Trust Me When I Say You Need a Lawyer
Many of you may not be aware of this, but I do some appointed work in King County as a criminal lawyer. Typically this means if a defendant who needs an appointed criminal lawyer can’t have one of the agencies because there is a conflict of some kind, I will be appointed in their stead to help the person with their case. I don’t rely on these cases for income, but I enjoy doing them because I get to help someone that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford my help.
What this means, though, is sometimes my clients don’t have readily available access to the telephone, email, or sometimes, even an address. This can sometimes result in me not meeting the client until their next scheduled court date. Such an occurrence happened to me yesterday, and it reminded me of an important lesson for all people out there considering whether or not to hire a criminal lawyer or go out on your own.
I was appointed this case, a DUI. I hadn’t met the client before that court date because I hadn’t been able to get in touch with them. No problem. I was going to get a continuance, talk to the client in court, and then make sure I had updated contact information so we could touch base before the next hearing and figure out where we were going on the case. Then I met the client, and it turns out we were going to go in a different direction.
For some reason, Client didn’t want an attorney. I asked her why and she started talking about jurisdiction and using Latin I didn’t even know. I told her “look, it is your right to represent yourself, and you can make that decision if you want, but it is not going to work out well for you in the end. On a case like this you need an experts help.” Nope, she wanted to go it alone. And she was all over the place.
Now, I’m not one to judge people. Everyone is entitled to their own personality, quirks and all. But this client was not going to be easy to deal with. But I have an obligation, so when the case was called we went up before the judge and I explained that Client wanted to go it alone. I fully expected what the judge did – he said he was reluctant to excuse me before he’d been assured that Client was making a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary decision. I was okay with that, if for no other reason than I knew she didn’t want a criminal attorney helping her.
Then came the interesting part. It turns out the judge had already spoken to Client about the pitfalls of going it alone – in a lengthy conversation – at the last court hearing (I wasn’t there). Once he realized that, Client was on her own. Judge told me I was excused from the case, and he started in on client. As I began to see how this was playing out (not well for Client) I began my exit. As I walked out the door I could hear the judge denying one of Client’s Latin motions before she even finished asking for it.
There may be some things you don’t need a lawyer for in the legal world. Criminal defense is not one of them. Not only are there typically complicated issues involved that you may not even know exist, you are going to be playing against highly trained individuals and governmental entities whose sole purpose is to convict you. It would kind of be like your high school baseball team playing the Yankees. Way over matched.
If you are charged with a crime, talk to a lawyer. Period. End of story.
