Sometimes, I Suck

I have really sucked at keeping up here recently. Things have been unbelievably busy, then I went on a vacation for the whole week of Thanksgiving, then I came back to work, and have been trying to dig myself out from under the pile of stuff I left for myself to do when I came back from vacation. I've also been struggling recently with what I can blog about. I've actually had several cases that I have wanted to rant and rave about, but I just don't feel that I can protect the confidentiality and other interests of my clients if I do so. At least, not until the cases have been resolved. I have had a little bit of a run of good news, though, including:

*A client's domestic violence assault charge was dismissed. I think the prosecutor finally bought my argument that she was the actual victim in the case when she listened to the 911 tape I subpoenaed where the caller describes the state's "victim" as "choking her, banging her head against her car, and throwing her on the ground like a rag doll . . . he only stopped when I banged on my window at him . . . I thought he was going to kill her." It should be noted that the fine police officers who arrested my client interviewed this caller at the scene, who told them the same thing she said on the tape, but failed to include any of this information in their police report. They did, however, refer to her as "anonymous," even though she clearly gives her name and phone number on the 911 tape, and actually characterized her as corroborating the "victim's" account, which was that my client hit and scratched at his face, and he pushed her down to stop her assault. The police report literally said, "The anonymous neighbor corroborated the part where he pushed her down." So, they ommitted the exculpatory information from their report, falsely called the exculpatory witness "anonymous" forcing my investigator to track down who she was, and completely mischaracterized her account as "corroborating" the alleged victim's account, at least in part. Nice work, Dano.

*Remember when I was complaining about the prosecutor opposing my request for a competency evaluation of my client? She said that there was nothing to indicate that he couldn't assist in his defense, apparently concluding that my sworn affidavit stating that I did not believe he could assist me in his defense was equivalent to "nothing." Well, the report came back on him, and he was . . . incompetent! Incompetent and unlikely to be aided by restoration services. So, the prosecutor dismissed his cases.

*We got fourteen inches of snow last weekend! Fourteen inches! I've never lived anywhere that got snow like that before. It was very cold, and slippery and slidey, and it made getting to work a helluva mess, but it was awesome!