Hindsight, etc

I had a suppression hearing this morning, my first one.  Now comes the fun part, waiting for the judge to issue his ruling.  Having never done one, I have no idea how long until it will be.

So now it’s time for second guessing myself.  What if I had asked this question, why didn’t I argue this case stronger, and on and on.  I like to win.  I know that being a defense attorney is not good for one’s batting average.  Unless you’re Gerry Spence, I would imagine over the course of their career, a lot of defense lawyers are at the Mendoza Line.  And that’s just the nature of the game.  The prosecutor has the full power of the government behind them, that can be tough to beat.  But that’s the fun of it.

However, all I can do now is play the waiting game.  No matter what I could have done, it’s too late now.  Time to look ahead, there’s always more people to help.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

There’s a lot of things wrong with the American justice system as it stands today.  This is a view of both people who are part of the system, and the general public.  Lawyers on our side of the bar see an increasingly pro-state mentality both from people and the government.  When soon to be Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is introduced by Sentaor Chuck Schumer by him touting that she votes for the government a lot as a selling point, it’s easy to get frustrated.

“She has agreed with Republican colleagues 95 percent of the time,” Schumer said. “She has ruled for the government in 83 percent of immigration cases, against the immigration plaintiff. She has ruled for the government in 92 percent of criminal cases. She has denied race claims in 83 percent of the cases and has split evenly on employment cases between employer and employee.”

On the mysterious side of civil law, the attorneys in the class action lawsuit against Ford for their Explorers that rolled over walked away with $25 million.  Consumers got a coupon good for either $500 off a new Ford SUV or $300 off any other Ford vehicle.  Approximately one million consumers were part of the class.  To date, 75 coupons had been redeemed.  Not 750,000.  Not 75,000.  Not even 750.  75.

Which leads to my next question, why on earth am I not a class action plaintiff’s lawyer?

I do have a point here, in case you’re wondering.  And it’s this.  Japan is having it’s first jury trial in 60 years.  That’s a long time ago.  It’s not really an American style jury trial either.

Six jurors are working with three judges to decide a verdict in the case of 72-year-old Katsuyoshi Fujii, who has been charged with murder.

Until now Japanese trials have been decided by a panel of judges.

Some might argue the system has it’s benefits.

In the past the justice system in Japan has been notoriously secretive, with a system of judge-only trials and private police interrogations.

Criminal trials currently have a 99% conviction rate, and there are increasing concerns that the system of judge-only trials and private police interrogations leads to false confessions and the conviction of innocent people.

I’m sure prosecutors dream of the day they don’t have to bother with those pesky juries or worry about such silly things as “Miranda” and “the rights of the accused”.  Express-lane justice, that’s the dream.

This was a bit of news that surprised me.  We all know there’s plenty of countries out there that don’t offer their accused the right to a jury trial.  Places like North Korea, Cuba, China and other totalitarian regimes.   As an ignorant American, I would have just assumed that a first world country like Japan would have a jury system.  Reading about the jury system on Wikipedia was quite interesting.  In Canada, the accused only has the right to a jury trial if the punishment is greater than five years.  India and Israel do not have juries.  In Germany, lay people act with professional judges to decide the verdicts.

So no matter how bad we think we have it in the USA, no matter how pro-government the sentiment is, everyone accused of a crime still gets their day in court.  From a speeding ticket to capital murder.  Whether you’re a homeless guy living on the streets or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you (in theory) are all equal in the eyes of the law.  Whether or not you actually have that equality is another topic for another day.

Now, that is not to say that as criminal defense lawyers, we should just sit back and think that because we have it comparitively good in here, we should just roll with the punches.  Not at all.  As criminal defense lawyers, it’s our job to keep the government in check.  Even if the defendants in the US have more rights than most other countries in the world, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be ignored.  It’s up to us to never take this rights for granted and to make sure the rights of our clients are preserved.

Two Words

Not. Guilty.

First one of my career.

Damn it feels good.

Lock and Load

Trial in an hour!

My shirt is ironed, my shoes are shined, and my face is shaved.  I’m as ready as I’m going to be.

I’ve got some nerves, but overall I’m feeling confident.  You never know what a jury will do though.

Staring Me in the Face

At 1:30 tomorrow, I’m supposed to be in jury trial.  A misdemeanor possession of marijuana case.  One more in the millions of endless cases that make up the futile War on Drugs.

I haven’t tried a case in a while, not since last fall.  And that was just a Class C traffic ticket.  It’s also my first jury trial in Brazos County.  So now that I’ve done my Monday routine, make dinner and watch 24, I’m going over my trial binder.  As a side note, I am not happy AT ALL with hour 24 is wrapping up.  Kim Bauer again?  Really?

I’ve put a lot of hours in on this case, but I feel like I’m missing something.  I’ve thought about this case from my perspective, from the officer’s perspective, from the prosecutor’s perspective, and from what I hope would be a jurors prespective.  And I can’t figure out what the prosecutor is going to do.

That worries me.  If I can’t figure out what the prosecutor’s angle in this case it, that means I’m at a disadvantage, and therefor my client is at a disadvantage.  I’ve read the PC statement backwards and forwards, at watched the video at least a half dozen times.  Now, I know what I would argue if I was the prosecutor, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot there.  From a defense perspective, there’s reasonable doubt all over the place.

On the other hand, I could be over-thinking this.  Doing that puts me at a disadvantage as well.  I spend too much time trying to figure out something that isn’t there, and I spend less time focusing on the issues we need to raise on defense.

The more I think about it, the more I think that I’m thinking too much.  And on that note, it’s bedtime.  Going into court tired isn’t going to help my client one bit.

On the off chance anyone is actually reading this, I’ll provide a report tomorrow after the trial.

Sunny Sunday

And I’m in the office getting ready for trial on Tuesday. Right now, I’m making a very important trial decision: what my theme song is going to be. I was told you always need a theme song for the trial.

Since it’s a Possession of Marijuana arising out of a traffic stop, I decided to go with Ridin’, by Houston’s own, Chamillionaire.

(some NSFW language)