I just got a call into my office. I was still just hangin' 'round -- readin' a few blogs tryin' to Kill Beal* without success. Phone rings - I answer:
Good evenin', Law Office.He did not even wait for me to advise him to try to stay out of trouble.Yes, is the attorney in?
This is he.
This is [insert name of innocent client]. You saw me in the jail yesterday. They just let me out of jail. What happened?
I got the DA to drop the case.
Thanks. /Click/
It ain't often that I can get the DA here to actually drop a case, but it is hard to make a charge of Felon in Possession of a Firearm stick if the guy does not have a felony conviction. Such was apparent from a readin' of every piece of paperwork in the DA's file, but did they catch it? Surely they did. Were they jes' happy to hold him in the jail until someone with enough brains came along to find it and point it out to them? Or were they hopin' that no one would notice they had indicted a guy on a totally bogus charge** and that some court appointed attorney would just twist the guy's arm to plead guilty, thus waivin' his right to appeal the matter, for probation and a felony conviction?
My discussion with the DA that resulted in the above came about after I finished up the matter I was scheduled to appear in court for this mornin'. I thought it strange enough that I had was compelled to actually argue a discovery motion to have the DA's office investigate and turn over the criminal records of two witnesses against a client of mine. I had previously asked them to look into the fact that one of the witnesses, the daughter, had previously been charged with a similar offense as the one with which my client is charged involvin' the other witness to the case, whose criminal history I requested. As far as I could determine, the DA's office had failed to even take the time to look if there was a possibility my client was not guilty of the offense for which she is charged. They thereby forced me to file a motion so as to get the judge to require that they investigate their own witnesses. As it was, I thought the judge was going to deny my Motion, anyway, until I agreed to allow the judge to examine the records in camera,** so as to redact any matters that might be extraneous to the issues at hand, prior to turning such over to me. A SCOTUS case most attorneys refer to as Brady says that the State has an obligation to turn over any and all evidence in their possession that might be exculpatory (beneficial in some way to the defense of the person charged). There is actually some belief that the State must make such information available voluntarily and not await the defense's filin' of a motion and the obtainin' of a rulin' by the court. Most judges, in my previous experience ,routinely grant such motion and require that the State immediately provide criminal records of all the State's witnesses except police officers. Most courts believe that it would just be a waste of time to do a criminal record search on police officers.
Let's link to OTB, whadda ya say?
*Damn, I'm good! ;)
**Law lesson here, ya'll. Just because a person is indicted by a Grand Jury does not necessarily mean they are guilty. Grand Juries often just do whatever the DA asks of them. It is mostly a rubber stamp process.
***Legal term meaning that the judge looks at some materials privately so as to assess the level of damage such might cause if allowed to be introduced in a case.
Posted by notGeorge at May 11, 2004 06:51 PM