If I could be someone else for a day, it just may be Sig Hansen from Deadliest Catch. He's a combination of daredevil and savvy businessman, with a kick-ass boat, working in what must be one of the coolest (but deadliest) jobs around. When people find out I practice criminal law, they sometimes give a reaction as if I was a crab-boat captain. "How can you go into a jail and sit next to a murderer....I'd be so scared". This is one of those situations where the initial thought (that your in danger because you're in room alone with an accused murderer) is completely wrong. You are actually extremely safe, because at that point you are the only one that is sworn to help that person...you are their lifeline.
Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer Mark Bennett recently asked us whether criminal defense work is a dangerous profession. His reflections on the subject were initiated by this post from the Blog, Judgment Day:
While many attorneys—especially those practicing criminal defense—have received threats from clients, more often than not it’s just empty talk. I think many attorneys become numb to threatening phone messages and letters, primarily because everything has worked out fine in the past. Two stories over the last week, however, remind us to take these situations seriously.
Mark's conclusion is that we are not in a dangerous profession, and I agree. Criminal defense attorneys are mostly spared their client's ill will and/or hostility. I would bet they deal with far fewer violent clients than attorneys practicing family law or personal injury. As a criminal defense attorney I have never had a client make even a veiled threat to me, and have never been assaulted (although there have been a couple times when I thought it could happen). I got more abuse as a drug prosecutor than a criminal defense attorney, including being spit on and outright threatened. As Mark said, criminal defendants usually mind their P's and Q's because of the situation they are in; it is different in something like family law, where the nature of the case drives people to insanity.
I went to law school at Drake University with a gentleman from El Paso, Texas. His older brother had graduated from Drake Law about ten years earlier and was a general practitioner back in Texas. The older brother practiced some family law, and in a divorce case he was handling, his client was murdered right in front of him at a deposition. The husband stood up in the middle of the deposition, pulled out a gun, and blew his wife away right in front of everyone. Then he walked out the door and fled to Mexico. The real shocker came a few months later, when the man was captured and returned for prosecution. He actually called my friend's brother, who witnessed the murder, and asked if there was any way he could represent him. He declined; it was a conflict of interest because he was a witness (and the guy was freaking crazy!). There have been many high profile cases where the outcome was more than just the client getting killed, usually the attorneys are next in line. That is one of the reasons I don't practice family law: it is way too emotional.
Now, I have heard of some defense attorneys getting punched, it does happen. Usually it is with a defendant that is very outspoken and demanding, the one that will claim that there is a general conspiracy to convict him and everyone is in on it: cop, judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney. If a defense attorney is assaulted it is usually not because of performance issues, but a bid to get different counsel appointed. Two of my colleagues were assaulted in the jail by one of their clients a few years back for that very reason.
The bottom line is that doing criminal defense in Des Moines, Iowa, is a heck-of-a lot safer than fishing crab in Alaska. While I'm happy about that, I'm kinda bummed we don't get our own cool reality t.v. show on the Discovery Channel. Deadliest Brief? Ice Road Lawyers? .....its just not that sexy.
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