New Blood (Dark Side Update)

It's been a while. Not since some lawyer had his marketeer and SEO specialist create a blog in his name that finely honed to make a place of honor on the first page of Google for "lawyers who take cash," but someone who brought new thought. It's been too long.

Which is why I'm thrilled to welcome new blood to the blawgosphere.  The first is a 30-something public defender out of the left coast who posts under the pseudonym  Norm DeGuerre at his blawg, Chasing Truth, Catching Hell.  What's his purpose?

Simply put – I want everyone who visits my blog to leave with a more informed opinion about the justice system and know the real effect it has on those that come into contact with it. It’s good for you. It’s good for me. It’s good for my clients. It’s good for our democracy. I am fully aware that these are my own subjective experiences and that they may or may not be proof of any larger “truth” beyond themselves, but I will always make sure that the stories you read here have truth in them. Truth is something we all chase, even if we never quite catch it. The chase alone is worthwhile.

If I understand him correctly, what he's trying to do is illuminate the system while making no one stupider for having read his posts. It's a good thing.

Like his fellow PDs before him, Norm's posts tend to relate to the sometimes peculiar nature of the job, where he's left to fight for the most difficult and unappreciative clients under the worst of circumstances, yet does so with respect for them and himself. There is a strong element of catharsis in most public defender blogs, and this is no exception. But Norm doesn't wallow in feelings, but rather has a bite to his point. 

The next is What the Public Defender, which really isn't a blog in the traditional sense, but a tumblr comprised of .gifs (pronounced "he-efs") in response to a statement or question.  What the heck am I talking about?  This:

WHEN A RELATIVE/FRIEND ASKS ME WHY
OF ALL CAREERS I DECIDED TO BE A PD

See what I mean?  The writer is "a 20-something female PD trying to navigate the justice system without killing anyone," always an admirable goal.  While it's not exactly law review-type commentary, WTPD can be quite funny and, given that a picture is worth a thousand words, she's got plenty to say.

And the third newcomer to the blawgosphere writes under the imaginative yet descriptive pseudonym ExCop-LawStudent, at a blog humorously named ExCop-LawStudent, with the subtitle "general ramblings of a former police officer turned law student."

There's no doubt from his liberal use of case citations in his posts that he's a law student, but he's also a 20 and out police officer with libertarian tendencies, who has seen the light. This background brings a new, and very welcome, dimension to the criminal law blawgosphere, which we haven't seen since Karl Mansoor signed off at Blue Must Be True.

While it's tempting whenever a former police officer puts his two cents into the mix to either adopt his disdain toward police conduct out of confirmation bias or to dispute his explanation as a former cop rationalizing the behavior of his brothers, ExCLS isn't suggesting that he's either the final arbiter of police propriety, but the voice of one guy who has spent a generation on the other side and can explain how it looks through a cop's eyes.  

There is one additional piece of news that needs to be included, though it doesn't quite fit with the theme. Ohio death penalty lawyer Jeff Gamso, who has been a persistent and clear voice on the insanity of capital punishment and those desperately seeking to impose it and see it through to the bitter end, has left his private practice to go straight:

Hang on. No, I'm not retiring. Not riding off into the sunset. (Come back, Shane!) Instead, I'm finally getting around to doing something that, had life taken a slightly different turn, I'd have done years ago. I'm out of private practice (though I'm finishing up the cases I have). As of this morning, I'm an Assistant Public Defender in the appellate section of the Cuyahoga County Public Defender's Office. (That's Cleveland and environs for you folks who live where the river never caught fire - but that was a long time ago.)

While many will applaud the dedication Jeff has brought to the death penalty cause by using his enormous talents in the way that will benefit most, not to mention his having passed his four year blawgiversary (even though he's only managed to post 968 times, the slacker), this change upsets the careful balance of mustaches in the blawgosphere, a matter of deep concern.

For a while there, I wondered whether the harsh reality was that the practical blawgosphere, those who wrote not for self-aggrandizement but to provide substance that would illuminate, was fading away.  Notably, none of the n00bs are private lawyers writing under their own names, and Gamso, who continues to claim that is his real name, has gone the route of a government paycheck. 

It doesn't seem possible given how the future of law is all about the internet, as I'm constantly admonished by people who sell online services to lawyers, that the only signs of meaningful life come from those without their own shingle hanging.  To add to the mix, many of the blawgers who have contributed to the lively and informative discussions of the blawgosphere have since gone away, hanging up their keyboards as they grew weary of the public adoration, wealth and fame that came from being a blawger.  Take away from this what you will.

Update:  I am remiss in my failure to note the prosecution gif flip side, appropriately called What the Prosecutors from a "young prosecutor trying to do what's right."  Like the PD version, also a Tumblr with some very funny gifs such as:

WHEN YOU HAVE TO TELL THE COP YOU'RE DISMISSING
HIS CASE BECAUSE OF SOMETHING HE DID WRONG

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