Starting out, I had a long talk with a public defender who’d been fighting the good fight for decades. Here’s a quote I won’t forget: Nobody is too innocent for a misdemeanor. I heard this one from someone else I still respect: Nobody is too innocent for unsupervised probation. Neither person would ever shy away from a fight or do anything to force a client into something they didn’t want to do, so it wasn’t advice from plea salesmen who built their reputations on fancy billboards. Taking them as nuggets of wisdom forged from experience, they’re important lessons about human nature and the nature of the beast we call the criminal “justice” system. Most defense attorneys don’t trust the system. Our clients often don’t trust it too, but it’s usually just the … Read entire article »