Judge Bryan Hettenbach, one of the “good” St. Louis City circuit judges and notorious bon vivant, was struck by lightening last week as he was leaving a winery in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. A bolt of lightning hit a metal sign next to him and then struck him in the back (a side flash). He was propelled about 10 feet and landed apparently face-down on a paved area. He reported that he has a burn the size of a baseball on his back, and I could see several nasty gashes on his face.
After the strike he was taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released.
Judge Hettenbach before being struck by lightning.
Amazingly, he is back at work this week, though he looks and feels like he went 10 rounds with Canelo Alvarez. That’s a work ethic I admire!
I was recently taken to task by public defender Neil Barron for saying in my blog that the public defenders who made Bar complaints against City prosecutors were “douche bags.” He went on to say that public defenders actually hadn’t made all the Bar complaints as I suggested in my last post. I told him that while I had learned that the broader Bar investigation was initiated apparently due to a misunderstanding by the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, nevertheless I understood it was true that some public defenders from his office had made Bar complaints against specific assistant circuit attorneys for discovery violations and related matters. I maintained that persons who do that are behaving as douche bags.
Let me explain:
As I see it, we lawyers who work in the criminal justice system, prosecutors and defense attorneys, are trench lawyers. We are fighting in the trenches of the legal system. And trench fighting is hard. Really, really hard. In part it’s hard because of the system that we are trying our best to navigate: a dynamic confluence of various criminal and related statutory schemes, criminal procedure, local court rules, the rules of evidence, state and federal constitutional provisions, applicable case law, etc. It’s also hard because of the nature of the cases we handle, and how they often take a huge emotional and psychological toll on us. Fighting in the trenches involves long hours, dealing with difficult people, oftentimes involving terrible circumstances and situations, all while under deadlines and immense pressure to perform at our best – with the lives of other persons who are depending on us hanging in the balance. A trench lawyer’s two most frequent companions are stress and frustration.
I take great pride in being a trench lawyer. I also recognize that being a trench lawyer is not for everyone. It’s not for a person who wants to take the easy road; it’s for the person who enjoys and yearns for constant challenges, who wants to work hard, and who wants what they do to be meaningful. Fighting in the trenches can be a lot of fun (type 2 fun) and very fulfilling, but it requires that you embrace the difficulties. Only someone who has fought in the trenches can understand what it is like or what I’m talking about. This is the bond all trench lawyers share.
I respect anyone – prosecutors, public defenders, private attorneys (I’ve been all three) — who fights in the trenches because I know what it takes. I’ve been doing it for 30 years. And over those years I’ve seen how fighting in the trenches has wrecked some very good people. I’ve seen how some have developed unhealthy coping mechanisms (for example, taking frequent sick days, reliance on drugs and alcohol, ideological fervor, etc.), and how others have left the trenches because they no longer wanted to endure the continual wear and tear involved in being there.
So, if you are a trench lawyer, and you know what it is like to be there, you don’t try to fuck over other trench lawyers. You respect them for what they are going through and for the difficulties they are dealing with. You don’t make Bar complaints. You don’t try to get them fired. Only a douche bag would do that.
The situation I was discussing with Neil involves assistant circuit attorneys who have gotten little to no training, who are trying to handle caseloads of 350 serious felony cases (!), who are getting very little assistance from their office, who must work with a hostile police department, and who are under constant pressure from defense attorneys, judges, their victims’ families, their office, etc. Who but a douche bag would make a Bar complaint against such a person? Neil argued that the Bar complaints were made because the public defender was only concerned about their clients. I called bullshit. A Bar complaint will in no way help their clients — it will only hurt another trench lawyer.
Trench lawyers get very little support or understanding from those outside the trenches. This is natural because as I said above, you have to fight in the trenches to know what it’s like. The Bar doesn’t understand what it is to be a trench lawyer: they’ve never been in the trenches. Many of the judges have never been in the trenches, and some of the judges that were have forgotten what it’s like. Support and understanding for a trench lawyer will really only come from other trench lawyers. If we don’t help each other, we won’t get any help. If we turn on each other, we are only hurting ourselves.
