In search of justice

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Should a case go to jury, Middleton
finds himself boning up on medicine,
psychology, forensic science.
But the wins, when they come,
can be sustaining. Middleton recalls
a high-profile burglary case involving
a 16-year-old defendant. He
strategized with his client, and
worked out a resolution with the
prosecution for the first-time offender
that kept a felony conviction
off of the young man’s record.
The boy went on to college. He married,
and had three children.
“This kid hadn’t even lived life
yet,” says Middleton. “When you
give someone a chance, or a second
chance, you will be amazed at what
can happen.”
In another case, he represented
a woman charged with murder,
arguing self-defense. The woman,
Middleton recalls, had been living
in an abusive relationship for seven
years. The jury came back with a not
guilty verdict in 15 minutes.
“A lot of stuff that you learn in
law school is black-and-white, letter
of the law, textbook stuff,” says
Middleton. “When you get into the
real world, and you’re dealing with
people’s lives and hopes and dreams
and aspirations, it can be somewhat
overwhelming—and rewarding, with
the right result.”
The Common Questions
From laypeople, the questions
often sound like, “But how can
you defend someone who committed
that crime?” Or, “What do you
do if you know your client is guilty?”
Misconceptions about the role and
work of the public defender abound
among clients themselves, too. Defendants
might complain about their
“public pretender” or “dump truck”—
in other words, in cahoots with the
prosecution, and eager to “dump”
cases rather than fight tooth and nail
on behalf of defendants.
In both cases, public defense attorneys
say those questions fundamentally
misinterpret their roles
and their approach to their jobs.
“Representing someone on a
criminal case is not a stamp of approval
on their conduct,” says Nicolas
Campbell JD’11. “I loathe crime,
but I couldn’t really care less what
someone did or is accused of when
I’m their advocate.”
Campbell spent several years
as a public defender in Colorado
before recently moving to Brooklyn
Defender Services in New York. He
pointed to the analogy of the doctor,
getting ready to operate on someone
who may have been a lifelong
smoker. A patient’s behavior doesn’t
influence the doctor’s ethical duty
and responsibility to treat them—just
as a defendant’s alleged crime does
not affect that person’s right to fair
representation.
Having represented individuals
accused of terrible crimes—homicide,
sexual abuse of children—Campbell
says bluntly that such accusations
don’t enter into the equation of his
feelings toward that person or his
advocacy on their behalf.
“My role is not to judge somebody,”
agrees Weight. “I’m literally,
by law, allowed to hear that person’s
deepest, darkest secrets, and I can’t
tell anybody or my license is gone.”
It’s a sentiment that’s echoed by
many VLS alumni working in criminal
defense.
“I have children. I don’t approve
of crime, and I don’t approve of people
hurting each other,” says Chris
Dearborn JD/MSEL’95, a tenured
clinical professor at Suffolk University
Law School. “That’s different than
thinking that everybody deserves to
be represented in court.”
In other words: The crime doesn’t
matter.
Before moving to full-time teaching,
Dearborn spent 10 years as a
public defender in Massachusetts,
followed by another two in private
defense work. Now he directs the
Suffolk Defenders Program, an adult
criminal defense clinic for third-year
law students.
Dearborn says out of the thousands
of individuals he represented,
only a handful are what he’d consider
“bad people.” The vast majority
were simply people who made bad
choices, he says, and there’s a huge
difference between the two.
19 WINTER 2016/2017