It wasn’t long ago that Nicholas Bourff was just a regular sort of lawyer, working for a small firm. It wasn’t much longer ago that he was just a law student at the University of Dayton. But now he’s an important public official, which means some dopey kid lawyer, admitted in Indiana in 2007, has the moral authority to call for the elimination of jury trials.
From WKVI :
Starke County Prosecutor, Nicholas Bourff, is in his third month on the job and has already made a suggestion to help speed up C and D Felony proceedings.
“One of the proposals I’ve made is to try, even if it’s with the C and D Felonies, to see if a case is going ahead to trial, and we know it will, to see if we could get a bench trial set, which just involves the Judge, instead of a jury trial,” said Bourff.
So what gives rise to this county prosecutor’s epiphany that jury trials are a terrible waste of money?
“In my experience as a defense attorney, the majority of my clients would not have had a problem with going to a bench trial.”
Assuming this statement to be true, there are couple different reasons that could explain it. Perhaps his clients figured that once a jury saw that their lawyer had difficulty combing his hair, their cause was already lost. Or maybe his rush to become a prosecutor suggested that he was not entirely zealous in his defense. To figure this out, it seemed imperative to ascertain the depth of Bourff’s experience preceding his three months as Starke County Prosecutor and giving rise to this shocking assertion that felony criminal defendants don’t really care much about jury trials.
What can we learn about Bourff’s legal experience?
| Name: | Nicholas Allen Bourff |
| Practice In: | Administrative Law, Adoption, Criminal, Corporate, Business Organization, Collection, Construction Contracts, Contract, Dissolution, Divorce, Education, Estate Planning, Family Law, Juvenile Law, Land Use & Zoning, Landlord-Tenant, Mediation, Misdemeanor, Municipal, Wills & Probate, Property Damage, Public Schools, Real Estate, Residential Real Estate, State and Local, Traffic, Wills |
A bit, how shall we say, diverse for such a new lawyer? But see, right between “adoption” and “business organization,” there it is: criminal. Later on it says “misdemeanor,” though nowhere in the laundry list is felony mentioned. It should have been squeezed between “family law” and “juvenile law,” but it’s not there. Significant?
I can’t speak to what went through the minds of the good people of Starke County, indiana, when they decided to hand over to a kid whose entire legal experience was shorter than the shelf life of refrigerated blue cheese salad dressing the authority and discretion to put people in prison, but it seems that his assertion that defendants charged with felonies are less concerned with having a jury trial than saving the county some money.
To his credit, Bourff recognizes that the elimination of jury trials isn’t entirely in his hands:
“The one major drawback there is that if a defendant wants a jury trial, he or she has that right. If the defendant agrees to a bench trial, then it would save thousands of dollars and it would shave off quite a bit of time as far as eliminating the need for jury selection.
One might think that the major drawback is that the new prosecutor advocates the evisceration of a constitutional right for the benefit of the taxpayers, not to mention those criminal defense lawyers who really hate wasting all that time picking a jury before their clients get convicted.
No doubt this initiative will play well with the voters and make young Bourff a bunch of new friends, appreciative of his sensitive concern for the welfare of hard working locals who really can’t see much point in having their tax dollars wasted on picking juries just so some criminals can try to avoid conviction. And this is what he learned in his experience as a criminal defense lawyer.
Kinda makes me pine for the innocence of youth.
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What? No Admiralty law? Slacker.
Oh please, it’s not like the guy has no standards.
Well, I guess someone has to sacrifice during these cash-strapped times. It may as well be criminals. Wait, we’re also getting rid of “innocent until proven guilty,” right? Because that’s always been a boondoggle.
Who can afford such expensive indulgences?
Cost-saving is important, of course. But in the interest of justice, Bourff should offer to split the savings with the defendant. If the average cost to the county for a C Felony jury trial is $5,000, for example, give the defendant $2,500 to go with a bench trial.
For even more savings, he could offer indigent defendants a cash incentive to waive representation. If it would cost the county $450 to pay a PD for a 3-day jury trial, give the defendant $225 to go pro se.
I may be over-estimating what Starke County pays public defenders, but you get the idea.
It’s hard to believe that a guy with experience in so many areas of law hasn’t thought of this already.
What an absolutely brilliant idea. Just as freedom isn’t free, so too should the corollary, conviction. What’s a waived constitutional right worth these days?
I must be getting old, but wowsers, I have motorcycles older than this kid. And he wants to eliminate juries? Give me a freaking break. Next he will be asking to eliminate the presumption of innocence.
He would never do such a thing. Besides, there’s no money to be saved by eliminating a fiction.
Another way Stark County could save some money:
Eliminate trials. Judge, jury, who cares? Just plead guilty and get it over with.
Of course, if they just fired this guy they’d save money, too.
Sir, the joke is squarely on the two groups qualified to be in the jury pool. Most know that judges prevent them from hearing or seeing ‘all’ the evidence but gladly take the job requiring them to make life and death decisions. It’s the old Taxpayers paying just to be paying and Voters voting just to be voting syndrome – cause its cool.
Bourff could be on to something. Maybe what he meant to say was – when a detainee is Mirandized and asked, “How do you pled?” All Guilty replies go straight to the red phone to call their attorney/lawyer & blue phone for indigent with a mandatory ‘Bench’ trial. All “Not Guilty” replies are mandatory jury trials.
And absolutely no one gets to change pleas at anytime whatsoever. And the Defense Team resume will require solid proof of criminal jury trial to verdict experience. If he didn’t? Then I just did. As it is, a frigin Divorce & Will specialist in need of extra money can act like he/she represents an alledged felon. Ha. Thanks.
I once had a assitant prosecutor here tell me before a bond motion that the presumption of innocence was a “legal fiction.” I here that she is now running for the big guy’s job. Not optimistic.
It’s funny that it never occurs to guys like Bourff that the way to really save the county some money is to drop the charges. I have no experience as a defense attorney, but I feel confident that the majority of his clients would not have had a problem with a dismissal.
While it may sound shocking that this kid thinks defendants and their lawyers should waive juries on felonies,if the jury has to be composed of citizens of the county that elected him in the first place, is waiving a jury really such a bad idea?
Yes.
That list of law he practices is REMARKABLY similar to the list of required classes at my law school. I wonder if he was absent from Professional Ethics the day they tell you not to claim you practice in a field just because you “took a class.”