From public defender blogger Of a public defender’s life:
I also have a whole pack of competency clients. These cases for some reason seem to come in waves. I love my competency clients. They are (mostly) really sweet and lost. And more than one of them seem to have a crush on me. Normally, something I’m not wild about, but in them, it’s quite poignant. After all, how many people have they ever had try to help them in their lives? And it just makes me angry that some police officers seem to just follow them around waiting for them to get afraid and violent. I have one poor guy who was charged with filing a false report. Honestly! The guy is so delusional, they had to have been able to figure something was not right when they took the report. He called me all upset and afraid today because the judge made him “stand in the oaths and give up his rights and his lefts!” Even the not so sweet ones I don’t mind. I find I have the patience to listen to their convoluted stories and reassure them and call their mamas and girlfriends. A strange thing of late. Even the guy who wants to kill me because I “raised his incompetence” I have patience with. After all, it’s not his fault. No one wants to be thought of as either crazy or stupid. (Though I’m careful to not to say the words “incompetent” or “evaluation” in his presence. I was quite angry when the ADA brought it up when there was no need.)
Read the entire post
ShareThis
