ATTEMPT: &939.32
There are lots of potentially helpful things to be done: can we giude her to some alternative place? Can we understand her needs better? How incapacitated is she? What assets does she have: friends, for example?
So, if we're trying to get rappoir, we can't be talking about guardianship to much, at least at first. Can we pursue that line at all? Probably the minute you bring it up, you won't be representing her any more... Now she is entitled to adversary counsel at a guardianship proceeding: we'd be out of the running for that job having brought up the guardianship issue in the first place. But we're her only friend, ostensibly, at the moment.
In order to represent a client, you need to be able to see the world from their point of view. The client may not even be able to answer the question "why do you want what you want," but you need to figure it out.
Would what the reporter did have been a good act by her lawyer? (i.e., get her to visit someone at St. Elizabeth's?) This case is sort of a good basic thing to contemplate.
Note that rule 1.14 has meaning for a prosecutor as well. In what sense does a prosecutor have anything to do with this rule? Can "the people" be of diminished capacity? They can't communicate with their attorney. That's one thing... When those conditions characterize the attorney- client relationship, what does 1.14 say that you can do? As far as possible, you need to maintain an ordinary attorney-client relationship. You can't consult with your client about objectives or means.
We want to be able to look to the rules for guidance. So prosecutors need to be able to look to the rules, also. Maybe some of them don't apply directly in some contexts, but that's what they're for.
Conflict of interest provisions are interesting for prosecutors: if you are thinking about re-election, whose interests are you serving? Your professional obligation is to all of the people, but your political obligation is to the electorate (which may not be all of the people). How is it possible not to favor the electorate?
The majority of the decisions you make will not be reviewed. The newspapers will never weigh the subtleties of what you're doing.
Do I represent myself as a DA? Am I part of the client body? What about the defendants and convicts?
We don't just represent the people as an adversary lawyer, but also as a fiduciary: your decisions are (de facto) the will of the client. The people have conflicting values: one with another, or even one community with another.
What about the duty to turn over to the defense any mitigating or exculpatory evidence? How about this: an officer is going to testify that as he approached a suspect, the suspect tossed an envelope, and the officer later tested the envelope and it turned out to contain heroin. What if you often see this officer, and he ALWAYS testifies the very same way? Would that make you nervous? It seems like the prosecutor should have some cause to investigate to make sure its evidence is reliable. Chould Marcia Clarke not have known about Fuhrman's shaving of evidence, and his record of especially doing so in the African-American community?
Also, at some point, time and resources are constraints: to what lengths are you supposed to go to figure stuff out?
Prosecutors have special responsibilities as a check on the extra-special wide power that they have. They have this power because their job is so big (not just "to win," but not to convict the innocent). But that's not 100% accurate: their power isn't at trial-- it's before it. They can offer bribes to witnesses, which the defense can't do.
It's also because of the nature of the client: the prosecutor has to play fair, because that's a value embedded with the client. Fairness is a special obligation of the prosecutor because the client has fairness as a special value. Most clients are only interested in fairness as it benefits them: a prosecutor's client always benefits from fairness.
The defense counsel does not have the obligation to disclose evidence favorable to the prosecution.
One good thing, though: defendants can't hold out hope for the impossible if they've seen the testimony. If it's clear you'll get convicted, you'll be more open to the plea.
Interesting: what if the client feels bad? To what lengths should the lawyer go to convice the defendant that there's an advantage to introducing the diary?
Once the lawyer makes the judgment that this is the best way to defent, he has to at a minimum, offer the option to the client.