04.20.07
Posted in miscellaneous at 8:05 pm by misstyrios
I have a situation that is going to involve me figuring out some things about California criminal law and how the PD/court-appointed lawyer system works there. I am not looking to hold anyone to specifics on my case, but if anyone who works there or is familiar with the system there is willing to answer a few questions or point me in the right direction, I would sincerely appreciate it. My email is misstyrios@misstyrios.com. Pretty please? I can send a souvenir from Massachusetts as thanks!
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04.17.07
Posted in personal, miscellaneous, front line stories at 9:12 pm by misstyrios
Today was another long, exhausting day. But, unlike my post on Friday after a long, exhausting day, I do not have the luxury of a three-day weekend ahead of me to recuperate (yes, Massachusetts has a made-up holiday so that thousands of crazy people can run 26.2 miles. It’s awesome). But I had to reflect on a couple of things -
1 - I have only been a public defender for about 7.5 months. And, obviously, it has been a very steep learning curve in all respects. But today, I realized that I have grown enormously in the small (but vital) area of taking things in stride. I am, by nature, someone who gets harried and stressed out when faced with difficult situations, or even just a lot of things going on at once. And dealing with that was one of my biggest challenges as a PD. When I had to be in 12 places at once, I couldn’t focus on any of them and would get flustered, sometimes to my embarrassment (please tell me that I am not the only one who has cried in the courtroom before). I couldn’t formulate thoughts when the judge threw me something unexpected and I often just would not be able to remain calm and deal with things one at a time. Today, when faced with a very difficult situation and a very difficult judge, I actually just…stayed calm, thought threw the twists, said everything right, and resolved what was looking like an unresloveable situation. And my brain said “Hey, you wouldn’t have been able to do that a few months ago. And now you look like a real lawyer! And a good lawyer!” Then I mentally patted myself on the back.
2 - I have given probation departments and probation officers a lot of grief. They are sometimes much more difficult to deal with than prosecutors, and their jobs are not, by definition, to be out to get people. But today (in the same difficult situation referenced above), I worked WITH (not, for once, against) the best probation officer in the state (title conferred by me). He went far, far above and beyond what he had to do (which was…nothing) out of actual concern for my client. He was, in simple terms, awesome. And I wish I could pat him on the back. But that would be a little weird.
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04.11.07
Posted in miscellaneous, lawyers behaving badly, women in the law at 9:21 pm by misstyrios
Everyone’s “favorite” tabloid, the New York Daily News, apparently decided that a Brooklyn Law School 3L posing nude in a Playboy short is front page news.
Adriana Dominguez - a third-year student at Brooklyn Law School - happily strips naked, gets spanked and holds gavels up to her bare breasts in the provocative clip.
“I wanted to do something a little crazy before I graduate and do become a lawyer … do something kind of out of character,” Dominguez said with a grin as she posed for photographer Andrew Einhorn inside his friend’s DUMBO apartment.
Really? She held a gavel up to her boobs? I find this downright hilarious.
But it brings up an interesting question - should doing something like this (and by “this,” I mean “getting naked on the internet”) be considered as a factor in admission to the bar? Is she actually unfit to practice law because she did a striptease? Or is it merely something that employers should be wary of (or excited about, perhaps)?
Personally, I do not think that posing nude has any actual effect on your ability or fitness to be a lawyer or on your character in general. I may be biased, in that I have several dear friends who model naked on the internet, but I also may just be numb to it because, well, I have several dear friends who model naked on the internet. It just does not seem like a big deal to me. At all. But I can see why it may be a big deal to other people - employers, clients, opposing counsel, judges, etc. It isn’t always easy being a female in the boy’s world of criminal trial law, though my thoughts about dealing with sexual harassment (running the spectrum from flirting to outright gross inappropriateness) on the job is best saved for another time. Let’s just say that I can only imagine the comments, disrespect, and difficulty she would face in the courthouses where I practice. I want it to be a harmless blip that shouldn’t matter if she’s an otherwise smart, skilled, and good lawyer…but I also realize that, in reality, it is not.
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04.09.07
Posted in miscellaneous at 9:33 pm by misstyrios
While searching for new public defense-related news to post about today, I came across a completely random, yet totally hilarious, tidbit from Oklahoma:
Toure recalls days as public defender
OKLAHOMA CITY Former state Representative Opio Toure (OH’-pee-oh TURR’-aye) was among those sitting in on a round-table discussion today at the Oklahoma History Center with award-winning historian John Hope Franklin. Toure recalled that as a public defender in Oklahoma County, he often ate food served to jail inmates, especially on Fridays, when fish was on the menu. He says the fish was quite good and said other public defenders and prosecutors could come to the jail just for that. Toure said fried chicken was served on Sundays and one of his clients counted his time in jail by the number of times he had eaten chicken.
That’s it. That’s the entire article. A paragraph about a former PD talking about going to the jail to eat the jail food. Ha.
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03.22.07
Posted in personal, miscellaneous at 12:09 am by misstyrios
I am taking off for a much-needed vacation to Las Vegas in a few hours. To amuse yourself while I am away, check out these interesting stories and sites:
Article about the legal challenges involving transsexuals and employment discrimination
Needled - A blog about tattoos by the fabulous lawyer Marisa DiMattia.
TV Gal - This has nothing to do with the law or politics, but I enjoy TV a little too much and have been reading Amy the TV Gal’s column for over 10 years now.
Celeb Warship - Again, this reflects my pop culture interests and is the best snarky gossip site on the interweb (written by my dear friend Alyk).
And finally…Viva Las Vegas!
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03.17.07
Posted in personal, miscellaneous, front line stories at 12:10 am by misstyrios
Guess what? I’m back to the blog. I know it has been seven months and honestly, I’m ashamed of that. I started this blog as a labor of love, after having my semi-professional writing gig come to an end. But since taking the bar last summer, I have actually become a real public defender and cases and clients and commuting have consumed me. By the time I am home and able to write, my brain is fried and I end up watching television. But I have recently discovered the fantastic plethora of public defender blogs out in internet land and I have been inspired to truly kick mine into gear.
To keep you occupied while I start writing up a storm, I recommend Indefensible, written by David Feige, author of the book by the same name. And I have just discovered Ipse Dixit, which beautifully combines PD musings and American Idol snark. That combination must be loved. Finally, a special shout out to Arbitrary and Capricious, the only blog by someone I don’t know to link to one of my stories here!
Today, I was on arraignment duty in district court. It was a light day without many arrests, so the atmosphere in lock-up seemed a little more bearable than usual. Most often, it is crowded, smelly, and hot and I focus all of my attention just on the clients I need to talk to. I have learned to generally shut out the cat calls and insults that are sometimes hurled around by men whose confidence is somehow boosted by being locked up. But today, there were only a couple of people there and they were quite friendly and funny:
Defendant 1, upon seeing me waiting at the door of lock-up for a court officer to let me back into the courtroom: You don’t have a wedding ring! You’re not married?
Me: Ha. No, I am not married.
D1: Are you getting married?
Me: Eventually, hopefully.
D2: Aww, you should get married. You’re so pretty.
D1: I have a couple of engagement rings I haven’t used. Do you want one?
It was rather hilarious.
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06.11.06
Posted in miscellaneous at 8:20 pm by misstyrios
If you have ever kept a diary or journal of any sort, you know how cringe-inducing it can sometimes be to go back and read your entries which, in my case, are usually about some boy I had a crush on or my thoroughly angsty teenage existence. Rarely, however, do you have the chance to read someone’s reactions to their own re-readings. This is key, though, to Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek. In this age of the ubiquitous internet, journals are no longer handwritten and private - they exist on screens and are open to everyone. When Wil reprints his blog entries and then reflects upon his embarrassment, along with tales of what he was really thinking and feeling when he wrote them, it is disarmingly intimate. And it is that sense of intimacy - along with the seemingly real time growth that we get to share in - that makes the book so thoroughly enjoyable.
Some people are famous just because they blog. Wil is unique in that almost everyone knows who he is before delving into his (sometimes very personal) blog and subsequently into his further reflection of that blog in his book. I had the pleasure of working alongside Wil on the SuicideGirls Newswire, where he writes witty commentary about Geek news that I don’t always understand. But I like it anyway. And that is a testament to Wil himself because he is just so damn likeable. In every page of this book, you just want to be his buddy and hang out with him at Hooters (the setting of an early, pivotal, and relatively heartwrenching scene in the book). To reveal such a persona to the wide world at large is admirable, especially when there are so many reasons to put up barriers and utilize the internet as a tool to hide or create a new character for yourself, particularly when everyone knows who you are. But I know Wil isn’t putting up a persona because he has been kind to me directly. Upon being removed from the SG Wire, a time when I was genuinely devastated, he encouraged me to keep writing and let me know that he wanted to keep reading what I was writing. And to hear that from a real writer meant a great deal to me.
Just a Geek is a great book because it combines a naked personal genuineness with true writing skill. I liked Wil a lot before picking up his book - I like him even more now.
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06.02.06
Posted in personal, miscellaneous, politics at 10:55 pm by misstyrios
First, yes, I realize that his name is Senator Barack Obama, not “O’Bama,” but here in Boston, we like to give things an Irish twist whenever possible. And since I would like to advocate opening this city (and every city, town, and village in the country) to this man and his ideals, I would like to give him a little hometown flavor as a token of love.
Today, my younger brother graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, at which Sen. Obama was the keynote speaker. By a series of fortuitous connections, my family got to sit in the second row VIP section with Deval Patrick, the equally fantastic gubernatorial candidate here in Massachusetts. If these two men could lead the country with a 1-2 punch, I would be in bleeding heart heaven. Luckily, the two men are fast friends. And both have loveable senses of humor: yesterday, Patrick proclaimed that he wanted to win “every single vote on every single ballot” in the election for governor and Obama wrote a tongue-in-cheek epistle to comedian Stephen Colbert, who was delivering the commencement speech at Knox College, where Obama had spoken last year:
Before you deliver your remarks in front of literally millions fewer
people than you would at say, a nationally televised political
convention, I’d like to offer you a few words of advice. First, I know
you’re fond of your Peabody Awards, whatever those are, but I’d
recommend not bringing them. The students at Knox are down to earth and
not impressed by materials possessions like my Grammy Award for Best
Spoken Word Album.
Second, use hand sanitizer after the Pumphandle. Lots of germs there. I
cannot stress this enough.
And finally, don’t forget to bring the Truth. I’d recommend putting it
in your carry-on bag rather than in your checked luggage. O’Hare Airport
is notoriously unreliable.
Obama gave a truly perfect commencement speech and demonstrated why every other hopeful bleeding heart in this country is overly anxious to see him skyrocket in his political career. He spoke of never, ever ceasing to be amazed at the world and - most near and dear to my public defender heart - about taking the path that others may frown upon. He spoke of graduating from Columbia University (where I also happened to graduate from) and, rather than going to Wall Street as so many of his classmates, he set his heart on becoming a “community organizer,” ending up working for an organization of churches in an impoverished Chicago neighborhood for $12,000 a year. It may sound like typical commencement idealism, but it was the way he spoke those words that made me well up (part of that is also attributable to the fact that my little brother was graduating, of course). And it is that power, coupled with that true idealism, that makes Obama the amazing politician that he is. So here’s to hoping - Obama in ‘08 (or ‘12 or whenever).
So don’t let people talk you into the safe thing. Listen to what’s in you and decide what it is that you care so much about that you’re willing to take a chance.
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05.28.06
Posted in miscellaneous at 10:05 pm by misstyrios
I am so new to this “my own site” thing, so I’m trying it out. Welcome to all of those who appreciated my work on suicidegirls.com. I know you are waiting in anticipation of the return of my stories. I just need to…figure this site out.
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