oregonlawyer

I am in private practice, so I have some discretion over which cases I take and which I opt against taking. There are some sort of crimes that I try to stay away from -- instances where I just don't believe I can do any good.

That said, the role of a criminal defense attorney, at its core, is to be a zealous advocate for the accused. Whether they are guilty of committing the crime they're accused of committing, I believe that it is my job to ensure that they receive a fair trial and that the state actually prove every element of the crime.

I think that's the difference between "not guilty," and "innocent." I'm not ever trying to prove that my client is innocent, but rather that the state hasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he's guilty.

I've defended people I thought were 100% innocent who ended up being convicted, and I've defended people who I thought were 100% guilty who ended up being found not guilty, so my guess is as good as yours.

Ahh, I don't watch the show, so I missed the reference. That said, from second hand experience, I can say that meth is a hell of a drug.

I think you're pretty close to accurate in your assessment, just off on the terms maybe. I have a lot of very close friends who are prosecutors, and of the, oh, maybe 100 prosecutors that I've met, perhaps two or three are people I wouldn't want to have a drink with.

I think the real "problem" is the decision as to when to plea bargain and how to go about doing it. I'm not joking you than in maybe 40-50% of my cases, my clients get a plea offer from the state that carries the absolute exact sentence that they would receive if they were convicted. In that instance, how could I possibly advise that my client accept a plea?

"Hey, Joe, I know that if you lose at trial, you'll go to prison for two years, but the state has made us this very tempting offer to allow you to plead guilty to crime X and go to prison for just two years, do you want to take it?"

I'd be literally laughed at, or fired. Or both, come to think of it.

I've won dozens of cases where the only reason I took it to trial was that I couldn't get a reasonable plea bargain.

Well, I've had some really, really weird cases. Some were weird because of the people who were involved. Some were weird because of the crime that was committed. Some were weird for other reasons.

Perhaps the weirdest case I had was a case where a guy was being investigated for hiring a prostitute, bringing her to his hotel, and watching videos of downright kinky sexual acts with her. He never actually ended up having sex with her, but he paid her four figures to spend something like six hours with him. In the end, he gave her a quantity of drugs, which is the only crime that he committed.

The result was a good one for all parties involved, but the guy was perhaps the weirdest person I've come across, and that's saying something.

As for the criminal justice system as a whole, I think it's deficient in some areas, but on the whole, it's generally effective. I think some people on the state side are too quick to be dismissive of individual liberties and believe that anyone who's arrested is in fact guilty, and I think some people on the defense side believe too strongly that the government really is out to get everyone. The truth, as is almost always the case, is somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps the saddest thing I see on a daily or near-daily basis is the lives ruined by the seemingly endless cycle of drug abuse and addiction. There are so many families who lose loved ones to prison or to a life of crime because of an addiction to drugs. I think the way we handle those individuals whose crimes stem from an addiction to a substance rather than a malicious intent could be improved and it would significantly cut down on recidivism and the ridiculous incarceration figures that exist in this country.