Gopher Lawyer

Back 2 Skool

2007-09-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

So Gopher Lawyer didn't post while he was in East Asia. I was busy. The ten days flew by. I only had a few minutes of precious Internet time each day, and I devoted it to job-hunting. What was I supposed to do?

I didn't want to leave Korea, but I find that's often the case with foreign travel. I made it back here in one piece. Law school has hit me like a mid-air plane collision: Law Review, on-campus interviews and coursework have all already kicked in.

The unquestioned highlight of the week came on Wednesday: first day of orientation for all the new 1Ls! I'm a sentimental guy, always have been. No shame in that. So I gladly indulged my nostalgia at seeing them all walking around with wide eyes, forming clicks, learning the area, and all in various stages of panic over what they were getting themselves into. Because that was me -- one year ago. Now I'm jaded, weary, and blogging. Not a good combination. But I once was like them. And on Wednesday, I remembered it.

Back East...Far East

2007-08-11T22:23:00.001-07:00

Gopher Lawyer is taking a vacation. No more cops, no more 4th Amendment, no more probable cause. No more trips to jail, prison, court or chambers. Gopher Lawyer is headed for Korea. And possibly Japan, but that will depend on whether I can find a cheap ticket.

I'll try to post an update or two over the next two weeks. But mostly I think I'll be relaxing and disinclined towards all things Internet. Still, I'll do my best. Happy summer! (At least, the last two weeks of it.)

Happy Trails

2007-08-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

Summer employment has come to an end for Gopher Lawyer. My time with the public defender ended today. Next up is a two-week trip to Korea. And after that, law school resumes, along with the classes, outlining, briefing, complaining, whining, and of course thousands of pages of reading.

I'll be hunting for different jobs this fall. It's not that I didn't like the public defender -- I really did. But next summer I'd rather get a totally different experience. I want to know if the big-ticket firm life is the way to go. I.e., is the heavy workload (and resulting long hours) worth the ridiculous pay?

The summer in the public defender ended on a good note. I got another case dismissed for lack of probable cause. It was some kid who faced up to 20 years in prison, but now will only have to do 6 months in the workhouse for unrelated probation violations.

I'm glad to walk out of there knowing that I did a good job. And now I can spend the next few months worrying every time I open the paper that I helped out some guy who later went on to commit something horrible. Let's hope that doesn't come up.

Guilty

2007-08-05T08:54:00.001-07:00

I went to my first guilty verdict Friday. He was found not guilty on first-degree premeditated murder, but was found guilty of second-degree felony murder. He will probably face 20 years. (Sentencing is in three weeks.)

A lot of people, including me, have mixed feelings about the felony murder rule. The basic rule is this: if you are committing a felony, and someone gets killed (even totally inadvertently) in the process, you are guilty of at least second-degree murder.

Example: I am robbing a liquor store. There is an old man in the store standing behind me. After I get the loot and am fleeing the store, I accidentally bump into him without even seeing him, he falls to the ground and dies when he hits his head.

Now ordinarily, that death would be charged, at most, with manslaughter. But because robbing the liquor store is a felony, and the death occurred during the process of committing that felony, then I could be charged with that death as though it were intentional.

Part of the purpose of the rule is to discourage people from committing felonies. I doubt it is successful in that mission however. Even if it does work, there are still serious concerns about charging someone with murder when they had no intent to murder and no knowledge that they were about to murder.

The day the music died

2007-07-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

I'm always surprised when all sorts of crazy breaking news happens at once. Today it has happened in the sports world. My favorite basketball player, Kevin Garnett, has been traded to the Celtics. One of my favorite Twins has been traded to New York. Bill Walsh died. Michael Vick's co-defendant pled guilty. The Vikings signed their #1 pick, Adrian Peterson. All of this news broke in the last 24 hours. And on top of it all, in legal news, the Chief Justice of the United States was injured in a fall at his summer home and was hospitalized. (Sorry: obligatory legal comment for a blog that tends to be about law.)

One thing that isn't news: Vikings receivers are only four days into training camp, and they already appear to be dropping passes like they're trying to set a record. Is there any song that's the opposite of "Drop It Like It's Hot?" Can we get a sports psychologist and music therapist working together on this one?

But I digress: the biggest item of today is KG. That old Don McClean song is so overused and overquoted in these situations. But I can't help feeling that if KG is gone from Minnesota, then despite all the other news events, today is the day the music died.

Victory #2

2007-07-19T18:05:00.001-07:00

Got another win under the belt today. It was the racial profiling case. (See the post "Racial Profiling" below.) Quick facts: our guy is 28 years old. The cops nevertheless stopped him for a suspected curfew violation -- they thought he was under 18. Even when he showed them his ID, they still didn't believe him, and did a search. I am not making this up.

I wrote the motion to dismiss the case based on the fact that the crack had been discovered after an illegal pretextual stop. We showed up for the hearing today. The prosecutor met with us and said she had read my motion. She then asked to see our guy's booking photo. We produced it, she took one look, and that was it. Case dismissed. She knew that she didn't need to bother taking it to the judge -- her case was DOA. I'm glad she did the right thing and acknowledged that in this country, cops are not allowed to stop someone simply because they feel like it.

Nice try, cops.

If it's true, lock Vick away

2007-07-18T18:17:00.001-07:00

Gopher Lawyer is a big NFL fan. (I have particular love for a certain team that wears purple jerseys and sports white horns on its helmet.)

The League has long been subject to the criticism that its players act as though the rules don't apply to them. Usually this attitude manifests itself on Saturday nights around 2am. Pacman Jones gets involved in a shootout at a strip club. Vikings players gang bang prostitutes on a lake cruise. Countless other players drive home drunk or get into bar fights. Usually, however, the bad behavior is limited to recklessness or basic stupidity.

Not so for Mike Vick. Vick has been accused of participating in a ring that brutally tortured dogs for entertainment and financial gain. The allegations are so atrocious and vile, it's hard to even read the indictment. (As a lawyer, I have to add the necessary disclaimers that he is innocent until proven guilty, and simply being charged does not indicate guilt.)

If they are true, Vick should be locked away in prison and suspended from the NFL for life. Such a level of cruelty to innocent animals is hard to contemplate for most people, yet the multi-millionaire Vick had no qualms involving himself in this racket. And all in the name of entertainment and making a few more bucks. No words are strong enough to condemn this evil, sadistic violence.

This is not some sports star making a few bad alcohol-induced decisions. This is calculating, ruthless, cold-hearted cruelty, and if these allegations are true, I cannot imagine a punishment too severe.

Wasted effort?

2007-07-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

One of the tough parts about being a lawyer is that a lot of work you do feels like it goes to waste.

Case in point: I blogged earlier (see "Fourth Amendment" post below) about a suppression issue based on the cops' illegal entry. I worked hard on the brief to make sure I had the right caselaw and the right arguments.

Today was meant to be the big decision day: I went to court with the lawyer who would argue my brief before the judge, who would then issue a ruling. I was excited, because my competitive fire was burning. It was like a Sunday morning in the fall: my team was either going to win or lose.

We first went into the judge's chambers with the prosecutor. (That's standard operating procedure.) That's where the wheels came off my expectations. To make a long story short, the judge didn't like the prosecutor's opposing brief, and wanted him to redo it based on some new cases. The prosecutor didn't like the thought of that at all. We left the judge's chambers, and the prosecutor immediately made us a reasonable offer to settle. He knocked the charges down to a misdemeanor for which our guy will serve a couple of weeks (only because of prior convictions). Our client was pleased as punch with the offer; he accepted, and that's all she wrote.

And poof, that's the end of my brief. Never argued, never ruled on. I'll file it away in my desk and never see it again, because this case is history.

In reality, my brief was not wasted effort. It merely illustrates the chess game of litigation. The prosecutor obviously respected the brief enough that he didn't want to fight anymore; he just wanted us to go away. And he offered a deal that would get us out of his hair. Had I written a crap brief -- had I slacked off and half-assed it -- the prosecutor may have been unwilling to deal. He might have decided to fight instead. But apparently, the brief was just good enough to scare him off.

I would have preferred to fight the issue. But our client was happy with the deal, and that's all that matters to us. That's good enough for me. It's just too bad that I have to wonder what would have happened...whether we would have won or lost.

Juvenile Detention

2007-07-11T20:45:00.001-07:00

I spent yesterday in the Juvenile Detention Center (i.e., the kids' jail) interviewing clients. It's fairly somber inside, although unlike the adult jail, the JDC actually has windows. (The windows face the local sports stadium where the pro baseball team plays. Which means that every time I've been to a ball game, there has probably been some 15-year-old kid watching me walk into the stadium and thinking to himself how he would give anything to be out of jail and watching baseball.)

People have asked me if it's sad to go to the kids' jail. Strangely, it isn't sad to be inside and talk with these youngsters.

What's really sad is when these kids have to show up in court for hearings, and nobody comes to support them. No friends, no parents, no cousins, no aunts or uncles. A lot of these kids have been abandoned since their early teens. Many have bounced around from group homes to foster families and back again. The vast majority -- 75%? -- are not life-long criminals, but rather confused and angry kids going through a phase they will soon grow out of.

That's why it's so sad to see their courage when they show up in court with no one by their side. They're not angels, but they deserve someone there (besides the public defender) on their behalf. I know I couldn't have done it alone when I was 15.

The first few lines of The Great Gatsby have never felt more true.

Racial Profiling

2007-07-04T15:17:00.001-07:00

My latest case involves racial profiling. The cops were on patrol late one night, and they saw an African-American male who, for whatever reason, they didn't like the look of. So they approached him and demanded to see ID on the grounds that they suspected him of violating curfew (which only applies to people under age 18).

The problem is that our guy happens to be 28 years old, and he looks it, too. He has a full goatee. Greg Oden is 18 and looks like he's about 35; the same thing applies to our guy.

However, once he produced his ID which confirmed that he was 28, the cops decided to do a pat-down search anyway. In doing so, they found crack cocaine rocks in his pocket.

The suspected curfew violation was obviously a pretextual reason to stop this guy. The cops were clutching at straws; the fact is, they didn't like this black guy walking around late at night, and felt like checking him out. We will argue that the cops illegally swiped his ID card, because once they saw that he was actually 28, they had no reason to do a pat-down. I'll post more later on whether or not we win.

Even though I believe that what the cops did was wrong, you've got to hand it to them. Our guy was walking around with crack on his person, and the cops had some weird sixth sense telling them as much. They took one look at the guy and knew he was up to something. Maybe next time they'll find a way to catch him without violating his constitutional rights.

Victory

2007-07-03T15:50:00.001-07:00

Friday was a day that I'll probably remember the rest of my legal career: I got my first case dismissed. (Which basically means I won.) I wrote a motion to dismiss a case for lack of probable cause. (Unfortunately, they didn't let me do oral arguments since I'm a 1L, but I didn't mind.) In other words, I argued successfully that the cops and prosecutor simply did not have enough evidence to back up the charges.

The case is a fairly high profile murder case -- it got a lot of newspaper coverage a couple of weeks ago. Our guy was being charged as an accomplice after the fact. In essence, the charges were totally overblown. He may be guilty of something like disorderly conduct, but in no way was he an accessory to murder. The judge agreed. Our guy goes free, and my record on the summer moves to 1-0.

I was probably lucky to win my first case. Public defenders don't win much. I'm sure my record will drop to 1-5 in the next couple of weeks. But on Friday, I felt great about my job, great about my education, and great about my career choice. Nothing feels better than winning.

About that last blog....

2007-06-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

I've been told that my last blog may have been a little harsh on the client for not showing up in court. While I still think he should've been there, I will try to offer the other side of the story, because it reflects on what it means to be a public defender.

Our clients come to the public defender because they can't afford private counsel. They have no job, or a low-paying job, or they receive some sort of government support. At any rate, they don't have alarm clocks. They don't have palm pilots. They may not have calendars or Outlook. They may have three kids to feed, and all that matters is finding that next meal. Court dates, arraignments, plea bargains -- these are all of secondary (tertiary?) concern to them. How can we expect them to go to court on time when they may not be able to pay for the parking downtown?

The bottom line is that they don't know how to make wise choices, because if they did, they probably wouldn't need us in the first place. If a guy breaks into a house to steal things and then tries to flee from the cops, how are we going to expect him to make the sound decision of showing up in court on time? He's got other issues.

The type of people who would prioritize showing up in court on time are the type of people with jobs and decent incomes. I won't be seeing any of them this summer.

Need a calendar?

2007-06-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

I've got a new case: third-degree burglary. Felony. Could get up to one year in prison based on his prior record. Defendant is 18 years old and, to put it simply, sounds like he needed to be spanked more when he was younger. I won't go into the details of the burglary because they are not that exciting, but what was more interesting is that this guy decided to blow off court today. He was scheduled for a hearing at 3:30. I showed up early to talk with the prosecutor to see what kind of deal he could get. Turns out the prosecutor wants to bust our guy's accomplice more than our guy himself. So the prosecutor offers a sweet deal that any defendant in his right mind would take.

We're all set to tell our defendant the good news, then get the judge to sign off on the agreement. But still no sign of dfendant. We wait, and wait, and wait. We start making phone calls to his house and cell phone. The guy won't answer his cell, and no one at his house has seen him today.

Maybe I'm too green and haven't been at this job long enough, because I'm still shocked that someone would skip a hearing! If I were ever charged with something, I would be in court TWO HOURS EARLY. Our guy? He doesn't bother to come. His friend -- the accomplice -- showed up to his court date right on time.

There's now a warrant out for our guy. He's got a week to get his ass to court. Otherwise, the sweet deal is off the table, and he will be looking at one year in prison. If you see him, have him call me.

The Fourth Amendment

2007-06-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

So here's the second case I'm working on for the public defender. The cops get a 911 call in the area near defendant's home. The caller reports domestic violence in progress, but at a different house a few doors down from defendant's. The cops nevertheless show up at defendant's house (because they had problems with him in the past) and go up to the front door, where sure enough, they say they hear a domestic assault in progress. After the cops try to kick down the door, defendant opens it and the cops storm in. The woman inside has clearly been hit -- she has marks on her face and there are objects strewn across the living room. She tells the cops that defendant hit her. Defendant is arrested and charged, and now we are representing him.

My task is to write the motion to suppress all the evidence the cops obtained when they entered the house. The theory is that the cops violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures. The cops were called to a different house, and they had no business being at defendant's home in the first place. Since they were there illegally and since they entered illegally, all evidence obtained in the entry must be suppressed a "fruit of the poisonous tree," in lawyer-speak.

If the motion wins, our guy walks with no punishment. It's obvious that he did something wrong, but we will nevertheless try to get him off on a technicality -- that is, if you view a constitutional right as a "technicality." So do I work my hardest on this motion to help this asshole get right back on the street? Or do I blow it off because I figure this guy deserves something on his record? This is why I love my job. Morally ambiguous decisions everyday!

The reality is, I'll be working my hardest. I don't want the cops snooping around my house whenever they want.

Jury of the State

2007-06-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

As part of my orientation program at work, I've been sitting in on a rape trial. (It's not actually called that here anymore; it's "criminal sexual conduct," but whatever.) We did jury selection a few days ago. It was a good reminder that if you want to be on a jury, try to show that you have no capacity for abstract thought. Because if you do, one of the sides will boot you.

The strikes serve a necessary purpose. One prospective juror basically said that he assumed our client was guilty simply because he was charged with a crime. His theory goes that he wouldn't be in court unless he had done osmething wrong. Obviously we gave that person their walking papers. Similarly, the prosecution cut someone right away when they said that they hated the idea of sitting in judgment of someone.

Jury selection took four days. We've ended up with a fairly boring collection of non-descript people with no apparent opinion about anything. Is it a jury of my client's peers? No way, but we'll take it.

Into the Woods

2007-06-05T17:27:00.000-07:00

I spent four days last week on Devil Track Lake in northeastern Minnesota. Cell phones don't work up there. It's impossible to pirate a wireless internet connection. In fact, I think the only way to get internet is to arrange a satellite service. There's no movie theater; they don't even have McDonald's. The only noises during the day are the sounds of the lake on the shore or the wind blowing through the woods. The occasional motorboat passing by sounded completely foreign.

In other words, it's the perfect weekend destination for someone who lives in a high rise downtown.

Here's the part of the weekend that struck me most vividly. At night, in the guest bedroom with the shades down, I found myself in complete darkness. Pitch black. My eyes simply could not adjust. I waved my hands around six inches from my face -- and made out nothing. Looking around, it made no difference at all whether my eyes were open or closed.

I can't remember the last time I experienced zero light. It's impossible in my condo -- with all the lights of downtown, there's always a few rays from the skyscrapers sneaking in. Not in the woods.

About Me

2007-06-05T16:23:00.000-07:00

I just finished my 1L year at a prominent national law school. (If you can't figure out which one from the title of this blog, then you need to watch a lot more college sports.) Summer break began May 11, and both of my summer jobs kicked in at the end of May. For my full-time job, I am working as a Law Clerk in the public defender's office for the largest county in a major metropolitan area. I also have a second part-time (emphasis on "part") job as a research assistant for a professor. The first job is all about the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. The second job (so far) is all about the First Amendment. In other words, my entire professional life revolves around a few dozen words written just over 200 years ago.

I went to college in Boston. Then I moved to Chicago and worked in management consulting. Then I moved to Japan and taught English. I still speak a little Nihongo, but it's fading fast.

I have a variety of interests, but this summer I'm trying to develop two new ones: blogging and fishing. If I'm successful at even one of them, I'll call it a victory.

Going Anonymous

2007-06-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

The horror stories have finally spooked me. Apparently potential employers conduct background checks on law students these days to make sure there aren't any skeletons in the closet. They now routinely check blogs, or so I'm told. The career office keeps telling us that we need to be careful about anything that Google might find, because if Google can find it, an employer might read it before making a hiring decision.

I say that sucks, and that employers should just stick to the resume, interview, and criminal background check. But since I don't run the show, I have no choice but to go anonymous on my blog. Now I can post whatever I want and remain fairly confident that it won't be traced back to me by some HR person. (Although I suppose everything is traceable with the right amount of effort; I'm just gambling that most employers won't make that effort.)

Thanks for reading on the new site. I'll try to keep it current. Especially now that I know (or hope I know) that people aren't looking over my shoulder.