John Joseph Garcia

Within my title, those 5 words would be how I would describe my "lawyer". He was my court appointed attorney, however, if that is how he works with his clients when its free, I can only imagine what he would do if you pay him money. I am not going to disregard his experience nor education, but when I... was his client, it never felt like he was on top of things. In April he stated he would file for a speedy trial for my case, but it wasn't filed until August, essentially a day or two before my next court date, which had gotten pushed back an additional 30 days after that. After telling him my entire situation, it felt he had no care in the world to actually help me. For example, I wanted him to apply for a dismissal and he kept informing me with legal jargon of why he couldn't do that. Little did he know, I have a relative who works for SAPD, and explained the situation exactly the same, and stated there's no reason why the case should be dragging on any further. I even talked to a lawyer I was willing to pay my last dime on, who sated the same thing. My lawyer failed to address to the court my medical history, the lack of evidence the courts and police have, as well as address the fact that if my BAC was 0.0%, and if the courts are wanting to test for drugs, how come its taking them almost two years to test for substances? I am led to believe that he was being careless the whole time, due to how much time had gone by as he was my attorney. Another issue that could've helped my case, would have been him looking at all 15 hours of the police body cam, so that he can note that there was no sobriety test given nor was the police asking me questions on my medical history as well. It makes no sense that Mr. Garcia stated that he was still never able to get the footage, when my new attorney had watched 10 out of 15 hours already and was just appointed last month. *Did I mention that when I had asked for a dismissal, that he stated he didn't want to bother the judge? To me when I hear those words that doesn't sound like a lawyer, or at least an aggressive one. Just because you are a court appointed attorney doesn't mean you should shrub off your clients nor not execute as if the client was paying you, because if he had been paid, then my request more than likely would have been filed. I have had past court appointed attorneys who have been heavily on my case, communicating me through the whole process, and making sure I end up scot free, because the charges were nonsense. When I started to communicate to him more, he got more squirmy, dismissive, and unresponsive at times. As in he was rushing me off the phone when I had several questions. So much so that when I had asked for more help, he decided to withdraw from my case as my court appointed attorney. If you chose this career path as a free lawyer, you have to understand customer service, and based on our interaction he has none. There was a point in our phone conversations, that when I was asking him all these legal questions he stated "Did you get a law degree"? I am not sure if that is what he says to all his clients, but no I got a Health science degree from the #1 university in the state of Texas, and because I felt like this entire case is a form of discrimination (non racial), I am disappointed in the fact that this is ongoing, and he did nothing to resolve it. Otherwise I would be leaving a very different review.