Life as a Public Defender
BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. -- As tears fall down Ana Dale's face she tells me she wants to accept the state's offer for her charge of fraudulent use of a disabled permit. She is accused of using a handicap placard without the owner of the permit, her son, with her.
Miss Dale is too overwhelmed to deal with the court system with everything else going on in her life. She recently lost her mother, she is raising two children alone and her son with severe autism is having serious problems at school.
The decision to take a plea or go to trial is one of the few decisions an attorney does not get to make. It's up to the client. Regardless of those rules I responded to Miss Dale's defeat by telling her, you are not taking a plea in this case.
The state's offer was to withhold adjudication -- there would be no finding of guilt -- plus court costs. But I didn't want this young single mom to have a fraud on her record that could prevent her from getting a job in the future, and I didn't want her to have to pay hundreds of dollars in court costs.
I explained to her that we didn't have to have a trial by jury, but I did want to take her case to the judge, for a non-jury trial.
We agreed that I would ask for a non-jury trial, in exchange for the judge agreeing to no jail for Miss Dale, and no adjudication if she were to be found guilty. That means that even if the judge did find her guilty, she would impose the same sentence that the state has offered in the plea deal -- no adjudication. So on her record it won't say "adjudicated guilty."
Requesting a non-jury trial where jail and adjudication of guilt is taken off the table is common when the state is seeking the minimum sentence, so I wasn't surprised when the judge agreed. In this case, the crime is a 2nd degree misdemeanor, which carries a maximum sentence of 60 days in jail or 6 months' probation.
The handicap permit Miss Dale had was legitimate. It was issued to Miss Dale's 5 year old son and it was assigned to her vehicle as the primary caretaker. Miss Dale went to the mall with her disabled son. She parked in a handicap spot then she took her son into the mall to drop him off with his grandmother who was waiting for them at the food court. When Miss Dale exited the mall a traffic accident investigator, having a slow day, was checking permits in the handicap parking spots. He saw my client walk to her car and questioned why she was parked in a handicap space.
As I prepare my client for trial I repeatedly speak to the prosecutor about this case. I even seek out the state's county court supervisor to try to get the charge dropped. I stress the fact that my client has a disabled child, I explain how she took the time to obtain a government issued disabled permit and I let the state know how this charge has been weighing so heavily on my client. I knew we'd likely win at trial but I didn't want to put my client through a jury trial if I didn't have to.
The state refused to drop the case because the investigator said he asked my client and she said her child was at home. My client says he told her to "tell it to the judge" when she tried to explain that she just dropped her son off inside the mall.
When the investigator took the stand I had only one question I really needed to ask him. Did you see my client when she pulled into the parking spot? No. No he did not. There was absolutely no proof that Miss Dale's son wasn't in the car when she pulled in and parked in the handicap spot.
The judge found my client not guilty, but my celebration was muted. In this case I would have been happier if the charge had been dropped weeks ago -- and knowing how much stress it had added to Miss Dale's life, it was a bittersweet victory.
The high profile trials of Manuel Noriega, Timothy McVeigh, OJ Simpson and George Zimmerman are among the important legal stories Kim Segal covered as a journalist for over two decades. While working as a producer for CNN, she began attending law school at night, and was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2005.
At 46, she left her television career for a position as a Public Defender in Broward County, Florida.