Crime & Federalism

I shouldn't have snapped, but when the prosecutor called my client a "scum bag," I saw red. Initially, I let the remark pass, but as the pre-trial continued I got more and more angry. I finally lost my temper. "You want to step outside and say that again?" I asked the prosecutor. I made sure my meaning was clear by asking my adversary to take a walk out to the parking lot.

I was spoiling for a fist fight. Not exactly a stellar day in my legal career.

The client's issues are challenging. He is an illegal immigrant, having snuck back into the country after mulitple deportations. He was arrested as part of a controlled drug buy. When pinched, he gave a false name. An officer recognized him, and it turns out the client had a dozen or so pending cases, ranging in seriousness from threatening, to failure to appear, to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The feds are preparing to charge him criminally for having snuck back into the country.

But a scum bag? He's near 50 and very ill. In the time I have had to get to know him, I've come to understand his perspective on the world. He may live outside the law, but the world he lives in is nonetheless principled. He loves and is loved, and he cares for his loved ones.

Criminal law is trench warfare. But lawyers are mere ambassadors for the parties they represent. I sometimes pity prosecutors for not having a client they can get to know. I wonder whether they would come to regard with horror some of the sentences they seek if they represented flesh and blood clients.

My client's future is not bright. It is unclear how much good I can do him. But I can fight for him. And I can take umbrage when he is called names by a state official charged with doing justice.

I was lucky not to have been held in contempt this morning. Even more lucky is the fact that we did not take that trip to a parking lot. I'm not sure how I would have fared fist to fist, but I know the conduct would have amounted to a crime.

I've since apologized to both the prosecutor and the judge for seeking to pick a fist fght in the judge's chambers. I'll save my fighting for the trial, and do it in the forms permitted by law.