This past week was a tough one.
Sure, turning 58 was part of it but that just means I made it another year, and I'm assuming 60 is the new 40, so that's all good.
You see, I spent my birthday battling it out in a felony jury trial in Travis County. I was defending a client (I'll call him John) I'd worked with since I joined the firm, someone I've known for more than three years now. And while the result was better than if he'd accepted the state's plea offer, my client is still headed to prison. To the extent it was a technical "win," it feels pretty hollow.
And the very same day that John was sentenced to prison, just a few hours later, I sat on a beachfront deck listening to the ocean and trying not to be wracked with guilt.
I wonder sometimes if the defense lawyers who find this job easy, or easier, are more on the sociopathic end of the spectrum than the empathetic. Believe me, that's no judgment, I genuinely wish I was able to detach myself more from clients' situations.
But I can't, because it's not who I am. What I can do, though, is process my thoughts, feelings, and emotions the way that works best for me: by writing. Which is why I'm sitting on that same deck penning this on a sunny Sunday afternoon, as my wife and kids are riding bikes on the beach.
Lovely sunrises here, by the way:
Anyway, let's deal with those trial demons: stress, guilt, and regret.
The stress is mostly gone, it ebbed like the tide when the case ended. But is it all gone? I feel like it builds up and lingers, like sand between your toes after a walk on the beach. Maybe it's just a matter of time then, for it to fall away. I think back to the morning of trial when I looked for our blood pressure monitor but couldn't find it, and told myself that the feeling in my chest was normal nerves. I guess that turned out to be right. Phew.
How about the guilt?
That's harder - the worst part of being a prosecutor for me was sending people to prison. Hated it. So imagine how it felt to watch John walk through the door from the courtroom to the jail, on his way to several yers in prison and also knowing that he was relying on me to stop that happening. Or at least get him fewer Christmases and birthdays behind bars.
I think this is where logic saves me - I did all I could. I worked with two people smarter than me for the trial, my colleagues who gave as much as I did. We got the state's one expert excluded, we shut down several injurious lines of inquiry, we highlighted discrepancies in testimony, and several very damaging exhibits never made their way to the jurors. We did that. We did everything we could.
In fact, when John heard the sentence that the jury gave him he turned to us and said, "Oh wow, that's not bad at all. I'll be out pretty soon after just X years."
Strange how we get our comfort sometimes, isn't it?
Criminal attorneys, in our firm anyway, often joke about filing a Defense Motion for New Facts, because we realize that there's just nothing we can do to change the ones we're handed when our clients come to us. We made that joke last week, for sure.
So I think knowing that we did everything we could, knowing John himself saw that, and knowing the result was much better than he'd feared, those will help assuage the guilt of a guilty verdict.
Which brings me to regret. Similar to guilt but I'm talking about the second-guessing we all do after a trial. Why didn't I say this? Why didn't I point out that? Heavens, I'm sure some appellate attorney will have a field day with what we didn't say and didn't do.
But as I come up with those thoughts, I'm able to explain every one of them. Why we didn't put on a particular witness, why we didn't ask a certain question. We had reasons for the decisions we made, whether those decisions turned out to be right or wrong. Good reasons. And without the benefit of hindsight, I think those good reasons temper any regrets. Enough for me to finish this blog post and enjoy the beach, anyway.
Finally, I wanted to share a snapshot of my trial team, two talented young lawyers who I'd go into battle with any day of the week. I'm sorry you guys didn't get to read a book on a beach right after the case, I'll try to do that for you. But thanks for your help, brilliance, support, and friendship.
Miguel and Megan, in our post-trial picture looking slightly more -sheveled than me (that same me who wishes someone had told him to button his collar and straighten his tie before the photo was taken).
And so we move on. Dusty but not defeated, to fight another day and with empathy intact.
Just not until I've finished this rather splendid book.
