From the website of Clearwater, Florida lawyer Scott Andringa:

After beginning his career as a misdemeanor prosecutor in the State Attorneys Office in Clearwater, Florida he was promoted to Misdemeanor Lead Trial Attorney. He transferred to New Port Richey, Florida in 1995 when he was promoted to prosecuting felony cases. He remained in New Port Richey for nine years, prosecuting many high-profile cases including a landmark dance studio fraud case, death penalty cases and a drug trafficking case that was featured on 60 Minutes, Nightline and in the New York Times. He was also responsible for dozens of other successful prosecutions and was profiled in the St. Petersburg Times and Tampa Tribune.

In 2004, he moved to Key Largo, Florida to become the Division Director of the State Attorneys Office in the Upper Keys of Monroe County, Florida. He remained there until 2006. His tenure included a successful prosecution in a high-profile murder case.

Scott posts this prosecutorial CV to try to entice people to hire him. Sounds good, right? Surely a prosecutor who has prosecuted high-profile drug trafficking cases “knows the system” so he’ll be a good “criminal-defense lawyer”, right?

What if the New York Times had (because of his performance in the “drug trafficking case that was featured on 60 Minutes, Nightline,” and there) described him as “one of the many well-meaning public officials whose judgment has been so warped by the war on drugs that they can’t see what they’ve become.” (H/T Windypundit.)

Criminal defense lawyers believe in redemption; it’s a job requirement. So I don’t reject the possibility that Scott has had a change of heart and seen what he had become. If so, though, then that is the story he should be telling. This is a chance for him truthfully to admit that he screwed up and show his good nature. Audiences love that.

Pretending that his role in sending Richard Paey to prison for 25 years somehow makes him employable as a defense lawyer, on the other hand, only makes Scott Andringa an asshat.