The strategy to put the police and evidence in serious criminal cases on trial is nothing new; it is the right of defense lawyers to pull out all of the stops to get their clients out of jail.
However, one cannot resist the thought of whether, as officers [of the court], some defense lawyers are not doing irreparable damage to the institutions of the rule of law? Or should I say whatever is left of it?
The practice of concocting massive conspiracies in which the police always suffer a public relations nightmare is commonplace. Yet defense lawyers in it for the money do not seem to care about the harm they are causing when they attack the justice institutions to win their client’s freedom.
Yes, I understand the need to mount vigorous defenses, but does that include tearing down the rule of law for a convicted murderer?
At what point does a lawyer say to themself, this is wrong; I cannot do this?
Even as the conscientious ponder these things, the reality that defense lawyers are only doing their despicable best must be contemplated in juxtaposition with the propensity of the court of appeals to interfere with the decisions of trial courts consistently.
Based on the appeals court record, the trial courts reduce the functions once the resident magistrate’s court remit. That function was to do preliminary examinations before a case is sent to the trial court for trial.
The resident magistrate court’s job was to see if a prima face case was made out by the prosecution, not to determine innocence or guilt. Once a prima face case was deemed to have been established, the case would be elevated to the higher trial court for trial.
By consistently ignoring the doctrine of stare decisis (let the decision stand), predictably interfering in the verdicts of trial judges because of false claims made by unscrupulous defense lawyers, the court of appeals is destroying the credibility of the trial courts.
Convicted criminal defendants with deep pockets have little to fear; the court of appeals is extremely amenable to granting all kinds of concessions to the convicted, as long as they have the right lawyers and enough money to spread around.
In one recent case, the court shaved two years off a convicted murderer’s sentence. By doing so, the court changed the trial court’s sentence and gave the defendant the opening he needed to make new claims of prosecutorial impropriety.
It was exactly the opening the rapacious vultures who posture as defense attorneys needed.….they pounced claiming that the telephone which held the evidence which was critical to the conviction of their client was tampered with by.….….wait for it.. the police.
The court quickly granted the defense lawyers what they wanted, which was to have a so-called defense expert examine the device to see whether it was tampered with.
Here is the rub, however, which the public needs to understand; even if the paid defense expert was to conclude that the device was tampered with, how would they be able to say who tampered with it forensically?
Secondly, whatever information that would be physically stored on the device would also be in possession of the service provider.
Did the powerful police get into their computers too?
But isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t the scam to throw up so much smoke that there will be enough stink in the court of public opinion that the convicted murderer will walk free, like so many have done before, and continue to make music?
Isn’t the whole idea to throw enough shit at the wall and see what sticks? After all, the court did find a reason to shave some time from the sentence; why not just fly the gate?
The latest infamous gangland figure the appeals courts sprang from prison, Christopher Dog-paw Linton, is sitting really pretty laughing at the shitism that pretends to be a justice system.
Why would Vybz Kartel be any different? He has a large following of sheep and deep pockets, I presume? With his money and following, he will be able to have himself sprung from prison in short order.
What a fucking joke.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.