February 6, 2010 :: Defining moments of a criminal defense attorney

These are the moments that define your professional identity.  These are moments which, if you haven't experienced, I say that you're not a full criminal defense attorney yet.

When I worked in Colorado, I had a really good internship with great people, and wonderful teachers of all kinds.  I had a good caseload for someone of my limited experience, and did many, many things.  Of those, a regular task was to make sentencing arguments for people who plead guilty to charges, in an attempt to get leniency from the judge who considered whether to sentence to the maximum of the negotiated jail term, or, hopefully, something less.  After sentenced, I would regularly ask for a stay of execution for a up to a week or two - time before the jail sentence was to be served.  This was often granted.  Sometimes because of the facts of the case, or the client's history, the judge refused.

For a criminal defense attorney, this is an all too familiar scene.  The judge orders the client remanded at the podium, and the deputies approach with handcuffs, and the client is taken away.  I usually tried to get a phone number or someone's name to call to let them know what happened, and why wife, daddy, or daughter isn't coming home for a while.  It's a bad feeling, and a bad call to make, but that sick feeling of despair for someone else is one of these moments I call a defining moment for a criminal defense lawyer.

I just found a new one, which is worse.  Having the conversation focused on, "I'm not going back.  I didn't do anything wrong, and that cop is framing me.  I'm not going back to prison.  I'm doing everything I can to do the right thing, to get my life on track.  I didn't do anything wrong.  I can't go back.  I'll jump off a bridge first."  That conversation is worse when you're looking at a borderline suppression hearing, and a borderline trial at best.

This makes me wonder how many more of these defining moments are out there.

Welcome home to Kentucky!

Colorado MoJo

This new website, Colorado MoJo, is about Colorado's mountains and outdoor sports in Colorado. It looks pretty darned good to me.

Nov 14, 2009 :: lake Vesuvius

My beautiful daughter

Nov 10, 2009 :: Editorial oversight

The attached web article is funny because this is an article about "men's rights," and the photograph for the article is labeled, "photograph of a man." Like, readers might not know that the article is about men, and specifically, what a man looks like. An editor somewhere at doublex.com missed a golden opportunity to ask, "does the image add anything to the article?"

And, Happy Birthday, USMC - Ooh-rah!

Sep 22, 2009 :: Waiting for bar results

I painted some acrylic onto canvases to spruce up the office

A year without a blog entry. Blogging while moving from Colorado to Kentucky is depressing when I would have preferred to stay nearer the mountains.

Since starting criminal defense with the DU criminal representation clinic in January-October of 2008, which helped me into my internship with the Colorado Public Defender's office from January-May of 2009. I wanted to work in public defense, and applied all over the country. Holly was, and remains, supportive of this decision of ours. We moved to Kentucky to work for the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy, my present employer. In a little more than two weeks, I will know whether I passed the Kentucky bar exam.

I have found a book on the Red River Gorge. The climbs in that book seem like they will fill the gap I miss about Colorado, elevenmile canyon, clear creek canyon, boulder canyon, and all my old favorite canyons and other climbing areas in the West.