Deffense Attorneys

Forcelli explains his displeasure of our broken criminal justice system when he states, “The sad part is that getting an innocent man out of jail is way, way, way harder than putting a guilty man in jail.” When detectives are constantly pressured to close cases and produce high conviction rates it can cause in accuracies in convictions. Garry’s case is a perfect example of how a case with minimal evidence can result in an innocent getting placed in prison. Garry has sat in prison for over 20 years waiting to appeal his case and plead his innocence. The ease of convicting an innocent man should be consistent with difficulty of exonerating an innocent man. In Garry’s case he awaits a decision from a judge where the judge has three options, to exonerate him, grant a retrial, or

The main goal of this community is to help the attorneys do their part in the criminal justice system. Prosecutors are there to advocate for the victim and defense attorneys are there to advocate for the defendant. But the attorneys don't do this alone, they have the support of their paralegals and other support staff to help them get their cases together. Another goal for this community is to complete their work competently, diligently, and

Introduction: While most people consider the system as an adversarial process, many cases are settled in an informal pattern of cooperation between the major actors in the justice process. (The prosecutor, defense attorney, judge, and other court personnel.)

In “No Crueler Tyrannies”, Dorothy Rabinowitz rightly criticizes the lawyers taking part in the prosecution; the nature of these criticisms includes the prosecution’s ultimatum stance on seeking finality over justice, their subjective reactions to the Moral Panic of the time, and the mere lack of physical evidence used in trial.

In reference from the Criminalists policies on the west side of America, the C.A.C. states “The end of the journey is the courtroom where testimony of the crime scene work, laboratory analysis, the conclusions on the report and interpretation of the evidence will be presented and questioned. The criminalist tells the truth in an unbiased manner, educating the jurors about the techniques that were used, the results obtained and interpretations derived from those conclusions” (n.d.). That is what interest me the most, being given an opportunity to change someone’s life for better or worse and doing what’s right; There’s nothing more I could possibly want in a career. There are so much wrongs in the world, why can’t I do my best to make that ratio equal? I don’t want to bring criminals to justice, I have to as a duty to prove I am good enough, not in anybody else’s mind but my

One of the defendants actually states “Hey you good, Why aint you become a real lawyer” (p. 138). They think because they are getting this for free that these people representing them don’t have any idea what they are doing because the one was so good at using the facts for his client is a good way he got him acquitted.

Normally, if a defendant is arrested and brought to court, the prosecutor must present enough evidence to make the judge or grand jury believe that the defendant had committed the crime. In the memoir, “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, cases regarding corruption and quick trials are presented to the reader from Stevenson’s point of view. Many times Stevenson implied that characters such as Sheriff Tate and other officers abused their power to cause hasty trials and take cases that did not have enough evidence to convict and create false witness testimonies. Testimonies were manipulated to give the advantage to the prosecutors and when other people spoke up for the defendant they were either bribed or silenced. For example, in the Walter McMillian case, the testimonies of his family and neighbors saying he was at his house was dismissed while Ralph Myers testimony was the key factor for the case. When Myers had admitted that he had lied in his testimony, he was “threatened and harassed by the local authorities”(Stevenson

Innocent until proven guilty is a phrase that applies to our judicial system in modern times; however, when the play Doubt by John Patrick Stanley was written this phrase did not always apply. The play is a parable that makes you think about how gossip and rumors can cause havoc and potentially ruin someone’s career. In the play the rumors that are flying are rumors about whether or not Father Flynn is innocent or guilty to the crime of molesting a young boy named Donald Muller. Critics still argue whether he was innocent or guilty to the crime today, and no answer is known. However, based on the evidence in Patrick Shanley’s play Doubt: A Parable, one could conclude that Father Flynn is innocent due to the fact that he had reasonable evidence

In his book, Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson writes of cases where the defendant was wrongfully condemned because their attorney did not do their job correctly. In some cases, this behavior extended past the original trial, all the way through any appeals available to the client. Stevenson continues by discussing how the trials were either clearly biased, or evidence was blatantly ignored. Yet often, the attorney either submitted a brief attesting to no appeal, or simply neglected to file an appeal by the deadline. Their clients not only did not receive the fair trial that our constitution mandates, but also lost any chance to take advantage of the fail-safes that were built into the legal system. When these ineffective defenders were eventually disbarred, no investigations were launched to revisit their past cases in search of legal malpractice. Instead, any cases directly impacted by their conduct were left as they were- with unfairly convicted people sitting behind bars. While the Equal Justice Initiative does what it can to help find justice for people who deserve it, they must be contacted by, or on behalf of, the victim of injustice. There are few programs to help individuals with mental illness or those without knowledge of the initiative, even though these are the people who need guidance the most.

The relationship between the district attorney and the police chief, I wouldn't necessarily say it was a relationship because the district attorney was in on things that the chief knew nothing about. The Distract attorney was very great at hiding things from the chief and the chief was just oblivious to the incidents that were happening in his department that he would agree with some of the things the attorney would say. The DA was being blackmailed by Captain Dudley who was not so good as everyone thought, he was the one behind many deaths and bad situations. Dudley had other officers do his dirty work.

Justice. It is something that everyone wants, something that we strive for, even something that sparks. However, when we think of lawyers, we think of superheroes with an expensive education, walking into the courtroom and serving up justice. What no one thinks of is the person that helped the lawyer get there, the paralegal that prepares the necessary documents, the paralegal that makes sure his or her attorney is at the right place at the right time. A paralegal is crucial and in some cases vital to our justice system yet they are so often over looked.

I too, like Ms. Burleson, am curious why Oklahoma is ranked second in the nation. I feel you have a strong topic and I like how you chose a topic regarding something you have observed while working in law enforcement. You also bring up an interesting point with how mental illness has been brought to light in the recent years in reference to shootings and murders. In my opinion and observations, I have observed a recent trend of defense attorneys using the mental illness title as a possible defense. More often than not their clients pass the competency evaluations with little to no problem.

Severance works somewhat differently in federal criminal trials because this case involves the indictment of more than one defendant Jones, Walsh and Bert. In Bert 's situation, his defense attorney will provide an argument that a joint trail might be unfair against Bert or reaching a decision on the rape charges against him. The Severance is not automatic because the Federal rule 14 allows judges broad discretion in deciding whether to grant a severance to Bert. To be successful, Bert’s defense will to fill a motion for his severance which must show the concerns for Bert 's right to a fair trial outweigh the goals of the joinder. One of the most successful grounds for seeking severance for Bert arises when Bert wishes not to testify on all, some or any of the charges in the trail but chooses to claim his Fifth Amendment privilege on one or more charges. The separating by court order, such as separate trials for Bert, Jones, and Walsh who are charged with the same crime, or trying the negligence aspect of the rape charge or any other charge before the trail. Such division of issues in the trail is sometimes called "bifurcation." ("Burton 's Legal Thesaurus," 4E. (2007).

Many death row inmates were convicted while being defended by a court appointed lawyer who are often the worst paid and most inexperienced and least skillful lawyers. The Bar Association published guidelines for a good defense in a death penalty case”. Anti-death Penalty ( 2010)

Within the book, Dershowitz poses the question of whether prosecutors and defense attorneys are advocates for justice, or only for their clients. The reason for lawyers choosing a client can