Spent the morning in the Jasper County Courthouse with Judge Hulse and opposing counsel. A trial was scheduled for purposes of modifying visitation. Opposing counsel, I, and the judge talked it out and took it to the clients. One accepted, one did not. Prior to actually hearing the case, the judge made it clear how he would rule given the facts as he understood them. Consequently, the parties stipulated and that stipulation was read into the record. The entire proceeding took about two hours. I think we could have actually tried the case in an hour. The opposing party was not happy with the result and let it be known to the attorney and my client after the matter was finally resolved. It is difficult to control some clients and to make them understand that if they can not agree with the other side, the judge will decide and neither party may be very happy. In this case the one party was quite literally forced to agree and stipulate or anticipate the judge would do worse, which he certainly threatened to do. I do not feel victorious in this battle, but it helps to have a party that is reasonable, willing to compromise, with an attorney who can do the same.

A very short day in Judge Mott's court this morning. I had one pretrial conference scheduled. Since we took depositions yesterday and it is clear to me that my client will be convicted, we negotiated a plea and set a plea date out so he could get his evaluation at Capstone. Alcohol seems to be the issue with him and the mother of his child. He has a record and we talked about the fact that if he didn't drink he wouldn't have one. This is where the social work part of defense counsel comes in. If you represent someone for a crime, you know the cause of the problem, and you know where he can go to at least begin to get some assistance, then part of representing someone, it seems to me, is to do what you can to help him. And, if he is amenable and understands that what you recommend is in his best interest and he appears to have a modicum of intelligence and capacity, and it might mean some jail time for him, so be it. Success is not necessarily measured in the shortness of the jail time.

Suppress it?

One can not ever, ever guarantee, be assured of, or know what will come from the mouth of a witness. We had a suppression hearing this afternoon in front of Judge Mott. With a reasonable degree of certainity, we had an even chance. After all, it is the State's burden--correct? But this does presuppose that one has a general ideal of the testimony that will be given. One has spoken with his client and the witnesses about the events in question--their version of the facts. Occasionally one is pleased at the testimony one had no idea would come out, but more often one scrolling through the words and phrases that come to mind while driving in traffic in rush hour. Don't know how this particular hearing will resolve itself, but will submit a short memorandum in support of our position.

The issue that presented itself, the issue that I was unaware, is whether an peace officer can purloin the code to a punch lock of an apartment building and enter at will, without consent, and without the knowledge of the owner or the tenants. Don't know the answer.

Newton Police Department

Half of the Newton Police Department is irritated due to three NCO's being dismissed by the County Attorney on Thursday afternoon due to the fact that the County Attorney could not prove the defendant had been served. It was a busy afternoon in Judge Mott's Court on Thursday afternoon and after waiting almost two hours to testify, the Newton officers--six if I remember correctly--found they had waited for nought. I would also be correct in saying that "irritation" would be a mild description of the feelings expressed by the officers who had been waiting most of the afternoon.

We are not a personable lot.

We are putting together an appendix on a criminal appeal. Or I should say, the staff is. A very tedious process much of which is unnecessary. For instance, putting the name of the person testifying on each page of the transcript is a labor intensive, boring job. Why would anyone reading the brief need to have the name of the person testifying on each page. Thanks to the Attorney General's Office, there are numerous pages. I think next time, if they want such a number of pages in the transcript, they should type the name of the person testifying and send them to us.

We have another issue with this particular appeal: pay. When I filled out the paper work authorizing me as a contract attorney--working for a pittance two years ago, I did not check the box saying I would take appeal work. I had forgotten that or else didn't think of it as an issue until the Public Defender's Office determined that because I had not also checked the appellate box they were not required to pay me for the work I have done on the appeal. The irony is that the issue on appeal is the ineffectiveness of trial counsel who is now the State Public Defender in charge of it all. I can only presume that I was given the appeal as the Appellate Public Defender handed it off on the basis of a conflict. I am alleging the Public Defender ineffective as he is refusing to pay me. This doesn't seem quite right even if you thought he might have a legitimate basis not to pay me in the first instance.

Attorneys, in general, are not known for being a personable lot and here are two reasons why.

10 February 2010 Court Service

Not a busy day in Judge Mott's courtroom in Newton today. I think most yet trying to recover from icy roads and snow. I-80 had cars strewn from end to end with one semi on its side in a rather deep ditch. We had the usual sentencings, not guilty pleas, and continuances. Things are somewhat more relaxed except for the owi sentencings where Judge Mott engages in a one-sided query of why the defendant was endangering the public by driving while under the influence of alcohol. My client sentenced for a 3rd driving while barred received 60 days in the county jail which he was expecting and took quite well actually. He had made arrangements for his seven year old to transfer schools to live with a relative and was quite non plussed about the situation. Would be nice if most of the folks being sentenced took it half as well.

We did set some trials though--way out. Our county attorney's office has the opinion of its own docket that IT'S FULL and therefore we are setting trials into April and May. My only concern about setting out trials that long is that some, if not most, can't stay out of jail that long. Then, with the new charge, Judge Mott rescinds their bail and there they sit longer than if they would just plead and be done with it. Oh, well.

Guthrie County

Due to the fact that the State Public Defender's Office continues to squeeze attorneys contracted to do criminal defense work at the State's inadequate rate of pay, I have signed on to do criminal defense work in Guthrie County. It is quite a drive from Mingo and may not pay for itself on a case-by-case basis, but will open up a new geographical area to my practice. It is in the 5th Judicial District and therefore I know the judges. We shall see how it works out.