4 ms·

The defendant was facing the death penalty, and their only defense was that they weren't there, and the whole thing was a setup by cops because he had informati

The defendant was facing the death penalty, and their only defense was that they weren't there, and the whole thing was a setup by cops because he had information on them being drug traffickers. The lawyer was attempting to save his client from the death penalty, which is the best he thought he could do given the circumstances.

logfromblammo 9y ago
The venue being Louisiana, I find the defense's claim alleging that corrupt cops framed up a black patsy to be not entirely implausible. But it is more likely that if they were corrupt drug traffickers, and they wanted to discredit or otherwise silence him, they would have just killed him outright and placed a drop weapon next to the body. I am not familiar with the evidence presented at trial, but I am familiar with several investigative journalism reports that partially reveal some of the tactics and practices used by corrupt cops and prosecutors to secure convictions of apparently innocent people. Of course, the jury would have been made up of people who are not quite so skeptical of the emissaries from justiceland, and I'd wager they are ignorant of such tactics. So it isn't surprising that the defense attorney was desperate. By the way, it certainly sounds like the guy is guilty, but he does have a right to an adequate defense. On further investigation, the parts of the story where he tried to hang himself with a bedsheet prior to extradition, and where ballistics experts determined conclusively that the recovered bullets were fired from a particular model of weapon seem very suspicious to me. The former is strongly correlated (in my mind) with police beatings and the latter is CSI voodoo, like bite mark evidence.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  I absolutely do not buy his conspiracy theory, so I'm coming at it from that angle. I've also not seen any evidence that the bullet forensics were tainted, so that's another mark against it being a setup. The idea of presenting that as their defense seems to be incredibly misguided, and seems to be an express ticket to death row. Given that, the actions of the lawyer make a lot of sense if the goal is to minimize the punishment.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    I approach it from the following angle: A. He did it; he is guilty. B. The justice system in Louisiana is corrupt and biased against black people and poor people. Both can be true at once. This results in a situation where he is guilty, everyone knows he is guilty, and then everyone--including the public defenders' office--tramples over his right to due process in a rush to execute him.
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      The public defender had nothing to do with it. This was a lawyer his parents hired. A lawyer that was trying to save him from death row, and who saw that the client's desired strategy was coocoo crazy pants. Does the attorney have more of an obligation to pursue the desired strategy, or to try and save the client's life?
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        If the public defenders had not somehow turned him against using them, he would have had at least one capital-qualified attorney from that office working his case in conjunction with the private lawyer. We're not privy to the details, but I think the likely scenario is that they were just telling him what they were going to do and ignoring his input. His input may have been cuckoo crazypants, but they still have a professional ethical obligation to take that into account. I.e. when the client says "no guilty plea", the lawyer has to discard all strategies that involve an admission of guilt. It's probably all because his preferred strategy was 99% likely to result in a guilty verdict, with capital punishment. As I have learned from movies and television, sometimes the defendant demands that all the obvious winnable strategies are completely off the table, and their attorney then has to be incredibly clever, to not only secure a not guilty verdict, but also uncover the real killer by forcing them to admit guilt on the witness stand. This guy's lawyer maybe watched too many of those shows, and thought admitting guilt was actually the clever courtroom twist that would lead to the happy ending? The attorney has an obligation to act in the interests of their client. When the client is issuing instructions to the attorney that are apparently contrary to their own interests, does the lawyer do what they say they want or do what the professional believes they need?

logfromblammo 9y ago

The venue being Louisiana, I find the defense's claim alleging that corrupt cops framed up a black patsy to be not entirely implausible. But it is more likely that if they were corrupt drug traffickers, and they wanted to discredit or otherwise silence him, they would have just killed him outright and placed a drop weapon next to the body. I am not familiar with the evidence presented at trial, but I am familiar with several investigative journalism reports that partially reveal some of the tactics and practices used by corrupt cops and prosecutors to secure convictions of apparently innocent people. Of course, the jury would have been made up of people who are not quite so skeptical of the emissaries from justiceland, and I'd wager they are ignorant of such tactics. So it isn't surprising that the defense attorney was desperate. By the way, it certainly sounds like the guy is guilty, but he does have a right to an adequate defense. On further investigation, the parts of the story where he tried to hang himself with a bedsheet prior to extradition, and where ballistics experts determined conclusively that the recovered bullets were fired from a particular model of weapon seem very suspicious to me. The former is strongly correlated (in my mind) with police beatings and the latter is CSI voodoo, like bite mark evidence.

s73ver_ 9y ago
I absolutely do not buy his conspiracy theory, so I'm coming at it from that angle. I've also not seen any evidence that the bullet forensics were tainted, so that's another mark against it being a setup. The idea of presenting that as their defense seems to be incredibly misguided, and seems to be an express ticket to death row. Given that, the actions of the lawyer make a lot of sense if the goal is to minimize the punishment.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  I approach it from the following angle: A. He did it; he is guilty. B. The justice system in Louisiana is corrupt and biased against black people and poor people. Both can be true at once. This results in a situation where he is guilty, everyone knows he is guilty, and then everyone--including the public defenders' office--tramples over his right to due process in a rush to execute him.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    The public defender had nothing to do with it. This was a lawyer his parents hired. A lawyer that was trying to save him from death row, and who saw that the client's desired strategy was coocoo crazy pants. Does the attorney have more of an obligation to pursue the desired strategy, or to try and save the client's life?
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      If the public defenders had not somehow turned him against using them, he would have had at least one capital-qualified attorney from that office working his case in conjunction with the private lawyer. We're not privy to the details, but I think the likely scenario is that they were just telling him what they were going to do and ignoring his input. His input may have been cuckoo crazypants, but they still have a professional ethical obligation to take that into account. I.e. when the client says "no guilty plea", the lawyer has to discard all strategies that involve an admission of guilt. It's probably all because his preferred strategy was 99% likely to result in a guilty verdict, with capital punishment. As I have learned from movies and television, sometimes the defendant demands that all the obvious winnable strategies are completely off the table, and their attorney then has to be incredibly clever, to not only secure a not guilty verdict, but also uncover the real killer by forcing them to admit guilt on the witness stand. This guy's lawyer maybe watched too many of those shows, and thought admitting guilt was actually the clever courtroom twist that would lead to the happy ending? The attorney has an obligation to act in the interests of their client. When the client is issuing instructions to the attorney that are apparently contrary to their own interests, does the lawyer do what they say they want or do what the professional believes they need?