The Substituted

A Story from a Public Defender’s Perspective

Preface

 “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right… to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
— Sixth Amendment, U.S. Constitution



 “Innocent until proven guilty.”
— Fifth Amendment, U.S. Constitution



 “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
— William Blackstone



Defending the accused is not merely a job. It is a trial of conscience. At times, the line between truth and delusion, between reality and madness, is so thin it feels as though we ourselves are standing on the edge.

Every defendant has the right to counsel. Even the one whose guilt seems obvious. Even the one who confessed.

Even the one who looks insane.

My task is not to justify at any cost. My task is to keep the world from rushing to judgment. Because behind every case stands a human being, and truth rarely fits neatly into the pages of a protocol.

I was assigned this case after the previous attorney, an experienced woman with twenty years of practice, suddenly resigned. She simply stopped coming to work. The official report said: “nervous breakdown.” That was the phrase. But in the courthouse corridors people whispered: this case drove her mad.

As a public defender, I received the file. It had everything: photographs, protocols, the coroner’s report, the defendant’s confession. An ordinary murder—if the word ordinary can be applied to a son beating his father to death.

But here was the unusual part. He denied his guilt… and admitted it at the same time.
“Yes, I killed,” he said. “But it wasn’t my father. He had been substituted long ago. My mother too. Their bodies were strangers’. They weren’t human.”

I read those words and felt a familiar inner string resonate — the instinct not to trust the obvious.

It all began when the older brother, Joe, came to check on his father. Two days without calls answered had seemed strange. At the house he found his younger brother — my future client. He was running in circles, his eyes wild, his speech incoherent:
“They’re here! They’ve come again! They sent someone! That’s not Father! That’s an impostor!”

On the floor lay a body. Dead for at least a day.
When the police arrived, the younger son calmly said:
“Yes, I killed him. But I didn’t kill my father. It was something else, someone who had taken his place.”

All of this was in the record.

I met him in jail. His duality struck me. One moment — frightening, fanatical fire in his eyes; the next — quiet, almost sickly calm.

“Understand,” he told me, staring straight at me. “You’ve seen how people sometimes change? As if they’re not themselves anymore. They talk the same, look the same — but the soul is different. Foreign. That was my father. And my mother too. I’m not insane. I’ve just been defending myself from them all my life.”

The professional in me noted: classic delusion of substitution, Capgras syndrome.

The human in me… felt a strange chill.

I decided to dig deeper. Yes, there had been a psychiatrist, years of observation, a diagnosis long established. But this case felt too straightforward, too neatly closed. And overly straightforward cases are always dangerous.

I requested a DNA analysis. The kinship was confirmed. The victim was indeed his biological father. Everything seemed clear.

And yet…

I spoke with relatives. They said the boy had been normal until age six. Then — an accident, a head injury. That’s when it began. Subtly. At first oddities, then obsessions. Over time, they grew into his new world.

But I could not shake the thought: what if his world was not only illness?

At night I came home and reopened the file again and again. I looked at the photo — the dead father’s face. Just the face of an old man. Yet something in it felt… alien. Perhaps my imagination, infected by my client’s words. Perhaps. But one night I realized I had turned off the lamp and closed the folder as though the man in the photograph were watching me. Watching very closely.

I had no grounds to believe his version. But no grounds to fully dismiss it either.

Judges, juries, colleagues — they always demand facts, not doubts. Yet something inside me refused to throw this case into the fire of obviousness.

I argued with my superiors, demanded more examinations, insisted on an independent psychiatric review. They told me: “You’re wasting time. The boy confessed. The evidence is clear.”

I answered: “My conscience will not let me sign his sentence when even a shadow of doubt remains. I am not the devil’s advocate. I am a human’s advocate.”

In his cell, my client grew quieter. The medication worked. His speech became ordered, his eyes calmer.
“You realize,” he whispered one day, “that if I’m right, they will come for you too?”

I left the prison that day heavy-hearted. That night I dreamt, for the first time in years, a terrible dream: my own father standing in the doorway, staring at me with empty eyes.

The trial approached. I knew: the verdict would be harsh. The confession, the evidence, the medical report. But I also knew: if I carried out my duty honestly, if I walked this path to the end, at least my conscience would remain clear.

And so, Thomas was sent for treatment. The law recognized his guilt but mitigated his responsibility.

I left the courtroom with both relief and weight pressing on me.

Truth is layered: crime, perception, reality, human weakness. Even with DNA, confessions, and the law on our side, one question lingered:
Who are the people we love, truly — and how reliable is our reality?

My client was convicted. Declared both ill and guilty. He was sent to a place where he would spend many years under supervision. And I still think about what I saw in his eyes. And about how easy it is to call “delusion” what we fear to accept.

Even now, I wonder: perhaps he really did not kill his father. Perhaps he killed the one who wore his father’s face.


Afterword

The law demands clarity. But life rarely offers it.

We, defenders, live on the boundary: between what is proven and what remains in shadow.

Our duty is not to let the shadow become a verdict.

Justice is an instrument. Understanding is an art. Responsibility is a lifelong burden.

We cannot solve all mysteries. But we must listen, observe, weigh every fear, every word, every confession.

That is how we inch closer to