I confused two men facing prison

Dear Delyara, I am a public defender with more than one hundred active cases. Yesterday, I entered a courtroom and began arguing the wrong client’s circumstances. Both men had similar names, both faced drug charges, and I had reviewed files until three in the morning. The judge corrected me before serious harm occurred. My client stared as though he had just learned the person assigned to protect his freedom did not fully know who he was. Afterward, I apologized. He said, “It’s all the same to you people.” I wanted to tell him it was not. The truth is that exhaustion has begun making it look that way. I visit cells with notes written on my hand, return calls while driving, and negotiate pleas during lunch because the system considers representation complete once a lawyer’s name appears on paper. No sentence was increased yesterday. No deadline was missed. Everyone treated the mistake as embarrassing but manageable. I keep seeing my client’s face. For him, the case may determine years of his life. For me, it was case number seventy-three on a list I can no longer carry without names beginning to slide into one another.