I have been a PD for almost 18 months, and it truly is my dream job; it was my goal for law school and I can truly say I believe I was meant to do this work. I’ve started getting more serious cases, but nothing too bad so far; I’ve been trying to be mindful of how SA cases are going to affect me, and to prepare myself for having a client with those charges.
Today I was on duty and picked up a client charged with both charges in the title and immediately knew this would be bad. He confessed to the cops that he and his girlfriend touched her young child with hands and mouths. The child is barely over a year old. He said his father also had these tendencies, & that when he was a kid, he saw CSAM on his father’s computer that he says depicted a child being r**ed to death.
Dealing with homeschool, maybe ID, past hard drug use.
I’ve been sick to my stomach all day. I cried when I got home, I honestly didn’t know what to do. I don’t know if I have the strength to defend this person…. I believe in the Constitution and understand that sometimes I’m just a due process protection, but I can’t wrap my head around how to do my job well and feel okay about myself afterward.
If anyone could give me some advice on how to navigate difficult situations like this, I’d be so grateful.
Edit: I will not be handling this case alone. It’ll get passed off to someone more senior soon, but as the duty attorney I will have to cover the dangerousness hearing next week (possible hold of 120 days). Standard practice in my jx; just wanted advice on how to emotionally handle cases like this now and in the future.
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I’m not really understanding why some comments are telling me this isn’t the field for me; it is. I want to do this work and I can; I just am trying to navigate a new aspect of this job that is extremely emotional. Do none of you remember your first time dealing with this? Is it really so unreasonable to be emotionally affected by something like this if you’ve never experienced it before? I’m not asking you to tell me to get a different job.