Tough loss

From public defender blogger Curia Advisari Vult:

As a public defender, I get a warped idea of what a win is. Obviously, the best kind of win is a dismissal or a Not Guilty on all charges. But I also call it a win when I get a really good deal that avoids jail and/or exorbitant fines. A lesser win is when the jury comes back with a verdict of guilty on a lesser included misdemeanor. A partial win is if I get a guilty on a felony, but it is not the main charge, or when the judge gives a light sentence after a guilty verdict.

However, I expect to flat out lose most of my cases…

But, every once in a while, I get someone who is flat out wrongfully accused of criminal wrongdoing – I get a client who is clearly and obviously (at least to me) innocent. The vast majority of these cases get dismissed fairly early in the process. Others take a while, but end up being dismissed before trial. Very rarely, involving an ADA who has never seen an innocent person, I have to take it to trial. I find these trials to be the most stressful of all. Until this week, I had never lost a trial with a defendant who I sincerely believed was factually innocent…The evidence took only about an hour and a half. The jury was out for almost 5 hours before they came back with guilty on the only count of the indictment. I found out later that the initial vote was 10-2 in favor of not guilty, but those two were able to convince the others that they should vote guilty over the course of the day.

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