Thanks for the update. I must’ve missed that piece of news (not that I’m closely following the issue anywhere but on this board).
He’s cleaned it up from his earlier online messages (which have been taken down). He was complaining the $500 fine and community service was too harsh. He was saying he was innocent. And he was saying the video tape was just a rumor and hadn’t really existed.
People challenged him on his claims. He had pled guilty to the charges so he couldn’t claim he was innocent. It was a matter of legal record that the video tape had been ruled inadmissible, so he couldn’t plausibly claim it hadn’t existed. And while the “severity” of his sentence is a subjective issue, apparently enough people argued the point that he decided to back down on this one as well.
And with “oh but he really really loves me, you don’t really know him, he’s so sweet!” syndrome. Actually I’m reasonably sure that’s not the technical name, it probably has one.
Stockholm Syndrome?
There’s a lot of outrage to go around for pretty much everyone involved in this case, but I too disagree that this has anything to do with “millionaires never get convicted of serious crimes,” which I do think is a real problem in the world.
Unless there is a state law saying otherwise, inevitable discovery, perhaps?
It seems to me that a video tape of the incident that the police knew about was inevitably going to be discovered. Its been decades since I took criminal procedure but its the first thing that popped into my mind so maybe any decent public defender would have tried to exclude the evidence but wouldn’t any decent prosecutor have tried to keep it in?
There is also something called effervescent evidence (or something like that, its not coming up on google) that allows you to bust into a house without a warrant where they are flushing drugs down the toilet to grab the drugs. Once again, its been decades since criminal procedure. Bricker probably knows a lot more about this stuff.
being able to pay off the victim is something that is largely confined to the wealthy.
He is basically calling this woman a hooker by accusing her of having sex for money (and that is why he got so mad). Maybe its true that a woman who is dating one of the most eligible fucking bachelors in the world really sold her pussy in Las Vegas for some cash or maybe he paid her off.
I hope his next girlfriend punches him 117 times in the junk.
The prosecutor did try to keep it in. He lost. Inevitable discovery applies to things the police don’t already know about. If you know it exists, then you go and get a warrant for it (assuming none of the warrant exceptions applies.) You can’t skip the warrant requirement because, “hey, we would have found it anyway… if we’d had a warrant!”
Evanescent evidence, you mean, like alcohol in the bloodstream (I suppose it might be effervescent evidence if you were drinking Jack and Coke ;)). The police were already in the condo at the time they seized the video so it’s not as though he had the opportunity to delete it. They had every chance to wait there while they sought a warrant for it and didn’t bother.
I’m a little curious. How do we know so much about this video that hasn’t been made public and presumably wasn’t shown during sentencing?
Question 2: Why were the police so stupid they didn’t think of getting a warrant for an actual video of the crime?
Theories:
a) The cops are ACCUSTOMED to siezing evidence illegally and sliding it around a public defender type lawyer, which creates all sort of raised eyebrows for me
b) I got nothin’
All sorts of possible reasons. In order of most to least likely (solely IMHO; I have minimal experience with real-life criminal procedure and virtually none with day-to-day operations of law enforcement):
- They were lazy;
- They didn’t know the rules;
- They did know the rules but mistakenly believed no warrant was required because of the nature of the evidence;*
- They mistakenly believed they had a warrant;
- They did have a warrant and mistakenly believed it covered the video footage;
- They didn’t care about the rules.
Your theory (a) is fairly unlikely. Even the most overworked public defender can handle a suppression hearing of this type. In fact, I would not be surprised at all if suppression hearings are more than half of the litigation most PDs do.
On the other hand, the rules governing searches and seizures are pretty complex (and often completely counterintuitive) and law enforcement frequently makes errors of this type too.
*The evidence in question was evanescent, it just wasn’t likely to disappear while Chalal was in custody.
Did the police already know about the tape when they entered the house?
HEY!! I was close.:o
OK I got it evanescent /= effervescent.:o
It doesn’t matter. They certainly knew about it at some point after they’d entered the house, and at that point they were obliged to go get a warrant. I should also have been more clear: inevitable discovery applies to evidence obtained as the result of a prior illegal seizure, not to the original illegally seized evidence.
I dunno, isn’t being a cuckold named Gurbaksh punishment enough for anybody?
I think public defenders are getting insulted unjustly in this thread. I’ve worked in criminal justice, and most of the public defenders I knew were honest hardworking people who were every bit as competent as most private criminal defense attorneys.
As I understand it,public defenders are typically underpaid and overworked. Their caseloads often permits them very little time prepare a case. I think some have said as little as 15 minutes per client. So it’s not a matter of how good they are. It’s a matter of how thinly spread they are.
Sometimes it’s that the abusive man is really really good in bed, in which case it’s Cockholm Syndrome.
Public defender checking in… This is true to some extent. However, give me four lines of a fact pattern like this, and I could have the video excluded in under five minutes. Why? Because I have literally worked hundreds of cases that have dealt with the improper seizure of evidence. I know all the nuances with respect to this issue, and am up on the latest applicable case law. I also personally know the judges, prosecutors, and cops (which goes a lot further than fancy suits, I promise you). Based on these facts, we probably wouldn’t have even had to argue the issue.
Cops should have waited and got a warrant, period. Defendant wasn’t going anywhere. Video wasn’t going anywhere. That is why we have magistrate judges on hand 24/7.
Where my lack of time rears it’s ugly head is in returning phone calls and general hand holding through the process. It is a problem.
ll, would you say this is accurate?
If we count litigation as in cases that actually go to trial, then yes. It would be a rare trial that didn’t include some suppression motion as part of pretrial motions. Be it confession, or evidence, or initial stop.
But of course, most cases are not actually litigated, but rather negotiated. Traffic cases and most misdemeanors are almost universally reduced to something everyone can live with. Domestic violence cases typically end with a deferred judgment of guilt and classes… if the victim is willing to testify (50-50). Most first time felonies get amended to misdemeanors, with little or no jail time. Most clients will take that and run.
Unfortunately, you tend to find the most abuses in the $5 bag of weed cases. The good thing is that most of our prosecutors couldn’t give a shit about a $5 bag of weed case, so if there is even a hint of a suppression issue, they will just dismiss it outright and have a few words with the officer. The officers generally don’t give a shit either, and are happy to leave court early.
I currently have a case being heard on the merits by the Court of Appeal of Virginia with respect to the seizure of a videocassette in a rape case. They even had a warrant, but I postulated that the seizure exceeded the scope of the warrant. We have oral arguments next month. I will either be making really good, or really bad case law for defendants in Virginia. :eek:
That’s pretty much what I meant. Thanks!
To answer the OP… I have to agree that this had nothing to do with his money.
The outrage should be that another domestic violence perpetrator gets away with almost nothing. I’d guess that most states, like Virginia, have a first time statute that let’s perps walk away without a conviction and some classes. And that’s only if the victim is willing to participate/testify. That’s about 50-50 in my experience. Assault and Battery covers all manner of violence, and the next step up from that requires a real significant level of injury.
So perps are getting away with a high level of violence, and even if they are prosecuted successfully, they are likely to get a slap on the wrist and some anger management classes. This is where the real outrage should be directed, IMHO.
There’s a reason ANYONE who can afford it hires the best attorney they can. Because if you don’t, you’re fucked. Lots of poor innocent people are in jail or prison for crimes they didn’t commit.
According to the innocence project (admittedly a biased source) if 1% of those convicted are innocent, there’s 20000 innocent people in prison or jail right now. And the prosecutors and police detectives genuinely Do. Not. Give. A. Fuck.
Justice is bought and sold in this country every day. She’s not blind, she’s a street whore. And the people who are supposed to care, simply don’t. They just don’t. So yeah, hire the best you can possibly afford. It’s simply the cost of your freedom.
Regards,
-Bouncer-