"We are grateful that Mr. Jaffe had confidence in my son's ability to mature and move beyond his past mistakes."
My 16-yr-old son was the driver of a car in an accident that killed one of his passengers, a teenage girl. (My son and the other passengers were wearing seatbelts except this particular girl. She was thrown from the car. Everyone else walked away from the accident.) They charged him as an adult for murder. There was no alcohol or drugs involved. Just immaturity. My son had no prior behavioral issues, arrests, or even problems at school. Mr. Jaffe was able to get the murder charge dismissed, and Youthful offender treatment and probation for my son. He did drug testing for over a year (ALL negative) and wore an ankle monitor for a year. He faithfully met with his probation officer every month and never missed a meeting or drug test. He went into counseling with a psychologist for about three years. The family asked that he do community service by speaking to teens about safe driving, but he had an intense fear of public speaking. (To this day, he takes every opportunity God gives to him to speak 1:1 to kids about safe driving and the importance of seat belts.) Since that time my son has become a certified personal trainer and is quite the encourager to many in the areas of weight loss and personal fitness. He also works in a lumber yard supervising a dozen men out of prison in a work release program. He urges them to not let their past define them or their future. He's able to be hard on them when needed, but he pushes them to move forward with their lives and overcome their past by making better decisions. We are so thankful to Mr. Jaffe for representing my son, for defending him against unreasonable consequences for his immaturity and poor choices. We understand someone wanting to make an example of a young person with lethal behavior behind the wheel of a car, but with no prior history of delinquent behavior and no drugs/alcohol involved, we appreciated Mr. Jaffe taking that into his consideration and defending him. We are grateful that Mr. Jaffe had confidence in my son's ability to mature and move beyond his past mistakes. My son never forgets what happened. He has to live with the knowledge that his actions took the life of a beautiful young lady, and it haunts him to this day. But he makes wise decisions and encourages others to do so as well.