The Three Million Dollar Verdict

As I mentioned earlier in the week here, some colleagues of mine were in the midst of a trial. The trial ended yesterday. It was a $3 million verdict. The issue broadly: Whether this community will stand up for justice. The jury spoke loudly. The answer is yes.
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My friends - specifically George Ahrend, through the law firm of Dano, Gilbert and Ahrend - were representing Plaintiff Felipe Vargas, a legal immigrant from Mexico with limited English who was jailed back in November of 2003 in Grant County, WA on charges of sexually abuse two minors. Turned out, the two minors recanted within days of making the claims. And Felipe spent the next seven months in jail anyway. The problem? He was represented by an attorney, Tom Earl, who had the public defender contract in Grant County. Tom Earl received $500,000 a year to manage all public defense felony cases. He hired a few contract lawyers to help out, but he kept half the cases (and the money) for himself. In November 2003, he had over 550 felony cases open. The absolute maximum felony caseload that any one attorney should handle at a time is 150. There were other things very seriously wrong with how he handled Mr. Vargas' case, and his caseload: he saw him for a total of between five minutes (Mr. Vargas' testimony) and half an hour (Mr. Earl's testimony) in the two months between arrest and the trial date; he never hired an investigator (for Mr. Vargas or for anyone else), even though the cost of the investigator was built into his $500,000-a-year contract; he never interviewed witnesses - not the children's mother nor the children's neighbors, all of whom knew of the recantations..... And so on. Trial date was December 23. Tom Earl had Felipe Vargas waive his right to a speedy trial, even though the prosecutor had not even subpoenaed witnesses yet. The new trial date was set for five months out. Keep in mind, the alleged victims had recanted their stories weeks ago.
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Luckily for Mr. Vargas, Tom Earl was suspended from the practice of law in February 2004. No longer could he bully or pressure Mr. Vargas into a plea. No longer could he let him languish in jail, giving him the unsavory choice of going to trial with an unprepared lawyer or waiting indefinitely. Another lawyer - Garth Dano, of the same law firm above - ultimately took on the case, spent over 100 hours working on it, and ultimately lined up the victims' recantation statements, had Mr. Vargas take a lie detector test (he passed), and got the charges dismissed with prejudice (meaning, they can't be filed again).
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All this was presented to the jury. Attorneys testified how they feared for Mr. Earl's clients - had done so for years. How he routinely pleaded people guilty to charges where co-defendants' charges were dismissed. Same facts, same cases, completely different results. How he would never pay for investigators or experts, making his contract attorneys rely on family and friends to help out instead (or pay for the costs out of their own pockets). An expert testified how it was an inherent conflict of interest for a lawyer to sign a contract that pitted his own financial interests against the interests of his criminal defense clients (whether because the contract resulted in too big of a caseload or required the lawyer to pay for costs out of the contract itself).
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It was a very emotional case. For Mr. Vargas, he teared up when he testified how his seven-month incarceration kept him from sending $120 a month to his parents back in Mexico. They counted on that money that he sent every month. For Mr. Earl, he seemed to tear up when his feelings were hurt (my impression, not his confession). And then my friend George Ahrend got choked up in closing when the subject of justice arose - like when he quoted Thomas Jefferson about how important the jury system is, or when he spoke of how there is no way that people should ever languish in jail like Felipe Vargas had done.... He had me emotional as well. Fighting for justice is that important. When I watched Arthur in "Camelot" speak about justice, and that there must be a fairness to the system.... it did me in. For that is what we are fighting for, if we take on that fight.
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In the end, the jury must have felt that same conviction. They returned a verdict against Mr. Earl in the amount of $762,000 and change. Then they were asked to consider punitive damages, as a deterrent in the future for Mr. Earl or anyone else to act so cavalierly about the proper administration of justice - about the freedom of another human being. They returned a punitive damages verdict of $2.25 million. It probably didn't help Mr. Earl's case that he had, just two weeks before trial, asserted that he would not pay Mr. Vargas a dime, and would not pay him a cent even if he were flush with finances. But the most important part of that verdict was the message that it sent to other counties and other public defenders who are willing to play fast and loose with our poorest citizens' right to freedom. "Do it at your own financial risk," I think the message is. The trial judge thanked the jury, and told them how important that message was. You have made a difference today, he said (or words to that effect).
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I'm so proud of my colleagues. Someone needed to expose the harm. Someone needed to take a stand and say, never again. Not on my watch. When people do that, other people notice. And just may choose to change behaviors. What a great job the jury members did. Let us hope that their verdict impacts other counties - in Washington and around the country - to re-evaluate their penny-pinching in light of the real costs at hand. Everyone deserves justice. Not just the rich.

UPDATE: Here's an article on the trial.