Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
Your history… where you started. Let’s go back for the beginning. When you started, out of law school as a district attorney, a prosecutor, and you hear many attorneys starting that… “I ended up in the PD’s department”…the public defenders’ department. But you went as a prosecutor. How did that change your, let me say, change…how did it help your practice today being in that role when you first left law school?
Darryl Stallworth – Criminal Defense Attorney – Alameda County, CA
It’s one of the most valuable parts of my practice. Because when I decided to become a prosecutor, I wanted to be in a place where I had some discretion… where I would be able to review a case, charge a case, decide whether or not I was going to go to trial, or how it’s going to be resolved.
Now, I didn’t do that from day one. I had to develop the experience in going to trial. I had to get familiar with whether or not a witness was credible. I had to understand the trustworthiness of an informant. I had to understand DNA, forensics, fingerprints, guns, ballistics. It was a fifteen-year education that taught me just about everything you could ever understand and learn about being a lawyer.
So when I made the decision to leave the DA’s office and do a little civil work at first. And then I got all these calls from people who needed help with criminal defense. It wasn’t a big jump for me to figure out, in this case, doesn’t really make a lot of sense. I don’t think the prosecutor understands that they’d got some problems here.
I give the football analogy. I played quarterback for fifteen years, and then I played safety. I knew all the plays. I knew what the quarterback was thinking. I knew how to set it up. I knew how to defend it. I also understood that in order to help my client, I needed to get the prosecutor to understand and appreciate the totality of the circumstances.
And having had 10,000 conversations with defense attorneys over the years, I knew what resonated with me as a prosecutor. So, when I sit down at the table with the prosecutor, I give them what I needed to know when I was a prosecutor so that I can help my client. And that’s something you don’t get unless you put that time in, and unless you’ve been able to understand why a prosecutor might give your client a break. Why a prosecutor might consider a lower sentence. I give them what I needed to have when I was a prosecutor. And it’s been really helpful for my clients.
English 
Español de México