Articles Tagged with sentencing hearing

The Client Behind a Guilty Plea That I’ll  Never Forget

Some cases stay with you long after the courtroom clears. This is the story of a mentally ill client who entered a guilty plea in a murder case, and the extraordinary Guilty-Pleas-in-North-Carolina Artistic Representation moments that followed. What he carried and what he chose to say changed the way I view my work as a criminal defense lawyer.

He wasn’t the first client I’d represented facing a murder charge. He wasn’t the youngest, the oldest, or even the most complicated. But something about this case, the years it took to resolve, the patience it demanded, the things I learned sitting beside him, will stay. I will carry the memory of that hearing with me, and what happened in that courtroom, for the rest of my legal career.

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 What-Defense-Lawyers-Carry-in-Court 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.

Contact Information