CBS News legal analyst Mickey Sherman
Recollections about lawyers, guns and money make for anecdotal book
I'd really like to meet the rival who beat out Mickey Sherman for high school class clown, because Sherman is a really funny guy.
He's also the scum of the earth to those who despise criminal defense lawyers as protectors of the antisocial rabble who threaten us all.
But in How Can You Defend Those People? Sherman explains, in an often humorous way, what motivates those like him who defend the presumably guilty.
Many times 'those people' aren't always who we think they are. He has seen people who considered him a disgusting parasite one day show up at his office door the next, checkbook in hand.
'This metamorphosis generally occurs precisely 10 minutes after their son or daughter gets arrested,' Sherman relates.
He covers his own metamorphosis from the 'slums' of Greenwich, Conn., and a 'solid C' academic career to life as a 'C list celebrity.'
But mostly the reader gets an anecdote-filled primer on our criminal justice system and the way it is covered by the media from one of the country's most recognizable lawyers, thanks to his being the go-to legal expert for an alphabet soup of cable and network television programs.
Sherman's legal career began as a public defender. It's a profession he believes is unfairly maligned.
'Even my mother rarely took my calls,' he writes of those days.
He was also a prosecutor for four years and mildly successful TV game show contestant (winning $17,000 and all kinds of prizes) before becoming a 'real lawyer.'
'You can't buy a house in Fairfield County, for $17,000 and all kinds of stuff,' he points out.
Having spent some time with him a few years ago when he was involved in a cold-case homicide in Olathe, I would observe that the personality he displays on television is the same in a courthouse lobby, over dinner and drinks or in a book.
But behind the façade of disarming humor, Sherman stands out as someone who takes what he does very seriously. Like any good lawyer, he knows that the decisions he makes have an impact on the lives of real people -- even if they are people who bring trouble on themselves.
'People do stupid or bad things,' Sherman writes. 'People like me are there to clean up the mess, or at least, to do our best to minimize how their conduct will impact the rest of their lives.'
A defense attorney has an absolute duty to do everything within ethical bounds to help his client, but sometimes those bounds are not always well-defined.
Sherman relates one dilemma when a client confessed to him that he had stashed a gun in the back seat of a police car. The officer who had arrested the man for burglary had missed the gun when he searched Sherman's client. The gun, fully loaded, had been taken in another burglary police knew nothing about.
Risking an ethical complaint but afraid that an unsuspecting police officer could be at risk, Sherman told an officer he trusted about the gun. The officer promised that his client would not face additional charges.
'He thanked me, and I went back home, wondering what it was going to be like applying for a job in advertising after my disbarment,' Sherman says.
But when his client went to court, nothing was mentioned about the gun.
Sherman points out how much respect he has for the judges, defense lawyers, police officers and prosecutors who strive to do the right thing, no matter which side of the system they toil on.
And despite the serious nature of what they do, Sherman proves you can still have fun doing it.
Appearing with a client before a tough judge, he asked for a continuance to research an issue. The judge asked what it was.
'Your vacation schedule, your honor,' Sherman said.
The request was granted.
How Can You Defend Those People? by Mickey Sherman (240 pages; the Lyons Press; $24.95)
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