But I Don't Understand What's Going On!

By Ann

"But I don’t understand what’s going on."   

This is generally uttered by a criminal defendant who does not like taking personal responsibility for his or her actions.  I hear it all the time.  They complain and whine and fuss and use this phrase when they try to make it through a guilty plea (you have to admit guilt).  They say these seven ghastly words when I explain their limited options based on the law, their prior criminal history, and the unwillingness of the prosecution to negotiate a better deal.  They say it to the judge in hopes of getting out of their precarious situation.  

This usually backfires and earns both myself and the whiner an extra five minutes in private where they can whine and complain some more. 

The reality is that people overuse this phrase.  There are legitimate times when people actually don’t know what’s going on.  These include natural disasters, sudden onsets of serious medical maladies such as a heart attack or stroke, and sitting through a Shakespeare production.  However, it is generally not true of any criminal proceeding.  You know if you are going to trial.  You know if you are pleading guilty.  You know if you are being sentenced.  You may not like it.  You may not like the law.  You may not like your options but you do know what’s going on.  So let’s stop the charade because it is just plain annoying!

Of course, there are rare instances when you actually don’t know what’s going on in the courtroom and that is when you are represented by Joseph Rakofsky in a murder trial.  

Rakofsky is a private attorney who took on a murder trial as his first case.  He was so incompetent that the Judge declared a mistrial.   Because the standard for lawyer incompetence is exceedingly low, this guy had to be really bad.  The worst part is that he actually bragged about his incompetence on facebook.  I find this to be incomprehensible as I still get nervous when I go to trial on a case that I deeply care about and I am a seasoned trial lawyer.   And this guy represented a man who was on trial for murder!

He is a paid lawyer.  He is a private lawyer.  He is an incompetent lawyer.  But he is what the public percieves as real.  I sometimes wish that some of my ungrateful clients who call me names and verbally abuse me would have their families work a little overtime, pay this guy, and know what it really means to not know what is going on.