Notable ruling made for notable defender

It was the first time in 30 years that such a ruling had been made in Judge Timothy C. Ellender’s Houma courtroom for the 32nd Judicial District of Louisiana.

Steven Serafin probably did not get off the hook legally regarding charges that he was responsible for an alleged theft of over $500 when Ellender dismissed the criminal case against him on Jan. 5, due to a lack of evidence for probable cause. He is sure to be defending himself in civil court over a business deal that went bad.

Serafin’s case, some attorneys would argue, was simply redirected to the appropriate location for litigation since it had more to do with contract law than larceny in its most literal form.

However, the matter did draw attention to the legal knowledge and skill demonstrated by a young public defender staff attorney named Amanda Mustin, who argued the case, and offered an opportunity to examine the work performed by lawyers provided by criminal courts when a defendant cannot afford one.

A 2006 graduate of the LSU Law School, Mustin is a native of Houma who returned home to establish her career in spite of youthful intentions of leaving and never returning. “I said the, ‘I’m never coming back’ when I was in high school,” said the 1998 graduate of South Terrebonne High School.

“‘I’m never going to do defense work.’ That’s what I said in law school. So what did I do? I ended up coming back to Houma and …,” Mustin said as she laughed and held out her arms to show her work space at the public defender’s office one-half block away from the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse.

Mustin is among approximately 15,000 public defenders nationally who make sure that criminal defendants who are financially indigent, and represent nearly 6 million cases a year, have their rights to due process protected in accordance with the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

While constitutionally based, the guarantee of having a lawyer available to defend the criminally accused when that person cannot afford one did not become a standard until 1963, with a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Gideon vs. Wainwright.

In June 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon went to the Bay Harbor Pool Room in Panama City Fla., for a few beers. The problem was that he took the beers and did not pay for them. He was also charged with taking $5 from a jukebox.

Unable to afford a lawyer, Gideon attempted to defend himself before a Florida jury that found him guilty.

While serving his five-year prison term, Gideon researched the law and determined that his Sixth Amendment rights, as they apply to states in the Fourteenth Amendment, had been violated. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in a suit formally filed against Louie L. Wainwright, the then secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections n and won.

“Remember, we take an oath, even before we know what kind of attorneys we are going to be to zealously represent our clients. That doesn’t matter if our client is a murderer or not. We get up there and we give them our all in trial,” Mustin said.

Mustin and other public defenders contend that it is not a matter of trying to get a client out of paying a debt to society, if indeed the defendant is guilty, rather it is a matter of making sure every person’s right to due process is protected.

In some cases, Mustin admitted, it also means making sure that all the procedures are properly followed so a genuinely bad guy does not get turned back onto the streets on a technicality.

“I’ve heard it in court. Someone sitting right behind me [saying], ‘I can’t believe she’s representing him.’ I think that the misconception is that the defense attorney [or] public defender is there to get people out of the things they did. That’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to make sure everybody’s rights are protected.

“I would say that well over 90 percent of the people charged with a crime end up pleading [guilty]. So, they don’t end up getting out of trouble. They plea straight into trouble. But it is a matter of us reviewing the file and making sure everything was done on the up and up,” Mustin said.

Historically, public defenders are young lawyers who are paying their dues to the system until they get a big break in the legal profession. Some stay in the office because they found that it fits them professionally. Most are paid around $40,000 a year to start if they are paid by salary. Many are paid by caseload and do not make that much.

Louisiana is the only state in the nation that pays the salaries of public defenders in part by court fees charged to the defendant. According to District Public Defender Tony Champagne (Mustin’s boss) in the 32nd Judicial District that means that $35 of all charges whether a person is found guilty or pleads guilty on anything other than a parking violation goes toward the public defender’s office as the most significant source of revenue for his budget. Funding also is made from bail fees and other sources. Only about 10 percent of the local public defender’s budget comes directly from state allocations.

Anything else of value tends to come from the satisfaction of their work and recognition from professional peers of public defenders.

Champagne himself received acknowledgment for his performance when he was presented with the Justice Albert Tate Jr. Award in December 2010, by the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

As a full time staff lawyer, Mustin, like Champagne, is on salary. She represented 450 cases in 2010 and said she does not pay attention to a win loss ratio.

“As a defender you lose a lot,” Mustin said. “So, I don’t keep up with [a win loss ratio] because it would probably be a huge ego bruiser. A lot of times we don’t get a win. We get the client’s charge dismissed, which is not really winning, but it works out for the client’s best interest.”

Mustin said that even with an average case load that would easily amount to an average of one and a half cases for every day of a year, including weekends and holidays, there are times when certain situations stand out as either satisfying or upsetting.

“My most disappointing case? It was my first felony trial. It was a second-degree murder trial [of Terrell Brown in November 2009]. Our defense was self-defense and it was a shaky self-defense case. My client didn’t have much of a record if anything on his record at all. But in the end [the jury] found him guilty and now he is in jail for the rest of his life,” Mustin said.

This public defender confirmed that indigent persons involved in criminal cases should not be characterized in stereotypes. That understanding has become more common since the recession of the past few years has left people often without the financial means to defend themselves when they might have been able to do so before a job loss or other financial hardship. It also does not mean everyone in that category is automatically guilty or automatically a victim of the system.

“A lot of times we deal with people who are good people but they do really dumb things,” Mustin said.

“Public defenders get a bad rap,” Mustin said of those in her line of practice. “If you watch television you see [the public defenders] come in and have 20 files in their hand. They come to the table and it falls everywhere. They are completely unorganized. And cases aren’t usually as complicated as seen on TV.”

Champagne confirmed that Mustin, like most real life public defenders, is far from the personalities offered on television and in movies. “Amanda is doing a really good job here,” he said. “She has a number of skills that she brings to the office. The first is she is very intelligent. The second is she works very hard. The third is she takes the interest of her clients to heart and tries to do what is necessary to take care of their concerns.”

It’s not just those inside the public defender’s office that have taken notice of Mustin’s work. Among legal professionals, unconfirmed indications are that the district attorney’s office has started putting their more experienced lawyers on cases when Mustin will be met in the courtroom.

Even lawyers with whom Mustin does not directly compete have taken notice. “I watch her in court,” said lawyer Carolyn McNabb. “She is doing a good job.”

Mustin indicated that she has quickly grown by practicing law as a public defender and said having the experience offers an edge for those in other specialized areas. “Some of the attorneys I look up to most either work here or have worked here in the past,” she said.

Mustin said the only certainty is that she has learned to never, say never and not to worry about planning too far in the future. “My only goal is to take what life gives me, make the most of it and be the best attorney I can possibly be,” she said.

As a matter of full disclosure, Mustin revealed that she turned 31 on Jan. 19. She acknowledged as well, that the professional attention corresponding with her birth date and the approximate same number of years it has been since an insufficient evidence ruling like she won this month had been given was quite a gift n but maybe no real surprise.

Making her name by performance in Judge Timothy C. Ellender’s courtroom in District Court 32, public defender Amanda Mustin wants her clients to know that they are not alone when it comes to receiving due process. MIKE NIXON