NORWICH – Admitting the task is often thankless, Chenango County’s public defenders say doing their job isn’t as hard as most people might think – in spite of how most people feel about the job.
County Public Defender Alan Gordon said in 2006 his office was assigned over 1,600 cases from family and criminal court whose defendants could not afford legal representation. Gordon acknowledged that some offer their fair share of challenges.
“The bad part of the job is obvious,” he said. “Sometimes we deal with people who commit terrible crimes against other people. That can be hard.”
What’s not always obvious, Gordon and his four assistants say, are the evening hours they spend away from family in out-of-the-way town courts, the juggling acts they have to pull at their private practices, or the good and bad relationships they develop with assigned clients – because they believe in what they do.
As assistant Diane DiStefano pointed out, they are their client’s first and last resort, a distinction she proudly accepts.
“If you don’t help these people, no one else will,” DiStefano said. “These cases are no different than my retained ones – the case is the case, the facts are the facts, and you do what you have to do. Everyone deserves representation, and you do the best that you can.”
DiStefano recently defended former pastor and convicted sex offender Lewis Lee, but said on rare occasions there are cases she’ll refuse.
Before moving to the county, assistant Kayphet Mavady said working as a public defender on the federal level in Syracuse burned him out. Locally, he said the obstacles can still be mentally taxing.
“The reality of it is, in local courts there is the tendency for the public to think that if you’re charged – then you did it,” Mavady said. “That’s the psychological hurdle I have to go through first.”
The second, Mavady said, is he can’t personally judge his client’s guilt or innocence.
“My position is: if the people had the money to do the investigation, and the accused doesn’t have the money to defend themselves, then I have to do it for them,” Mavady said. “It is my job to defend them whether they are guilty or not. That is irrelevant to me; the government has to prove you did it.”
For assistant James Cushman, the psychological switch from proving guilt after 28 years as an assistant district attorney to public defense didn’t take much re-design.
“It’s the same court room, I’m just on the other side of it,” Cushman said. “It’s not a shock to the system. You kind of shift yourself mentally to appreciate that you represent people accused of crimes, instead of ‘the people.’”
“I’ve gone to the dark side,” he joked.
But public defense is not without a dark side, Gordon said.
“Family court is the most difficult,” he said. “It’s so emotionally charged when you’re dealing with the custody of a child.”
In criminal court, Gordon said defending sexual abuse cases is tough when one considers the ramifications the crime has had on both the victims and the perpetrators.
“Sexual abuse cases are hard, very hard,” he said. “Most of the people who commit a sex abuse crime were also sexually abused. It’s an amazing statistic, it’s definitely cyclical in nature.”
However, public defense is not without its bright side, either.
“The ones who have the least are most grateful for what you do,” DiStefano said. “It’s those clients that make it worth it. If they told me I had to give this up, I’d be heartbroken.”
Gordon ventured a guess that 75 to 80 percent of their clients have drug and/or alcohol problems, regardless of the crime of which they’re accused.
“Sometimes we can help,” he said, citing they’ve been successful in advocating for treatment court or rehabilitation in some cases. “Some of those have been good success stories.”
Mavady said his biggest pet peeve with the job is clients who don’t show up to appointments and court dates. He and Gordon said the thing that shocks clients and the public most is the idea that public defenders and prosecutors get along with each other.
“It’s better to attract with honey than with vinegar,” Mavady said.