MyFriend,adrian
criminal law Section
Chairs:JustinPetredis-LawOfficesofJustinPetredis,P.A.&MatthewAlexSmith-OfficeoftheStateAttorney
Adrian in 2008, driving his truck and
wearing his signature hat.
theyareeverywhere.
theyareinourownfamily.
theyaresleepingonthestreets.
theyaretheforgottenpeople
ofourcourtsystem.
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but
make music for us to enjoy. They don’t
eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in
corncribs, they don’t do one thing but
sing their hearts out for us. That’s why
it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
— “To Kill a Mockingbird,”
Harper Lee, 1960
Adrian was fresh off his
first night in jail when
I first met him twenty
years ago. A few days
earlier, Adrian had grown weary
of his English professor’s tiresome
lectures at USF, expressed this to
him honestly before the whole
class, and having tolerated about
all he could for the day casually
walked down, threw a right cross
at the man’s jaw, and knocked him
out cold.
It was certainly a moment of
great drama that I have replayed
in my head dozens of times over
the past couple decades. No doubt
it was a well-remembered class by
his sophomore colleagues.
My buddy that introduced us
informed me right away that
Adrian had the triple crown of
criminal defense work: no defenses,
no discernible mitigation and, most
importantly to me at the moment,
no money. Undaunted by his lack
of capital, Adrian stuck out his
big right paw, said he was glad
to meet me and that he really
“messed up.” He wanted my help.
It was the beginning of a strange,
often frustrating, beautiful attorneyclient
relationship. Adrian was
my friend.
As that professor would attest,
Adrian was not one to beat around
the bush. He went right to work on
the fee negotiation. He explained
proudly that he was a “luthier” and
then responded to the confusion on
my face by quickly adding “that’s
a dude that makes guitars.” I liked
him instantly.
And so that first case, in a deal
now eerily reminiscent of Charlie
Daniels’ “The Devil Went Down
to Georgia,” was paid for by a
handsome handmade rosewood
acoustic that Adrian lovingly honed
over the course of a year. Adrian
did all right at the end of that one,
escaping with just a misdemeanor
nick and a year suspension from
the university. He would later get
re-admitted and earn his degree.
Looking back, I got the better part
of that deal.
That was the first of several
troubling incidents that Adrian
would find himself in over the
years. Adrian was mentally ill.
He had an impulse control problem
that would flash like a pipe bomb,
and, for as long as his parents could
remember, Adrian suffered from a
noticeable chemical imbalance. He
wanted to get better. He regularly
saw therapists and physicians. He
took his medication. He changed
his medication. He abandoned
his medication. He cursed his
medication. In the moments of
rationality that inevitably followed
his mania or what he sometimes
called his “spells,” he instantly
regretted his impulse to act and
ask questions later.
In 2004, he pulled a boxcutter
on a fellow employee who would
not stop talking politics. He got
in fights over nothing. He battled
himself every day. He would
frequently then feel immense
remorse, asking me if he could
apologize to the offended party —
a bit of personal catharsis (or a
party admission) that no criminal
defense lawyer can abide.
When Adrian’s chemical balance
was right, he was the sweetest soul
you would ever meet. He was a
musician, a writer, and a man
of the arts. He was a hunter, a
woodworker and a herpetologist
(in Adrian’s words “a dude that
likes lizards”). He was an over-theroad
truck driver and an air
conditioning repairman. Adrian
came to my office once to show
me the eulogy he had written for
his grandfather. It was staggeringly
powerful. He sent me postcards
from all over the country. I look
at them as I write this — Philmont,
New Mexico; Butte, Montana;
Devil’s Lake, North Dakota.
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