Silent Vigil
I haven’t posted in a while, and probably won’t again for some time. Whatever excess care I might have spent on blogging is now absorbed by the fact that our state supreme court a few weeks ago granted transfer in a case in which I’d represented the defendant at trial. By doing so, they vacated a court of appeals’ opinion which, on the grounds of collateral estoppel, had reversed my former client’s conviction and 45 year sentence for attempted murder and would have set him free. Oral argument was held last Thursday.
The former client is innocent, and never should have been convicted in the first place. “No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.” Indiana Code section 35-41-3-2.
I am praying to God for Justice.
1Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
2I will praise the LORD while I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
3Do not trust in princes,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
4His spirit departs, he returns to the earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.
5How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the LORD his God,
6Who made heaven and earth,
The sea and all that is in them;
Who keeps faith forever;
7Who executes justice for the oppressed;
Who gives food to the hungry
The LORD sets the prisoners free.
8The LORD opens the eyes of the blind;
The LORD raises up those who are bowed down;
The LORD loves the righteous;
9The LORD protects the strangers;
He supports the fatherless and the widow,
But He thwarts the way of the wicked.
10The LORD will reign forever,
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the LORD!Psalm 146
Follow
An innocent person was convicted? How did that happen?
1It’s my fault. It was my first criminal trial and I was ineffective.
2It’s my more experienced co-counsel’s fault. I brought him in to the case precisely to prevent what happened from happening.
It’s the prosecutors’ fault. They cared more about winning than justice, and committed prosecutorial misconduct at trial in their zeal to convict an innocent man.
It’s the judge’s fault. He denied our motion to dismiss on clearly erroneous grounds, then followed up by making numerous clearly erroneous evidentiary rulings at trial.
It’s the jury’s fault. There’s no way in the world a rational juror could have honestly believed beyond a reasonable doubt that my client did not reasonably fear for his life when two angry men brandishing guns invaded his backyard. They would have either did what my client did and/or shit themselves.
It’s my client’s fault. He was born with the wrong color skin and lived in the wrong neighborhood and had the courage to defend himself and his friends and family.