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Text of the page (random words):
defending dandelions defending dandelions legal commentary from the south of nowhere tuesday november 7 2023 hello it s been almost a decade it s hard for me to believe anyone reads this old blawg i started practicing law in 2011 when i was writing here i felt like i lacked a real purpose which is funny because i d win some decent cases while i was writing this i wanted to think what i did was more than just filing papers and moving people through the machine i was anonymous at that time because i was no one and my name meant nothing but my tiny blawg got me in trouble anyway doxxed almost fired as it was explained to me then that s really too bad because a lot has happened to public defense in idaho and no one is talking about it well no public defenders are at least not publicly it might be time to return posted by nidefatt at 7 36 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest saturday september 27 2014 representing people with his characteristic ability to be simultaneously right and utterly wrong greenfield posted this where he juxtaposed an interesting ruling that shows where the rubber hits the road in lawyer decision making with something stupid volokh had to do for a client this one time sometimes you have to go crack open your dictionary these are from merriam webster goal noun ˈgōl chiefly northern especially in 1b 3a also ˈgül something that you are trying to do or achieve an area or object into which a ball or puck must be hit kicked etc to score points in various games such as soccer and hockey the act of hitting kicking etc a ball or puck into a goal or the score that results from doing this strategic adjective strə ˈtē jik of or relating to a general plan that is created to achieve a goal in war politics etc usually over a long period of time useful or important in achieving a plan or strategy strategy noun jē a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal usually over a long period of time the skill of making or carrying out plans to achieve a goal tactics noun plural but singular or plural in construction ˈtak tiks the science and art of disposing and maneuvering forces in combat the art or skill of employing available means to accomplish an end a system or mode of procedure the study of the grammatical relations within a language including morphology and syntax so the story of volokh is one most attorneys know pretty well client is kind of crazy has a goal you can achieve but you re pretty sure it s not a good one i was referring to the same situation in the tenacity post i just did the other day you plead with your client not to get you to try to do it it s not worth it it will probably backfire etc but the client insists so you go to work and you turn out to be right now there are times where the line between a goal and tactical decisions get blurred in the decision cited by greenfield for example one might have thought that having the codefendant s plea read into the record was a goal maybe it sort of is but assuming the client still wanted to be found innocent at the end of the trial and assuming that having it read was in the client s mind for the purpose of accomplishing that it was rather clearly a strategic decision and thus up to the lawyer there are a few examples of this that come up a lot first is insanity cases or cases involving your client s disability you need to use it the client says no it s rather difficult to force a person to submit to evaluations but strictly speaking you could do this by getting the court to appoint a guardian after convincing the court your client can t make this decision due to whatever incapacity then have the court threaten your client with jail till they concede i can t imagine anyone ever doing that generally what winds up happening is either the lawyer resigns or he tries to get what he wants without the client s cooperation it s ugly and leaves a bad taste in everyone s mouth textbook example the unabomber as i recall his lawyers gave up and he pled guilty with an agreement that the government would not seek the death penalty the next is where your client wants to testify and you think that s a horrible idea well he has an absolute right to do that so you can at best try to not ask him the questions he wants you to and hope it all works out i don t know of any famous examples but i know a few attorneys who can tell you stories about clients taking the stand and simply admitting they did it or turning out to be awful at testifying and wrecking a perfectly good case the last is the scenario greenfield was thinking of when he s ranting about attorneys as mouthpieces where the client has some crazy belief system they want you to argue first as a pd because my client did not pick me i think i have to at least sift the arguments and see what if anything i can do with what they are saying much as a court has to do see the law day post and the bristol decision anyway a textbook example of this was mcveigh the oklahoma city bomber his attorney by the way said no of course mcveigh lost and was executed i haven t read enough about the trial to know how utterly out of the process mcveigh was but i do know he hated his attorney you have to wonder in a loser of a situation like that whether it s worth it to also reject your client to the point that they get nothing out of it at all so they feel like they re just being dragged through it and eventually killed anyway interestingly the ruby ridge debacle which was very similar and ended the opposite way involved a defense that was related to what the defendant wanted to say but trying to do that for mcveigh would have been difficult if not impossible perhaps during the sentencing phase again i don t know what the lawyer did other than he tried to reduce mcveigh s culpability by portraying him as a pawn back to volokh he wins a decision with a sentence in it that his client apparently found offensive and insisted he ask to have it removed greenfield says this is a strategic decision how is it strategic how is the removal of the sentence related to winning the decision decision was already won the sentence didn t change the outcome of the legal battle except for the offensive part the sentence simply is not subordinate to the goal of winning the case it s a separate issue but these are interesting questions that attorneys get to ask themselves constantly your hope is that you form a relationship with your client where they trust you enough to believe you when you tell them what is up and go along with your plans to get them what you think is the best outcome possible but when you deal with people that commit really terrible crimes that can be tough reality is there are no easy answers if you wanted an easy job you shouldn t have joined the criminal defense bar posted by nidefatt at 12 01 pm 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest friday september 26 2014 law day a lot of cases were just decided so let s get to it first carr v edgar supreme court contempt case based on a child custody order noteworthy for two things 1 horton wrote it and he s the ex prosecutor newbie on the court and 2 it tears magistrate terry mcdaniel of the fourth district a new one to the point of requesting that he be investigated it s also a nice example of an appellate court looking at a record and saying these facts and your reasoning are nonsense which is a perfectly good note to get to the second case h w v doe court of appeals involuntary commitment of a mentally ill person this case is tricky because it takes a few reads to figure out what is going on apparently the magistrate ruled for commitment but essentially did a laundry list of the things he found without saying why so for example he said doe is mentally ill but doesn t say which mental illness doe argues that s bullshit the record is no good the court of appeals disagrees saying that because only one person testified and doe only tried to attack her credibility the judge didn t need to give any specifics but in line with the usual crap you get from the court of appeals the court says two things that make you wonder first that it wouldn t be good for judicial economy to reverse just to make the judge do his job why even say that if the law doesn t require him to do it second they mention later that doe suggested that her symptoms were caused by her meds that seems to contradict the mental illness idea judge has to find she s a danger to herself or others or gravely disabled due to mental illness so that s not just credibility how do you juxtapose what happened in carr when what happened in doe magistrate s find out that all they have to do to keep from not only getting overturned but from being investigated as incompetent is keep their mouth shut so there s no record of how dumb they are their wrong decisions can just ruin lives with no way to fix them hurray the other interesting point in the opinion is that friends and family private care does not include being in assisted living i mean i guess i sort of see that if you read the statute like a moron but seriously talk about misusing words to get the outcome you want third case state v herren supreme court court of appeals already reversed on roughly the same grounds see when you have a no contact order from a judge the violation could just be contempt but we have another law making it a whole new offense that law defines violation as contact but there are other ways to violate a no contact order so the state argued that essentially the title controlled instead of the law and the supreme court disagreed also of note the court held that the defendant could have done a conditional admission on a probation violation something with no basis in the criminal rules but hey works for me fourth case state v young court of appeals guy tackled his baby momma when he thought she was trying to leave with his kid because she apparently is a monster who had her rights terminated and is just bad news bears tried to kidnap the kid once before so on first the court holds that to have a child in common applies even here because so long as you have two biological parents it doesn t matter what the other circumstances are that seems a little weird to me personally i mean it s not like we re saying you can batter people if they re awful parents but if you lost your kid because you re a drug addict you shouldn t also be protected by domestic violence statues i mean shit this is going to mean you don t get to own a gun plus it doesn t jive well with the supreme court s rulings on the household member statute that said it was about intimate relationships whatever the court goes on to say that it was ok for the magistrate to refuse his two defenses defense of another and defense of necessity the court basically says he could have grabbed her for all they care but the tackling just was never going to be ok i don t get why the court says this instead of letting a jury say it but whatever the caselaw is in the court s favor and they could have made really ugly law here but i think this might actually be kind of useful as written so i ll take it fifth case state v denny court of appeals i don t know why this got published basically guy is held in wa there s a warrant he says out of idaho and while he could have gotten out if there was just the wa hold he can t cuz he can t afford the idaho hold or something it s all pro se and he can t get evidence of what he s saying so he loses i mean ouch just seems kinda weird to bother publishing this case as opposed to sixth case state v bristol court of appeals and unpublished also pro se guy in pocatello gets convicted for having a dirty house or yard or something the court is pretty patient with him and while it s not worth much it s at least entertaining seventh case state v brooks court of appeals guy gets pulled over for not having his blinker on for five seconds before changing lanes on the freeway argues that the statute has to be read that only if you re leaving a parked position while on the freeway you need to do that kind of hilarious and the court clearly chides the defense for trying this argument out but this is important because we ve all seen cops try to do that 5 second rule on city streets and now we have a court case saying no no this only applies on the interstate highway i mean duh but sometimes you need caselaw to get a magistrate or what have you to do something right eighth and final case state v miller court of appeals so this case is kind of interesting essentially every issue the defense raises they win on hearsay true irrelevant true and there are plenty of judges that probably need this primer on the rules of evidence i definitely suggest folks give it a read if you ve ever let a cop testify about the arrest and such you need this case to remind you that you need to be objecting but court says who cares he s guilty as sin none of this stuff changes the tons of evidence against this guy or all the stuff in his favor jury didn t buy his witnesses none of this stuff was all that harmful it s impossible to know if that s true because of the way courts can control what the facts are when they write the opinion i mean i get their point if i believe them but i don t because i know better anyway that s enough law for this week posted by nidefatt at 4 22 pm 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest older posts home subscribe to posts atom disclaimer this is not legal advice hire an attorney and if your attorney disagrees with me don t be surprised i m a public defender from idaho about me nidefatt defending the public of idaho view my complete profile blog archive 2023 1 november 1 hello 2014 47 september 5 august 9 july 5 june 4 may 4 april 7 march 5 february 5 january 3 2013 32 december 6 november 3 october 3 september 1 august 7 july 5 june 7 picture window theme theme images by cmisje 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