According to ABC NEWS, Ohio Judge John Plough threw lawyer Brian Jones in jail last week for disobeying his order to proceed when his case was called. Jones insisted he was simply “unprepared” for trial.
But, at the risk of betraying professional self-loathing, when this story became fodder for water-cooler chatter at law firms all over America yesterday, I felt neither the indignation at Judge Plough nor the solidarity with Jones that other lawyers expressed. Instead, I felt nothing but the unqualified schadenfreude I expect most non-lawyers will feel upon hearing or reading about it.
Indeed, I appreciate that – upon learning that he is a public defender who received the file on his client’s misdemeanor assault case only a day before trial was scheduled – even some of you might feel sympathy for Jones.
Therefore, let me hasten to disabuse you of that sympathy by informing you that public defenders (many of whom are actually third-year law students) are presented with far more serious cases, under similar time constraints, every day. And, moreover, they invariably provide their clients wholly-competent representation.
More importantly, however, if every public defender needed more than 24 hours to prepare for a misdemeanor assault case, the wheels of the US criminal justice system would become hopelessly clogged.
Meanwhile, the following statement by Carmen Hernandez, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, should give you a sense of how self-righteous and exaggerated the criticisms of Judge Plough are:
Asking a lawyer to go to trial without preparation is like asking a doctor to perform surgery before diagnosing the patient.
Alas, only a lawyer could make this analogy with a straight face. After all, a more appropriate analogy would be that giving a lawyer 24 hours to prepare for trial on a misdemeanor assault case, is like giving a doctor 24 hours to prepare for surgery on a broken wrist.
Yet, ironically, Hernandez’s statement actually supports Judge Plough’s decision to throw Jones in the pokey. Because any doctor, at any metropolitan hospital in America, could testify to the fact that doctors routinely perform (major) surgeries within 24 minutes of being presented with critically-wounded patients (see Trauma: Life in the ER); which clearly makes the 24 hours Judge Plough gave this legal prima donna to prepare for his misdemeanor trial seem like an indulgence.
Frankly, with defenders like Hernandez, it’s a wonder Jones spent only 5 hours in jail….
Case closed!
NOTE: Even if Jones were juggling 1000 other cases, any lawyer could testify to the fact that 2 hours should have been sufficient time for him to review the file on this case. Then he could have argued any number of defense motions, including for a continuance, to comply with Judge Plough’s order – as he clearly should have done.
Ohio Judge John Plough, lawyers versus judges
Anonymous says
What kind of a lawyer are you? The kind the goes to trial sans discovery, motion practice, or interviewing witnesses?