THAT OLD SAW
Say What?
Often clients of the Public Defender’s Office say they want a “real lawyer,” meaning of course a lawyer in private practice. I see by today’s news that one of my good friend and long-time colleague private-practice attorney Bjorn Brunvand, a brilliant criminal defense attorney in the Tampa Bay area, faced some of the convoluted interactions with clients that Public Defenders often do.
Bjorn, who has handled many, many first-degree murder cases and many death penalty cases, is one of the best lawyers anywhere. He works hard, finds out all the facts and does an impressive job before juries. Recently, a plastic surgeon murder defendant fired Bjorn, alleging that Bjorn had committed fraud and had lied to him. That doctor is now representing himself in a murder prosecution (he is charged with killing a lawyer representing a party on the other side of a lawsuit) where he faces the death penalty.
The maxim “he who represents himself has a fool for a client” is often attributed to Lincoln, but the earliest recorded variation appeared in Humane Prudence, the 1682 book by William De Britaine: “he who will be his own Counsellour, shall be sure to have a Fool for his Client!” Even 350 years ago, it was evident that self-representation could be a disaster.
Two clients of mine recently declared their desire to represent themselves, one a sovereign citizen who in open court obsessively repeats the phrase, “Special appearance, move to dismiss for no jurisdiction,” and another who announced that he does not need to view the evidence against him “because he was there.” They were both permitted to serve as their own lawyers lessening my caseload by two. We’ll see if the old saw holds up.
Because he was there! Hilarious. Interesting reading this since one of the half dozen books I'm reading at the moment is Anne Rule's book about Bundy. She thought he was "brilliant." I'm not seeing it. Maybe megalomaniacs often convince other people they're smarter than they are?
Not content to pile on Dr. Fauci, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier asked Congress to open an impeachment inquiry into Eleventh Circuit Judge Nancy Abudu, not for anything she has done as a judge, but for what he suspects she knew during her prior employment at the Southern Poverty Law Center. His theory appears to be that a sitting judge “should not be able to escape impeachment for wrongful conduct occurring prior to her appointment,” even though the evidence of both SPLC’s “wrongful conduct” and Abudu’s responsibility for it not demonstrated.
So saith the Hope Florida mastermind.