By Tucker Golladay

Muriel Pitney, a defense attorney and Chief Deputy Clerk for the Virginia State Supreme Court, had always been interested in mysteries and the criminal mind from a young age. “Why do people commit the terrible crimes they do?” Pitney constantly found herself asking. There was no defining moment that made her consider going into criminal law as a profession, and she decided to study both psychology and government in college at the University of Virginia.

The first bizarre experience Pitney had while working towards her profession came from working in the 1980s for Help Line at UVA, “a 24-hour confidential and anonymous hotline intended for University of Virginia students and Charlottesville community members,” according to their website. One caller, whom Pitney and her co-workers later labeled “the sniffer,” called in one day and disclosed his sniffing issue. “The sniffer” claimed to have an issue of walking around public and sniffing the backsides of complete strangers. After offering advice via phone to callers at Help Line, Pitney knew she wanted to keep working in a similar profession because of all the interesting interactions and stories she became a part of.

After graduating from UVA, Pitney decided to continue her schooling at the University of Richmond to finish law school. Upon receiving her law degree, Pitney became a criminal defense lawyer.

Being a criminal defense lawyer is a tough job “because, sometimes you know for certain that your client is going to get convicted.” Pitney said, “there have been two things that have helped me through my career. Being an avid listener and absorbing as much of the information as possible is critical. Getting information from both sides of the story can better help me understand the situation at hand, and defend my client as accurately as possible. Secondly, it is necessary that I help my client without judgment. Having predisposed judgments of a client can negatively influence the outcome of their trial.”

Some of her clients over the years have committed violent, horrendous crimes, but Pitney says “that although some of these people have taken part in appalling acts, their actions do not always mean they are horrible people.” She views her clients beyond their crimes, realizing that there is so much more to their story than that particular crime. It may be a traumatic childhood, or an influential event that may cause a client to lash out, and Pitney can often find a redeemable quality in her clients that better helps explain the crime they committed. She realizes that her clients are people too. There have been some clients that Pitney has not found a redeemable quality in, and she recalls being afraid of some of these clients, stating “they did not care about anyone around them and were very threatening.”

Although some clients may have little redeemable qualities in them, Pitney is a firm believer in the Constitution and believes strongly that everyone is entitled to their rights. This does not mean her job is to get guilty people out of punishment. Instead, Pitney makes sure everyone is given their rights to the best of her ability, and if punishment occurs, then she makes sure her clients got a suitable punishment commiserate with their actions.

Pitney discussed with me the hardest case she has ever dealt with. She went into detail about representing a man that was accused of killing his brother. The police told him three lies to try and get a confession out of him. His family got invested in the case and believed he was the murderer. The client became so distressed by his family’s involvement and the police lies that the man ended up making a false confession. The only information the client gave when he made the confession came from the details the police gave him, including the lies. In court, the only thing standing between a lifetime jail sentence and freedom was Pitney. She believed strongly that he was innocent, because there was no evidence against him. She believed that the victim’s ex-wife had murdered him. This came from knowledge of death threats the ex-wife had made towards him and his family, and the aggression she showed. The police, however, decided to not look into any other suspects, but luckily Pitney was able to represent the man accurately, and he was acquitted. “This has bothered me over the years, because the killer is still out there, and there was little done to find them.”

After having her first child, Jacob, Pitney took several years off from work, eventually getting back to work full time at the Virginia court of appeals. After working there, she became the Chief Deputy Officer of the Virginia Supreme Court and has worked there ever since. Currently, she assists the public in cases before the Supreme Court, and she assists the justices on scheduling the docket for oral arguments. On a day-to-day basis, Pitney reviews pleadings to make sure they are proper for court consideration and answers questions from attorneys and members of the public on how to properly appear for the court.

Featured image courtesy of Pexels.