[fabsroman]

Val,

That day hasn't come for the very reason that you would be just as guilty as the criminal.

Most lawyers aren't out there to make a name for themselves on these death penalty cases. Most of them are the liberal guys who think these people deserve every chance possible.

My criminal law professor put it best, "We do our jobs and hope that the system works. That is how we sleep at night."

We have gone over this time and time again. The American judicial system is structured so that 10 guilty men will go free before 1 innocent man is convicted.

Just put yourself in the shoes of some poor, and I mean monetarily poor, person that is charged with a crime that he is innocent of? Imagine that you get the public defender who is overworked and grossly under paid.

Your problem Val is that you are looking at this as though all people found guilty are actually guilty. I would love to come down to Florida and lock you in a prison for several years, just so you could experience what an innocent person in jail experiences. How did those 40+ guys on death row feel knowing they were innocent. How did that poor doctor feel being incarcerated for several months while he was innocent.

Yes, I do feel terrible for the victims, but lets not railroad people into the death penalty. The laws are in place for a reason, and not all attorneys are glory seekers.

While I don't do much criminal stuff, I have been involved with a client recently that has been charged with a plethora of stuff over the last year or so.

January 2004 - DWI

September 2004 - 2nd Degree Assualt against his girlfriend

February 2005 - 4 counts of 2nd Degree Assault, 3 against LEO's, and a disorderly conduct charge

March 2005 - driving on a revoked license, along with several other moving violations

May 2005 - 2nd Degree Assault against his girlfriend

The entire mess started with the DWI. He and his girlfriend got into an argument and he locked himself in his truck so that he could get away from her. I didn't represent him in this case, but I reviewed the record to prepare for the other cases and she testified in the DWI case that she grabbed a wrench out of the back of the truck and broke the window to the truck. At that point, he drove off and "accidentally" ran over her leg. He saw it happen in the side view mirror and jumped out of the truck while it was still moving. It ended up going across the street and hitting a tree. He was found guilty of driving under the influence.

The MO on both 2nd Degree Assualt charges made by her is that they happen after the two of them have been drinking. He broke up with her on both occassions and started loading his stuff in the car and she called the police on him for hitting her. She didn't appear at either trial, but I had to plead him on the second one because the LEO's saw the destroyed items and were available as witnesses. There were absolutely no marks on her from either incident.

Before meeting this girl, this guy's record was completely clean except for a disorderly conduct charge back in 1993.

The other night she called me up crying that he hit her again, and she was pissed off at me because she doesn't think I believe he ever hits her. Quite honestly, this thing has me torn up. He admitted the assault to me during the May 2005 incident, but according to him it was minor (i.e., a push in her back when she turned her back on him). Of course, he could be lying.

However, I know she is a coniver/manipulator, because she has been coniving ever since I have known her. She stopped working at her last job, and her friend there is doing her work for her, so she just signs her pay check over to her friend. I have no idea how the heck that works, but she uses the alleged income for credit purposes. My client, who owns a business, drafted a letter of employment for her to "refinance" her mortgage even though I tried to explain to him that he could get into serious trouble if she defaulted on the loan because she wasn't actually working for him. She had tried on several occassions to have my client sign over a vehicle to her because "her alcohol class in Virginia wants to see that she has insurance on a car and she needs to have the car in her own name to get insurance on it." When I suggested that he just put her name on the title along with his, she wasn't too happy about it.

I guess what pisses me off is that if she really wanted to be spiteful, she could testify in one of these matters and get my client thrown in jail because the judge would believe her over my client. She could throw herself down the stairs and get my client locked up for quite a while, because the judge would believe her.

Of course, I could always try to show the MO of the previous circumstances (i.e., the car was loaded up with his stuff on both occassions that she called the police), but it all comes down to credibility. Sometimes, there just isn't overwhelming evidence.

That is probably what the 40+ in Illinois faced.They were just railroaded and there were people like you crying out for there immediate death back then.

Val, I know I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I pulled the trigger on an innocent person, but I am sure when you take matters into your own hands you will gather all the evidence possible before killing somebody based upon anger and what you "think" he might have done. Figuring out somebody's guilt isn't always the easiest thing. If the person is found with the body, is he automatically guilty. Boy, I hope I don't stumble on any dead bodies anytime soon.

I can keep going on, but I have to get back to work so I can glorify my name on an unemployment issue that one of my clients has. LOL

By the way, if somebody killed a family member of mine, you can bet I would want blood, but I doubt I would kill anybody unless I actually saw the person kill my family member.