The Defendant gave her attorney a box full of documents shortly before trial. The attorney used the documents in trial without verifying their authenticity. The documents were fraudulent. The Defendant tried to get a new trial because the lawyer didn't check to see if she was lying to him.
The 3d Circuit applied extreme common sense to this situation:
"If this court were to grant Mrs. Lamplugh a new trial based on her claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, we would allow a defendant to manipulate the justice system by knowingly presenting fabricated written documents to her counsel in an attempt to deceive the court, the jury, and the government into accepting her theory of defense, or by successfully gaining a new trial when the strategy failed because the defense counsel did not detect the fraud."Good call.
I cannot recall the number of times I've had clients show up on the day of court with a manila envelope stuffed with papers or a witness whom I've never heard of. Sometimes they're even relevant. How in the world am I supposed to know if it's a lie? If it looks or sounds correct and my client vouches for it, I'm stuck with it. Anyway, even if my client gets the information to me a month before the trial, I don't think I'm supposed to presume my client is lying.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment