Moments in a Defense Lawyer's Life

a) Sitting around waiting for my client's plea agreement case to be called and getting bored enough to debate the lawyer sitting next over whether a female magistrate is a magistratrix or a magistrette.

b) Judge: "Mr. Lammers is absolutely correct. Nothing I do today is going to accomplish too much. The fact that the front two rows are filled with Mr. Defendant's family from as far away as New Hampshire shows he has strong support from a loving family. And putting him in jail is neither going to put him in a better position nor is it really going to help society. However, the one thing Mr. Lammers has not mentioned is that the reason we're here today is to punish . . .

c) Watching a trial wherein an attorney asks the witness about her conversation with her attorney and seeing the judge intervene to stop the question because it would violate attorney client privilige.

d) Watching a pre-trial murder hearing and seeing the following:

Prosecutor: Before we go forward Judge, I'd ask you to ask the accused his name. He told the officer his name was Mike Smith but when we ran his fingerprints they came back as belonging to David Charles Smythe.

Judge: Please tell us your real name.

Accused: David, Mike, Robert, charles, they're all in here . . .

Deputy: Uh, Your Honor, I don't want to speak out of turn but we think there might be some, uh . . . mental issues here.

The judge, sua sponte ordered a mental evaluation.

e) Someone else's reckless driving and eluding case:

Trooper: I had my car up to 135 mph and his motorcycle walked away from me like I was standing still.

The guy on the motorcycle went from south of Richmond to Fredericksburg and back at 185 mph, on a motrcycle, with police chasing him. Needless to say, he will be spending a little time in jail.