The Advocate
There are roughly 2,600 private attorneys in Massachusetts who accept court appointments to represent indigent defendants. Last year, some of the attorneys, known as bar advocates, refused appointments in protest of the $30 to $54 hourly rates the state paid for their services. The crisis prompted the state's Supreme Judicial Court to order the release of defendants who did not receive representation within seven days. Governor Mitt Romney has since signed legislation that raised bar advocates' pay by $7.50 an hour, a rate that still ranks as one of the lowest in the nation. Victoria Bonilla-Argudo, 47, a partner in the Boston law firm Bourbeau & Bonilla, is married with two children and lives in Milford. She has been a lawyer for 13 years and as a bar advocate has represented hundreds of clients, most of them accused of robbery, assault, and dealing drugs. This is her story.
Sometimes court is like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'm the Black Knight in the scene where King Arthur and his companion, Patsy, are riding imaginary horses, clopping coconuts to imitate the sound of hoofs. They encounter the knight at a bridge, and he says, "None shall pass." A fight starts, and the Black Knight gets one arm chopped off, then the other. "Just a flesh wound," he insists. There is more fighting, and, one by one, his legs are cut off. Finally, there's nothing left but a stump of a knight. Arthur starts to cross the bridge, but the knight says, "Running away, eh? You yellow bastard. Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!"
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That's an appointed criminal-defense attorney. That's what we do.
It is about when you're in front of a judge thinking, "What next? What now?" You've got this person at your side, quaking. You're the only thing between the person and prison. Your defense is used up, you've done everything you can, but you look up at the judge and try to find some redeeming quality in your client, something to say on the chance it will prevent the judge from ruling the way you know he's thinking. You keep fighting, like the Black Knight.
I get angry when other attorneys or judges say a publicly appointed attorney doesn't do a good job because he or she is not making money. I work the same way - hard - whether it's an appointed or private case.
In a single day, there can be 30 or 40 arraignments in Boston Municipal Court. There are usually other bar advocates, and we divvy up the list: These 10 are yours, those 10 are mine, and so on. No matter how serious the cases, we split them arbitrarily. A division of the goods.
Then I meet them, my people, in the holding cells, where it stinks to high heaven, where everybody who was arrested on Friday hasn't seen a shower, and it's Monday. Their breath can blow you away. I put on my biggest smile and say something like "Hey, Michael Jackson, today's your lucky day! You're on my list." They look at me as if to say, "Oh, my God, what is happening? I have a crazy woman for an attorney." Sometimes the humor helps.
People are yelling, it's crowded, and there's no privacy. "Look, I can't talk about your case right now," I say. "We're going to the courtroom for arraignment. The charges will be read, and we're going to enter a not-guilty plea, OK? Tell me what good things I can say about you so the judge will release you from this hellhole." Then I start asking questions: "How far did you go in school? Are you employed? Do you have mental-health issues? Do you need detox?" Continued...
