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Hung Jury = Mistrial after a 3.5 Month Trial!
- Thread starter summitdog
- Start date
ateamer
Escaped from CA
I am pretty much a hardcore conservative (on most, but not all issues), but have been in courtrooms enough to know that defense attorneys are doing a needed job. Most of them do their job ethically, reasonably, and aren't on a crusade. I was stuck in court security for 3 years of my career (fortunately one year at a shot), and found that, actually, a lot of the defense attorneys were easier to deal with and chat with than DAs. (The Public Defender's Christmas party was also the high point of the year.)
afm199
Well-known member
NO. The role of a defense lawyer is that of ADVOCATE, to advocate on their client's behalf. Even if a person is guilty, a good advocate will advocate for the lightest sentence/ least punishment.
In other words, it is the attorney's job to do their best to defend their client and attack the DA's case in every way. That's their job. Even if they hate their client. And they can lose their license for a poor defense. Or worse.
Well the CO need a leason on the true boundries of the Northerns and Southerns. Delano is the dividing line. They are real close there and makes things fun.
What do they call the ones in the middle? By their definition of the lines.
bellisan
New member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2006
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- Shingle Springs
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- Lou
Not always, but most times the bad guys will try to no play by the rules.
But my point (purported lack of humor aside
) is that the rules are not for the bad guys' benefit, they're for mine.The integrity of the system is what is paramount, because the system can screw up, and if it does with me, I want every protection that the rules can afford me. If I did it and I lose, that's on my own dime.
Case in point (in a minor fashion) I have not ever gotten a truly bogus ticket (and none for about a decade), and gotten out of quite a few, but that did not stop me from trying to get the best result for me, and no hard feelings, or crying "It isn't fair".
Everyone keep it up
, as I freely admit that I would not want to do the LEO job, and probably could not do Scotty's job (as pertains to scumbag defense).Cheers
Lou
BTW Now OJ = Guilty (legally)
Well all know that OJ got off on the first one, which as sad as it is to say, works out for everyone. The system has to fail sometimes, so that it can work most of the time. If I screw something up, let the jury make the decision whether or not I the person should go free.... Just because I misspelled a word doesnt mean that the person wasnt drunk....
macadamizer
not even wrong
Exactly. If an attorney knows that their client did commit the crime -- usually because the client blurted it out -- then the attorney cannot argue that the client is innocent, and cannot allow the client to testify to his own innocence on his own behalf. At that point, the attorney's role is limited to poking holes in the prosecution's case, and if that fails, as Ernie says, advocate for the lightest possible sentence.
But that's if the attorney knows that the client did it. If the attorney doesn't know for a fact, then the attorney is free to argue innocence, and put the client on the stand, etc.
An attorney is not allowed to lie to the court, and is not allowed to help in the furtherance of a crime. But beyond that, it is the prosecutor's job to make the case, and it is the defense lawyer's job to give the jury a reasonable doubt.
The system worked, even in that case. We're all sure he was guilty the first time; and the jury wasn't present at the time, but Fuhrman took the 5th when asked if he'd tampered with any evidence.
The fact that he couldn't simply say "no" tainted the entire case. The Fifth isn't supposed to be incriminating, but when asked a straightforward yes or no question about tampering..
Hard to sustain a conviction when the evidence may have been tampered with. It worked, because the rules may not have been followed.
flying_hun
Adverse Selection
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Absolutely, I don't think we disagree.
Just pointing it out because I think the common perception is that OJ got off because he was famous... personally, I think that's only partly true, and there were other, more significant factors in the case. Sure, it's been a while, but the fame didn't help him this time.
OJ isn't going to have the opportunity to make any more big mistakes for a while, and, Fuhrman is off the streets, at least in his official capacity. In the end, it works out, although sometimes it takes a while.
T-1 Thunder
newbie
No problems there.
#1: If someone has gang ID tatted on their neck, odds are high they have made someone out there a victim of their violence and not been caught for it. There's no time like "all the time" to pay the price.
#2: Everyone that goes to prison joins a gang. By doing this, they are minimizing the rough road it takes to end up in the same place.
Point blank question to ask yourself(don't answer here obviously) - Did your client actually sell meth, too? If so, think about all the destruction that alone causes to the world. If you haven't seen it's wrath - I'm sure there are many with 1st hand accounts to describe how a good girl drops her books and turns into a whore within 1 year on that shit. Penalty for meth should be 10X worse than most other drugs.
Ever try to put a glove on a kid that doesn't want it on?
By moving your fingers forward, it won't go on. Nobody has xray vision to see this trick in action.
ateamer
Escaped from CA
If you want to know what really happened with the Simpson murder trial, read Vincent Bugliosi's excellent book "Outrage". He really details where all the problems in the case were. The "Dream Team" was nothing special, but the DA's team was weak and way over their heads with a case like that. Judge Ito was starstruck and had no control over his courtroom, and LAPD did a sloppy investigation. Anyone who has been to an interviewing school can read the transcript of the OJ interview and know that if they had done their jobs better, rather than coasting and giving him excuses, they could have had a full confession in no more than an hour more, and probably 30 minutes.
J_B
Tacti-Cool
cardinal03
New member
This hits it on the head.
JPM, I didn't mean any offense. I certainly wouldn't want a system that's all defense attorneys either. It just seemed like overall Scotty was getting a lot of flak for doing his legal duty, the same way cops get flak everyday just for enforcing laws they didn't even write.
It's a system, and for it to work, we have to have police/prosecutors, we have to have judges and we have to have defense attorneys. And all of them should always do the best job they can within the boundaries of the law.
One of the reasons I did not go into defense work (or even general litigation for that matter) is that I knew I would have trouble representing certain clients and could not fulfill my oath to its utmost if I were to represent a client I suspected was guilty of wrongdoing. But that's a personal failure on my part. In certain instances it can take a lot more moral character, I think, to represent those folks than not to represent them.
If you believe in our system of government and our justice system, you have to support all the parts of our system, otherwise it becomes unbalanced and the interests of justice are not served.
I know it's hard because only the good guys play by the rules and sometimes you get burned because of it. But the minute the good guys stop playing by the rules is when the good guys stop being the good guys.
In any case, thanks to all the LEOs here for being part of the good guys.