Strength, Sorrow, and Sentencing: What Defense Lawyers Carry Into the Courtroom

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.

By now, I should have developed some impenetrable callus, some distance between what I do and what I feel.

But that’s not how it works. Not if you’re doing it right, IMHO.

This is not a piece about burnout. It’s not a complaint.

It’s a reflection after closing a file that involved an indictment for first-degree murder and forever changed lives.

I hope it serves as an invitation to talk about what the old salts know but rarely say out loud.

Standing next to a client in a courtroom, especially a guilty one, is not just a legal act or performative.

Sometimes, it brings a tear to your eye, not out of weakness when the awful truth and visceral humanity of it all comes crashing down, but hopefully one borne out of compassion and empathy for the respective parties on both sides of the aisle.

More Than a Briefcase: What Defense Lawyers Carry in Court

The Hidden Burdens of Defense Lawyers

Walking into court, a defense lawyer carries more than case files.

We carry the stories of broken homes, of youthful mistakes, of addictions and mental illnesses that courts struggle to understand and contain.

We carry the knowledge that for each client, the outcome in a sometimes cold, sterile courtroom will ripple outward to children, parents, and entire communities.

There are mornings I steel myself in the courthouse parking lot, drawing up an emotional armor as real as the suit jacket I shrug on.

The armor of resolve and optimism predicated on my faith is, at times, only microns thick.

I know I may be the only shield between my client and a system eager to punish, and that frankly scares the tar out of me.

The senseless death of someone in the prime of their lives due to violence, the unimaginable pain of family who will forever mourn the loss of their beloved, and the shattered look in a mother’s eyes as her son is led away in handcuffs, are burdens that a defense lawyer carries with them long after the courtroom empties.

Over the decades, these experiences accumulate like sediment in the soul.

Hopefully, they make us more compassionate advocates even as they threaten to make us more fragile human beings.

The Emotional Weight of Criminal Defense

The emotional weight of defense work is often heavy.

There are nights we lie awake replaying a cross-examination that could have gone better or envisioning a closing argument more laced with legal genius.

In this learned profession, sorrow is a constant companion.

It is not a weakness to admit that. It is evidence that we care deeply.

Sorrow can fuel strength.

Properly channeled, it serves as a reminder of why we advocate.

Systemic Imbalances, Human Costs: What it means to be a Defense Lawyer

With time, I’ve come to realize that my personal burdens are sometimes tied to larger systemic injustices.

A defense lawyer does not operate in a vacuum. We work within a criminal legal system that often feels stacked against our clients from the start.

Justice is Supposed to be Blind

Step into an urban criminal courthouse like Charlotte, and the patterns can be glaring.

Justice is meant to be blind, but it often isn’t in practice.

The treatment of mental health in the criminal justice system is a profound imbalance that defense lawyers grapple with. Our jails and prisons have become, by default, holding centers for the mentally ill.

Mental Health Crisis in North Carolina Courts

Studies estimate that about 44% of people in local jails have a history of mental illness.

On any given day, defense lawyers might be explaining court proceedings to a schizophrenic person who is hearing voices, or defending a bipolar teenager who cracked under the weight of untreated psychosis.

These clients carry disorders that the courtroom is ill-equipped to cure.

Early in my career, I represented a Vietnam veteran with severe PTSD who was consistently accused of various misdemeanors, from serious assaults to public disturbances and petty theft.

All were clearly linked to his untreated mental illness and substance abuse.

At the time, there was no mental health court or veterans’ diversion program available.

Those didn’t exist in the early 1990s.

Fortunately, the judge, himself a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, met the issues with patience and compassion.

I often think of that now deceased judge, wishing I could thank him for what he taught me as a young courtroom lawyer.

Sometimes the system gets it right; sometimes it doesn’t.

Nearly every dedicated professional I know in the legal community has resigned themselves to managing the endless mental health crisis that plagues North Carolina’s justice system.

Jones Street continues to ignore the problem, failing to provide adequate resources or meaningful solutions.

Prosecutors, judges, law enforcement, defense lawyers, even the staff at Broughton and other mental health facilities, know it all too well.

Defense attorneys often grapple with systemic problems such as racial disparities, mental health crises, and economic inequalities that profoundly impact courtroom outcomes.

Recognizing and navigating these challenges is critical for meaningful advocacy.

The Client Behind the Case

Amid these broad forces, the relationship between a defense lawyer and a client remains intensely personal and complex. It is in many ways the heart of our work, and often the source of our greatest emotional weight.

Each client is a relationship that is sometimes warm, sometimes fraught with conflict, but always unique.

Building Trust in Difficult Circumstances

We meet people at the worst moments of their lives.

Fear, shame, and anger often fill the space between us initially.

More than a few clients are distrustful of the system, of lawyers, and sometimes of everyone. I can’t blame them.

Part of the complexity of defense work is caring about people who have done harmful things or who, struggling with their circumstances, sometimes see themselves as victims.

The legal system and the practice of law itself can unintentionally encourage this transactional mindset.

Empathy must coexist with clear boundaries.

It is a strange dual existence.

I might despair internally at the damage a client caused (a senseless shooting, a ruined victim’s family), yet I still pour effort into defending the charges because I see them as more than his worst act.

Seeing Clients as More Than Their Crimes

Bryan Stevenson, a defense attorney, wrote that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.

I endeavor to hold that truth close to my heart in this job.

I have represented addicts who robbed strangers for drug money, and I’ve heard their rationalizations and lies.

I’ve also sat with them in the jail interview room as they wept, detoxing and broken, revealing the childhood abuse or the untreated depression that led them down that path.

Seeing the full picture of a person means embracing uncomfortable truths.

Yes, they have caused harm, and society deserves justice. And yes, the guilty still deserve compassion and a chance to change.

Carrying both those truths is hard.

Felony Death by Vehicle & Second Degree Murder in North Carolina

There are days I drive home in silence, emotionally exhausted, trying to reconcile the anger I feel on behalf of victims with the empathy I feel for my client.

In court, I advocate for mercy and grace, but in quiet moments, I, too, wrestle with sorrow for what has been lost due to the crime.

This emotional balancing act is something few outside our profession truly understand.

Clients teach us and test us.

I’ve represented those whose raison d’être seems to have been to mess with me and my staff, all but daring us to stick with them despite their hostility.

In moments of frustration, especially after receiving late-night texts filled with anger or hostility toward me or my staff, I try to pause and remember that my clients’ emotions often reflect their own struggles with the system.

Managing these tensions professionally while preserving mutual respect is an important part of the job.

That seems to be the norm now.

I do my best to temper my anger and graciously accept the next-day apology, realizing my job very much includes dealing with the multi-headed hydra of substance abuse, untreated mental health issues, and the self-absorption/self-importance now so prevalent in our society.

Defense lawyers learn to accept that you cannot fix every life, even as you do what you can to help.

You realize the practice of law is a marathon, not a sprint.

You will lose cases that merit victory, win cases that appear hopeless, watch courteous clients receive harsh outcomes, and occasionally see challenging defendants receive a favorable verdict only to express dissatisfaction or frustration toward the very system that granted them relief.

Such contradictions remind me daily of the complexity inherent in our justice system.

Echoes of Justice: History and Literature

There have been cases where, despite our evidence and advocacy, I sensed that prejudice swayed the outcome.

“Prejudice” derives from Old French préjudice, which in turn comes from Latin praeiudicium, a compound of prae (“before”) and iudicium (“judgment”).

The courtroom should be the one place of fairness.

When it isn’t, the failure feels profound.

When the weight of it all grows heavy, I sometimes take solace in the fact that the struggle for justice is age-old. 

Lesssons for Literature and History

Philosophers, too, have weighed in on the realm of crime and punishment.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, who survived a Siberian prison camp himself, famously wrote that “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

It encapsulates what I want the court to grasp.

How we treat those who have fallen and broken our laws is a test of our society’s core values.

Will we be vindictive, or will we be both just and compassionate?

Representing the condemned and the despised, I often feel I am asking the system that very question.

Thirty Years as a Defense Lawyer & Changing Times

The legal landscape around me has shifted in significant ways.

Courtroom culture was different when I first started as a young attorney in 1992.

I’ve seen problem-solving courts emerge, like drug courts and mental health courts, which were virtually unheard of when I began.

Many jurisdictions now recognize that certain offenders need treatment more than incarceration.

The Real Cost of a Criminal Conviction

One thing that has not changed is the public sentiment that the system is never tough enough on crime.

By extension, some folks are not very sympathetic to the work of defense attorneys.

What’s a common question defense lawyers get at a dinner party?  “How can you defend those people?”

It is often striking how quickly perspectives shift when otherwise law-abiding individuals find themselves accused.

Understandably frightened, they sometimes hope for special dispensation, citing their contributions to society, employment, and good character.

In those moments, I gently remind them that the fairness of our justice system applies equally to everyone, regardless of background or reputation.

A persistent stigma remains around criminal defense work.

For some, there is a mistaken notion that defending someone accused of wrongdoing is equivalent to condoning the crime.

Gradually, the general public has become somewhat more aware of wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice, recognizing that even those who have committed offenses might merit compassion and a second chance in certain circumstances.

The defense lawyer’s role is not as a trickster trying to “get criminals off on a technicality.”

We are the necessary guardians of constitutional rights and a counterbalance to the state’s power.

That said, defense attorneys brace themselves for the renewed chorus of anger whenever a notorious case hits the headlines.

Public opinion can, in an instant, swing like a pendulum.

How Technology Has Changed Criminal Defense

Technological and professional changes have further transformed daily practice.

In the 90s, I carried stacks of law books and physical case files.

A good chunk of my time was spent in law libraries and scribbling notes by hand on yellow legal pads.

Now, a lot of lawyers arrive in court with an iPad containing the entire case file and legal research via online databases at their fingertips.

Evidence has changed, too.

Where once a grainy surveillance tape was a rare piece of evidence, now we regularly have high-definition videos from smartphones and body-worn cameras, digital footprints from cell phone GPS data, social media records, you name it.

More often than one might expect, there are multiple videos from different angles of the investigation and arrest, especially those involving DWI charges, body-worn cameras, and multiple responding officers.

Rising Professional Expectations of Defense Lawyers

Professional expectations have continued to grow.

The hours are longer, and the calls, texts, and emails rarely stop, even after hours, on weekends, and during holidays.

There’s often an unspoken expectation of an immediate response, regardless of the time or day.

The pressure to manage heavy caseloads remains intense, particularly for public defenders. Mental health concerns and burnout are still common in our profession.

The Art of Plea Bargains & Plea Negotiations

When I was a young attorney, admitting that a case’s emotional toll affected me would have been seen as a sign of weakness.

That culture is beginning to shift.

The system is starting to recognize that lawyers are human, not machines, and that carrying sorrow, day after day, eventually demands attention.

Looking at the arc of the legal system during my professional career, I see both progress and stubborn regression. It’s fair to say we have room to improve.

Carrying Hope Alongside Sorrow

In the end, the greatest change in thirty years may be within me.

I am not the young lawyer who wanted to win to prove myself and carve notches in my belt.

Experience has humbled me, tempered my ego, and deepened my compassion.

I have come to accept that loss is integral to this work.

I consciously fold away the sadness and try to carry something else out of the courtroom: hope.

Hope has to live on the same shoulder as sorrow in this line of work, or you would never come back the next day.

I have hope that the system, slowly but surely, can continue to evolve toward mercy and fairness.

I have seen enough over three decades to know that progress is painfully slow and justice is uneven, but I have also seen miracles: unlikely acquittals, rehabilitated lives, transformations that bloomed from a second chance.

Defense lawyers know that every time we stand next to a client, we’re planting our feet in a long tradition of advocates who refuse to give up on the idea that no one is beyond redemption.

To assume otherwise would be to deny my faith and all that I believe in my core.

Balancing Strength, Sorrow, and Hope

To be a defense lawyer is to live in a state of constant tension: between strength and sorrow, between cynicism and hope, between the letter of the law and the spirit of humanity.

We carry all of it into the courtroom.

Defense lawyers carry it because if we don’t, no one else will.

If we don’t feel the sorrow, we might lose our compassion. If we don’t muster the strength, our clients might lose their lives to the system.

As I close my eyes each night, I still see the faces of clients from years ago.

They visit me in dreams, etched in memory.

I see their expressions at verdicts or sentencing, the moments we shared at the edge of freedom or despair.

Those faces, those stories, are ghosts I carry, but not only ghosts; they are also guiding lights.

They push me to fight smarter and harder for the next client, and the next.

In my fourth decade of this work, I can say that the weight has only grown heavier.

The sorrow has carved channels in my heart, but they allow me to hold more understanding, not less.

In the grand balance of justice, a defense lawyer’s role is often the only counterweight to the state’s power.

Every morning, I take a deep breath and carry these strengths and sorrows back into the courtroom, in the hope that some measure of justice will prevail for this client, on this day.

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