05/10/2019
Had an important principle reinforced yesterday. After 15 months of discovery, investigation, motions, plea negotiations, and finally a 3-day jury trial, we ended up with a split verdict - Not Guilty on the most serious charge, but Guilty on a lesser felony count. I was, of course, disappointed that we didn’t prevail entirely, as was my client, but he was more happy that we had fought the good fight. We probably ended up a little worse off than had he accepted the plea offer from the DA, but the more important issue was he had gotten his day in court.
After 30+ years of criminal defense work, I have the deepest respect and pride in our Constitution, justice system, and particularly the people who participate in it. It’s not perfect and has its flaws, but we should never forget how privileged and blessed we are to have the best system in the world! Many times simply exercising your right to due process is more important than the outcome. They say hindsight is 20-20 and you can look back and perhaps there are a couple of things I would do differently. But you can never change the amount of effort put in and when you put on your best case, that’s really all you can do and trust that our criminal justice system works.
I think our case probably turned out correctly in the long run, but by far the more important issue was that my client felt he had gotten his due process, and by doing so, felt the verdict was just - though he disagreed with it, he respected it. God bless America - never forget the rights given to us under the Constitution and all those souls who gave their lives protecting it!
