That is the question I hear most often about the work that I do? Those people.
As if you didn't know that the line between us and those people wasn't razor-thin.
Being accused of doing something wrong is by far the most isolating thing you will ever experience. When I say "wrong" I mean anything that is frowned upon by the rule-makers (i.e. breaking the law.)
You may not break the law, but you break wind. By a mechanism that I still don't understand, the digestive process, not only creates urine and poo, but an ethereal noisome phenomenon known colloquially as a fart. Farts can be loud or quiet, concussive or delicate, wet or dry...you get it. The problem is we pass gas, but no one likes to talk about it.
What's even more upsetting is that IF you have the misfortune of passing detectable gas (noisy or really funky) in a room and you look like you did it, people will walk away from you. As they escape your stink, they tell someone else in the room, "So and so just let one rip, and it smelled like sh*t." (Well, duh?! Is it supposed to smell like whiskey?" I guess it might if you get down like that.) Little by little the person who was not fortunate enough to break wind in an isolated stairwell or an outdoor vestibule now stands isolated and in the judgment of others. (What about the person whose shoe-lace gets caught under the sole and makes that "RRRiiiip" sound? What about the person whose office chair bellows that low "Purrrt" noise as she spins around in her chair) For a few fleeting seconds, that person understands what it's like to be accused of a crime.
Yes, I get it. Farting...I mean passing gas is not the mechanism of a deliberate choice. (Well, for those with supernatural muscle control it could be.) But it is the result of the internal workings of our bodies.
Crime is the result of internal workings of brokenness. In the ten years that I've worked as a criminal defense lawyer, I have yet to encounter a client that didn't have some form of brokenness inside. The young man who elects to become a corner boy (his father either intentionally absent or incarcerated)...the man who views child pornography in secret (sexually abused at an early age by a trusted adult)...the girl who fights like she breathes (mother changes boyfriends like shoes and ignores her children for the sake of the relationship). Truth be told, we all have some form of brokenness. Some of us know it, acknowledge it, and try to deal with it. Then there are those of us who pretend that there's nothing wrong. But ignoring brokenness doesn't change the fact that something is going on inside. Eventually there will be an outward manifestation of what is going on. The fart, so to speak.
Let's be real. People who believe they have options don't typically choose to become statistics. It happens. Then someone finds themselves standing in a courtroom, and the reality sets in. Freedom is at risk because of a near-sighted choice to sell heroin to survive. When I enter the picture, I hear a similar tune. No father at home. No high school diploma. A baby on the way. No employment prospects. A general sentiment of unworthiness.
A criminal defense attorney's job, on paper, is to zealously fight for the rights of the client and to provide legal advice sufficient to permit the client to make a decision from a position of information. For me, it goes deeper than that. A person is never more alone in life than when he or she is accused of a crime. Defendants run the gambit from the very young and naive to the seasoned and recalcitrant (most difficult.
But at the end of the day, when a defendant hears the words "please rise", it is the defense attorney's job rise along side him, so he does not stand alone.
For me my career is a very personal choice. It is an extension of my faith. Christ stood by me when the devil accused me of being unworthy. He silenced my accuser and took my condemnation upon Himself. Despite the fact that I make mistakes and bad choices, He perpetually stands by me, carries me, and fights my battles. Despite the fact that I do not always speak and act as I should, He still loves me as His own.
So when people ask me, "How do you defend THOSE people?" I remember that in God's eyes, I was one of them. Broken, wretched, fallen, sinful. And then God gave me His Son so that I might be redeemed.
So when I stand in open court to the next to someone, I'm doing it because Christ did it for me. It is my hope that one life will be changed. One woman will see herself as worthy of more than her past. One man will acknowledge that his heavenly Father loves him, and maybe he;'ll decide to stop being held captive by generational curses.
The greatest testimonies are the stories that begin in the impossible. They begin in strange places. Prisons. Crackhouses. Homeless shelters. Operating tables. Courtrooms. That's where God does his best work.
Yeah, you didn't see this coming, did you?
As if you didn't know that the line between us and those people wasn't razor-thin.
Being accused of doing something wrong is by far the most isolating thing you will ever experience. When I say "wrong" I mean anything that is frowned upon by the rule-makers (i.e. breaking the law.)
You may not break the law, but you break wind. By a mechanism that I still don't understand, the digestive process, not only creates urine and poo, but an ethereal noisome phenomenon known colloquially as a fart. Farts can be loud or quiet, concussive or delicate, wet or dry...you get it. The problem is we pass gas, but no one likes to talk about it.
What's even more upsetting is that IF you have the misfortune of passing detectable gas (noisy or really funky) in a room and you look like you did it, people will walk away from you. As they escape your stink, they tell someone else in the room, "So and so just let one rip, and it smelled like sh*t." (Well, duh?! Is it supposed to smell like whiskey?" I guess it might if you get down like that.) Little by little the person who was not fortunate enough to break wind in an isolated stairwell or an outdoor vestibule now stands isolated and in the judgment of others. (What about the person whose shoe-lace gets caught under the sole and makes that "RRRiiiip" sound? What about the person whose office chair bellows that low "Purrrt" noise as she spins around in her chair) For a few fleeting seconds, that person understands what it's like to be accused of a crime.
Yes, I get it. Farting...I mean passing gas is not the mechanism of a deliberate choice. (Well, for those with supernatural muscle control it could be.) But it is the result of the internal workings of our bodies.
Crime is the result of internal workings of brokenness. In the ten years that I've worked as a criminal defense lawyer, I have yet to encounter a client that didn't have some form of brokenness inside. The young man who elects to become a corner boy (his father either intentionally absent or incarcerated)...the man who views child pornography in secret (sexually abused at an early age by a trusted adult)...the girl who fights like she breathes (mother changes boyfriends like shoes and ignores her children for the sake of the relationship). Truth be told, we all have some form of brokenness. Some of us know it, acknowledge it, and try to deal with it. Then there are those of us who pretend that there's nothing wrong. But ignoring brokenness doesn't change the fact that something is going on inside. Eventually there will be an outward manifestation of what is going on. The fart, so to speak.
Let's be real. People who believe they have options don't typically choose to become statistics. It happens. Then someone finds themselves standing in a courtroom, and the reality sets in. Freedom is at risk because of a near-sighted choice to sell heroin to survive. When I enter the picture, I hear a similar tune. No father at home. No high school diploma. A baby on the way. No employment prospects. A general sentiment of unworthiness.
A criminal defense attorney's job, on paper, is to zealously fight for the rights of the client and to provide legal advice sufficient to permit the client to make a decision from a position of information. For me, it goes deeper than that. A person is never more alone in life than when he or she is accused of a crime. Defendants run the gambit from the very young and naive to the seasoned and recalcitrant (most difficult.
But at the end of the day, when a defendant hears the words "please rise", it is the defense attorney's job rise along side him, so he does not stand alone.
For me my career is a very personal choice. It is an extension of my faith. Christ stood by me when the devil accused me of being unworthy. He silenced my accuser and took my condemnation upon Himself. Despite the fact that I make mistakes and bad choices, He perpetually stands by me, carries me, and fights my battles. Despite the fact that I do not always speak and act as I should, He still loves me as His own.
So when people ask me, "How do you defend THOSE people?" I remember that in God's eyes, I was one of them. Broken, wretched, fallen, sinful. And then God gave me His Son so that I might be redeemed.
So when I stand in open court to the next to someone, I'm doing it because Christ did it for me. It is my hope that one life will be changed. One woman will see herself as worthy of more than her past. One man will acknowledge that his heavenly Father loves him, and maybe he;'ll decide to stop being held captive by generational curses.
The greatest testimonies are the stories that begin in the impossible. They begin in strange places. Prisons. Crackhouses. Homeless shelters. Operating tables. Courtrooms. That's where God does his best work.
Yeah, you didn't see this coming, did you?
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