ROC -n- ROLL

We received a comment from an individual who may or may not be the Head of the Regional Office Counsel for the 11th Judicial Circuit:

rumpole,You seem like a reasonable fella. Can you please stop posting negativity about the regional conflict office? You all need to stop bitchin and get on board to make this thing work. For Pete's sake!! AND BY THE WAY, I HAVE RECEIVED 16 APPLICATIONS OF PEOPLE WHO WISH WORK AT THE ROC.
tHANK YOU,
JG

Rumpole responds: Assuming for argument that is Mr. George, we respond with this open letter:

Dear Mr. George:

First, welcome to the Miami Criminal Defense Community.
However, unlike other new lawyers, you are not being welcomed with open arms. Why? Because the very existence of your job will deprive many of our colleagues of a living. Some of our colleagues have worked very hard for many years to obtain the skills necessary to represent Defendants in criminal court. Many of these lawyers worked for years at low pay for the State Attorneys Office or the Public Defenders Office and then went into private practice with the skills necessary to represent individuals charged with crimes.

Your job will deprive our colleagues of a job. We recognize that you did not cause this situation. But you are profiting from this situation much like a scab that crosses a picket line in a strike. What makes matters worse is that it appears to many of us that you take this job without the hard earned qualifications and experience in criminal law that almost all of us who work in the REGJB have. When you meet members of the defense bar, you will notice that all of them are justifiably proud of the work they did as prosecutors or public defenders. As far as we know, you did not work in either office. The experience they obtained in those jobs gives them the ability to assume the awesome responsibility to stand in court between the state and the Judge and say "prove it."

So you assume your job with two strikes against you: a perceived lack of experience, and the belief that you and you alone are profiting from the misfortune of hundreds of lawyers. That is quite a load to bear in a new job.

However, beyond the money and the anger, lies the most important reason of all: concern for the client. You will notice that almost every criminal defense attorney has a strong desire to see the system work and see clients well represented. The feeling among the defense bar is that the clients your office represents will not be well served. The belief is that the attorneys that will staff your office will not have "the right stuff" to represent individuals facing the death penalty, or life in prison, or a lengthy minimum mandatory sentence.

Just how many Arthur Hearings, let alone criminal trials, have you done?

The remarkable thing is that many of your new colleagues can speak from experience about the intricacies of a consent defense in a sexual assault case, the difficulties in voire dire in a drug entrapment defense case, while also exhibiting a working knowledge of things like blood spatter and exit and entrance wounds. The problem is that while your colleagues obtained that experience while working on cases with more experienced lawyers, you and your staff will apparently be obtaining that experience on the backs of your clients, and to their detriment. And that bothers us a lot.

So when you and your staff appear in court ( Click
HERE for directions to the REGJB), our hope is that our colleagues will be nice and cordial. But do not expect our best wishes for you to succeed, because truth be known, to a person, we all hope this comes crashing down and embarrasses the Governor for what it is- an attempt to balance the budget on the backs of indigent defendants.



The Legislature has no problem spending money on police and prisons, but when they skimp on something as important as the Sixth Amendment right to COMPETENT counsel, we take that pretty seriously.

See You In Court.

PS. In answer to your question about not posting criticism about your office, the answer is NO. See, The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.