Believing your clients

The first really amazing thing that happened to me as an attorney was realizing how many people lie. I mean, boldfaced, obvious, its sitting right there in front of you, lie. They lie when you tell them that you can't help them if you don't know the truth. They lie even when the truth would not hurt them. They lie about stupid unimportant things.

I started thinking about this after reading that the Virginia prisoner who was executed and maintained his innocence to the end- has been shown to have had his DNA present at the scene. (Ok, I was being euphemistic- they found his sperm in her vagina at a 19 million to 1 chance it was his.) Now, an awful lot of people believed him- to the extent that the governor agreed to the testing to, I dunno, assuage his guilt, or shut the protesters up.

Don't get me wrong- I know a lot of innocent people have been found guilty in our system. I totally applaud the innocence project. I believe that ALL cases in which DNA evidence present should have that DNA tested and the results made available to both sides. After all, the goal of our judicial system is not, as some believe, to convict, but rather to achieve justice. And Justice, in my way of thinking, demands that ALL evidence be examined- not just that which the prosecutor wants examined. But that's a different blog for a different day.

Here in the trenches, lying is a more immediate and less evidence dependent sort of thing. I have had people who were personal friends of mine lie to my face. I have had clients try to con me. I have listened to lies that were so obvious a Venn diagram would expose them... And those are just the ones I know about.

I have a way of dealing with lies or what I believe to be lies. First, I recognize that no one wants to come clean and admit they lied. You have to set them up to tell you the truth. Sometimes I can tell them there must be a mistake here somewhere and follow that by showing them how obvious the lie is. They can then tell me "I made a mistake" which is much more palatable. I can also go with the whole, "If the other side can prove X, it will mean Y for you and it might be prudent for you to not take that risk." I call this the "easy out." My client can still complain about "the system," but doesn't compound his/her lie. For example, "Well, I understand Mr. Doe that you only had two beers, but the officer has a video tape of you weaving in and out of traffic, you blew a .16 on the breathalizer, and you pissed on the officer's vehicle when he pulled you over. It is my opinion, based on this evidence, that you will be found guilty. I will gladly conduct a trial for you. When you loose you must put up a $ 500 cash bond to appeal. When you appeal this offer the prosecutor made will not be available. You will have a brand new trial in Circuit Court and this is the range of penalties the Court may impose at that time. If you plead guilty you do not have to say anything, the Judge will let the test stand as the reason for your plea and it will all be done.

Most of them take that offer when I put it that way...


I also use the "What will the other side say?" technique. I find this very effective. You hear a story that completely doesn't jibe with what you do know, and you just ask your client, "Well, what is the other side going to say happened?" I learn a lot of information from this question.

Mostly the lies are just annoying. The only time I get angry is when I get caught with my pants down in Court. For example, I ask someone, "Did the child's father give you any money directly?" and they answer, "No."

So then, Dad hands me a stack of signed receipts showing money he has given her.

And I have to go back and be like, "What in the world!?" and usually, they just shrug "Oh well, yeah, he did."

Or the family recently who told me Dad had died and couldn't pay child support. I asked for the death certificate. I did it nicely, but I was still pretty sad to see that I had come to that point- thinking someone would lie about their death to avoid child support.

I had a good one last week. Dad claims to make only $500.00 a month sitting for an elderly veteran. Grandmother, who has custody, has NOTARIZED copies of his hours for a convenience store and payments from a side business selling pirated CDs and DVDs. His lawyer comes back and is rolling her eyes because he tells her, "Yeah, I hang out there but he don't pay me or nothing- you know, he just does stuff for me and maybe gives me something to eat and some gas or something." We're both sitting there going "Huh, a man who spends 60 hours a week sitting in a store out of the goodness of his heart. Wow. What a great human being."

Oh and that Disabled veteran? Grandma had his obituary from when he died last December.

Lawyer and I make an agreement which kept his client from going to jail on perjury as well as contempt- and we just ignore the lying.

I have to walk that fine line between not believing a word that comes out of anyone's mouth and being gullible. Jaded or gullible....