The story is all around the internet.  It’s the hot topic of the week, and it should be on the lips of every criminal defense practicioner, if not every lawyer who gives a shit about the legal profession – Joseph Rakofsky, an alleged criminal defense lawyer (with all of one whole year of experience) lied and lied and lied and was grossly incompetent in his ‘defense’ of a man accused of murder, Dontrell Deaner, standing trial in DC Superior Court.  You can check out his website if you want to be just utterly sick to your stomach.  This post won’t give this lying piece of scum any more play, he’s had his few minutes of notoriety and if you are interested in the story, which you should be, you can click the links and read for yourself.

This post is about the person who is going to be appointed on this case, David Benowitz, who is the anti-Joseph Rakofsky.  Dave is a home grown (meaning trained by DC Public Defender Services) lawyer with well over a dozen years of strictly criminal defense experience under his belt, who was recently voted Best Lawyer in DC and he even has some criminal law trial certification that no one else in DC has (which seems like kind of a big deal and has fairly rigorous standards.) It seems to me that the judge who did the right thing by Mr. Deaner by granting the mistrial (although one wonders how that idiot Rakofsky got pro haced into the case in the first place) also wanted to make sure that there would be no question that Deaner would get someone who would vigorously advocate for him, and you know, also know how to make objections and move stuff into evidence and crap like that.

Here’s why I’m excited about this appointment, after all, I’m not a DC lawyer, why should I care?  I care because I’m of counsel to David’s firm and I know the kind of work he does, the kind of lawyer he is.  There is nary a doubt in my mind that he’ll do everything he can and then some for Mr. Deaner.  And, let’s be honest, it means I can stick my nose in the case as well.