from the state.  I generally wait for paperwork to show, but it may be that my assistant, who is also the assistant of other attorneys and has other issues, will not get me that paperwork on time but will scan it into our system, and even better, sometimes the assistant will never get the paperwork to me.  And so my system "wait for the physical copy", not a great system I guess, fails.  Can't count on the assistant.  Should I spend an extra hour each day building a system into my phone to remind me to look at certain cases?  Why not.  God knows the public defender sometimes has a good two hours that he spends sitting in court, waiting for three private attorneys to finish their 45 minute summations on their clients' lives in their driving without privileges cases to avoid... a day in jail.

Yeah, it's been one of those days.  You can all go back to whatever it is you do.  I have my rye.  Cheers.

Compelling the Insane to Speak

In another move evidently meant to show that the United States Supreme Court is aware that crazy people are a pain and ought to be dead, the Court handed down Cheevers.

J. Sotomayor starts by reminding everyone that the government cannot compel speech.  Except that actually it can, because the Constitution doesn't care unless that compelled speech is used during a trial.

So in this case, the judge below ordered the defendant examined to see if he was competent.  His attorney objected.  But his attorney probably didn't tell him, "oh and don't answer any of their questions because if later we decide to talk about your mental state the government can get all those statements in."  Because at the time, that wasn't true.  Nor would any attorney have thought it ever would be.

But then SCOTUS came, and reminded us that they don't like defendants going to trial and having an edge over the state by giving evidence about their mind.  You see, your thoughts are free, the one thing the government can't surveil.  You can't be allowed to use your thoughts as a defense unless the government can have a crack at them.

Normally, this is done by giving a recording of your conversation with the psychiatric expert to the state so their expert can watch and critique.  But what if the judge already ordered your thoughts examined?  Why can't the state use that?  Just because you were forced to reveal your thoughts?  And that's obviously a violation of your rights?  Psssshhhhhh says SCOTUS.  PSH.

So here's your lesson: Tell your client they have a fifth amendment right not to answer a damn word at the competency eval.  And they probably shouldn't.

Fun question: Who thinks the government is going to start asking for a competency eval in every case that they can make a colorable argument in?  

Idaho: Submission can be begruding, and also, ride a motorcycle if you don't want the cops rummaging through your things

The Fourth Circuit just released an opinion recognizing that "consent" to a search is.. pretty much never actually consent.  You can read it here.  Or you can read a more entertaining summary of it here.

Meanwhile, today the Idaho Court of Appeals released this decision overruling suppression because... well... perhaps our judges are not very street saavy?  They certainly don't seem to have any experience with dealing with the police or driving a car with a trunk.

The Court had the following facts as found by the DJ:

Here, the officers returned [Petersen’s] license and accompanying information, 
and also asked [him] if he was “good to go.” [Petersen] actually did think he was 
free to go, which is clearly evidenced by the fact that he acknowledged that he 
was good to go, shook the officer’s hands, and began to leave before the officers 
reinitiated questioning. While there is no indication as to tone of the exchange, 
the officers’ testimony indicates that the continued questioning was not 
immediately directed toward accusing [Petersen] of a crime, or inquiring about his 
nervousness--instead, officers continued to ask about the purpose of [Petersen’s] 
trip, and his intended destination . . . . [A] reasonable person would have believed 
he or she was at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his or her 
business once the officers terminated their questioning, returned [Petersen’s] 
documentation, and asked if he was good to go. 

A review of the totality of the circumstances shows that, when Petersen was questioned the 
second time, the initial traffic stop had terminated and a consensual encounter had begun. 
Petersen had been issued a warning citation, his license and other information were returned to 
him, and he was asked, “are you good to go?” indicating the initial stop had terminated and he 
was free to leave.

Petersen argues that, despite these facts, a reasonable person would not have 
felt free to leave and disregard the officer’s renewed questioning after being ordered out of the 

vehicle and while the officers’ overhead lights remained on.

The Court finds:

The officer’s indication to Petersen that he was free to leave included implicit permission to 
return to his vehicle Petersen also argues that a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave under the circumstances here because of the location of the stop and the presence of the two uniformed officers. However, the location of the stop is not dispositive. Moreover, a seizure does not occur simply because a police officer asks if the individual is willing to answer some questions or puts forth questions if the individual is willing to listen. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434 (1991); Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497 (1983); Ray, 153 Idaho at 568, 286 P.3d at 1118. This was the case here. When one of the officers asked Petersen, “are you good to go?” Petersen replied 
that he was and shook both officers’ hand.2 Petersen then indicated that he understood he was 
free to leave by turning to leave and heading toward his vehicle. When one of the officers asked him if he would answer a few more questions, Petersen voluntarily returned and was willing to converse further with the officer. As a result, the district court did not err in finding that the officers did not unreasonably or unlawfully extend the traffic stop because the questioning occurred during a consensual encounter. 

But it gets better!  After finding that your average person feels free to tell the cops he's too busy and leave when there are two of them, their lights are on, and they're suddenly getting weirdly interested in who you are and what you're doing, the Court tells us things we should never do because evidently they show we are drug dealers:

1.Drive from Minnesota to Seattle for a two-day visit with a recent acquaintance

2. with a very clean car for such a long trip

3. with caffeinated soda in view (because only drug dealers have to keep awake)

4. and cellphones (because only drug dealers have those)

5. and an air freshner (because drug dealers have to mask all that drug smell)

6. and blue jeans (I mean, sure, he has a trunk, but JEANS in the CAR?? DRUG DEALER!!!)

I disagree.  And I think any normal person would, so long as you didn't tell them what they were really deciding is whether a drug courier goes free.  And therein lies the rub.  It would be interesting, I think, to see how judges would rule if we never told them what the crime was until after they had concluded there was no constitutional violation.