Day 12: Arraignment with Ms. Roman, Discussion with Mr. Rost, and Discussion with Mr. Richardson5/31/2019 The first thing I got to do today was see an arraignment with the attorney Jane Roman. On the way to the courtroom, she briefly explained to me the context of the proceeding I was about to see. Shortly after somebody is arrested, they go to an arraignment, where the prosecutor tells them the charges against them, and the defendant decides how they will plead, usually after consulting with an attorney. In this arraignment, the prosecutor charged Ms. Roman's client with four crimes: involuntary manslaughter, endangerment of children, tampering with evidence, and felonious assault. In responding to this charge, the defense can plead in a variety of ways. One of these is a a plea of not guilty, in which the defendant contests the charges that the prosecution has made and makes the state prove the defendant's guilt. In this case, the defense determined that it would not be productive to plead not guilty, because there was a reasonable chance that the grand jury would decide to indict the defendant on more severe charges, and he could ultimately end up serving a more severe sentence. Another option is a guilty plea, where the defendant admits a degree of responsibility for the crime, but sometimes less responsibility than the prosecutor alleges. Although a guilty plea may result in a plea deal for the defendant, which is a lessening of the defendant's sentence, the prosecutor can then use the defendant's testimony of guilt against the defendant. A defendant can also choose to plead no contest, in which the defendant concedes that the prosecutor has sufficient evidence to convict the defendant of the crimes that the prosecutor says the defendant committed. A different option, which is what the defense chose in this case, is to plead guilty to lesser charges but waive the right to a trial and go straight to sentencing. This allowed the defendant to avoid potentially more severe charges by avoiding the process of a trial, in which the grand jury could indict the defendant more severely. I plan on talking with Ms. Roman more later to further develop my understanding of the plea system, because I still have some questions about how it works.
At the sentencing, the prosecutor first read the list of the charges. In response, Ms. Roman said that she had no objections to the charges, and she announced that her client was going to plead guilty to the charges and proceed straight to sentencing. In response, the judge began asking the defendant a series of extensive questions to ensure that the defendant was aware of the rights he was giving up by waiving his right to a trial. The defendant answered that he was aware of every right he was giving up, and he also wished to proceed to sentencing. The prosecutor read a summary of the case from the state's point of view. The defendant's girlfriend left the defendant at home with the girlfriend Morgan's 23 month old son, Lucas, of whom the boyfriend is not the father. A few hours later, the defendant called Morgan at work and said that her son had fallen off a skateboard into a toy chest, and he had been pretty badly hurt. He also sent her a photo of Lucas's injuries. He falsely told Morgan that Lucas was still alert, so she didn't need to come home. Several hours later, the defendant called Morgan again and said that Lucas had stopped breathing. Understandably, she rushed home, and from there, they rushed Lucas to the nearest fire station and then to the hospital where he was placed on life support, but he died four days later. The police didn't believe the defendant's explanation that Lucas's injuries were caused by falling off the skateboard into a toy chest, so they launched an investigation. Before the police could question Morgan, the defendant managed to convince Morgan to delete all the text messages and photos he sent her about Lucas's injury, and he also agreed upon an alternate story with her. Despite the defendant's efforts, discrepancies in the defendant's story and Morgans arose when the police questioned them separately. Furthermore, the coroner had determined that Lucas's injuries were severe enough that they couldn't have been caused just by his falling off a skateboard onto a toy chest. Therefore, the defendant was charged with involuntary manslaughter, endangerment of children, tampering with evidence (for deleting the photos), and felonious assault. Because the defendant had waived the right to a trial, the judge found him guilty of all charges. Perhaps the most memorable part of the case was the victim impact statements at the end. Both of Lucas's grandmothers came up and stood next to the prosecutor, and each one gave an approximately five minute speech about the impact of Lucas's death on their respective children, who were Lucas's parents. They were truly moving to hear, and a significant reason that they were so strong is because they didn't come across as vengeful. They instead focused on the positive qualities of Lucas and the ways in which he would be sorely missed, with little mention of the defendant. With some minor edits, the statements would have been perfectly appropriate for a funeral. I was talking to Ms. Roman and another attorney about this later, and they said that this is unusual for victim statements, since most are very focused on angrily asking the judge to maximize the defendant's sentence. Somewhat ironically, the ones that focus less on requesting severe punishment and focus more on the sadness the defendant's actions have brought upon the victims generally sway the judge the most. Before the victim impact statements, the defendant himself gave a brief statement, in which he tearfully apologized to his family and Lucas's family and promised to study as hard as he could in prison. After the statements, the judge sentenced the defendant to 20 years in prison without possibility of parole, and the defendant left the courtroom in handcuffs and went to the county jail to await transportation to prison. After the arraignment, I got the opportunity to talk with another criminal defense attorney who works in Fritz's office, named Pete Rost. Mr. Rost explained in detail the facts of an interesting and somewhat complex criminal case that he had recently been working on. As he was explaining the case to me, he showed me some footage from the security cameras at the scene of the crime, which definitely brought the case to life and raised some interesting questions. It's amazing how foolish some of the mistakes are that people make when committing crimes, such as claiming they'd never been somewhere after they'd touched things in the place with bare hands, or lying about the contents of a 911 call when all 911 calls are recorded. After I wrote my blog post yesterday, I got the opportunity to have an excellent conversation with another attorney who works in Fritz's office, named Jon Richardson. We began talking about how best to structure one's studies to both have good career options and also fill one's mind with meaningful things, and a big thing that Mr. Richardson emphasized was the importance of the humanities, in addition to science and math. He certainly didn't deny the importance of the latter for many career tracks, but he argued that the humanities are one of the most profound ways that people can expose themselves to beauty in the world and fill their mind with new and interesting things. He also mentioned that knowledge of the humanities has been essential for him in his most successful trials, where he deeply connected with the jury. I think that many of the most profound insights in human history have come from effectively combining the humanities with math and science, and I intend to continue educating myself in all these areas. Mr. Richardson is an excellent speaker and writer, so one question I asked him is how one can improve their speaking abilities. He said that besides natural talent, one of the most effective ways to improve speaking abilities is by reading great speeches and writings to experience great writing, and then to just trying implementing some of the same techniques. He said that learning specific rhetorical tools can also be helpful, though it's essential to combine technical knowledge of rhetoric with experience reading a variety of high-quality works. This reminds me of the strategies that a person should use to effectively learn a language. I also asked both Mr. Richardson and Ms. Roman about how they started their careers and how they'd advise a law school student who wants to go into private practice rather than a big law firm. They (and every other attorney I've talked to) said that it was absolutely key to make as many connections as possible during law school to improve the chances of getting lucky and finding other lawyers to partner with to start a practice or small firm. This advice seems somewhat applicable to all areas of study, not just law. I'll certainly keep it in mind, no matter what.
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