Malpractice

I was just talking to one of my co-workers about Malpractice. His
wife is a psychiatrist who is being sued for wrongful death. That got
us to talking about our clients, and potential cases where we're
PERSONALLY on the wrong side of the v. You never know if someone is
going to file suit against anyone and everyone they can think of, just
because they are in jail.

He has a very interesting case right now that's getting ready for
trial. His client is charged with Kidnapping, Aggravated Assault,
Aggravated Sodomy and other assorted felonies. His client was in
jail, was offered a plea to Misdemeanor Simple Batter to be time
served (let out of jail with a Misdemeanor!!) and rejected that offer
in the expectation that he could only do better if he went to trial.
The client must have thought that the victim would either not show up,
or recant her story. What he didn't think was that the DA would have
over a thousand hours of taped conversations between him and the
victim from the jail phones. In those thousands of hours, he can be
heard convincing the victim to lie for him and say that this incident
did not occur. Once the DA got wind of these recordings, he withdrew
the offer for Simple Battery and is going to ask for Life Without
Parole after the inevitable guilty verdict. I guess that verdict
isn't inevitable. The victim could sound believable, she could decide
not to show up for trial, she could have a skydiving accident...
anything could happen.

It blows my mind that this guy would be in jail and reject an offer of
Time Served to a Misdemeanor while he's facing Life Without Parole.
But I guess if he was a real genius he wouldn't be in this situation
in the first place. So, if he does get LWOP, one of his claims will
be that our office did a terrible job before and during trial. Anyone
ca end up beneath the v.