Monday Musings: Blonde Justice

How do you introduce a woman who writes one of the most popular public defender blogs, and who has inspired others to follow in her footsteps? The answer is that you don’t, because really, any words of introduction will pale in comparison with the real thing.

So without any further ado, here is Blonde Justice in her own words…

INTRODUCTION

Hi, I’m Blonde Justice, the pink-loving heroine of blondejustice.blogspot.com, and winner of the 2006 Best Blog by a Female Public Defender.

I started Blonde Justice after about 8 months on the job. I think the main reason why I decided to write was because, especially in those early days, I felt like being a PD (PD stories, client stories, court stories, prosecutor stories) consumed my thoughts. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, or talking about it, and I knew I risked driving everyone around me crazy. I felt like I needed an outlet - and an anonymous blog seemed as good a place as any. I didn’t really think that other people would want to read it, but there it was. (And, surprisingly, they apparently do.)

Now, sometimes it’s a blessing to come home and not think about work. And it is more difficult for me to want to think about or write about work when I get home. Also, as my career has progressed to include more serious cases, I find that it’s even harder to blog about work for two reasons: (1) it’s harder to make light of rapes and murders and (2) it’s harder to stay anonymous with cases that are more likely to be covered in the news. So, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, sometimes I blog about reality television or lip balm or shoes.

I’ve often thought about giving up blogging. Because sometimes it’s just tough - tough to find the time, tough to think of things to write about. And I think it’d be better to go out with a goodbye than to just let it peter out, but I have a sneaking suspicion that immediately after I posted my “goodbye” post, I’d have a million things I want to write. So, I’ll hang in there a little longer. And besides, I can’t quit right after being named Best Female Public Defender Blog 2006, can I?

You started Blonde Justice in May 2004. Was there a particular blog (or blogs) that inspired you to start blogging?

Definitely CrimLaw and I’m a PD. I found myself reading those blogs and thinking, “Exactly! Me too!” or, sometimes, “Oooh, things are SO different here.” Neither of them were anonymous, so it was a challenge to me to figure out whether (and how) it could be done.

You make it clear that your anonymity is important to you. How difficult has it been to keep your anonymity for nearly three years now?

It’s not easy, that’s for sure. I’m almost definitely overly paranoid about it, but I have made the decision that if I was ever outed I’d immediately quit blogging. So, I figure, better safe than sorry.

You want to know how paranoid I am? You know what I worry about? That someone, especially a prosecutor, will use a fact from my blog to “test” me. Like, to ask me, “Hey, will you hold my newspaper for me for a few minutes? Why not, are you allergic? By the way, have you ever seen Rocky?”

So, yeah, it’s tough. Thanks, in no small part, to my extreme paranoia.

Do you think your anonymity allows you to write more freely, or is it sometimes restricting? How?

It’s definitely restricting.

There are so many things that I think about writing and then decide that it might compromise my anonymity - weather (Did she say snow storm? tornado? hundred degree weather in January?), vacations (Hey, I know someone who just came back from Djibouti too. And, now that I think about it, she does wear a lot of pink…), high profile cases, crazy stories that quickly become notorious around the office, my other hobbies (How many blonde public defenders collect pre-war confederate bottle caps?).

Even my shoes. If I posted a picture, I’d be paranoid that every time anybody says, “Cute shoes!” to me, they’re really thinking, “They’re just like the ones I saw on Blonde Justice…”

What advice do you have for young public defenders who are thinking about starting their own blogs?

It will eat up all your free time!

And if you want to be anonymous, that’s fine, but commit to it from day one and stick to it. And if you’re not going to be anonymous, then assume that everything you say can and will be held against you by judges, jurors, clients and adversaries.

And, why not ease yourself into it by joining our Blawgers Baseball League?

In checking out some things on Blonde Justice for this interview, I came across this quote of yours in a comment: “Suffice it to say that a majority of my clients are indigent. And that I’m overworked and underpaid. Sounds like a PD? Yeah, kinda, close enough, but not quite.” Can you talk about how it is different without compromising your anonymity?

I guess the only way that I can put it is that my paycheck doesn’t come from the state. Other than that, I’m a public defender.

A lot of blogs have links to Blonde Justice, plus you were voted Best Female PD Blogger and Best Personality in the first PD Blogger Awards. To what do you attribute your popularity?

I’m not sure. I didn’t expect so many people to read the blog when I started it. I guess I could attribute it to my witty writing style, but I think maybe there’s something more than that.

I think people like the fact that I write about the law in an easy, approachable way; I never cite cases and try not to get hung up on specific details of cases. And while that certainly means that you shouldn’t take anything I write as legal advice, I think it makes it so that most people who read it can say, “ok, a shoplift, I know what she’s talking about,” and follow along without needing any legal background.

And I do write about reality tv and just everyday life stuff. You’d be surprised how many of my blog readers are people who are searching for “8th and Ocean” or “Beauty and the Geek,” but I’d like to think that after a few minutes of reading the blog, maybe they’ll learn a little something about the law or the justice system. Maybe enough to keep them out of trouble, or to at least pay their public defender a little more respect.

THE PD STUFF FIVE QUESTIONS

If you weren’t an attorney, what other job would you like to try and why?

Oooh, I think it must be a sign of burn-out that I think about this one so much.

I took a travel writing class in college, and I’ve always thought that would be an awesome job. But, maybe it’s not as glamorous as it looks. Maybe it’s lonely, and I’d always be sleeping in lumpy hotel beds and wishing for my home. That’s what I tell myself at least.

I’ve thought about being a court interpreter. I envy their job, just slightly. They get to hear all the juicy details of the court system, but, at the end of the day, they don’t have any extra work they have to do ( e.g. briefs to write, trials to prepare). But at this point, it’d probably be too hard to keep from giving my own two cents on every case.

It’s going to sound crazy, but I think about going to seminary. But I’m not sure how that would be much different from being a public defender. You know, listening to people, giving advice, interpreting ancient laws.

I could be an inventor. I’ve already invented tons of stuff that got ripped off. If I just had a little more time to follow through with getting patents, I could be a millionaire. That’d be cool.

I think it would be really fun to be the DJ at baseball games. I mean, every time there’s a rain delay, they play, “Walking in the Rain.” C’mon people, I could come up with 20 more songs with the word “rain” in the title! Every time a batter draws a walk, they play “Walk Like An Egyptian.” I could come up with 50 more songs for a walk! And then, the music they play to hype up the crowd? The stadium needs someone who knows that “Jock Jams” was a decade ago. And I’m just the girl for that.

But here’s the best one: I’ve also been thinking about opening a doggy day care. I would need to buy a big property first, that’s the biggest obstacle. But I’d offer dog walking, exercise, maybe even grooming. Not that I could groom a dog, but someone could. Because people who live in apartments and work long hours are paying a dog walker anyway. So, why not pay just a little more, and have a place where your dog could play ALL DAY, socialize with other dogs, and not tear up your furniture at home? Even if you have to board your pet while you’re on vacation, you could pay me to come get your dog out of boarding and take him to day care during the day. Now, wouldn’t you feel better about that? And, perhaps most exciting, the day care will have a few webcams. So, any time, whether you’re at work or on vacation, you can check in and see how your doggy is doing at day care. How cool is that?

Best moment on the job?

You know, my first thought is to think of an acquittal or dismissal that felt really good. I had one in mind where my client was a really old guy, never arrested in his life, and he got arrested for shoplifting when he just had “a senior moment” and walked out of the store without paying for something cheap. The store security guard tackled him, and held him on the ground, fake hip and all, until the police rushed to the scene a half-hour later.

It wasn’t a lot of work for me to get the case dismissed. And it felt good, to help my client, who was in bad physical shape, and living on a very limited income. So, I was kind of shocked when he brought a small gift to my office a few weeks later. I didn’t want to accept it, it just didn’t seem right, but he insisted. It felt really nice to be appreciated like that. And it happens just frequently enough to keep me going.

But I think my best moments really are hanging out with my colleagues. I really like the way we can all come together for the common good. The craziest thing is when a prosecutor or a judge is out of line toward one of us, the way we can all come together and, through a combination of tactics, put the enemy through his paces. That’s really fun.

And it really is just fantastic to work with a group of people who have such similar beliefs and morals and convictions and to work together on cases and for our clients. It really leads to a lot of my best moments on the job.

Worst moment on the job?

I had this client, this young girl. She was 16, but she was tiny. She couldn’t have weighed more than 80 pounds. She was in jail because she had previously been sentenced to probation, and then she hadn’t showed up for her probation interview. Now she got caught committing a new crime - fighting with another girl. She cried and cried to me about how she had to get home because she had a tiny premature baby still in the hospital, and that’s why she never went to probation because she went into early labor. (How did she have time to fight this girl then? She swore she was on her way to see her baby in the hospital, just minding her own business, when this girl started fighting her.)

I begged the judge to give her another chance at probation, to get her released. I called the hospital and got proof that her baby was still in the NICU. (This took 20 phone calls, and going back and forth to the jail with different types of waivers and releases for her to sign.) I went back and forth to my client’s grandmother. I went back and forth to the judge. Finally, the judge agreed to release my client and give her another chance at probation.

My client was supposed to come back to court a week later to start probation. She never showed up. I called her grandmother who told me that she never came home the day she was released from jail. She had never even called. Another warrant was issued for her arrest.

I worried about her for a long time. I worried that something terrible happened to her. That her baby would have to grow up without her mother, that her poor elderly grandmother would be stuck raising this baby. I checked in with her grandmother almost weekly to see if my client had turned up.

And, that’s unusual for me. I have a lot of clients that fail to appear for court - and generally I send a letter that says, “You missed court, there’s a warrant for your arrest,” and that’s the end of it. I’m not my clients’ babysitter and I feel like my time is better spent on clients who care about their own case.

A few weeks later, my client’s grandmother told me that the baby had come home from the hospital, but my client still hadn’t turned up. Finally, about 5 months later, I got a call from the girl - she had been arrested on a new charge. She had stabbed someone, but she hadn’t seriously injured her. And she cried and cried to me about how I needed to get her out of jail, that she was pregnant again and she hadn’t seen a doctor and she was worried she would have another premature baby. I just felt so betrayed - that I had worried about her for months, but she had just been staying with her boyfriend, having a good time, getting pregnant. I was so angry - she has a sick, tiny baby and she doesn’t even call to see if her baby’s alive? And then she gets pregnant again? And tries to use the baby as an excuse to get out of jail again? I ultimately asked one of my colleagues to take the latest case. It was a big favor to ask, and I pretty much never do that, but I felt like there was no way that I could fight for her the way her lawyer should. There was no way I could say to a judge, “She’s 16, she’s pregnant, and she has a premature little baby at home, please release her,” knowing full well she probably wouldn’t go home, and she’s probably get better medical treatment for her baby in jail. My colleague fought for her, got the right judge (and not a judge that recognized her from her early cases, luckily) and she was released, again, to probation. That’s right, she was on probation on 3 separate cases. It was one of those situations where you can never say it, but you know the judge is making a mistake releasing someone. And you never know, I guess this could be the time when she decides to get her life straight and do what she’s supposed to do. Who am I to bet against her? As I’m sure you can guess by now, she again never showed up for her probation interview or court. The last I heard, I got a phone call from her a few months ago, asking me if she had a warrant. I asked her, “Well, did you ever go to court?” She said, “No, but I was hoping you would take care of it for me because I…” I stopped her right there, I didn’t even want to hear it. I said, “No. There is nothing I can do to take care of it unless you show up in court or you’re in jail.” She said, “But I…” And I just had to say, “Stop.” I just couldn’t bear to hear about how she’s suddenly taking responsibility for her babies to avoid jail, or is, God forbid, pregnant again. But I was really disappointed in myself that I couldn’t just suck it up and give her some kind of legal advice, just be her lawyer. But I couldn’t. I still think about her a lot. About half the time I worry for her, and for her bay, and I hope she will someday finally get her head straight. The other half the time I feel really pissed that she could be that bad of a mother, and that so many more qualified women never get to be mothers, and that it’s only her poor grandmother and her tiny babies who will really suffer.

If Heaven exists, what do you think God will say to you when you arrive?

When I meet God, He’s got some ’splaining to do. I’ve got a cross-examination coming His way. Because there’s a lot going on down here that isn’t making much sense to me.

But, what do I hope He says to me? I hope He says, “There you are. I waited a LOOONG time for you.”

If you could only pick one, who is your hero/heroine?

My grandmother, who is already waiting for me in heaven. She was cool in a way that is so different from me. She was just happy being a wife, a mother, a woman. And I think that’s cool, that she found happiness in that. She raised her own nine children, plus her sister’s kids when her sister passed away. She never had a driver’s license, because, as she would say, “Where are you going to go without your husband anyway?” My grandfather was dead almost 20 years, since before I was born, and she still respond to almost every question with either, “Well, I’m not sure what my husband would say about this,” or, “I know exactly what my husband would say about this, and it wouldn’t be good…”

Even at the end of her life, when she was blind and deaf in a nursing home, when she would figure out that it was a female doctor coming in to examine her, she would insist on calling her “nurse.” Or she would say, “A female doctor. How about that. I don’t know how good she can be if she doesn’t have enough sense to stay home with her children.”

She honestly believed, and frequently reminded me, “You know, you can’t fight city hall.”

But I feel like I always strove, and still do, even now that she’s been gone almost 8 years, to challenge her in my own way. To make her proud of me and to force her rethink her beliefs.

I like to believe that she’s up there saying, “Wow, look at that girl. She really can fight city hall.”

Thank you very much, Blonde Justice, for taking the time to give us such a thoughtful and obviously heartfelt look at the woman in the pink suit.

Next week’s guest on Monday Musings is PovertyLawyer1, the author of The Wretched of the Earth. PL1 is from Texas and he blogs about a lot of the legal issues facing the state, from appellate decisions and exonerations to police and jail procedures, and more. If you would like me to consider some questions for his interview, please email them to me.

Sphere: Related Content