After all, there is the long-playing television reality show, COPS, with the catchy Bad Boys song, showing police going from one trailer park to another, keeping the streets safe for people who don't shop at Wal-Mart. With the cameras rolling and lights flashing, nobody ever gets beaten for kicks, so the show isn't a total waste. Why not a reality show about what criminal defense lawyers do?
The "actors" are from the Brooklyn Legal Aid Society and the streets of Kings County. In the best of worlds, it's a juxtaposition to the excitement of real life cops and robber, showing the tedium of real life public defenders trying to defend real life defendants from false accusations and overreaching prosecutions. What could possibly go wrong?
Gideon, another real life public defender, wonders how well this show will depict reality:
The show follows public defenders at the World Famous© Brooklyn Legal Aid as they represent clients during the course of their humdrum, everyday routine while doing things like climbing ladders at crime scenes to prove that the cops are lying. We all do that, right? Whether this show accurately captures the life of a public defender and the day-to-day workings remains to be seen.
But deeper concerns abound:
Over at Legal Ethics Forum, Brooks Holland, who I can only assume is a LawProf, asks an interesting question: are these shows good or bad? Specifically: A great chance to profile the important, difficult, and under-valued work of public defenders, and to humanize the experience of clients and other individuals who navigate our criminal justice system. At the same time, I wonder about confidentiality, even with client consent, and how a TV camera could affect client representation and advocacy, consciously or unconsciously. What do folks think of the pros and cons of this kind of show—should lawyers agree to participate? I’d love to see what the confidentiality waiver looked like for participants. Will prosecutors try to argue that any and all confidentiality was waived? Will lawyers be tempted to be on their best behavior and actually perform their jobs and will judges and prosecutors play nice because there’s a camera around? Will people get the wrong idea about just how messed up the criminal justice system really is? There is little doubt in my mind that the camera changes things. In time, players get used to the camera over their shoulder, and return to their normal behavior, but the players aren't long term television stars and never reach the point where the cameras are forgotten. But that's really not a huge concern. So what if it's a phony, a television show that sugarcoats reality and has all the players on best behavior.
The issue of confidentiality is huge, and Gid only scratches the surface of the problem. There is no way a defendant in a holding cell awaiting arraignment can waive confidentiality, no matter how long and detailed the waiver may be, without the advice of independent counsel. When you see a Legal Aid lawyer meeting with her client for the first time, all captured on the camera, did he have another lawyer, not with Legal Aid, advise him of the implications and consequences?
Gid asks whether that will vitiate privilege altogether. It would certainly appear so. The price of fame, and a waiver, is expensive, and that includes confidentiality. Why wouldn't a prosecutor argue that the defendant waived confidentiality? And why wouldn't he prevail?
In a second segment, the video trailer shows a Legal Aid lawyer, Adam, doing a crime scene investigation (which beings with an advertisement, because NatGeo wants a quick buck like everyone else). Gid gets a bit snarky about the lawyer playing James Bond, climbing up fire escapes in the search for truth.
Drama aside, you learn at the end that he thinks his pictures will have a big impact on the defendant's trial, which starts the next day. He notes that the defendant has been in jail for a year awaiting trial. Did it dawn on anyone that the lawyer should have inspected the crime scene a year ago? Did it occur to anyone that he's about to go on trial and has no theory of defense yet? He's first interviewing witnesses the day before hearing and trial?
Did it occur to anyone that had he done his job promptly, perhaps he could have persuaded the prosecution that the defendant wasn't the perp and to drop the case? Maybe get his bail reduced? And how does he plan to get his pics admitted into evidence?
No doubt the video is meant to show the great lengths to which the Legal Aid lawyer will go to prove his client's innocence. What it actually shows is that a defendant sat in jail because a lawyer neglected to do his job until the day before trial. And what if he made that trip and confirmed what the cop claims?
For that matter, what if the Legal Aid lawyer interviewing her client in the pens got an admission instead of a denial? Or what if she pressed his denial, and got that "you got me" face, with the big, broad smile when the defendant concedes he just lied to his lawyer about "nothing happened" and comes clean?
Is 15 minutes of fame worth 15 months in the pokey? Or 15 years?
Someone at the Legal Aid Society thought this was a good idea, a way to show the heroics of public defenders. But criminal defense isn't about the lawyer, even if they're public defenders with their perpetual inferiority complex. It's about the defendants, and whoever approved of this failed to consider what they were trading off for their moment of glory.
Granted, fictional dramas about criminal defense are nonsensical, and give the public little clue about the reality in the trenches. But then, does the public's curiosity (assuming they are curious) about the human beings behind the accusations trump the lawyers duty to their clients? It never has before, and it surely doesn't now. And even recognizing this problem, not every criminal case has a fairy tale ending, reducing what appears to be cherry picked footage to just another reality show fantasy.
H/T @PaleoRage
© 2012 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.
Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2012/09/12/confidence-and-cameras.aspx?ref=rss
No comments:
Post a Comment