Defense lawyers don’t talk about it much. Not in CLEs. Not in chambers. Not even in the back halls of the courthouse, where truth slips out in whispered voices. We talk about strategies. We dissect rulings. We joke, sometimes darkly, because it keeps the walls from closing in. The emotional cost of criminal defense, the weight we carry, the doubt we swallow, the sorrow we sit beside, is something most of us keep to ourselves.
After more than thirty years as a criminal defense lawyer, I have learned that strength and sorrow are with me when I enter the well of the bar in a North Carolina Superior Court for sentencing.
You might think that I’d be used to it.