Winnin

The nature of a criminal case is different than most understand.  Many times, the case is a defining ordeal for a person’s life.  Many times, the case is a crossroads for the accused.

People often ask me: “Can you win my case?”

Or sometimes: “Do you win a lot of cases?”

I’ve noticed that I have two physical responses to these questions: either I smile too big or I furrow my brow. My answer is usually “I’m not sure what ‘winning’ a case is…”

Let me illustrate…

Many years ago, I represented a young man on some charges.  This guy was super nice and funny but had a really ugly pill addiction which resulted in constant contact with the law.  The prosecutor wanted to throw the book at him.  In spite of the prosecutor, I was happy to get an unusually good outcome. Unfortunately, that happiness ended when I got the call that my lovable client was dead of an overdose about a week later.  

It hit me hard, so I got coffee with another attorney to vent.   The other lawyer looked at me oddly when I told him the story.   When I finished, the lawyer scratched his head and told me a story about his week. He said he had a client who was hilarious and kindhearted but was a terrible drug addict.  This guy got slammed by the court and was sentenced to a harsher than normal jail sentence.  While this guy was in jail, his two best friends died in a car accident. 

The attorney happily drank his coffee and said, “Yeah man…That guy was supposed to be in that car, but the judge locked him up instead…he escaped a death sentence by catching county time.”

I think my story made the other attorney feel even better (I think he paid for my coffee).  His story hit me like a cinder block.

Which one of us lawyers “won”? 

Even knowing my legal skills were effective, I sure didn’t feel like a winner.  Irony is seldom fun when it happens in real life.

Maybe it’s just that I think too much, but my experience has shown me that the criminal case is most often larger than just having a judge or jury rule in my favor.  

Now don’t get me wrong…there are definitely man on man battles within the criminal case that can decide the outcome of a case.   And these battles sometimes do have the Hollywood ending of an acquittal.  

But all those Hollywood dramatizations of automatic restoration, wholeness and finality because of an acquittal… they are fake.  

Let’s say I triumph over a prosecutor in a jury trial and my client walks out of the courtroom not guilty. The world my client walks into is not the same as before the arrest.  He has lived in a purgatory of uncertainty for months or years.  He has been isolated by friends and loved ones.  He has usually lost his job and spent a lot of money. And his reputation will always have a question mark over it with most people. The earth that he walks on after the best-case scenario in court is still…scorched.  

My client has to be ready for this.  Just as every moment I spend in a criminal case is done with the aim of getting strategic advantage over my opponent, my client needs to be doing the same in his or her life.  Whatever the opponent is: drugs, alcohol, wanting what others have, hatred…whatever it is, my client needs to be spending time seeking answers.

To me, the one who lives in the system, navigating a criminal case, it’s like crossing the Colorado River at full stage.  If you get to the other side…you won.