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Fri. Oct 05, 2007

If I Was A Lawyer, I'd Have Stupid Clients

When I first heard the following story, my inner shark rose quickly to the bait:

Hennepin County District Judge Charles Porter found that Craig had entered the guilty plea to to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge “accurately, voluntarily and intelligently,” and that it was too late to withdraw his admission.

In a sharply worded 27-page order, the judge found that Craig had freely given his plea after extensive discussions with prosecutors and after waiving his right to an attorney.

“The defendant, a career politician with a college education, is of at least above-average intelligence,” Porter wrote. “He knew what he was saying, reading and signing.”

CNN: Sen. Craig not resigning despite judge’s ruling

On hearing those last lines from the judge, if I were Larry Craig’s lawyer, I would have been all over it:

Your Honor, I am simply aghast. There is no supporting evidence for much of your ruling, and I will be appealing on those grounds.

You say he is ‘a career politician,’ and yet you also say he ‘knew what he was saying, reading and signing’ ... two clearly contradictory statements. We all know that career politicians, by definition, say a lot of things they don’t mean. It is a practice enshrined in the political traditional known as “the campaign promise,” which can be witnessed nightly on the news during this 21 month election campaign.

Career politicians also, by definition, sign a lot of things they have not read. Acts of Congress. Laws. Expense vouchers. This is common and accepted knowledge.

There is also no supporting evidence that my client is ‘of at least above-average intelligence.’ The facts of this case clearly show the contrary:

My client was too stupid to contact me or any other lawyer when he was first arrested.

My client was too stupid to enter a plea of ‘not guilty,’ when he now claims he did absolutely nothing wrong. Including being gay. Which he most definitely is not. He’s “on the down low,” which, as Your Honor well knows, is very different.

My client was stupid enough to think that, in the ‘Information Age’ in which we live, this, um, incident far from his home district would go unnoticed.

My client was stupid enough to think he could publicly state he would resign his position in Congress, and then not actually have to leave that position.

My client was stupid enough to leave an incriminatingly detailed and stupid message on an answering machine … at the wrong number … rather than simply say, “I need to talk to you, it’s important, call me.”

My client is, even at this very moment, stupid enough to think he can cling to his position in Congress when even those in his own party want him keelhauled and shipped out.

Stupid is as stupid does, Your Honor. I rest my case.

Yes, I’d make a good lawyer, if it wasn’t for all that pesky book-learnin’ you have to do first. And if my client was far more concerned with beating the charges than about having their lawyer make them look foolish.

And, if you’re Larry Craig, you’d have to think that would be the case. The train named “Foolish” left the station a long long time ago.