Life as a Rural Public Defender

TV programs like Law & Order provide dramatic introductions to defending those charged with offenses in our court system. Having been appointed a public defender in a rural central Illinois county soon after graduating law school, I discovered that my cases sometimes mirrored the drama of these serious crime shows. Other times, my work took on aspects of TV’s Night Court, though being charged with a criminal offense is never humorous or to be taken lightly.

What Is a 'Public Defender' System of Representation?

The public defender system in Illinois is established in the Counties Code to ensure that indigent persons charged with a criminal offense may be represented by counsel, to better ensure due process, without cost to the indigent defendant. The Counties Code states that in Illinois, a person has a “fundamental right” to quality legal representation in criminal and related proceedings without regard to his or her ability to pay. 55 ILCS 5/3-4000. Similarly, the Illinois Criminal Code states that an indigent person is entitled to have a public defender appointed to represent him or her in all criminal cases, except where the penalty is only a fine. 725 ILCS 5/113-3.

The public defender in Illinois is generally compensated by or an employee of the county in which he or she is appointed to serve, with the appointment process and salaries adjusted by the population of the county. In my case, the rural county seat where I was appointed and where the courthouse is located had the same population as my suburban Chicago high school (approximately 4,000). The aging courthouse on the hill had richly detailed architecture that contrasted with a neon sign on one side of the courthouse reading The World Needs God. The county later relocated the sign to a privately-owned building on the square, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) successfully sued the county on behalf of a county resident for violating the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, sometimes known commonly as requiring the separation of church and state.

How Are Members of a Jury Selected?

TV series like Bull offer a glimpse of voir dire, the system whose goal is the selection of an unbiased impartial jury of one’s peers. Voir dire in Illinois is governed by Supreme Court Rule 431. Voir dire allows the prosecuting attorney and defense counsel to learn basic background information of each prospective juror on the panel from which the jury members are selected to serve. My indigent clients did not have the luxury of hiring a paid jury consultant like Bull. But the basic background information on each potential juror provided by the clerk, and the answers each potential juror additionally provided to questions from each attorney or the presiding judge, offer an opportunity to learn of the potential juror’s bias or impartiality. Voir dire helps both the prosecution and the defense decide whether a particular juror might remain on the jury. For any case that mandates a right to a jury trial, jurors are drawn from the county.

Both the assistant state’s attorney who prosecuted misdemeanors and I moved to this rural county to serve in our respective positions; neither of us initially knew many of the potential jurors beyond the basic information the clerk provided and the additional questions asked in voir dire. Two of my first DUI clients were found not guilty and a third DUI trial resulted in a hung jury, perhaps in part because two of the jurors in each of these three cases owned local taverns, likely viewing DUI charges less seriously than other offenses and maybe convincing the other jurors to view DUIs similarly. Not surprisingly, these two tavern owners were not retained by the prosecution the next time they appeared as potential jurors in subsequent DUI trials.

My First Defense of a 'Disorderly Conduct' Case

One of my first cases where disorderly conduct was charged (720 ILCS 5/26-1(a)(1)) was a young high school athlete and lifeguard who admitted climbing onto the roof of the dressing room of the local beach to observe his female classmates changing into and out of their bathing suits. Rather than being sentenced, he received supervision, a unique disposition in many misdemeanor offenses under the Criminal Code that allows the same result as dismissal of the offense. 730 ILCS 5/5-6-3. Supervision carries conditions which must be met by the defendant, the main one being not to violate any law within a specific time period, generally one year. At the conclusion of the specified period, if the conditions of supervision have been met, then there is no adjudication of guilt. In most cases, a defendant can then also seek to “expunge” the charge, removing that charge from one’s record. 20 ILCS 2630/5.2.

I could count on new clients receiving a disposition of supervision after admitting charges of disorderly conduct or criminal damage to property (under $500) after shooting out lights or engaging in other youthful havoc following homecoming parades and Main Street parties in each town of the county in which I served. Sadly, I also recall being appointed to represent one young man who intentionally busted a display window in a local retail store, not doing any other damage nor injury to any person; but it was a repeated offense. When asked why he broke a window but took nothing from the shop, he advised the court that he committed the offense because he wanted to be sentenced to the local medium security prison in the county, where he would have opportunities that he would not otherwise have—regular meals, medical care, eyeglasses, haircuts, and an education. One other young client did not seem to benefit from the education he received when first sentenced, when he admitted driving for a second time the same unlocked car he stole from the same driveway that still had the same key in the ignition as the last time this client committed the exact same offense. This automobile’s owner apparently did not learn to either lock or to keep the key out of this unlocked car, either.

A Different Perspective on a Drug Possession Charge

Peyote, found in lockers at the local railroad, was at the heart of one my cases in which the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution’s freedom of religion protected my card-carrying Native American Indians from conviction of drug-possession offenses. It was then well-established that card-carrying members of certain Native American Indian tribes like my clients, utilize peyote in their religious services. These clients provided me, and then also the prosecution, the necessary proof to help establish their sacred use of the drug during the exercise of their religion so as to warrant dismissal of the drug possession charges. While as a public defender I could represent them on the criminal charges, they did not have free representation when their employer, the railroad, invoked the company’s safety rules to fire them. Well after the drug possession charges were dismissed, these clients later appeared on my doorstep seeking return of the peyote for use in their sacred services, but the state’s attorney reported that the peyote, confiscated to be used as evidence at trial, had been turned over to the State Police and burned.

State Route I-55 and one of its rest stops runs mid-way through the county in which I worked. I-55 then served and likely still serves as a pipeline for drugs from Mexico to Chicago. At the arraignment of one Spanish-speaking client, the stage when a defendant is informed of the charges against him or her per 725 ILCS 3/113-1, the judge asked in a very loud voice, speaking very slowly in English, whether the defendant understood his rights. I tried to explain that speaking loudly and slowly in English would not help my Spanish-speaking client understand his rights spoken in a language he did not speak nor understand. During another arraignment on a charge of DUI on I-55, the judge asked my client if his attorney had explained the charges and sentence that could be imposed, while I stood alongside. When the client told the judge he didn’t have an attorney, the judge smiled and explained that I was appointed his attorney and asked him if I had explained the charges or if he would like the charges read to him in open court. The client advised that he now understood that I was his attorney and that I had explained the DUI charge and potential penalty and sentence.

Back at the rest stop, I learned prostitution was occurring when a trucker called the police to report a prostitute had stolen his wallet, and later the prostitute (my client) was charged. Another client charged with prostitution reported for her arraignment with her mother, appearing in court in casts which she explained were the result of her pimp having beaten her up for getting caught and arrested. Her mother reported that sadly, this was the education her daughter needed to end her prostitution.

Charges Arising From a Murder Can Include Charges 'By Accountability' for Someone Who 'Aids an Abets' the Killer

Near Christmas, I was in the Chicago suburbs with family when the TV news reported a killing on I-55 in the county I served, when young men in one car had reportedly rammed another car, after which both cars pulled over. The news reported that the victim killed was a member of the Hmong tribe, travelling home with other tribal members to a Midwest state where the Hmong tribe had located after the war in Southeast Asia. Interestingly, drivers from across the country who had heard of the killing and contacted local law enforcement to report that they had either seen the victims’ car being rammed, or that they, too, had their vehicle rammed but had not pulled over, became witnesses for the prosecution at trial. I was appointed to represent only one of the men in the car that had reportedly rammed the other, due to a potential conflict between the defendants and the defense each would present. Upon my client’s arrest, he was found with a ring belonging to the victim of a similar crime in Missouri, in which a similar modus operandi (a particular way or method of operating) had been used. Arrest reports mentioned that the men charged reported using a drug not then well-known in the rural county in which I worked, one writing it as “whack” and another as “crack.”

My client in this killing was not accused of the actual shooting, but instead was charged by accountability with the same offense as the shooter. A person can be held legally accountable under the Criminal Code for the conduct of another, for example, even if he did not do the actual shooting, where he aids or abets or is otherwise complicit in the other’s offense. 720 ILCS 5/5-2(c). After local media reported that I had attended this client’s arraignment when he pleaded not guilty before trial, friends asked me sincerely how I could allow my client to plead not guilty, perhaps not truly understanding what it means that a person is innocent unless his guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 720 ILCS 5/3-1. My client was later found guilty by accountability for the killing of the young Hmong tribe member, and after sentencing, was transferred to Missouri to stand trial for the charge related to the murder of the victim who owned the ring found on my client during his arrest in Illinois.

What I Learned From My Life as a Rural Public Defender

About this same time, I decided to practice a less-emotionally charged area of law in a slightly larger city. But I continue to appreciate and benefit from the wide range of legal issues addressed, the wide range of clients and friends made and the numerous jury and bench trials I experienced serving as public defender for approximately two years in a rural Illinois county.