Phoenix, AZ—Most of my blog visitors know I’m a longtime criminal defense investigator and have worked on many high profile cases helping the wrongfully accused.
The defense and prosecution is supposed to have parity and equal treatment in the courts but it’s all just pretend.There is a huge laundry list of issues that work against the accused before their trial even begins.
One thing that troubles me is seeing the same prosecutors in large jurisdictions working every day before the same judges.They literally sometimes even sleep together. When a criminal defense attorney comes to their court he or she is an outsider and often treated that way.
The police have enormous powers to gather evidence such as the Grand Jury subpoena. They can arrest those who obstruct investigations, tamper with witnesses and can most importantly obtain search warrants.
Defense investigators should just like cops be able to surreptitiouslyrecord conversations with suspects, cops and witnesses.
Defense investigators need similar powers. Search warrants enable nearly, always instant cooperation for records, documents and physical evidence. For defense investigators important evidence they learn about is often destroyed or concealed before it can be seized denying fair trials for those accused of crimes.
Defense investigators are often at odds with police and cannot rely on their assistance. In some cases police attempt to meddle in the defense investigation and that corrupts witnesses and the evidence itself. Unfortunately sometimes police officers engage in criminal activity in order to convict the innocent. That goes double when it’s a police officer wrongfully accused of a crime!
Let me suggest that defense investigators trained and licensed should be given limited police powers to arrest criminal suspects and seize evidence. The courts should provide evidence lockers and laboratory testing away from police crime labs to avoid conflict of interest.
Just my opinion and thoughts. The benefit is that this simple reform another step to fairness in our deeply flawed criminal justice system. In the end it will save millions in cash and a few lives.
Murder cases may often be similar but no two are ever really
alike. Most murder defendants are found
guilty. Any person being put on trial
stands an 80% chance of being convicted.
However some of the accused are actually innocent and
getting their lives back is anything but easy.
The burden of proof is on the government but over-zealous cops and
prosecutors too often lie and cheat to win guilty verdicts from unsuspecting
jurors. Framing someone is very easy to
do for any competent homicide detective. Escaping a false conviction is always
a life altering challenge.
If the case is not clear and the evidence is weak, that is
where and when the prosecution chicanery goes into overdrive. Cops hate getting sued and they know if a
defendant gets convicted, any potential lawsuit would be dead. That’s part of the motivation along with
protecting their professional pride.
It’s ugly but a fact of life.
Murder cases are the ones that usually require the most work
by defense lawyers and investigators. Because of the incredibly high cost of a
murder defense, public defenders get the bulk of these cases.
The public defenders can either be horrible or very good
lawyers. A defendant is usually stuck with
what he gets for a lawyer and simply does not have the ability to recognize
legal blunders. The defendant has to
deal from a position of pure faith.
Public defender investigators are generally worthless,
unmotivated and poorly paid. Most
private investigators over-rate themselves and pad their resumes more than the
girls did their bras at my high school prom.
Usually a good lawyer knows a reasonably decent PI. Don’t let some plagiarized Internet website
convince you to hire an investigator. The
bums see someone else’s attractive and professionally created website and
simply copy and convert it to their own use.
Don’t be fooled.
You could have a great private lawyer but he could be
handcuffed by budgetary problems that interfere with hiring needed experts and
qualified investigators. Too many lawyers wait until they are desperate before
they share their retainer with an investigator to track down needed evidence.
It may be best to pay your investigator separately to make
sure he can do the work that needs to be done.
If you’re rich and can hire the best you usually stand a much better chance. If you're poor that invites the unthinkable.
If you barely have enough money to hire a private lawyer he really can't share any portion of his retainer with anyone else like an
investigator or forensic and other expensive technical experts.
Chances are good your lawyer will not have what he needs to
win because of the failure to find witnesses that can impeach or at least
challenge those presented by the prosecutor.
Multiple lawyers on a murder case sounds really good but it
can be a recipe for a disaster. Lawyers
fight among themselves like cats and dogs.
They wind up working against each other just to prove a point. Any more
than two good lawyers is usually a horrible idea.
Investigators are used to do background investigations on
witnesses including contacting their friends, co-workers and enemies. A proper investigation will uncover perjury,
witness tampering and evidence tampering.
Investigators need to go through and analyze garbage. They need to interview anyone and everyone
possible and have an envelope with blank subpoenas handy.
If the investigator is lucky to be in a state that allows
one party consent to conversation recording he needs to abuse that all he
can. Likewise placing GPS transmitters
on people and automobiles to track their movements can lead defense
investigators to the criminal activity of the prosecution witnesses.
Let’s say the motive for the murder is theft it’s often a
prosecution witness that may be a more viable suspect if an investigator can
document his nefarious activity. If the
motive for murder is to cover a sex-offense perhaps a prosecution witness’
unusual sexual liaisons can take focus off of the accused defendant.
There are a million little tricks that can be used to find
the truth outside of the courtroom. By
the time the trial begins if there’s nothing discovered about the state’s
witnesses the defense lawyer will be at their mercy. Of course if there’s either no investigation
or a limited one the defense lawyer may surely be defeated.
If the lawyer tells you that you don’t need an investigator
on a really serious case watch out.
When crimes occur, the police move in quickly when they become aware of the event. They investigate, search once probable cause is established and make the arrest/s.
Far too often there are the suspects, who with their friends and family lie to the police as a form of “insurance” that they don’t get charged. This is usually the beginning of a criminal justice system disaster. The lies are nearly always exposed by police and the value of any future testimony is zero.
Of course total silence is the cure for this from the accused and his witnesses. Police cannot make anyone talk. A witness however can be compelled to testify before a Grand Jury or a court but that never happens anytime soon. Why would anyone ever talk to the cops?
The sad truth is innocent people lie to police every day as a way to avoid trouble. Instead it brings much more trouble and too often leads to a wrongful conviction. The lesson here is to save your stories for your defense team.
The best police investigation is far from an exact science and errors, omissions and corruption of every kind stand in the way of a just resolution. No police investigation is perfect and the majority of them rely at some point on wrong conclusions. Thankfully most investigations don’t snag innocent people but it’s all too common for the properly accused to be overcharged by prosecutors.
Thankfully we still live in a somewhat free country with a Bill of Rights that protects all charged with crimes. The right to counsel also includes the right to investigate and test the evidence. That’s where I come in.
To maximize my effectiveness it’s best that I be brought in as soon as the event occurs, or at least immediately when the police are involved. There are the “golden hours” to locate and interview witnesses along with examining the presumed crime scene. Police too frequently blow off witnesses and physical evidence that does not support their theory of the case.
If I’m able to find exculpatory evidence before there is a formal Indictment or finding of Probable cause through a Preliminary Hearing the case may end. The accused may be saved as much as a million dollars in future legal fees as well as being held in jail without bail for a year or more. Once there is an Indictment prosecutors never let go no matter what. It’s not fair but that’s the way it is.
As the case proceeds the prosecutors must turn over all witness statements, documentary and physical evidence for examination and/or testing by the defense. Unfortunately this has become a game, of hide and seeks as cops and prosecutors routinely obstruct the discovery process. A qualified investigator should know what to look for, like missing property documentation or laboratory reports. If things are missing there is nearly always a nefarious reason for that.
Witnesses routinely lie to police and investigators. Repetitive interviews and interrogations can cut through the deception because most people can’t keep their lies straight. Comprehensive background investigations of the witnesses must be made by the defense to uncover credibility concerns and any motivation to mislead.
There is all that new technology that will provide iron clad alibis for the innocent. Much will be lost without timely collection. I’m talking about those, time and date encoded surveillance video cameras that are everywhere. There are those debit cards and preferred customer tabs we have on our key rings even when we pay cash. Getting the data and video from the businesses is not complicated by anything but time. Video can routinely be erased within a week or less.
Those cell-phones all leave a data trail that documents where we’ve been along with those text, picture and video messages and calls.
Cops love to rely on the technology to implicate suspects but are too often reluctant clear them especially after they’ve made the big arrest and flooded the media with those self-serving press releases.
The greatest lawyer in the world can do little without a decent defense investigation. The lawyers can’t do their own investigation since they cannot be a witness in the case they are defending. Defense investigators are routinely called as witnesses during trials.
You can hire me early and save a fortune in cash and time behind bars. The same is true for hiring a lawyer so they can head off a wasteful trial.
You are entitled to a public defender if you don’t have the funds but the rub is horrible. They only get involved after you’re arrested and make your second court appearance. There is no defense investigator to dispatch for those golden hours. Be prepared to sit in jail for a year or longer, lose your job, car, home and frequently your spouse along with the kids. Once your acquitted they will return your soiled clothes and the cash you were arrested with and simply let you out.
I have a saying I live by, “If justice happens it’s usually by accident and for all the wrong reasons.” This is the reality, not that crap you see on television or the movies.
