Public Defender Works Her Way Into Interesting Cases By JACQUELINE FOX Staff Reporter Rose Reglos’ alarm clock goes off at 4 a.m. every morning. By 7:30 a.m. she’s well into another day on the job as one of 30 Los Angeles County public defenders at the Van Nuys Superior courthouse. One colleague terms her “our little spitfire” because of her reputation as a sharp-edged verbal sparrer who, at all of 5 foot 2, looks more like a well-dressed teenager than a 38-year-old attorney. She is flanked at her desk on the 10th floor of the courthouse by vases filled with fresh flowers and “goodie jars” crammed with M & M;’s, cookies, pretzels and Jolly Rancher hard candy. If the throw rug on the floor doesn’t make you feel at home, the teddy bear on the file cabinet and the pots of climbing ivy should. Normally, Reglos would be juggling between 25 and 30 cases at once. But she is two years into preparations for her first death penalty trial with the preliminary hearing just a few weeks away. So, much of her workload has been re-assigned to her colleagues, although she’s technically “on call” throughout the day. Reglos has spent the last 12 years with the county public defender’s office, working her way up from an officer grade 1, handling mostly drunken driving, spousal abuse and other misdemeanor cases, to a grade 4, trying the most serious felonies: rape, murder, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon and robbery. Reglos chose the life of a public defender over a private law practice because, as she put it, “you get to see real lives here.” She may not be able to pick and choose her clients, and the “payoff” for winning is never tied to a financial settlement, but there are perks. She has a secretary and a legal clerk backing her up and, when the occasion calls for it, she can tap the brain trust of her three dozen or so colleagues down the hall. And, contrary to popular belief, not every public defender is underpaid and unappreciated. At grade 4, Reglos makes over $100,000 a year. (Grade 5, the highest level, is usually reserved for management positions.) She sees the judge she’s assigned to every day, along with his staff, the bailiff and the prosecutor sitting on the other side of the podium. It’s like a second family to her. “Think about it,” said Reglos. “I have no one to bill at the end of a case, no overhead expenses and whenever I have a question I have some of the most experienced lawyers to back me up. That’s not something you typically get built into a private practice.” She may pack a serious punch at the podium, but her colleagues also say Reglos knows how to make a case for her clients without ruffling too many feathers in the process. “Diplomacy is important,” said Bill Weiss, head deputy who supervises Reglos and about 40 other public defenders. “And Rose is known for being able to get along with judges and district attorneys in the courtroom. She knows how handle herself in the courtroom and she also knows how to do it without crossing too many swords.” Reglos defends the otherwise defenseless, those who say they can’t afford their own attorneys. Although anyone in custody can ask for a PD, once their case is complete they can be required by the court to help cover the costs of their defense if they don’t meet certain financial requirements. Her clients come from all walks of life: a Mexican immigrant arrested in a case of mistaken identity; a “psychotic” Vietnam veteran accused of stomping his 84-year-old aunt to death; a 20-something Valley man facing life in prison for his involvement in a robbery. Next month, it’s the trial of a Valley man accused of stabbing and strangling his girlfriend to death and leaving her body in the trunk of her own car. He faces a death sentence. Reglos admits she doesn’t always like her clients. They can be ungrateful, violent, intimidating. But, she says, they all deserve her time, even those she suspects may have done what they’re accused of. “There’s always doubts,” Reglos said. “You wonder: have I done all I could? Is there anything I’ve overlooked? A lot of cases keep you up at night. But they aren’t all murder or rape cases. I’ve had DUI cases that kept me up at night.” “But even if I think they might be guilty, the law says they are all entitled to a defense,” Reglos said. “So my job is to just get all the facts that are out there, present them to the jury and let them come up with a decision.” Early in her career, Reglos tried clerking for a private attorney. That didn’t interest her. Then, in her third year at UC Hastings College of the Law, she clerked for a senior public defender with the city of San Francisco, her hometown, and immediately was hooked. “It was so much more interesting to me,” said Reglos. “It’s not just looking at a case and reading about it. You are in it. The clients are usually very appreciative. That’s the payoff.” Reglos says there’s little truth to the myth that public defenders rarely get to the trial stage, that pleas are the rule rather than the exception and that judges toss out their cases right and left. “I think because of the volume of cases we do a year, it looks that way percentage-wise,” she said, “but actually we do go to trial a lot. I’ve probably done 110 trials in my career. It’s true, you push a lot of paper, but then so do private attorneys.” She estimated that she’s won 25 percent of the cases she’s tried. There is truth to the myth, however, that public defenders often have to make a case for themselves to gain the trust and cooperation of a client. “You get clients with attitude,” Reglos said. “They come to you and you know they are thinking, ‘I’m not getting a real attorney so why should I co-operate with you?’ That’s very frustrating. I just try to tell them to give me a chance.” Just as with private attorneys, public defenders often take on cases that can last for months. They can make as many as 100 visits to a client’s jail cell over the years it often takes to prepare for a complex jury trial. Family members get thrown into the mix, and all parties involved can and often do get close over time. Take the 1996 case in which she tried to clear a Valley man accused of a home invasion robbery. “It was a seven-month trial, but I prepared for it for two years,” Reglos said. “Over the course of the time, I got very close to the family. The mother and father were both in court every day. I got close to my client. It was sometimes an acrimonious situation in the courtroom, a very high-energy case.” That one, she lost. Her client, and his two accomplices, now face life in prison. Appeals are pending. “That case haunts me,” Reglos said. What keeps her coming back? “A lot of attorneys say, ‘Oh, I’ll work as a public defender for a few years and then get out on my own.’ I came in here thinking I didn’t know how long I’d be around. But here I am. When it’s not interesting to me anymore, that’s when I’ll move on.”