Sunday, January 21, 2007

Low point for any PD: Telling your client to lie or lying about doing so

I agree with Rumpy on his take on the whole Art Koch:
The attorney for the man sent to Death Row for raping and killing 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce more than a decade ago is expected to testify next week that he told his client to lie on the stand because he was on medication and ''disoriented'' during the trial.

There are few things more reprehensible than when someone from such a necessary but disrespected and trod upon profession go and act like the cliche. I find Koch's actions as offensive as cops should find when other cops go and break the laws and violate people's rights. It goes against all that we stand for and breeds contempt for the justice process.

This could all be a ploy. Maybe Koch is just trying to get Chavez a new trial. Given that I have no expectation that what a person says is true, especially someone like Koch whose basically saying that he's a liar and thus is instantly suspect (I don't buy the whole 'but I'm coming clean so you must believe me BS). But even if you philosophically disagree with the death penalty, it is hard to fathom how deep a person must be committed to its abolition to try and win Chavez a new trial, only prolonging the inevitable. They found the decedent's backpack in his home and he led police to where the boy was living. Either the police illegally obtained that confession or he's going to die (unless the jury can be convinced of mitigating factors)! What court wants to suppress that (we all know about that 'Christian Burial Speech' case with the facade of inevitable discovery being given the official imprimatuer by the Supremes)?

I don't doubt that another person could have killed the decedent and Chavez could have been framed or set-up, but still, two wrongs (or three, the killing was first, then the framing was second) don't make lying as a lawyer or getting your client to lie right!

1 Comments:

Blogger That Guy said...

Yeah, defending a person is noble. Defending a murderer is surely noble.

Telling the murderer to lie is dishonorable. I think someone wanted to win more than they wanted justice.

Sad story.

4:27 AM  

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