What about the time I was in college and I had a public defender…
So I went to court, the judge assigned my broke ass a public defender. I go to his office after a few days of being unable to reach him. He isn’t there, he never comes, and the receptionist has to throw me out because they’re closing for the day.
So I go back to court and sit in on the Judge’s next session, and at the end of it I approached the bench and informed her that I’d been unable to contact the attorney that she assigned. She was embarrassed and made a call and told me to wait for him all day if that’s what it took. So I waited for hours the next day in his office until he finally came in. I told him I was not guilty and he said, “man look, I’m gonna be out of town for your court date so you should just go in and just plead guilty. Guy like you with no record? They’ll go easy on you. No jail just some money and come kind of other bullshit community service or something.”
I said, “sir this is unacceptable. If you’re asking me to plead guilty, then you’re asking me to lie to the judge and that’s what I"m going to say to her when I see her again. So you need to sit down and look at this law as it’s stated in the code and explain to me how the fuck you know if I’m guilty or not when you haven’t even looked at the facts of the case”.
So I raised hell and threatened to report him to the bar for advising me to lie under oath. Then he went with me to the courthouse and we changed the date to a day that he could actually be there 2 weeks later.
So I asked him 1 question and 1 question only. I said, “Do I need to come on the original date and show them this new paperwork with the later date or just come on the later date?” He said to come on the later date.
So the day comes and I go to court. He’s not there. Judge calls all the names on the docket. Mine isn’t called. She says, “any people I didn’t call raise your hands”. I raised mine.
Next thing you know, I am being arrested for failure to appear…while I am sitting in the courtroom holding a document that says I’m supposed to be here today.
So I get booked again, shoestrings, belt, the whole deal. More mugshots. And I get a phone call. So I start calling his office and leaving scathing messages the likes of which he’d probably never heard. Then eventually he showed up.
So he comes in and gets me and I walk back in front of the judge holding my pants up with my shoes flopping around. And oh yeah the jailors threatened to beat me up again if I didn’t get off the phone, and I told them the same thing as last time. That whatever they did the judge would find out.
So my public defender and the prosecutor take me in the little side room to get together to try and extort me as a team. They were both yelling at me and I was calmly explaining that, 1) I was innocent, 2) that they had not presented evidence to the contrary, 3) I am hereby demanding a fucking trial, and 4) that they weren’t getting a fucking dime unless a jury said so and that I would appeal and spend everything I had on the lawyers, sell everything I own to do it, and when they got their judgement I would take the jail instead of the fine and they’d be paying to feed me.
I told them that they were trying to run a racket and that I was going to request a new attorney based on this one being inadequate council. Swung the door open and went back in front of the judge with these 2 assholes scurrying behind me.
The judge says, “did you all come up with a resolution for this case?”. They both babbled like idiots not knowing what to say and I said, “I know I’m not guilty”. The judge was so embarrassed that the nol prossed the whole thing and apologized for the re-arrest, and I walked out cussing about how I’d never seen anything so unprofessional in my life.