It’s Friday night of a long weekend. I worked until 7pm. And tomorrow (after I get an oil change), I am heading to the jail to see three clients and then going to the office to (hopefully) finish two motions.
I also have my first trial scheduled.
It’s just one of those waves. And then, I SWEAR, I will be back to regular posting.
Richard Glawson has been on trial in Boston for a slew of charges stemming from an alleged 2001 “spree” that included shooting a police officer in the hand, shooting a dog, breaking into a home, and carjacking a couple of people at an upscale mall. Now, I have not seen or been following the trial, but I am guessing he didn’t think his chances for a “not guilty” were very good…as on Friday he PUNCHED a juror as the panel exited the courtroom to begin deliberations. The man was apparently elderly and fell to the floor (though he wasn’t hurt).
To top it off, today the judge denied his lawyer’s request for a mistrial, reasoning that he “should not be allowed to benefit from his own disruptive behavior.”
Yeah, I’m guessing any chance he had for a “not guilty” is now completely gone. Should make for an interesting issue on appeal…
I have a really fantastic post to write but I have barely come up for breath this past week. Work, work, work, work, family, family, work, work. With one break for a Red Sox game with the boyfriend. I will return shortly.
This is a little off-topic from my usual posts, but I had a wicked anxiety dream last night that I just cannot shake. As I have mentioned before, I have not actually had a trial, though I have a few cases that are likely headed that way fairly soon. I also have two motions scheduled for the last week of this month.
Apparently, this impending performance is wreaking havoc on my brain, as I dreamed last night that I was changing into my pajamas one evening when I got a frantic call from the courthouse that my trial was about to start. I had no idea that I had a trial scheduled and had never even met my client before. I didn’t even know what the charges were. I had to get into a suit, drive like crazy, and as soon as I walked into the courtroom, the judge told me to begin my opening statement. The jury was there, waiting for me. And I said…something that made no sense at all. The judge recessed and, for some reason, I went home and didn’t make it back to court on time. When I got back, someone told me my client had been found not guilty. I still had no idea who my client was or what she was charged with. But she was acquitted. So I guess that’s good. But dear god, this feeling of anxiety has been haunting me all day. I know it’s a typical anxiety dream, along the lines of showing up for school and realizing you have to take a final when you didn’t even know you were enrolled in the class. But it’s still terrifying.
Today, a man named Joseph Downey was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1997 stabbing of a man in a South Boston bar. This is actually the second time that Mr. Downey has been convicted of this crime, but he was granted a new trial because his lawyer (and the lawyer of his brother/co-defendant) was wearing a microphone throughout the entire trial without his knowledge or consent. I suppose this is technically old news because the first trial was in 1999, but this is the first I have heard of it and I am just…appalled.
Interestingly, I can’t find the names of the original defense lawyers or whether they were actually charged with crimes - it is illegal in Massachusetts to record a conversation without the other party’s knowledge. But the sheer and gross violation of attorney-client confidentiality in this instance is astonishing. The lawyers were working with the producers of “Frontline” on a documentary about the murder case and were wearing microphones not only throughout the trial, but also during talks with their clients about potential guilty pleas. As the Massachusetts Appeals Court case that upheld the order for a new trial states:
[T]he lawyers undertook to wear concealed microphones tied to recording devices during the course of a criminal trial. The attorneys’ communications with their clients during trial were within range of the hidden microphones and were captured, if the microphones were not shut off, or if the recording system was not muted. As shall be seen, the microphones remained active during most of, if not all of, the trial and did, in fact, record privileged attorney-client communications, certain of which were later broadcast on television and published in print. As noted, all of this was done without the consent or, initially, the knowledge of the accused clients being tried.
The trial judge was also unaware that defense counsel were equipped with hidden microphones and that the attorneys’ voices and communications with their clients were being recorded. Thus, unbeknownst to the trial judge and without the consent of the defendants, the broadcast recording arrangement not only reached public speech and acts in the courtroom, but also intercepted private and privileged conversations between the lawyers and clients on trial.
WHY? Was the prospect of being in a PBS documentary really SO enticing as to make these lawyers forget the most basic premise of being a lawyer? It is just such a complete evisceration of attorney-client confidentiality as to leave me nearly speechless. I cannot, for one second, imagine what was going through their heads and how horrifically violated their clients must have felt. It is often the defense lawyer who is the ONLY person in the entire court, system, or even world who is supposed to always be on the side of the defendant, no matter what, no matter how horrific the allegations or the chances of conviction. And these lawyers not only violated trust, but also ethics, and the tenets of decent humanity.
So, while Daniel Downey pled guilty to manslaughter and Joseph Downey was convicted of second-degree murder, at least they (hopefully) got fairer shots than they had with the lawyers who sold them out so disgustingly the first time around.
Be sure to check out PD Stuff’s Monday Musings this week…because it is an interview with me!
God bless the Boston Globe. Sunday’s front-page headline is about the investigation into the death of Kelly Jo Griffen, who died in the throes of heroin withdrawal while held in prison four years ago. And the Sunday magazine has a great critical look into residency restrictions for sex offenders. I’m going to focus on the prison death, as Gideon over at a public defender has already covered it wonderfully.
As I have focused on here before, the Massachusetts prison system has come under a lot of scrutiny lately, both for a high suicide rate among inmates and for keeping prisoners locked up beyond their release dates. And now there’s a renewed focus on the death of a 24-year-old mother, who died in 2003 while being held at the Framingham women’s prison for arraignment on a minor drug possession charge. The reports of her death at the time said that her decline was so swift that medical personnel could not do anything to save her; but records brought to light recently as discovery in a wrongful death suit have revealed that the young Ms. Griffin had no detectable blood pressure or pulse a full two hours before her death. Yet she was still cleared to be sent into court that same day and no doctor ever even came to check on her.
Throughout the day, according to the records, she reported feeling “so sick.” At 1 a.m., less than seven hours before she died, she told [nurse Magdalena] Grodzki she was having a seizure. The nurse reported seeing her vomit. There is no sign in the medical records that a doctor saw Griffen at any time that night.
An inmate in the room with her said Griffen was “sick from the second she got there” and got worse fast.
“She was very, very pale and had to keep getting up to vomit,” said Diane Solari, who was also detoxing from heroin. “They were giving her medication for vomiting and diarrhea but whatever she took she threw up immediately five minutes later. Soon she couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom and was throwing up in a bucket. I’d empty it and she’d throw up again.”
“She was so sick,” said Solari, who shared a room with Griffen and two other inmates. “She was begging for an I.V. She must have said it 30 times.”Before sunrise, Solari said, Griffen became too weak to walk and fell on her face trying to get to the toilet. “She was drawn pale, gray. She couldn’t stand up,” Solari said.” She could talk but her mouth was dry. I never saw anybody that sick.”
Only when Ms. Solari screamed upon seeing her roommate turn blue did the medical staff come running. But the young Ms. Griffen was dead within minutes.
To the prison’s credit, medical care has apparently improved significantly since this tragic incident, particularly in the area of detox. This is enormously important, as it is rare for me to see a female recently arrested who is NOT in the midst of coming down off something. There’s a widely held misperception that a couple of days in jail, away from access to drugs, is going to do an addict good. But the process of detox, particularly for heavy users, is brutal and horrific. A person who is merely left with nothing is going to get severely sick - to dismiss this process as helpful for a system-clearing is to ignore the risk of death. So to know that the situation is at least being recognized (and I have heard good things about Framingham’s current detox system) is a good sign. But the story of Ms. Griffen, which just reeks of apathy and a perception of the inhumanity of inmates, still breaks my heart.
A big deal has been made about the apparent problem of “witness intimidation” in Massachusetts recently. A couple of years ago, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino tried to eschew the First Amendment by announcing that the city would actually go into retail stores and remove all “Stop Snitchin’” t-shirts. Currently, Boston has seen a rise in homicides this year, and police have been very public in saying they have faced difficulty solving them because witnesses are afraid to come forward in the face of potential reprisal. The state’s department of public safety and the National Center for Victims of Crime also recently release a report entitled “Snitches Get Stitches: Youth, Gangs, and Witness Intimidation in Massachusetts.” The report concluded, after talking to teenagers, that “witness intimidation remains a significant problem that seriously undermines the effectiveness of the criminal justice system,” though the Boston Police Chief then downplayed these findings, saying that “the fear is much more widespread than the actual instances.”
One response to this perceived widespread threat has been…a little perverse, to say the least. Specifically, a bill has recently been introduced in the Massachusetts legislature that would subject juveniles (aged 14-16) charged with witness intimidation to the same punishment as adults - up to 10 years in state prison. It would also make these trials public instead of keeping them closed like other juvenile proceedings are right now. These procedures are currently reserved only for a few crimes, such as violent charges involving guns.
Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said witness intimidation is a huge and growing problem, hampering the prosecution of serious cases. The overwhelming majority of his office’s drug and gun cases, he said, involve some degree of witness or victim intimidation.
“When a young person has reached the point where they would resort to intimidation and violence to silence others, it makes sense for prosecutors to have the option of treating those juveniles as adults,” Conley said. “I don’t know that it should be applied in every case — most of the juveniles can be turned around. But some have demonstrated a great capacity for violence.”
Let’s take a step back for a minute here. Has it occurred to anyone that, if a KID as young as 14 is being charged with witness intimidation, that he is perhaps being used as a pawn by adults to do their dirty work? Or that he still has a chance to actually go somewhere in life, a chance that will be completely wiped out if he spends 10 years behind bars with much older inmates? There’s a reason that there is a separate court system for KIDS under 17. This tough talk is ridiculous and I sincerely hope that our legislature is smart enough to see past the rhetoric to the devastating impact this law could have.
I have found myself with a lot of female clients lately, most of whom are locked up. And for a female to be locked-up on a pre-trial basis means that she has been through the system a huge number of times and has likely messed up nearly every chance the court has bent over backwards to give her. These women are tough.
I was in the court lock-up today, having an extended conversation with one of these female clients about what was going on in her complicated case. But after we finished our discussion…she complimented my nail polish. And I laughed.
It just goes to show that, no matter how many times you have cycled through the system or the degree of crap that you have been through in your life…all women still appreciate a good manicure.
