It’s become sadly common for criminal defense lawyers, busily puffing themselves by twitting about their days filled with exciting and remunerative work, engaged in some silly vanity program one day and starting a serious trial the next.  It makes me cringe, wondering why they weren’t spending their time preparing. 

Preparing. Another archaic concept.

In Lockport, New York, a defense lawyer found out the hard way that preparation matters when it turned out he was the only person in the room who hadn’t bothered to watch a video of his client’s interrogation.  His client was charged, along with two others, in the shooting of another human being. A serious case. Even for those lawyers who only think effort is worthy of exertion on serious cases, this one met the bar.
 
From the Buffalo News :

Meanwhile, co-defendant Paul E. Buck Jr., 23, asked for a new lawyer.

Assistant Public Defender Matthew P. Pynn said in court that Buck told him he lacked confidence in him.

A lack of confidence in one’s lawyer is a problem, though not necessarily a fatal one. Defendants may lose confidence for good reasons or bad, and courts are reluctant to replace lawyers without a sound basis. 

When presented Tuesday with Buck’s vote of no confidence in Pynn, [Judge] Murphy at first said, “I have a great deal of confidence.”

That’s the knee-jerk reaction, the judge instinctively covering up the problem to avoid delay and additional cost.  But then, the judge apparently remembered why they put him on a bench and let him wear a robe.

[Det.] Conti testified in an evidentiary hearing Oct. 2 that Buck never asked to stop the interrogation. Murphy said that was belied by a 70-minute DVD of the interview, which the judge said showed Buck asking repeatedly to leave.

Two weeks ago, Murphy asked if either attorney had actually watched the video. He said, “If I were to make a decision on this record, the defense attorney would be subject to a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel if there were a conviction.”

Oh yeah. That.

But moments later, the judge conceded, “Under the circumstances, I can see how Mr. Buck would come to that conclusion.”

It was a 70 minute video. That’s a pretty long video. It’s probably pretty boring, lacking decent production value and without any real special effects.  Even popcorn won’t save it. But it’s the video of the defendant being interrogated, and it contains the proof that Det. Conti’s testimony was, at minimum, less than forthright. But you wouldn’t know if you didn’t bother to watch the video.

Pynn didn’t watch the video. Why is a question that only he can answer. Maybe he was too busy, being a public defender and under the strain of too many defendants and too little time. Maybe he has grown jaded, uncaring about doing his job well, or maybe doing his job at all.  Maybe he had a sick child at home and, this one time, screwed up. Without knowing what’s inside his head, it’s impossible to say.

But it doesn’t matter.  Public defender or not, he undertook the duty to defend a man, and he blew it. Blew it completely. Blew it embarrassingly, disgracefully.  Paul Buck is a human being too, and he just happens to be a defendant in a criminal prosecution.  He is entitled to competent counsel, even if counsel can’t be bothered. That was Pynn’s responsibility, no matter how you twist it.

Did he feel humiliated when he was called out in court for his abject failure?  Did he even blush when it was revealed that he hadn’t done the minimal work of watching the video of the interrogation? I hope so, but there’s nothing to suggest he even blinked.

Nor should Judge Murphy feel all that proud of his revelation, having moments before expressed his personal “confidence,” nothing more than knee-jerk administrative inertia at the expense of a defendant.  As guardian of a defendant’s constitutional rights, this was hardly the judge’s shining moment either.  A moment’s lapse and he might have forgotten that defense counsel completely failed to do the minimum demanded of him. It was too close for comfort.

So you want to impress your friends and twitter followers with all the important things you do every day?  Where in your days of running from courtroom to courtroom, giving self-aggrandizing speeches and offering witty quotes to the media do you fit in the time to watch a 70 minute video that’s critical to the defense of your client?  With all your very important cases, where do you find the time to do your research, to write and edit your memoranda, to visit the crime scene and meet with witnesses?

What seems to never appear in your self-promotion is the mundane work of being a lawyer, the preparation.  It’s not sexy.  It’s not impressive. But its absence in your daily routine marks you as a lawyer who can’t be bothered to do his job.  If you’re starting trial next week, this week should be spent preparing.  Reading the papers again and again. Watching the video if you’re fortunate enough to have one to watch.  Knowing every inch of the crime scene and every word a witness will utter.

And if you can’t be bothered to do your job as a criminal defense lawyer, then you too deserve to be humiliated in a courtroom for having blown it.  As much as we may blame the police, the prosecutor or the judge for the “injustice” of our not getting our way, the criminal defense lawyer’s duty is as fundamental as it comes. When we fail to do the job, we are the pre-eminent cause of whatever injustice befalls our clients.

And no, you aren’t impressing anyone by touting all your fabulous cases when the one thing that can’t be missed is your abject failure to prepare.  It’s noticed. It’s a disgrace. That’s the message you send about yourself, that you’re all show pony and no lawyer. It’s hard work being a lawyer and defending the accused, and what comes across clearly is that you aren’t doing the work.  Not so impressive now, is it?

H/T Our hinterlands correspondent, Kathleen Casey