Just finished a long trial.
Lost.
Guilty on all counts.
I worked my ass off on this trial. I'm a public defender, so I don't have to keep track of hours worked in 6-minute increments like private attorneys do, but I worked on nearly nothing else for 2 solid weeks - with many days being from 5:30am til 6:30pm. Add in the hours spent prior to this and I have probably devoted 150 hours to trial prep on this case. I knew it absolutely cold and was ready for everything.
Well, everything except overwhelming evidence of guilt.
sigh
What really bugs me is that the jury didn't even pretend to think about it. Four days of testimony and 89 exhibits, and they came back with guilty on all seven counts in only 45 minutes. Couldn't they have gone back there and played Canasta for a couple of hours or something?
I also have no chance of any kind of success at the sentencing hearing in a couple of weeks. Even so, I will devote everything I can to winning something on the sentencing. In this case, a sentence that includes the possibility of parole would be a success.
On Monday, it is "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."** We start a trafficking in methamphetamine trial in which I will be reduced to trying to punch holes in the state's case. My theory of the case seems to have crystallized as "not going down without a fight."
Oh well. At least I have a nice juicy armed robbery coming up that I have a real chance of winning.
**Henry V, Act III, scene 1
2 comments:
Bummer about the verdicts. I often feel that way when I know my case has no shot of winning, but still want them at least to consider my side so I don't feel like all my hard work was for nothing.
Love the Henry V quote.
Make that a double Grrr and you could pretend to be Tigger...
Margaritas fix bad trials (when the restaurant is serving them, that is).
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