Attn Public Defenders: What advice would you give to a noob? Forum

[JacksonEsq1]

Attn. Public Defenders:

What advice would you give to someone a month or two out from a start date in a public defender's office?

Is it useful to go over the evidence code for the given state? Brush up on crim pro rules and cases from law school? Read up on the court's local rules? Anything else? None of the above?

How’s it going now after nearly 2 years?

[alleycat9]

One other piece of advice I'd add. PD offices can come in many shapes and sizes that greatly influence the day to day job. I worked at a few different offices and list some pros and cons to look for below.

Major city:From my experience, working in a major city (800k+), with 60+ attorneys at the office, day to day office life was very rigid and structured. Go to court in A.M., eat lunch and go to P.M. docket if there is one. Everyone was encouraged to head to other court rooms if your docket was very light and you happen to get done early (meaning you never get done early). It's not like the bosses would track all of the attorneys while they are at court to ensure everyone was always staying to help others with heavy dockets but it definitely was something they kept generally aware of and "highly encouraged"(read:semi-mandatory) us to do at least 70-80% of the time.

Small City:From my experience, working in a small city (>100k), with 15-20 attorneys at the office, day to day office life was very relaxed and informal. Everyone was mostly left to themselves with close to no "monitoring" from supervising attorneys. Whereas my boss in the big city wanted to nit-pick exactly about how pre-trial interviews should be done (and would be very standoffish if even one question was missed that they viewed as important), in the small city I'm not sure any of my supervising attorneys ever so much as glanced at a single PTI that I took or ever gave me any feedback, positive or negative. Small city, the attorneys would simply stand right in front of the Judge (5ft away) with their client. Big city was far more formal and attorneys mostly always stayed at their desks w/client (20 ft away) and would go up in front of a podium to address the court. In the small city my boss legitimately asked if I wanted to go get a beer after the PM docket got out at 3:30 instead of going to back to the office for the last 1.5hrs of workday. It was pretty much acceptable to come and go from the small office at all times of the day. As long as you weren't missing work obligations like the dockets you handle or meeting w/opposing counsel etc., you could pretty much come and go as you pleased. 35 min late to work? No one would even know. Realize you need to get off early that day for some errands? Hardly anyone will even realize you're gone, and if need be you could almost always get permission to leave anyways. Disappear randomly for 2 hours in the middle of the day? No one will miss you or really care. Big city, you are sitting at your desk until 5:00pm come hell or high water. Want off 1 hour early because its your birthday? No chance. Hand in hand with these observations, if you are the type of person who wants far more direct responsibility for your clients or would prefer to be a PD the way you personally do it best, small city is way to go. If you want meticulous direction with helicopter oversight (yet likely better feedback from supervisors), or you are nervous about being in court on your own at first, big city might be for you. Small city, when PDs started the supervising attorneys would simply throw them in the water and hope they swim, with full responsibilities effective pretty much immediately. Big city, when PDs started they would train and shadow for over 3 months before even being trusted with a client, and even then were given very little trust to do anything on their own until they "prove themselves", frequent checking in with supervising attorneys, frequent suggestions about things you should do differently and tons of backseat driving from start to finish. Personally, this aspect was what I hated most about the Big office. I had already worked/interned at three different mid-size PD offices prior to Big Office and honestly even 2 months in at big office, I was trusted w/less responsibility than when interned at a PD office 2L summer and and argued arraignments every A.M. and represented clients on the record under that states 2nd year practice rule. It felt after a while that all this really served to do was reinforce that you are not capable of competently completing, what in reality is actually a pretty simple, straightforward job. It made me overthink things that weren't important and if anything just handicapped me as a new PD as opposed to building my confidence.

Regional Differences: Additionally, depending on what state you're working in, there may be a different experience based on state law/Evidence rules. E.g. I worked at a PD office in Charlottesville and in VA. In VA the state is actually required to share far less information with the PD office. There is no requirement that prosecutors provide any police reports, witness statements or a witness list to the defense team.(As I checked right before posting this, looks as though this rule may have been modified in 2018/19 to require at least somewhat more sharing but still, there are at least 5-6 other states with similar restrictions). This results in bogus tasks such as needing to make a trip to the DA's office to even read police reports for each client you have. You are only allowed to take notes on the police report and cannot simply say...make a copy. HAH, seriously tho wtf. If that's not purely obstructionist, I dont know what is. I Point here is short: This is the only type of state law that actually seemed as a deterrent to wanting to practice in the state out of the three states I’ve worked in. Can’t say how common odd laws like this are but definitely worth looking into for the target states you’re looking to practice in. Finally, attitudes towards PD work and funding for PD offices, varies greatly depending on what region you are in. Think Alabama and Texas vs. California, Colorado, Minnesota. Depending on the state and regional culture, your judge may highly respect PD work or, your judge may highly not give a shit about PD work and show general open disdain for PD work and inherently favor the State (even when the letter of the law contradicts them). E.g. judge doesn’t care you have a 100% valid objection to hearsay evidence or other blatantly inadmissible evidence, this degenerate pothead WILL go to jail for a year for that 20 sack. The devil’s lettuce is a highly dangerous schedule 1 drug that is not to be tolerated. In my personal opinion, punitive justice states are likely to provide far less resources, funding, concern, respect, all of the above when it comes to PD work, so it's worth at least being aware of so you know what you're getting into if you choose a draconian southern state to practice in.

[CanadianWolf]

I am not a PD, but I do know some who are & have had substantial discussions with them about their practice.

The most universally applicable advice that I can offer is to view criminal defense as the practice of constitutional law. Try to set up all issues in a manner that will assist any appellate counsel in furthering these issues.

Try to spend time speaking with attorneys who have experience with appellate work in the area of criminal law.

Read as many appellate decisions as you can. Subscribe to criminal law publications.

Don't drink & do not engage in substance abuse. May sound like peculiar advice, but wait until you attend a holiday party with others in your office. Frequent substance abuse makes folks become too emotional & inhibits one's ability to fully appreciate court decisions in an unemotional & analytic manner.

Tough experience when one's client refuses to accept a generous plea deal. No easy answer here. Ask for guidance from your supervisor/supervising attorney.

You will learn a lot about judges & not all of what you learn will be comforting. My best suggestion is to read as many appellate briefs as you can in order to learn effective ways to protect your clients' rights. This is a proper way to handle a hostile judge.

Often defendants--poor, uneducated, troubled background--are unable to express themselves in a convincing or articulate fashion. This does not mean that what they are saying isn't true. I have heard PDs state that they did not believe their clients until they heard similar stories from multiple clients about the same officer/sheriff's deputy/jail/etc.

Better to raise too many issues than too few in order to preserve the issue for appeal.

About a decade ago, the head of a very well respected state wide PD office instructed all PDs to raise a lengthy list of issues in all cases in order to preserve issues for appeal.

Early in this thread, another poster suggested that challenging every search & seizure was inadvisable. This is very poor advice. As a PD your primary function is to protect your clients' Constitutional rights. You must raise issues even though operating with inadequate resources.

P.S. Read as many appellate briefs as you can. This is one way to learn your craft.

[nixy]

Don't drink & do not engage in substance abuse. May sound like peculiar advice, but wait until you attend a holiday party with others in your office. Frequent substance abuse makes folks become too emotional & inhibits one's ability to fully appreciate court decisions in an unemotional & analytic manner.

I would think there’s a range of possibilities between “frequent” and “never,” though (and to the extent what you say is true, it’s certainly not specific to PDs).

About a decade ago, the head of a very well respected state wide PD office instructed all PDs to raise a lengthy list of issues in all cases in order to preserve issues for appeal.

To the extent that this is suggesting filing a boilerplate list of objections in every case on the basis that you’re preserving all possible objections (because I have seen this done), judges have no patience for it and generally disregard it; the objection needs to be made in the specific context of the case to carry weight (you can’t preserve, say, a hearsay objection by filing something ahead of trial saying “I object to admission of any inadmissible hearsay.”) Obviously if you’re talking about something else then my response doesn’t apply, but since I have seen it done (and disregarded) I thought I’d mention this.

[CanadianWolf]

I appreciate your thoughts--which tends to be the reaction of all instructed to do so--but can reaffirm that raising boilerplate objections in every case was mandated by the head of the statewide PD's office. And, of course, judges probably do not like it (even though they understood the practice), but the head of the statewide PD viewed the mission as protecting the clients' rights rather than trying to please trial court judges. May be smart, may not be smart--but that was the mandate & the mission of this well funded statewide PD's office.

The drinking patterns of this respected statewide PD's office are excessive, but--of course--that does not mean universally true.

[nixy]

I’m sure the head of the office did mandate doing so. I still can’t see it being good advice. I get that when it comes to pleasing judges vs protecting your clients obviously the latter is more important, but I don’t think the problem with such motions is that judges don’t like them - the problem is that it won’t actually preserve otherwise un-preserved objections. Of course if you’re in an office where your boss tells you to file such a motion, you do, but it’s not something I’d actively advocate for introducing to a defense practice.

[polareagle]

I appreciate your thoughts--which tends to be the reaction of all instructed to do so--but can reaffirm that raising boilerplate objections in every case was mandated by the head of the statewide PD's office. And, of course, judges probably do not like it (even though they understood the practice), but the head of the statewide PD viewed the mission as protecting the clients' rights rather than trying to please trial court judges. May be smart, may not be smart--but that was the mandate & the mission of this well funded statewide PD's office.

I think Nixy's point is not that you'll upset judges but that it won't work. I don't know which state you're talking about, but I know that public defenders in Maryland often file these sorts of boilerplate motions because there's a rigid deadline for filing important pre-trial motions, and it's absurdly early (like 30 days after entering an appearance, rather than 30 days before trial). If the trial judge accepts the boilerplate and allows substitution with a later, more nuanced motion, then the appellate courts often do too, but if the trial judge doesn't, you just lost at the Court of Special Appeals as well. So it's much better to actually raise and preserve the suppression/Franks/Miranda/Bruton/whatever issue actually applies in your case than to file a boilerplate and hope it works out, unless you know that your particular judge will give you a pass. All this to say, it's super state, court, and judge-specific, and is often a bad idea from an appellate perspective.

(ETA: Nixy beat me to the punch)

[CanadianWolf]

I too was shocked by the mandate when I learned of it. But that was what the PDs were instructed to do.

Hopefully, there was more than just a boilerplate objection filed if factual support was known at that time.

This state has former PDs on the Court of Appeals.

I hesitate to make blanket statements regarding what may or may not be an issue preserved for appeal.