‘Bring Me A Rock’

If I were arrested, charged with crimes and faced years in prison the first thing I would do is get a sleeping bag and camp out every night in front of my lawyer’s office.

It would be Job One and Job Only, even if it meant getting a divorce, putting the kids in an orphanage and working night shifts at Kwikee Mart. I’d spend mornings, starting around 4 a.m., standing on the sidewalk so that when my lawyer showed up at the office I could say “Anything I can do to help?”

Then, “Do we need another meeting? May I get you some coffee? Take you to lunch? Wash your car?”

Why leave anything to chance when it means spending one month, let alone 25 years, getting acquainted with the residents of Soledad Prison?

I am retired, but for 34 years I worked as a criminal defense investigator, many with the Mendocino County Public Defender’s Office. It was fun and genuinely interesting work and as near a perfect career as I could reasonably have imagined.

The pay was sufficient, office mates were congenial, smart, cynical and skilled at lawyering, and there was occasional travel to exotic places, including too many days in Covelo. But there was also a traveling carnival in Florida, many visits to Oregon and a few to remote villages in LA, Canada and Tennessee.

Deputy Public Defenders were dedicated, hard working, and often inspired by noble ambitions to help the underdog, uphold the Constitution and fight the good fight. But the job included a mystery: the casual indifference on the part of many charged with crimes to do much to help their lawyers.

A fair number of defendants simply shrugged, assumed the lawyer would take care of everything and went back to whatever they were doing before they got arrested.

It seemed insane, bordering on suicidal. Some were dim-witted, as expected from people who spent hours and days inhaling methamphetamine fumes. After years of such indulgence some were no smarter than the chair you’re sitting in, and a lot less useful.

So we were perpetually perplexed at the nonchalance of many of those facing years in prison.

One of the Deputy Public Defenders and I dreamed up an all-purpose scenario demonstrating their disinterest. The hypothetical setup: Client comes into office.

Lawyer says “Well, Mr. Recidivisto, we have some good news with regard to your case. Last weekend I wrote six motions, each of which was granted by the court, and your investigator found a witness in Chicago that has photos of you at Wrigley Field in a game against the Reds on the date the crimes took place.”

Client: Stares, shrugs, frowns.

Lawyer: “So I talked with the DA and charges will be dismissed next Monday when we go to court.”

Client: Stands, turns, heads to door.

Lawyer: But there’s a catch. Between now and Thursday afternoon you have to bring me a rock, or else the deal is off and we go to trial As you know, your exposure in this case is 36 years. If you get convicted you’ll do so much time your parole officer has not yet been born.”

Client: Frowns.

Lawyer: “So all you have to do sometime in the next three days is bring me a rock and all your legal problems are over. A rock about oh, this big would be fine, or maybe a bit bigger or smaller. But I have to have the rock by 5 p.m. Thursday.”

The attorney and I would speculate on what percentage of our customers might follow through. It was asking a lot. To understand the assignment and then have the initiative to not only find a rock, but then bring it to the attorney all on his own would thwart all but the most persistent of our clients.

Instead he would come to court an hour late wearing a torn t-shirt with a mildly offensive message, and when the judge inquired about the rock, would give a short speech about how he’s been real busy because his grandmother died again last week, and that his lawyer didn’t remember to bring him a rock.

Next Monday the jury trial would begin. He’d wear the same shirt.