03.18.07

Lawyers Behaving Badly…But In a Good Way

Posted in Uncategorized, lawyers behaving badly, ethics at 5:42 pm by misstyrios

Christian Hatfield is the Chief Public Defender in Aztec, New Mexico and on Friday, he was also briefly an inmate at the San Juan County Detention Center. Why, you ask? Not because he showed up drunk to a trial or anything (see below), but because one of the attorneys in his office realized that he had previously represented a witness in the case against his client. Yes, he was held in contempt of court for respecting the code of ethics that we as lawyers abide by. Granted, it meant postponing the trial (which seems to only be a problem when it is the defense asking for it), but it also meant standing up for those ethics that Judge Wilma Charley apparently found pesky.

The judge told Hatfield that [public defender Stephen] Taylor could not withdraw from the case and gave him two options: Stay the course or be found in contempt of court.

Hatfield, who had his criminal mug shot hanging on his office door Friday, said that as the chief public defender, he felt it was his duty to uphold his ethical values, and decided he would rather be found in contempt of court than allow Taylor to represent [defendant Ismael] Cordova.

“Since I’m the manager of this office, I didn’t want any of my lawyers to go to jail,” he said.

Contempt of court is punishable by a fine between $100 and $1,000, or a sentencing of 30 to 90 days in jail, or both, according to state statute.

This brings to light another issue - that of recognizing conflicts of interest. Hatfield acknowledged that his office should have caught this error ahead of time, but such things can sometimes be extremely difficult. Contrary to what some people (some prosecutors included) think, there are no hard-and-fast categories of Defendants and Victims. Those who sometimes appear as Victims in a particular case have also, at some point, been Defendants and vice versa. Of course, Defendants are usually precluded from bringing up a Victim’s past as a Defendant and a Victim’s veracity is never questioned once they are given that label (whereas the Defendant is always seen as the lying scum).

Anyway. I have to go prepare for a violation of probation hearing that I will likely lose because, of course, Police and Probation Officers are also never mistaken or lying.

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