Monday Musings: The Wretched Of The Earth

PovertyLawyer1, the author of The Wretched of the Earth, began blogging in August 2005 with a post titled “Dallas’ Shelter Keeping Homeless Down?” — immediately setting the tone for what has become one of the most prolific public defender blogs. Understandably, PL1 took top honors in the PD Blogger Awards for both Best Writing and Best PD Blog That Deals With Actual Law Stuff.

PL1 was kind enough to join us here at Monday Musings, somehow fitting it into his busy blogging schedule and his recent move to the felony division.

INTRODUCTION

I started the Wretched of the Earth a little over a year and a half ago hoping to open people’s eyes to the plight of the poor in our society. I believed people didn’t understand just how mind-numbing and unfair the legal system could be to the poor. I believed people had a myriad of misconceptions that I hoped – in some small measure – to address through the blog. And perhaps most selfishly, I hoped to vent a little on the unsuspecting internet so my loved ones wouldn’t have to hear it so much. But, strangely, while the blog has been cathartic, it has also doubled my interest and passion for representing the down-trodden. I’ve always had sympathy for the underdog, but all the research and writing that goes in to this blog has only served to strengthen my passion. So I guess my goal has changed: now I hope to not only spark an intelligent debate about often over-looked subjects, but I also hope to spark some passion in the people around me.

When Wretched of the Earth began, you were the co-author of the blog. Now you are the sole author. How has that impacted the direction of the blog, and how is Poverty Lawyer 2 doing?

When I started blogging, I was still working at Legal Aid. I became friends with another young, idealistic lawyer there and took the blog idea to him. We spent much of our free time talking about poverty, the politics of poverty, and our cases, so a poverty blog seemed like a logical next step. I was Poverty Lawyer 1 and he was Poverty Lawyer 2. I started churning out posts about whatever I was thinking about at the time. Unfortunately, my co-blogger couldn’t find the time to post much at all. After I left Legal Aid for the Public Defender’s Office, our goal was to blog from both sides of poverty law: criminal and civil. Unfortunately, he never did find the time to blog much more than sparingly. After a while, we agreed that I would go it along.

So the change in format has impacted the direction of the blog a great deal. At first I envisioned each us blogging from our own niche. Then when I started going it alone, I tried to cover everything I could. Finally I realized I enjoyed blogging most when I just blogged on what I knew. So I’ve tried to stick to that. Sometimes I cover news, sometimes politics, but mainly The Wretched has become a PD blog with a splash of poverty generally thrown in now and then.

Poverty Lawyer 2 is doing great. First off, we’re still good friends. Not too long after I left Legal Aid, he went out on his own (this particular Legal Aid is a perpetually sinking ship). Now he’s building his firm, working on mostly civil but from time to time some criminal stuff.

You went from a civil practice, where you represented the poor in evictions and other legal matters, to a public defender office. What brought you to the criminal practice side, and what kind of challenges did you face in the move?

I always knew my heart was in criminal law. Unfortunately for many young aspiring PD’s, Texas requires PD’s to have a year of legal experience, so I had to get my experience somewhere. I figured civil indigent defense made the most sense. At first I naively thought I could make it work at Legal Aid. I even fantasized about retiring there one day, a battle-worn poverty law veteran. It took all of about two days before I realized it wasn’t going to work. So for the next twelve months, I did everything I could to keep from slitting my wrist and hoped that the PD’s Office would have an opening at exactly the right time. Luckily for me, they did.

The transition from civil to criminal wasn’t too hard for me. That’s at least partially due to the fact that I spent a semester in my law school’s criminal defense clinic actually representing the indigent accused. It’s probably also at least partially due to the fact that I never really let myself become a civil lawyer. In my heart, I was always a criminal lawyer in exile in a strange civil world. Discovery, letters back and forth between attorneys…I shutter just thinking about it! Really the only challenge I feel I’ve faced is the fact that I’m young and sometimes people don’t want to listen to the new kid on the block. Since those first weeks and months, I’ve carved out my niche and I don’t have that problem anymore. All in all I’ve been really lucky to have made the transition so seamlessly.

Between you and Scott at Grits for Breakfast, who will be featured here in five weeks, we get a lot of news about the Texas justice system. In just your most recent posts you take on multiple exonerations, racial profiling, the problems at the Texas Youth Commission, and the destruction of DNA evidence. What’s up down in Texas, and are you seeing hopeful signs?

Let me start out by saying I love reading Grits for Breakfast and count Scott as a friend. I check Grits more than any other blog (sorry PD Stuff!) and rely on Scott for all kinds of information and insight into this crazy state and its crazy criminal justice system. So if you’re reading this and don’t read Grits for Breakfast – What’s wrong with you?! Get over there and start reading it!

Hope for Texas? I guess my answer to that depends on how you define hope (don’t I sound like Bill Clinton?). If you mean hope for systemic change where people of all stripes are treated fairly, ethically, and humanely…um no. But if you mean steady one-step-forward-one-step-back progress in small increments…then yeah, I have hope for Texas.

It’s difficult to explain Texas to outsiders. It all starts with the fact that we were our own republic before joining the Union. That simple, seemingly small detail seems to affect everything about Texas. Like our pride in being Texans. And our pride in being seen as mavericks or even, in some perverse way, yokels the rest of ya’ll can’t understand. On top of that, Texans take pride in being a sort of last bastion of the wild, wild West. A lot of people I meet actually take pride in the fact that we eclipse the rest of the nation (the world for that matter) in state-sponsored executions. They see it as shootin’ from the hip and sayin’ it like it is.

That all being said, I both have pride and shame in being a Texan. I think anyone of good conscience has to feel that way. I love Texas. I’ve loved growing up here and living here as an adult. But much of what goes on here and much of what is endorsed by the seemingly civilized people around me simply sickens me. Like our death penalty. Our the TYC scandal. Or Tulia. Or Hearne. Or the Texas Legislature. I could go one and on…

There have been some changes for you, including your recent move to felony court. What keeps you motivated, not only in your prolific writing for the blog, but also on the job?

My clients keep me motivated. When I was in misdemeanor court and I had a steady diet of Driving While License Invalid/Suspended cases, it didn’t take too long to get burned out. But then, just in time it seems, some client would come along. Like the ones with mental illness who need someone to be patient with them. You get them hooked up with services and, every once in a while, you hear later that they’re in a much better place. Or the first-time kid accused of shoplifting. He’s scared and sorry for what he did. You get him a good result that keeps his record clean and allows him to learn from his mistakes and hopefully avoid them in the future. Or the client who tells you you’re the first attorney who’s stopped to listen to them.

Now that I’m in felony, I have too much to learn to need motivation. The stakes are higher and the cases tend to be more interesting. So for now, motivation is not a problem for me. But when I’ve gotten into a groove and burn-out starts creeping up, I have faith that another client will be there to save me.

As for motivation to keep blogging, there’s just so much I need to get off my chest. At first I felt like I had to blog every day, if not a couple of times a day. With those self-expectations, I did burn-out on blogging for a while. I took a break and when I came back, I told myself that I’d blog when I had something to say. The people that know me know that I almost always have something to say, so blogging generally isn’t a problem. But when I don’t have something to say, I don’t beat myself up over it. Instead I just keep on truckin’ until it’s time to blog.

I’m guessing that although you publish Wretched anonymously, you are more semi-anonymous than anonymous. Does that influence what you write about? How do you juggle the passions you obviously have for the issues affecting the poor and indigent with maintaining some degree of anonymity?

I started The Wretched with full intentions to remain anonymous. But as any anonymous blogger will tell you, you’ve got to stay completely vigilant about your anonymity. I didn’t stay completely vigilant, so there are a number of people who know my identity. To be honest, I guess that’s okay with me. My judges (the ones who’ve known, that is) have all been very relaxed and understanding about my blogging, so I’ve been very lucky. My supervisors have all been understanding as well. And the District Attorneys who have approached me about the blog have all been complementary (although I’m sure there are some who don’t feel it’s so positive).

The bottom line for me is that I try to never say anything that I wouldn’t say out in the open. I guess it’s just an extension of my parents teaching me not to talk behind a person’s back unless I’m willing to say the same thing to their face. So I express my opinions and I almost never pull any punches, but I try to stay away from personal attacks. I’m sure I’ve slipped and failed from time to time, but that’s only human.

THE PD STUFF FIVE QUESTIONS

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

An activist. As a third-year law student I served as president of a couple of civil rights organizations and even interviewed for a position as the Executive Director of another organization. So if I wasn’t practicing criminal law, I’d go that route and work for social change from outside the legal system.

Best moment on the job?

That’s a hard question because there’s been so many. Of course all my “Not Guilty” verdicts have been fantastic moments on the job. But I don’t view getting my clients off as the heart of my job. It’s an important part, don’t get me wrong. But I see my role as larger than that because you can’t get that kind of result for every client, obviously. Instead, it’s the little things. It’s the look of hope in people’s eyes when they realize that, against all their preconceptions, you – the Public Defender – are working hard for them. Even though that happens all the time, it’s easily the best moment on the job. And I’m lucky that I get that moment over and over.

Worst moment on the job?

This one is easy. I even posted about it in a multi-part series when it happened. I was asked to co-counsel a Capital Murder case, my first. The client was a fifteen year old kid. At the time of the murder he had been fourteen and now he was looking at a mandatory life sentence. I sat next to him every day throughout the trial. We talked about the case, his family, sports, whatever I could think of to keep his mind off his fast-approaching fate. He tried to put up a tough exterior, but he was just a kid inside. No matter what he had done, his innocence was still intact somewhere behind his eyes and I could see it. The jury came back with a guilty verdict, but that wasn’t the worst part. When they came back with the verdict, they were laughing. Laughing. No matter what they thought of this kid, they were sentencing him to die in prison. He wasn’t technically getting the death penalty, but we all know a kid that young doesn’t go in for that kind of sentence and walk out alive. In two or three years he’d been out of juvenile custody and in with the big boys. So that was it. I was shocked by the jury’s lack of humanity. And I wasn’t the only one. The judge and even the prosecutors looked mortified. I’ll never forget that laughter.

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

I hope, “Good Job.” I’ve definitely got my faults (arguably including the fact that I don’t partake in organized religion) but I care about people and do my best to help the ones who come across my path. I hope my daily practice keeps me in the Big Man (or Woman, or Whatever)’s good graces.

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

Actually, I don’t believe in heroes. To paraphrase Alan Dershowitz in Letters to a Young Lawyer, belief in a hero sets you up for a big fall. Inevitably, the people we catapult to hero status have human failings, sometimes on grand scales. A hero is almost above human failings and therefore it’s simply not possible for a regular Joe to live up to their hero status. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t look up to people and try to emulate them.

Since my answer doesn’t involve a hero, I will also ignore the “only one” rule (Ha-ha, I knew I could avoid having to trim the list down to one!). First would have to be Muhammad Ali. The way he battled adversity, challenged the status quo, stood up for what he believed in, and never stopped striving for perfection – those are characteristics I strive towards. Malcolm X – especially his willingness to look critically at his beliefs and admit past failings and shortcomings. Huey P. Newton – while he had many shortcomings, his belief in community empowerment is inspiring. Ernesto Guevara – the quintessential revolutionary. Siddhartha Gautama (otherwise known as “the Buddha”) – exhibited an almost infinite ability to continually strive to better himself and the world around him.

Thank you, Poverty Lawyer 1, for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

Next week’s guest on Monday Musings is the man voted Public Defender Blogger You’d Most Like To Be When You Grow Up in the first PD Blogger Awards: Skelly Wright of Arbitrary and Capricious.

If you have some questions you’d like me to consider for Skelly, please email them to me. You can also email me to schedule your own Monday Musings interview.

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