Being the attorney of a defendant on trial for armed robbery you face many decisions that may be difficult to handle, but knowing that is the job you signed up for you must do your job. The defendant and the attorney are the people of interest in this situation. The defendant’s freedom is at stake for committing an armed robbery. While the attorney’s career is at stake for the evidence brought forth to his attention, which he decided to return to the defendant. Why does the attorney want me to give the firearm back to the defendant, when I feel that we should notify the prosecution of the newfound evidence? Now what to do with the firearm in my possession, do I or do I not give the firearm back to the defendant? Yes, the evidence may be incriminating to the defendant, …show more content…
There are two ways I can go about handling this situation. I can either disregard what the attorney told me to do and give the firearm to the prosecution, which will possibly cause me to lose my internship or I can do exactly what the attorney asked me to do asked me to do and give the defendant back the firearm with no questions asked. I have determined that in order to be a good attorney you must listen and do what is best for your client. While following the rules I have decided to give the firearm back to the defendant, but I also plan on finding out if that is the only thing we are going to do with the recent evidence. Discussing with the attorney that I believe we should turn the evidence over to prosecution because it may or may not be the firearm used during the robbery, but also that we should know for sure. The attorney’s decision to give the firearm back may be the right decision for his own career, but may not be necessarily for the defendant. In fact, the attorney should turn the evidence over, but not if he is trying to win the case then that would not be the logical thing to
The trial was long and was delayed numerous times due to Kunstler’s busy schedule with other demanding trial cases. The delays were also part of Kunstler’s defense strategy. There was an abundance of evidence shown throughout the trial among which was the ballistics test. These test showed that of the five shots that Skagen endured only two were from Richardson’s gun. After a yearlong trial the prosecutor and the defense gave their summations and the jury deliberated. The deliberation took several days. In the end Richardson was convicted with three of the original seven charges; manslaughter in the second degree, possessing a weapon as a felony, and criminal possessing of stolen property in the third degree. The judge sentenced Richardson to a term no more than ten years for the conviction of manslaughter in the second degree. No more than seven years for the conviction of felony possession of a weapon. The criminal possession of stolen property was unconditionally discharged and the sentences were to be served concurrently. Kunstler appealed this sentenced and Richardson was allowed to stay out of jail on bail. On April 13, 1976 the Appellate Division reversed the manslaughter conviction and the felony gun conviction. The case was sent back to the original court and Richardson was resentenced to three years
Recently in Alabama a man by the name of Anthony Ray Hinton was exonerated from death row after already spending thirty years in prison. Hinton was convicted of two separate fatal shootings of fast food restaurant managers in Birmingham, AL. One on February 25, 1985 shooting a John Davidson, and the second occurrence was on July 2, 1985 making Thomas Vason the second deceased. The evidence brought against him was a revolver that somewhat matched the one Hinton had in his home. There was no physical evidence, no fingerprints and no eyewitnesses linking him to the crime. Also, the revolver was questionable at best due to the fact the gun belonged to his mother who he lived with. Ballistics could not accurately tell if the gun Hinton had was even the weapon used in the shootings because they could not tell if his gun had been fired out of recently. They also could not conclusively say that all the bullets used in the two shootings were fired from the same gun. All in all, Hinton was convicted by a possible bullet match to his gun; and an eyewitness’s testimony from a person who was present at a similar, but different crime that Hinton was never accused of. Hinton coming from an underprivileged area only had a $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to disprove the allegations. Thus leading to a person whose proposed allegations were questionable. Hinton was found guilty and put on Death Row. After sitting in a jail cell for thirty years he was released after firearms experts
cause to search him thus the search was illegal and the gun should not be admitted as evidence.
In the scenario, three individuals, Joe, Larry, and Bob, were convicted criminals and who were speeding in a stolen vehicle, when they saw a group of rivals. Joe was in the passenger seat warning the others that he was going to shoot at the rival members with a weapon he concealed it in his waistband; Larry the driver, drove the vehicle closer to the opponents. At the stop sign, Bob, who was in the back seat, left the car because he was on parole and didn’t want to go back to imprisonment. Afterwards, Larry drove past the adversaries as Joe discharged a few shots; one individual was murder and the other was shot in the leg.
The case Anthony Ray Hinton which reached is prolonged conclusion in 2015 demonstrates what harm can be caused by the inadequate performance of an attorney. Hinton was convicted for a two murders during armed robberies. The only evidence provided by the prosecution during his trial was a ballistic expertise which matched the bullets found at the scene of the crime and the gun of the defendant’s mother. Hinton’s defense attorney failed to provide the funding that was needed for expert witnesses which would have been able to rebut the prosecutions expertise. Anthony Ray Hinton was declared guilty and sentenced to
The witnesses stated that the sacks that Mr. Riff was charged with carrying that contained the money were issued to him at the poker game. Mr. Riff testified he grabbed the hammer to use as a security measure for him in order to protect his winnings. The Defense disputes Mr. Riff tossed the hammer away prior to arriving home and in no way meant to steal from the market. The Defense in this case exercised oral communication by exploiting the redundancy in this case. This was to establish that the eyewitness testimonies for the prosecution were incorrect and imperfection was found during the police investigation.
The pickup truck’s owner arrived, the defendant got his keys, told him to sit in the truck, and gave him beer. He then got back under the truck to wait some more. Passerby’s alerted the police who arrested the defendant. He also testified that while waiting for his friend, he started sobering up and thinking things over. He removed the bullets from the gun and put them in his pocket, and made plans to have a party at his house with the people in the pickup. They were drinking and conversing when the police arrived.
If I were in charge of retrieving bullets at a crime scene I’d first I would have to find a way to remove the bullet out while preserving any possible markings on the bullet. Then the bullets can be placed into a marked container for identification purposes. Then to transport the bullet to the crime laboratory, I’d wrap the bullet in tissue paper and placed in an envelope or pillbox. I would have to be careful with the handling and packaging of the bullet, because I would have to be careful to preserve any trace evidence that might be present on the bullet.
After being told the details of a supposed getaway car from a robbery, the police saw the car and began to drive after it (Rakas V. Illinois 439 U.S. 128 (1978)). The officers then took off after the car to conduct a search passed on probable cause. After completing the search the officers found a shot gun and shells within the car (Rakas V. Illinois 439 U.S. 128 (1978)). The owner of the vehicle had no correlations to the robbery, so the passengers took responsibility of the gun and ammo (Rakas V. Illinois 439 U.S. 128 (1978)). Upon their court date, the men that were incarcerated decided they wanted to motion to suppress the gun. However due to a lack of standing, the motion to suppress was denied (Rakas V. Illinois 439 U.S. 128 (1978)).
As the officer got closer to the suspect, the suspect abruptly turned around, reached into his pocket to pull out an object and the officer proceeded to fire two shots at the suspect. The fact that the suspect died from the two shots and that he was simply pulling a religious cross out of his pocket are facts that would not be considered by the Court. This is because these facts would be compelling evidence which would induce hindsight evaluation. Instead, the Court may analyze the action taken by the suspect immediately before the officer fired the two shots. The suspect abruptly turned around and reached into his pocket, at this point the officer did not know what the suspect might have pulled out his pocket.
The police will use any evidence that is collected to go to the prosecutor and secure an indictment of Mr. Cook. This can be used in conjunction with eyewitness testimony to establish how he was the individual, who committed the armed robbery. The basic steps that will be necessary will involve: letting the client know to only talk to police when defense council is present, establishing bail and working out some kind of plea bargain. Based on the evidence, Mr. Cook should be arrested for armed robbery.
Sexual thoughts pop in and out of most people’s mind, but especially teenagers, and there’s nothing they can do about it. It is normal for teenage boys and girls to experience this, more than ever when they are hitting puberty. The hormones in the body begin to act up and teenagers want to experience other things on their own. Males begin to grow pubic and facial hairs, and their voice starts to deepen, while girls’ breasts begin to develop and their body begins to take shape. After hitting puberty, teenagers are now at the point where they want to experience things. ‚Don’t go out there and get pregnant‛ a mother
The defense cross examined Beard. Asking him what was true and what was false in his statements. DA Wetmore also questioned how it was possible that Beard left with the weapon and drove with it out of the window of the car if he was so shocked and traumatized.
Times. http://www.nytimes.com.2008/02/19/world /americas/19iht-princeton.1.10175351.html Fitzsimmons, W. 2014. Time out or Burn out for the Next Generation. Retrieved from
Evidence is the key element in determining the guilt or innocence of those accused of crimes against society in a criminal court of law. Evidence can come in the form of weapons, documents, pictures, tape recordings and DNA. According to the American Heritage College dictionary, evidence is the documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law (476). It is shown in court as an item of proof, to impeach or rehabilitate a witness, and to determine a sentence. This paper will examine two murder cases, O.J. Simpson and Daniel Taylor.