Saturday, November 21, 2009

A rare Saturday post

But I wanted to note a good result in the 167th today. We had a long chat with our jurors after the verdict and was hugely impressed with their diligence and hard work, and I plan to post about that in the near future (dare one hope for a Sunday post?!). But for now, just the facts: a conviction. Sentence to follow Monday, when we conclude the punishment hearing. Congrats to my first chair, who rocked, and thanks again to those jurors, the cops and detectives who made this happen (you know who you are!).

Also, a good result for my friend and colleague Joe Frederick.

And finally from the case tried by Jackie Wood and Allison Benesch this past week.

2 comments:

  1. Well, D.A. Confidential won his case, but just barely -- quite a good job however, considering what there was to work with. The details were so weird it was almost like something D.A. Confidential had contrived for a plot in one of his novels rather than something that actually happened in reality. Perhaps D.A. Confidential will elaborate further in subsequent posts, but for starters the main characters were speed freaks with long rap sheets abd credibility issues as witnesses; some critical witnesses refused to identify the defendant in open court; the only person even close to being an eye witness was a scared little pre-teen at the time of the incident who didn't understand the oath he was being given and who had to be coached a little on the stand about the physical description of the suspect as seen from a long distance past midnight on a dark street; an identical twin of the victim, thus someone with an identical DNA profile and perhaps the intended victim, was living at the residence where the shooting occurred; an apparently defective squad car videotape system displayed a time stamp showing the defendant in custody several minutes before the time stamp on another squad car videotape system documented the gunshot audio of the incident; and on and on and on ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are right that the case was far from perfect -- very few are, of course. But one thing is for sure: the defendant had an excellent defense lawyer who did an extremely good job pointing out all the flaws in the case. He most certainly held us to our burden, and I can't imagine anyone else doing a better job for the defendant.
    All of which means, to me, that the long deliberation meant the jurors considered every aspect, every flaw, and still concluded that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Which, if you think about it, is very encouraging indeed because it means a fair process with justice being done in the end.
    Thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete

Comments posted to this blog are NOT the opinion of the Travis County D.A.'s office, under any circumstances. They are only the personal, non-representative opinion of D.A. Confidential if posted under his name.
I welcome all comments, as long as they are expressed with politeness and respect. I will delete all comments that I deem to be personal attacks, or that are posted merely to antagonize or insult.