Fred Friedman is the public defender for Duluth. He recently represented a defendant in a manslaughter charge that occurred downtown. There has been three "accidental" deaths in the last several months all within about a four block radius of downtown. Fred has worked as a criminal defense attorney for over two decades and was kind enough to give the Transistor some time to comment on his work as the public defender.
Can you comment on the defendant's case you recently represented on a manslaughter charge?
I can tell you this, I was in love with the case (going to trial). My client was a black male from Duckhill, Mississippi. This is important. The police initially released a false report saying that he was black, from Chicago, and had a federal record. He being black was the only true part of that description.
And I suppose being black with a record and from Chicago carries a stigma with it in Duluth.
Yes, it says he's a gang banger to the public. That was not true in his case. He was afraid that none of witnesses who saw the incident would show up. He took the plea bargain of 66 months and, in Minnesota, he will be required to do at least two-thirds of that sentence.
Is it mandatory to do jail time in all manslaughter crimes? And I ask because I thought what would have happened to the Vice President if the man he accidentally shot had died.
No, jail is not mandatory for manslaughter cases. There are two types of manslaughter crimes. One is when you kill someone accidentally in a fight and no weapons are involved. The other is when someone dies in a deer hunting accident, for example.
In the other two downtown accidental deaths were any manslaughter charges brought forward?
No. And my question to the police chief would be what are the differences between my client's case and the other two? My client is the only black male involved. It would be interesting to hear what chief of police's answer would be.
How many of your cases involve liquor, drugs, and gambling?
Eight out of ten, easily. I have very little sympathy for drug dealers.
You said many years ago to me that you felt drugs would be legal at some point in our life times. Do you still feel that way?
No. It is not going to happen. The police have put too much resource in charging drug possession and paying snitches. Meth is destroying families. It's terrible. A high number of meth cases involve women. And the drug makes many of people I'm trying to help act extremely paranoid.
Do you see any strange trends in law over the last few years?
Trials are going down. I used to do two or three a week. Now, everybody plea bargains. One reason is that a full-blown trial usually gets you a full-blown sentence from the judge if you lose. Another reason is that the amount of work lawyers has taken on. And a third is that no one likes to lose anything. So they settle out of court.
Can you give an example of a case you lost and thought that you would win for sure and vice versa?
1987. Robert Webb was charged for murdering a mentally disabled woman. Mr. Webb was also mentally disabled. I knew he was innocent, but lost that case. It's the worst thing that happened to me outside of my parents dying. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed that conviction 7 - 0 after Webb did 19 months. A case I won that I thought was a crapshoot was when a client of mine had thrown a woman through a glass window in a fight. The jury just plain did not like this woman and we got an acquittal.
Does your office lobby politically at all?
Public defenders are always looking for more money, so yes. It is a dangerous crime these days to be black and poor and especially if you're black, poor, and driving a car. We are strapped for money to represent people. I would like to add that I'm amazed in the differences between police departments. Some are very sensitive to racial profiling and do a good job. Other departments, not so much.
