Lawyers Are Your Friends

[wintergreen48]

A big case in our parts right now involves a woman who was charged with murdering her husband, a state trooper. She was convicted of the crime and was sentenced to 28 years in jail. Her lawyers appealed the case, arguing that the prosecutor deliberately stacked the jury against her by challenging women as potential jurors, resulting in a nearly all-male jury, which was clearly unfair (defense attorneys seem to be able to get away with that sort of thing, but the state cannot do it). They won the appeal and the case was remanded for a new trial. In which she was convicted a second time. Yesterday, she was sentenced... to life imprisonment. I don't know if she plans to appeal again: the third time is the charm, so maybe this time her lawyer will get her the death penalty.

The newspapers did not report her lawyer's political affiliation, but that was probably not necessary in this case. Just as it will not likely be necessary in the malpractice case that will likely follow...

[kayrharris]

Has anyone ever had the 2nd trial overturned and asked for the original verdict and sentence? She'd certainly be better off in this case.

[Beebs52]

Sometimes people will just not give it up. Perhaps the malpractice suit will last, oh, a lifetime in postponements and such.

By that time the jury will have to be comprised of really, really, really old geezers, although women do outlive men. Will the attorneys have the wherewithall to realize that?

[Bob78164]

Just as it will not likely be necessary in the malpractice case that will likely follow...

In California there would be no malpractice case. The theory is that the proximate cause of her imprisonment is the murder she committed, not her lawyer's bad lawyering. --Bob

[MarleysGh0st]

Has anyone ever had the 2nd trial overturned and asked for the original verdict and sentence? She'd certainly be better off in this case.

Ah, yes. The "Switch The Question Back" lifeline!

[Appa23]

Just as it will not likely be necessary in the malpractice case that will likely follow...

In California there would be no malpractice case. The theory is that the proximate cause of her imprisonment is the murder she committed, not her lawyer's bad lawyering. --Bob

From the facts as presented, there is not a malpractice case anywhere in the United States.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

I once got appointed to a post conviction relief case where the defendant had plead guilty to armed robbery in a deal that dropped a kidnapping charge. The only relief he could get in the PCR was a trial on the robbery and kidnapping charge. The deal got he 25 years, the kidnapping charge could get him life. Eventually he decided that perhaps he didn't want a new trial. The victim had ID him.

[silverscreenselect]

The newspapers did not report her lawyer's political affiliation, but that was probably not necessary in this case. Just as it will not likely be necessary in the malpractice case that will likely follow...

It really doesn't matter what her attorney's political affiliation was. If the prosecution was stacking the deck with an all-male jury, any good defense attorney, regardless of political affiliation would raise an objection and raise it on appeal. Just as any good defense attorney would move to suppress the results of a supposedly illegal search, regardless of his personal beliefs about how the Fourth Amendment should be interpreted.

As a general rule, defendants have a better chance the second time around. Look what the Giants did with a second chance at the Patriots. It's tough to prepare a case a second time since more time has passed, memories get vaguer, evidence gets more stale, witnesses move away. Plus, the defense has a chance to see just what sort of a case the prosecution has and can hopefully improve upon their own defense strategies the first time around. Perhaps they failed to cross-examine a witness enough or were too tough on another one or their opening or closing arguments were weak. And the longer the time has passed, the more of an opportunity to impeach a witness with statements made in the interim.

The judge sentences the defendant so there's any number of reasons why the sentence could have been longer. Judges are not allowed to intentionally retaliate against a defendant for successfully appealing a case, but there's a chance the defendant just might have rubbed the judge the wrong way the second time around.

Plus, depending upon the parole laws in a particular state, as a practical matter, the defendant would probably be up for parole in 8-9 years regardless of whether it was a life or a 28 year sentence.

[wintergreen48]

It really doesn't matter what her attorney's political affiliation was. If the prosecution was stacking the deck with an all-male jury, any good defense attorney, regardless of political affiliation would raise an objection and raise it on appeal. Just as any good defense attorney would move to suppress the results of a supposedly illegal search, regardless of his personal beliefs about how the Fourth Amendment should be interpreted.

As a general rule, defendants have a better chance the second time around. Look what the Giants did with a second chance at the Patriots. It's tough to prepare a case a second time since more time has passed, memories get vaguer, evidence gets more stale, witnesses move away. Plus, the defense has a chance to see just what sort of a case the prosecution has and can hopefully improve upon their own defense strategies the first time around. Perhaps they failed to cross-examine a witness enough or were too tough on another one or their opening or closing arguments were weak. And the longer the time has passed, the more of an opportunity to impeach a witness with statements made in the interim.

The judge sentences the defendant so there's any number of reasons why the sentence could have been longer. Judges are not allowed to intentionally retaliate against a defendant for successfully appealing a case, but there's a chance the defendant just might have rubbed the judge the wrong way the second time around.

Plus, depending upon the parole laws in a particular state, as a practical matter, the defendant would probably be up for parole in 8-9 years regardless of whether it was a life or a 28 year sentence.

Unfortunately for the defendant in this case, Virginia has pretty much abolished parole, so she's likely to be in stir for the long haul. Based upon her life expectancy, she could expect to serve out a 28 year term, and still have a few years of freedom afterward, but life is life.

To your point about how it is the judge that imposes the sentence, that is technically true, but in this case it was the JURY that recommended the life sentence-- it seems that the menfolk on her first jury were more sympathetic to her than were the womenfolk that she got the second time around.

I was just funnin' about the malpractice-- a bad result does not mean that there was in fact malpractice, and it's unlikely she will find any attorney who would pursue a malpractice action in these circumstances. But I suspect that her attorneys are not very happy right now (not to mention their client...)

This stuff about trying to stack a jury in your favor based upon affinities seems bogus to me in many cases, or at least, it does not necessarily work the way 'conventional wisdom' seems to suggest. When I was in private practice, I generally handled commercial stuff, but I did do the occasional non-commercial case. I had a personal injury case once that was kind of interesting. My client was the defendant (one of the few times I was on the defense side of any case), and the plaintiff claimed that my client had injured him in a traffic accident. My client's case was pretty weak: the same night, he was charged (and later convicted in a trial that I did NOT handle) of DUI, the only witness to the case was his girlfriend who was passed out in the car, he had no insurance, and it wasn't his car anyway (he was a automobile restorer who had taken the uninsured/unregistered vehicle on a test drive at midnight). My client was a rural redneck, the plaintiff was an urban black guy, and the case arose in Baltimore City, much of which is urban black. I knew that the plaintiff was lying (based upon engineering stuff, I knew that it could not have happened as he claimed), and his attorneys were slime (while the lawsuit was pending, his attorneys had to change the name of their firm when the senior partner was disbarred and jailed for his fraudulent misbehavior in personal injury traffic cases). When we were picking the jury, the plaintiff's attorney used up all of his peremptory challenges to strike white folks from the jury panel; when I got up, I used my peremptories to strike the two white guys who remained. The judge saw what was going on, and raised his eyebrows about it, but my rationale was that a true jury of the plaintiff's peers would more easily, and more comfortably, see that the plaintiff was lying through his teeth, and I had confidence that they would do The Right Thing; and the jurors did see what was going on, and they did do The Right Thing, and my client was pleased.

[tanstaafl2]

The newspapers did not report her lawyer's political affiliation, but that was probably not necessary in this case. Just as it will not likely be necessary in the malpractice case that will likely follow...

It really doesn't matter what her attorney's political affiliation was.

Whilst I can not speak for wintergreen I personally rather suspect the reference to political affiliation in this thread was, umm, sarcafont-ish.

[Bixby17]

The newspapers did not report her lawyer's political affiliation, but that was probably not necessary in this case. Just as it will not likely be necessary in the malpractice case that will likely follow...

It really doesn't matter what her attorney's political affiliation was. If the prosecution was stacking the deck with an all-male jury, any good defense attorney, regardless of political affiliation would raise an objection and raise it on appeal. Just as any good defense attorney would move to suppress the results of a supposedly illegal search, regardless of his personal beliefs about how the Fourth Amendment should be interpreted.

As a general rule, defendants have a better chance the second time around. Look what the Giants did with a second chance at the Patriots. It's tough to prepare a case a second time since more time has passed, memories get vaguer, evidence gets more stale, witnesses move away. Plus, the defense has a chance to see just what sort of a case the prosecution has and can hopefully improve upon their own defense strategies the first time around. Perhaps they failed to cross-examine a witness enough or were too tough on another one or their opening or closing arguments were weak. And the longer the time has passed, the more of an opportunity to impeach a witness with statements made in the interim.

The judge sentences the defendant so there's any number of reasons why the sentence could have been longer. Judges are not allowed to intentionally retaliate against a defendant for successfully appealing a case, but there's a chance the defendant just might have rubbed the judge the wrong way the second time around.

Plus, depending upon the parole laws in a particular state, as a practical matter, the defendant would probably be up for parole in 8-9 years regardless of whether it was a life or a 28 year sentence.

My experience has been that if the prosecutor gets two bites at the apple, they do better the second time.

In our jurisdiction, the prosecutor has to disclose everything they know but the defense doesn't have to reveal anything.

So it is the prosecution that is more likely to fix their case the second time around, unless there was something really wonky that happened in the first trial. (Like the Andrea Yates trial that involved the expert that made up stuff from the Law & Order episode).

It happens all the time when there is a hung jury with the first trial, and then the prosecutor fixes up their case and gets a guilty verdict the second time.