Yodelling Llama

Criminal defendants have the right to an appeal. Indigent criminal defendants have the right to an appeal at public expense. This means that as a public defender, when your clients lose at trial, it’s almost always in their best interest to appeal. There’s almost always an issue, and it may get them another bite at the apple on remand. Best part about it? Just as getting fired is a good thing when you’re a public defender, losing at trial has its silver lining: the prosecutor has to try the case over again, but usually you don’t. Why? Because, at least in Washington, the person handling the appeal is invariably someone other than the trial attorney. And that person, with his client-on-appeal’s interests at heart, is going to kitchen sink the appeal issues and include, as a matter of course, ineffective assistance of counsel. Baseless or not, every criminal appellate attorney is going to suggest the defendant lost at trial because his trial attorney fucked up. Now at first blush that sounds like an insult. But because it always happens, you learn not to take the issue of ineffective assistance personally. And as a side benefit, the trial attorney is rarely reappointed on remand. Because, well, the defendant accused the trial attorney of fucking up so bad he deserves a new trial. The prosecutor gets bogged down in repeating the trial, but the public defender gets to bow out. Except when one of his associates does the same thing…