dump truck

n. a lawyer seen as too willing to plead cases, especially a public defender. Subjects: English, Law, Derogatory, Slang

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Citations: 1984-1988 Debra S. Emmelman @ Calif. Law & Society Review “Trial by Plea Bargain: Case Settlement as a Product of Recursive Decisionmaking” vol. 30, no. 2, p. 351: Once they realize you’re not resisting their demand to go to trial and their demand that they pay you some attention…then they will drop their resistance to a plea bargain based specifically on you as the dump truck who doesn’t care about them. 1991 Paul M. Barrett Wall Street Journal (A1) (July 26) “Drug Lawyer Offers Feds a Sweet Deal: Crooks Who’ll Fink —- One After Another After Another; Then One Client Halts the Ponzi Scheme”: Mr. Minkin is what some drug lawyers deride as a “dump truck,” an attorney whose clients plead guilty and cooperate. Indeed, the 59-year-old Mr. Minkin says he is “second to none in…knowing how to make deals.” 1993 Clayton Ruby Globe and Mail (Toronto, Can.) (Mar. 23) “Fifth Column; Law And Society” p. A22: dump truck (dump truk) n. Slang. A criminal lawyer who seldom fights a case, but who plea-bargains his way to a fast guilty plea. 1995 Tracey Tyler Toronto Star (Oct. 1) “High-volume lawyer dodges ‘dumptruck’ tag” p. SU2/A1: Some lawyers contend that a handful of high-volume practitioners like Stern have bled the Ontario Legal Aid Plan dry by setting up veritable plea factories. They’ve even given them a name: “dumptrucks.” 2001 Bryan A. Garner Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (Mar. 1): Clients often refer to their public defenders as “dump trucks,” a term that apparently derives from the defendant’s belief that defenders are not interested in giving a vigorous defense, but rather seek only to “dump” them as quickly as possible. 2005 Deborah Sontag N.Y Times (Mar. 20) “Inside Courts, Threats Become an Alarming Part of the Fabric”: “One of the cruel ironies is that on the tier in any prison, the person most inmates name as responsible for them being there is ‘the dump truck P.D.,‘“ said David Coleman, the public defender in Contra Costa County, Calif. “Thus, the razor or weapon used against a public defender is all too common.” *2005 Law Office Of David Alan Darby (Tucson, Ariz.) (Mar. 20) “Arizona DUI”: “Dump truck” is what attorney’s call other attorney’s who mostly just plead their clients guilty, instead of trying cases.

Posted 21 Mar 05 | Permalink | Tell a Friend