Friend of mine was a public defender in the Northeast. Had a variety of wonderful "dumb client" stories. Two of them:
* One involved a burglar who was deaf, so every alarm was a silent alarm as far as he was concerned. Police would show up, find him still rummaging through things. I told my father (a retired public defender) this and he suggested that, if the guy had been his client, he might suggest that he get into a _different_ line of crime. Forging, perhaps?
* Two guys in a small town in the Northeast do the old "order a big pizza, rob the delivery man" ploy. OK. Then they get high and wander around town eating pizza. Problem is, one of them is a dwarf. So the cops don't have too much trouble figuring out who the suspects are — how many dwarf/normal-sized guy pairs with pizza are there going to be wandering around a small town?
Lastly, not a "dumb client" story, but another story from the same friend: friend in question had to represent a child molester who was also an Elvis impersonator. He was tremendously upset that they made him shave his big ol' sideburns while in prison.
Also, my father (a public defender) had a client who tried to claim that he was just trying to show his gun to a guy while he drove by, and it happened to go off numerous times. My father's response: "Um, try again. It _doesn't even matter_ if that's true or not, it won't fly with a jury.".
* One involved a burglar who was deaf, so every alarm was a silent alarm as far as he was concerned. Police would show up, find him still rummaging through things. I told my father (a retired public defender) this and he suggested that, if the guy had been his client, he might suggest that he get into a _different_ line of crime. Forging, perhaps?
* Two guys in a small town in the Northeast do the old "order a big pizza, rob the delivery man" ploy. OK. Then they get high and wander around town eating pizza. Problem is, one of them is a dwarf. So the cops don't have too much trouble figuring out who the suspects are — how many dwarf/normal-sized guy pairs with pizza are there going to be wandering around a small town?
Lastly, not a "dumb client" story, but another story from the same friend: friend in question had to represent a child molester who was also an Elvis impersonator. He was tremendously upset that they made him shave his big ol' sideburns while in prison.
Also, my father (a public defender) had a client who tried to claim that he was just trying to show his gun to a guy while he drove by, and it happened to go off numerous times. My father's response: "Um, try again. It _doesn't even matter_ if that's true or not, it won't fly with a jury.".