Police posing as defense lawyers

[draco664]

This just blows me away.
Some detectives posed as 'federal defense attorneys' to get incriminating evidence out of someone they'd charged. They even convinced the suspect not to speak to his court-appointed attorney about his case (an action that led to his actual lawyer to get a mental evaluation done, as he kept telling him that he was being represented by 'federal' lawyers). Not only that, the detectives convinced the suspect to plead guilty.

Ok, pretty bad. But anyone who has passed a bar exam should be able to argue that one off surely?

Nope. The judge decided that the suspect had made 'a real dumb decision' and had 'picked his poison'. Apparently the whole constitutional requirement to have legal counsel at all stages of legal action against you is just a guideline.

On appeal, the three appelate judges took a very short time to bitchslap the judge, detectives, sheriff's office and anyone else involved.

The final kicker? The sheriff doesn't think that what was done was wrong.

[Greenday]

That's just pathetic. I can't believe they A.) thought they'd get away with it and B.) think it's okay.

[Andara Bledin]

Some so-called law enforcement don't see anything at all wrong with breaking the law to get a conviction.

It's gratifying to see that the appellate judge had no difficulty seeing that the whole thing was completely inappropriate and tossing it out for having irrevocably tainted the entire case.

It's sad that it had to go to appeals to get there, however.

^-.-^

[crashhelmet]

Surely there has to be some sort of tampering or interference law against what they did. It also makes you wonder how many other convictions they've gotten using that ploy.

[Tanasi]

Isn't practicing law without a license a big no-no???

[MadMike]

The final kicker? The sheriff doesn't think that what was done was wrong.

They never do. To these overzealous law and order types, the end always justifies the means when it comes to getting a conviction. Worse yet, some of them don't even care if they have the right person or not, they just want a conviction under their belts.

[Hyena Dandy]

They never do. To these overzealous law and order types, the end always justifies the means when it comes to getting a conviction. Worse yet, some of them don't even care if they have the right person or not, they just want a conviction under their belts.

Right. Everybody's done something, the Edgeworth reasoning, yes?

[Greenday]

Isn't practicing law without a license a big no-no???

They weren't practicing law.

[Andara Bledin]

Isn't practicing law without a license a big no-no???

They weren't practicing law.

If you read through the transcript linked, the deciding judge that dismissed all charges notes that it is illegal under Tennessee law (and likely in every state) to claim to practice in any field that is licensed.

So, stating that you're a lawyer when you are not, in fact, a lawyer is against the law. This is why, during the original hearing to decide whether the trial could continue or not, the defendant was unable to prove that they had interfered with his right to representation; the detective who had organized the entire charade was not testifying due to having invoked his 5th Amendment rights and had retained his own counsel against the charges that would be stemming from the incident.

^-.-^

[draco664]

They never do. To these overzealous law and order types, the end always justifies the means when it comes to getting a conviction. Worse yet, some of them don't even care if they have the right person or not, they just want a conviction under their belts.

Right. Everybody's done something, the Edgeworth reasoning, yes?

While MadMike was using emotive language ('never', 'always') he has a point. There are a lot of miscarriages of justice going on, and given that DAs are voted in (generally) on their record of convictions, it's not exactly rare that innocents get steamrolled.

Yet another reason to completely disregard the statement "If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear".

[MadMike]

While MadMike was using emotive language ('never', 'always') he has a point.

I didn't think I was speaking in absolutes. I wasn't saying that all the police are like that, just that a (hopefully) small group of corrupt ones are.

As far as ones that just want to get a conviction, and don't care whether they have the right person, an incident like that happened in my area recently. A woman was sitting out on her back porch talking on the phone, late at night while the rest of the family was sleeping, when someone came up behind her and slashed her throat. When the police arrived, the immediate suspected the husband, and forced their way into the house and handcuffed him, not telling him why, or even that his wife was dead. They continued to berate and harass him, trying to coerce him into a confession, even going as far as to tell him, "We know you killed your wife."

Thankfully, police in Massachussetts caught the real killer. It was a serial killer, who was working as a truck driver. They found the murder weapon, a bloody knife. The DNA in the blood matched the other guy's wife. The local police never even apologized to the guy.

Here is one of many articles that ran in our local paper:

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...r_victims.html

[draco664]

Consider this example too.

Guy on death row had, during the investigation and trial, asked for DNA testing to be done on evidence taken from the crime scene. His lawyer decided to veto the tests, working on the assumption that it would hurt his client's case.

Guy found guilty, sentenced to death.

The prosecutor, on a 'dare' from someone in the media, did preliminary testing on the untested evidence, found it didn't match, and promptly cancelled the full testing.

Guy goes to the supremes to get the right to post-conviction DNA testing.

End result? Texas is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting to keep someone from potentially proving either that he was definitely the killer or was innocent. For the cost of a couple of months and a few hundred dollars.

[Hyena Dandy]

"If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear".

If you've got something to hide, you shouldn't even be here
You had your chance, now we've got the mandate
So you changed your mind
I'm afraid its too late.

[Tanasi]

If you've got something to hide, you shouldn't even be here
You had your chance, now we've got the mandate
So you changed your mind
I'm afraid its too late.

I'm a member of Tennessee Firearms Association and one of the things they give to members and make available to anyone who wants one is a business-like card that you can give to the LEOs that basically say's my name is ***** and my attorney is ***** I have nothing to say without my attorney being present. A big reason some people are in the jail-house is that they talked their way in. As Ron White says you have the right to remain silent most folks don't have the ability.