All too often, when I am representing a client in a criminal matter, the client will begin to mutter that the DA doesn't like them, that the DA is being vindictive and unreasonable and that the DA needs to get a life etc. In other words, they take it personally.
In my many careers in the law--I've been a soldier, sailor, tinker and all the rest--I have never been a DA, so I can only guess the pressure of that job. I have, however, had friends who worked in the OCDA's office, in the Humboldt DA's office, in the LA DA's office, and I can tell you that very, very few of these people have ever expressed any personal interest in punishing a defendant. More likely you will get a DA who says, "this crime personally offends me"--the crime, not the person--"so I want more jail time on the case." I don't really think this is terribly appropriate, either (one should leave one's personal feelings out of the administration of justice) but I tell you this so that you know that a personal vendetta is the last thing on a prosecutor's mind in any case.
No, a deputy DA is as much harried and overwhelmed as any public defender. They have 500 cases on calendar today and it will make their lives easier if your client just pleads and gets it over with. But they can't give away the store and give your client a sweetheart deal because they have supervisors who look over their work and say things like, "how come you didn't give this petty theif jail time? He took something worth fifty bucks!" So they give you something they think is a good deal and hope you'll just take it and go away.
There's usually no animosity about it. My friend Arnie Klein, who just retired from the Humboldt DA's office last week was famous for yelling at you in court and then having a cup of coffee with you the next day up in the courthouse cafe--so long as you were buying. Arnie used to give pretty good dispositions but every once in a while he'd get his back up and refuse to deal. Then when the both of you had gone around and around--often after a tempestuous prelim--he'd finally sit down with you and work something out all of you could live with.
Arnie was my kind of prosecutor. He was funny and sarcastic and realistic. He was personable and colorful. He used his back East accent--I think it was Jersey, but it could have been Bost0n--to emphasize to you that he'd been around the block more times than your dog and would not be fooled for anything. And he never was. But he always ended up giving you the best disposition you could get on a case because he knew how to settle things.
I never opposed him in trial. I had a few prelims with him and he was efficient and clear in his presentation of evidence, a plus in a profession where often prosecutors flail at trying to show the simplest of things.
I know that as a defense attorney I'm supposed to tell you that the DA is biased and lazy and doesn't care about anything but going home at 5 o'clock. I can't tell you those things because I don't believe them. Prosecutors work harder than anyone in Humboldt.
Except me, of course. I never seem to stop working.
