The woes of being the new attorney in town. Where should I start? My least favorite part of the job… filing. Is there anything worse? Probably not, but I suppose if I’m going to take on any more cases, I need to clear off the desk and file the ones that are closed. What a stack… over a foot high. Oh well, why put off today...
First things first… divide and conquer. Win… loss… loss… loss… win… win… win… win… win… etc…
There. Not a bad ratio… and the wins have it. File them first, and I’ll be home free. A through H… I through R and… S through Z. That one goes there… and that one fits… right there. Another quarter like this past one, and I’ll need a new file cabinet. Is that good or bad? It’ll mean more filing, but if I get a few more big wins under my belt, I should be able to hire an intern to do this… or a trained monkey.
Only 3 more… 2 and that’s it for the wins. That didn’t take too long.
Whistle… whistle…
Now onto the losses… only 4 of those, so third drawer down and that one goes right there… N goes there… S goes there and… wow… here’s one I never had a chance at winning. What was his name? Brody… Yeah, Brody Tucker. Just a kid… just a damn kid. I didn’t see him as a killer though. Killers have a certain… oh, a certain way they look at you… like they’re looking through you. It’s cold; real cold. Then again, some of them are natural born liars… consummate liars in fact. But Brody…
Where’s my coffee? Ah, there it is. Ugh... not very hot anymore. We can fix that. Thirty seconds ought to do it.
Brody Tucker… He actually seemed like a nice kid… willing to talk… story was consistent. Mmmm, that’s better. Think I’ll take a load off for a minute, so I can enjoy this. Nothing like a hot cup of coffee after a long day.
I wonder. What if the kid was innocent? Not much I can do about it. It wasn’t my decision. The jury determines that. It all comes down to two things… evidence and believability. Sad really. A person could be totally innocent, but someone in the jury subconsciously thinks you look like someone from their past… someone that did them wrong at some point in their life, and they can’t get past that. They vote you guilty. That’s just how it works. You can give them all the guidelines and different degrees of a crime, but if they don’t like you from the get go, you don’t have a chance in hell of changing their mind.
A shame really. I liked Brody. Consistent. That definitely describes him. No matter how I worded the questions, he always answered with consistency. Signs of a… no, I don’t want to think about it. Guess that’s another negative about this job. Sometimes... innocent people go to jail. There’s no way around it. You try… try your best… state your best case, but there’s times… it’s a losing battle right from the start… especially when all the evidence is pointing straight at you. That’s how it was with Brody.
Sorry, kid. I’m really sorry. I wish there was one piece of evidence that would have cast some doubt, but there was nothing… not a fingerprint, not a hair out of place… not one piece of anything that I could present to the jury that would make them have reasonable doubt.
This definitely is the worst thing about being an attorney. Some cases you don’t mind losing. Some… you want to lose because you know the client is guilty as sin. But this kid… sorry, Brody. I know you didn’t do it, but the case was lost before it ever went to trial.
Well, enough lamenting… I should just file this one away and forget about it… forget it, and move onto the next one... damn, I can’t do it. I can’t turn my back on this kid. Maybe I’ll take this one home and look it over again.
Maybe... just maybe there’s something I missed.
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False Conviction
Teen FictionSociety… It had become so corrupt that change was needed. The government made small changes at first with the promised legislature that larger ones would follow. They did. Now things are worse.
