Tempe criminal defense lawyer Matt Brown wrote of his frustration.

The criminal justice system is broken. Many judges are little more than prosecutors in robes.

The courts fuss and fume when you need an extra week or two to make a decision. They push you into whatever plea comes your way.

Matt goes on to vent on the ironies and wrinklies of the broken system, how it’s a machine designed to efficiently move defendants from arrest to conviction.  Whenever anyone uses language like “fuss and fume,” it tells me that emotions have overcome reason.  This is the mistaken language of melodrama, which has nothing to do with the legal system. It’s merely the annoyance over someone impeding the working of the machinery of justice.

My response to Matt was to tell him to give himself a smack and snap out of it.

This is our life. This is what we do. If it was easy, anybody could do it. If the judges were fair or caring, then we would be on the pedestal instead of cops and prosecutors. But we’re not, and that’s how it goes. Don’t wallow. This job is hard, and it sucks. And we keep doing it anyway. Give yourself a smack and get back to work. There’s too much to do and no time for self-pity. If we don’t fight, nobody will.

Rick Horowitz has been sliding down the slope of frustration as well lately.  He wrote:

One reason I haven’t been blogging as much lately is I’m too angry. I’d be calling for a bloodbath: shoot all governmental authorities on sight, I’d be saying. To avoid doing that, I’ve just stopped writing much of anything.

He doesn’t mean it, but sometimes the frustration comes out that way.   Brian Tannebaum gave Rick the pep talk.

Things in the criminal justice system are getting pretty bad. No doubt. A decade after 9/11 we see an America where the public has no desire to curtail police power (until their kid is of course “unfairly, wrongly, and illegally stopped and searched.”)

As a criminal defense lawyer, you have a couple choices – run for office (and maybe lose), try to become a judge (not easy either), write about it (which you do), leave the practice and focus on something else, or try to make a difference on client at a time.

A vacation is also not a bad idea. Go clear your head, take a deep breath, see the good in life in other areas.

Anger doesn’t change the system – anger and work – maybe – can make a difference.

But don’t ever think that it’s going to change much. Remember that the system operates as it does because the public allows it to.

The other day, I sat across the table from  Radley Balko eating flaming cheese. I really love flaming cheese. And as we talked about stuff like where he gets his hair cut, he casually mentioned that public defenders have a macabre sense of humor. Gallows humor, he called it.  I agreed, that they had to in order to survive their days in the well.

I then lapsed into a discussion of new criminal defense lawyers, punctuated by the occasional bite of flaming cheese. “We all start out with dreams of being the next Clarence Darrow, full of piss and vinegar.”  I actually used that phrase, one that my father used all the time but rarely appears anymore. 

And then they burn out when they figure out it’s not so easy, when they get smacked hard a few thousand times, when they have to explain to the next wide-eyed defendant why the law didn’t work. Again. Why they have to say good-bye to their children and will spend the next decade wearing an khaki jumpsuit. 

There is no good answer to why. Not for the defendant. Not for the lawyer.

Debates about truth and justice are for kids and fools. The real fight is over how to maintain the zeal a young lawyer feels when he steps into the well for the very first time after he’s been beaten to a pulp one time too many.

The blawgosphere is coming of an age when the last generation of blawgers are reaching the burn out point.  The frustration is overwhelming.  The lie of the system has been revealed.  The realization that they may not be the next Clarence Darrow, or even his third cousin, has become undeniable.  As brilliant and tough as they are when they start, they can no longer rely on their youthful vigor and enthusiasm to keep them going.

Those of us who have gotten over the hump and survived (meaning that we didn’t succumb to drugs and alcohol, give up on defending and churn pleas for a living or turn our law practice into a used car lot), we’ve watched as comrades have quietly fallen by the wayside.  Public defenders could share their frustrations with others in their office.  Private lawyers were reluctant to do so, fearing that it showed weakness or failure.  Even in frustration, no one wants to look weak.

The blawgosphere has changed this, providing a place to vent one’s frustrations combined with the new normal of exposing one’s inner feelings to all. It’s a good thing.  These feelings of frustration, loneliness, failure have stolen many a good lawyer from the ranks.  We need them.  Defendants need them, even though they may hate them for being the embodiment of the machinery of a broken system.  Without them, who will gain the experience necessary to keep up the fight?

It’s not that we’re likely to win the war.  If we can win the occasional battle, we’ve served our purpose well. It’s just a matter of fighting each battle at a time, always believing that this is the one you will win.  And if you don’t, you shake it off and fight the next battle.  And the next.

The criminal defense lawyers who hit the wall of frustration and break through are the ones who keep the system as honest as it can ever be.  It may not be much, but without them, there is no one to impede the machinery of justice.  We’ve all been there. We just keep fighting. Sometimes it helps to make a joke of it just to keep our sanity. Sometimes a stiff drink helps. A vacation is always a good idea. Whatever it takes, break through the wall.  Welcome to the other side.