From the Annapolis Capital-Gazette:

A look at a day in the life of prosecutor, public defender

By ERIC HARTLEY, Staff Writer

It's still early on a Wednesday morning, and Mark Tyler's day isn't off to a great start.

A state trooper, the prosecutor's only witness against a man accused of driving while high on marijuana, was nowhere to be found.

Finally, he shows up late. Wearing jeans. Apparently he didn't get the subpoena ordering him to come to court.

The traffic docket is filled with the usual driving while suspended and drunken-driving cases and is bulging this morning at 10 pages. It doesn't look as if Judge Martha F. Rasin will get to it all, especially because she's trying to work in a civil dispute.

"This is sort of routine around here," says Mr. Tyler, one of the county's newest assistant state's attorneys.

He tries to coordinate with clerks and defense lawyers to move some of the cases to another courtroom that's less backed up. But once he gets there, Judge Rasin's clerk calls to say she's wrapped up her civil case and wants to get to some of those criminal cases.

Now.

"So we're going back to 3?" Mr. Tyler says, a bit confused.

After hurriedly getting another prosecutor to handle a couple of his cases where defendants are pleading guilty, Mr. Tyler heads back to Courtroom 3, where Judge Rasin is waiting.

One problem, though: He's forgotten some of his files in the rush and has to go back to Courtroom 2 to get them.

And it's not even lunchtime yet. Just another day in District Court, where justice, though perhaps blind, is an impatient mistress who doesn't have a minute to waste.

Mr. Tyler, 27, has been a county prosecutor since September and works in Glen Burnie. Dennis O'Connell, 35, has been an assistant public defender since November and works in Annapolis.

They are two cogs in the county's District Court machine that sees more than 13,000 criminal cases and 7,000 drunken-driving cases a year. If that's not enough, prosecutors also handle the "doggie docket," where people pay fines for things such as letting a dog run off its leash.

District Court was first called the People's Court, since it's where people can come to resolve small disputes.

Most felonies are tried in Circuit Court. And although the work they're doing now doesn't usually make the papers, young lawyers such as these might one day be handling big-time murders.

Still, Mr. Tyler and Mr. O'Connell see cases every day that affect people's lives, sometimes permanently. With so much at stake, they try to leave work at work.

"If I took everything home, I'd go crazy," Mr. O'Connell says.

"You could really give yourself an ulcer in this job," Mr. Tyler says.

Never a dull day

Mr. O'Connell hasn't had his Matlock moment yet.

"I haven't made the state's star witness cry and had their case shatter in front of them," he jokes.

In fact, trials are relatively rare in District Court. With the huge number of cases, there's intense pressure on attorneys to settle cases. By the end of March, Mr. O'Connell had handled about 250 cases. Fewer than 25 went to trial.

On a recent day, his clients include an 81-year-old Navy veteran with no criminal record pulled over for drunken driving; a woman accused of crashing her car and cursing at officers trying to give her a blood-alcohol test; and an alleged victim in a domestic violence case who refused to testify against his girlfriend.

Two of the cases go to trial, bucking Mr. O'Connell's usual odds. For young attorneys, actually trying a case can be a bit of a thrill.

"The trial - it's a pretty intense experience," Mr. O'Connell says.

He grew up in Prince George's County, but went to Colorado State University. After graduating with a degree in natural resources, he bounced around working in landscaping and environmental restoration. He worked on Alaskan fishing boats, and as a park ranger in Montana. But it was tough getting a full-time job in his field.

As he planted trees one cold November day, a lightbulb went on: He realized that if this was where his college education had gotten him, something was wrong.

Always interested in the law, he enrolled in law school at the University of Baltimore and graduated in 2003. He then clerked for a Prince George's County judge who was a former public defender.

Impressed by the caliber of the public defenders he saw, he applied for a job with the state office. He wanted to go to Anne Arundel, Prince George's or one of the three Southern Maryland counties.

After training with an experienced public defender for about a month, he started taking on his own clients. Most are respectful, but he does have one pet peeve: "When people say they don't want a public defender, they want a real attorney, that kind of annoys me."

The Howard County resident isn't sure how long he wants to be a public defender.

Representing so many different kinds of people - most charged with theft, drug possession or assault - has been eye-opening.

"It's almost like a different job every day," Mr. O'Connell says. "I'm constantly learning."

When he's not in court, he meets with clients in jail or calls those who have made bail to set up meetings to discuss their cases. But sometimes he can't talk to his clients until just before trial. And almost all deals with prosecutors are made on the day of trial, sometimes literally at the last minute.

The usual question passed between them: "What are you thinking?"

"It is a lot of negotiating out in the hallway and courtrooms and conference rooms," Mr. O'Connell says.

With the 81-year-old man - who had a few drinks at a party and got behind the wheel, then caused a minor accident on Riva Road - there was little question of what ought to happen. He had no record - not even speeding tickets, apparently - and prosecutors had no interest in putting him in jail. So Mr. O'Connell and the prosecutor agreed on probation before judgment. That means the crime will be cleared from his record if he doesn't get in trouble again.

"How could I let myself be so weak?" the man tearfully tells the judge, with his wife of 58 years and other family members in the courtroom.

"I was glad I was able to help him out," Mr. O'Connell says later.

Quick work in court

If there's no deal, they go to trial.

Because the cases are relatively simple, District Court trials are brief - often just a police officer or the victim testifying for the state, with the defendant as the only witness on his side. Rarely do they go more than 90 minutes.

Mr. O'Connell's first trial this day is even shorter than that. To be exact, he wins in less than a minute.

His client and the client's girlfriend, both charged with assault in a domestic argument, decline to testify, citing their right not to incriminate themselves. Since they're the only witnesses against each other, the state has no cases and both are acquitted.

"That's the only time we can tell the state what's going to happen in a case," Mr. O'Connell says with a chuckle.

Defense lawyers usually aren't so lucky, though, and in Mr. O'Connell's other trial this day, the state's witnesses do show up. His client is accused of driving drunk and flipping her car. After rescue workers got her out, she colorfully cursed at police and refused to take a blood-alcohol test, an officer testifies.

Mr. O'Connell and his client have agreed she wouldn't make the best witness and won't take the stand.

But with police testifying she was slurring and swaying and smelled of alcohol after being pulled out of an upside-down car, it's going to be tough to argue she wasn't drinking and driving.

'Herding people'

After talking to his state trooper, Mr. Tyler has managed to convince the judge to push that trial back to the afternoon. That doesn't mean his work for the morning is through, though.

In District Court, a prosecutor is like the conductor of an unruly grade-school orchestra. In a practical sense, Mr. Tyler runs the courtroom, not the judge. He decides when to call cases, looking at which lawyers and witnesses are available.

If an opposing attorney has a trial later on the Eastern Shore, say, Mr. Tyler might do him a favor and call his case first. If - as with the missing state trooper - he's short a witness, he'll try to put that case off as long as possible.

Then there's the matter of corralling civilian witnesses, most of whom have to take off work to come to court and would rather not be there, truth be told. "Do I have to come to court?" is their favorite question.

"A lot of it is more the practice of herding people than practicing law," Mr. Tyler chuckles.

If he's lucky, Mr. Tyler sees cases two weeks ahead of time. He needs time to figure out how strong his case is and decide what kind of plea deal to offer, if any.

But with the stacks of cases they have to handle, prosecutors sometimes go into court flying blind. Sometimes they simply haven't had time to review a traffic case until a few minutes before court. Other times, they're taking a case handed off from another prosecutor.

When Mr. Tyler has to rush back to Judge Rasin's courtroom, he leaves some of his simpler cases behind, including a couple where defendants have agreed to plead guilty. He calls in another young prosecutor, Colin Kelly, from the State's Attorney's Office across the street and asks him to handle those cases.

Back in Courtroom 3, Mr. Tyler thinks of a couple more details he forgot. He has the bailiff radio to the other courtroom, relaying a message to Mr. Kelly.

Helping people

Mr. Tyler grew up in Pocomoke on the Eastern Shore and went to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, then law school at the University of Maryland. The Baltimore County resident, who has an interest in social policy, wants to run for office some day and thought a prosecutor's office would be a good place to start.

As with Mr. O'Connell, he trained with a veteran attorney for about a month before going out on his own. Mr. Tyler worked in Annapolis until February, when he was sent to Glen Burnie.

He's not sending people away to life terms in prison yet, but the victories can be just as satisfying. Recently he got a sentence of a year in jail for a burglar who punched a police officer and broke his nose.

"Even though it may not be a first-degree murder charge, you're standing up for people who have a right to have someone come into court and seek justice for them," Mr. Tyler says.

As the prosecutor, he's the lightning rod. Sometimes he'll come back from a morning in court to find 10 voice mails, many from witnesses trying to get out of coming to court and defense lawyers begging for sweetheart deals.

"It gets old after a while," Mr. Tyler says. "I'm doing my job."

Today, the defense lawyer in his driving under the influence trial publicly accuses Mr. Tyler of trying the case "as an intellectual exercise," since the man's also facing murder charges in Baltimore. Mr. Tyler doesn't appreciate having his motives impugned.

"Sometimes we're treated like punching bags," he says.

With the morning docket over - or as much of it as the judges could get through - everything is set for the afternoon. Mr. Tyler tells his state trooper to come back at 1:30 and heads to lunch across the street.

Not for the money

Neither Mr. O'Connell nor Mr. Tyler are in this for the money. Mr. O'Connell makes a little over $49,000 and Mr. Tyler about $45,000.

But both see what they do as a public service. They see their share of 10-hour or longer days, but they can go home at night feeling they've done some good.

Sure, the thought that some of his law-school classmates are making twice his salary has crossed Mr. Tyler's mind.

But then he thinks of the two young men he prosecuted for setting off fireworks on the Fourth of July and assaulting an older couple who told them to get off their property.

"The victims came up afterward and said, 'Thank you so much,' " Mr. Tyler recalls.

Collecting a check from a downtown law firm doesn't compare to that.

Closing arguments

It's late afternoon and Mr. O'Connell's trial with the woman in the car wreck has wrapped up. It seemed like an open-and-shut case, but Mr. O'Connell argues his client's demeanor might reflect the fact she had just been in an accident, not the fact she had been drinking.

"You don't have to be intoxicated to be upset," Mr. O'Connell says.

The judge agrees there isn't enough evidence the woman had actually driven the car. He finds her not guilty.

It's satisfying for Mr. O'Connell, but he tries to keep victories and losses in perspective: There's always the next case.

"Sometimes the state has strong cases and sometimes they don't," he says.

When his afternoon session starts, Mr. Tyler's state trooper is a no-show again.

Mr. Tyler furiously tries to get in touch with him, having courtroom clerks and other troopers call him and tell him to get to court immediately. But the trooper's not answering his cell phone.

Mr. Tyler calls other cases first for brief hearings - guilty pleas or dismissals - but finally it's time to pay the piper. He's out of other cases to stall for time. The trooper hasn't shown up, the state has no other witness, and the man is acquitted.

Not long after that, the trooper shows up.

"This is the kind of thing that we have to put up with," Mr. Tyler sighs later. "Sometimes you know you have a good case and you know you can prove it, and these things happen."

So, no, it wasn't the best day. But tomorrow's docket is waiting.