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  1. #31
    Join Date
    Jun 2017
    Location
    California
    Posts
    459

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Just putting my two cents in as a criminal defense attorney with 30+ years under my belt. Trial attorneys don't refer to themselves with that nomenclature. We are litigators because there is far more to a criminal case than just the trial. I have a lot of colleagues who refer to themselves as criminal defense counsel and one that titles himself a honey badger. No attorney is perfect and even someone I would consider less than stellar can win the right case in front of the right jury or pitted against the right prosecutor. Trial is war and managing a trial is an art form. Some do it well but no one does it well every time. Shit happens.

  2. #32
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Posts
    750

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Quote Quoting LegalWriter
    View Post
    Just putting my two cents in as a criminal defense attorney with 30+ years under my belt. Trial attorneys don't refer to themselves with that nomenclature. We are litigators because there is far more to a criminal case than just the trial. I have a lot of colleagues who refer to themselves as criminal defense counsel and one that titles himself a honey badger. No attorney is perfect and even someone I would consider less than stellar can win the right case in front of the right jury or pitted against the right prosecutor. Trial is war and managing a trial is an art form. Some do it well but no one does it well every time. Shit happens.
    I suspect that as well.

    A lot of communication and groundwork is done between counsel prior to a trial. Things like anything in writing, depo questions, phone conversations and expressed positions, motions and arguments, etc. These contacts between both attorneys will offer a feel for how good the other attorney is. You guys are human and you are aware of a good opposing counsel and an inexperienced one. I for one could even see how poor the two attorneys were that I experienced, so I am sure a seasoned litigator could detect it as well. For instance before my trial, my attorney questioned a key witness at a depo for only twenty minutes, showing my attorney was not detailed oriented. However, I was questioned at my depo for five hours. Obviously I was questioned that long because counsel was detail oriented and he was looking for anything to load his shotgun with.

    Question: When it is obvious that opposing counsel is either ill prepared, taking the wrong tact or just a doofus, does it have a strong influence on how or when prosecution decides to prosecute a case? Or, how each side mounts an argument. I assume going against a Shapiro type would be intimidating and would make an attorney approach a case more delicately? Or not fight it at all.

    Personally, I think attorneys from both sides size up their opposition much more than they let on. In my case, I feel my attorney did so poorly that it was telegraphed to opposing counsel pre-trial so much that it diminished any settlement offer and even embolden the other side. What are your views on that?

  3. #33
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Posts
    3,212

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Quality,experienced lawyers are very expensive. The OP claimed they might not have had the money to pay for the items. If and that is a huge if, this is true. they are not going to be able to pay a quality, experienced lawyer. Not having the money to pay for items is no excuse for shoplifting. There are ways to obtain food for those that do not have the money to pay.

  4. #34
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Posts
    750

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Quote Quoting Mercy&Grace
    View Post
    Quality, experienced lawyers are very expensive. The OP claimed they might not have had the money to pay for the items. If and that is a huge if, this is true. they are not going to be able to pay a quality, experienced lawyer. Not having the money to pay for items is no excuse for shoplifting. There are ways to obtain food for those that do not have the money to pay.
    I have the means to find a quality athlete, CEO, contractor, doctor etc through their documented track records. How does one find a 'quality attorney' when next to nothing he/she has done during his/her career is unbiasedly documented? Only insurance companies keep private records of who the pit bulls and bums are.

  5. #35
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
    Location
    Ohio
    Posts
    434

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Quote Quoting Harold99
    View Post
    In two cases there were incompetent lawyers and in the OJ case, well, Marsha Clark did a good job but screwed up in a few key areas like moving the trial location..
    Incorrect. The crime was committed in Los Angeles County, the trial was held in Los Angeles County.

    The Prosecution generally (and I have not conducted a state by state fact check) can not move for a change of venue. CA permits it, but only for this reason:

    Penal Code 1033:

    (b) On its own motion or on motion of any party, to an adjoining county when it appears as a result of the exhaustion of all of the jury panels called that it will be impossible to secure a jury to try
    the cause in the county.

  6. #36
    Join Date
    Jun 2017
    Location
    California
    Posts
    459

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Actually, the murders took place in the Santa Monica Judicial District. They happened in 1994, before California courts unified to all courts into being superior courts. What should have happened back in 1994 is the criminal complaint being filed in Santa Monica where the preliminary hearing should have been heard. After the prelim, the information would be filed in the central courts downtown where all major felonies were heard and the case would proceed there as it did. Garcetti by-passed Santa Monica and filed the criminal complaint in the central court. No objection was raised by the defense so it is and was a non-issue. The defense wanted the case where it was held anyway. BTW, a successful change of venue motion would have taken the case out of LA County County completely and moved it to another county.

  7. #37
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    8,238

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Quote Quoting Harold99
    View Post

    Disclaimer: I may be wrong about you because our relationship is very disconnected. So if I have you wrong, my apologies. You offer a lot of good stuff here and kudos for not bashing like the 5-10 trolls do.
    The thing is that what you see on these forums is not what you see in litigation and trial. People here generally ask what is is legal to do or what the law allows. For that, the statutes, regulations, and case law that tells you what the law is matters greatly. Most people, to their credit, want to do things the right way and want to follow the law. So for that, they need to know what the law is.

    Moreover, what the law is always important to any trial. A trial lawyer who ignores that and thinks he or she can simply bluff a jury does so at his/her peril. Of course persuasion and making the most of the evidence that favors my client is important, but to be truly successful a good lawyer has to tie that in with the law. Among other things, that matters because should the case go to appeal, it won't be a jury reviewing it. It will be a panel of judges looking at the trial record and those judges are very much focused on the law. You have to keep in mind that litigation does not end with the jury verdict.

    I get that you are going off what you have evidently seen in a few trials you have been involved with or attended. But what you see there is only a fraction of what goes into litigation. Most nonlawyers watching a trial miss the significance of a number of things that they see at a trial, and they of course have no idea what takes place before and after that trial. Litigation is the whole process, from evaluating the case when the client comes in the door to the final appeals decision, and not just what you see at the trial. But the impression you have of what litigation involves isn't quite accurate. You seem overemphasize bluffing a jury. The law and facts do matter. Simply being an eloquent speaker to try to win the hearts of the jury is not enough to succeed. It's certainly useful, of course, but you need more than that. You are putting too much stock in that and not enough on the law and evidence that is the foundation of any trial. You need persuasion, evidence and the law to succeed in trying cases. That's why so much effort is put by lawyers on framing the evidence they have to line up with the law. If you watch good lawyers in trial, you will see that is exactly what they do: they set up their case — the story they tell and the evidence they present — to match up with the law. So yes, I tell people in this forum what the law is because that's the starting point for any legal matter. How things might play out in trial is another matter and the outcome of which is impossible to guess from just what is put in forum post. But perhaps I need to make that distinction more clear in the future given your comments.

    You can't get a sense of what a lawyer does in litigation from posts here. This is not courtroom after all. You have to see what the lawyer does in litigating cases — and that means far more than just seeing a trial, btw — since much of litigation takes place outside the trial and moreover more than 90% of all cases, civil and criminal, settle and never reach trial.

    Think of it this way. There is no way I could really assess your work as a contractor without actually seeing it. If you had a habit of posting truly wrong information about contracting then I might see that you weren't good. But apart from that, I'd have to see your work and be knowledgeable enough about contracting to know what to look for to know if you were truly good. Same thing with a lawyer. To know how well a lawyer does in litigation you need to actually see what he/she does in litigation and have enough knowledge about litigation — the entire process — to be able to know what to look for and how to judge what the lawyer does. Seeing posts on a message board isn't going to be helpful in judging either the contractor or the lawyer. All I'm suggesting here is that you can't say whether I'm good or bad at trial work from these posts. I'm certainly not asking you presume I'm good. I know that you can't make that determination as you've not seen what I do in litigation. I'm simply saying you shouldn't presume that I'm not good for the same reason — you've not seen what I do in litigation.

    And I thank you for your comment that I offer a lot of "good stuff here" and recognizing that I try not to bash people. That is ultimately my goal in these forums: to give people some accurate, useful information and point them in the right direction to resolve their issues without attacking them or making them feel bad for asking their questions.

  8. #38
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
    Location
    Ohio
    Posts
    434

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Quote Quoting LegalWriter
    View Post
    Actually, the murders took place in the Santa Monica Judicial District. They happened in 1994, before California courts unified to all courts into being superior courts. What should have happened back in 1994 is the criminal complaint being filed in Santa Monica where the preliminary hearing should have been heard. After the prelim, the information would be filed in the central courts downtown where all major felonies were heard and the case would proceed there as it did. Garcetti by-passed Santa Monica and filed the criminal complaint in the central court. No objection was raised by the defense so it is and was a non-issue. The defense wanted the case where it was held anyway. BTW, a successful change of venue motion would have taken the case out of LA County County completely and moved it to another county.
    Thanks, that clears up what he meant.

  9. #39
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Posts
    750

    Default Re: Shoplifting

    Quote Quoting Taxing Matters
    View Post
    The thing is that what you see on these forums is not what you see in litigation and trial. People here generally ask what is is legal to do or what the law allows. For that, the statutes, regulations, and case law that tells you what the law is matters greatly. Most people, to their credit, want to do things the right way and want to follow the law. So for that, they need to know what the law is.

    Moreover, what the law is always important to any trial. A trial lawyer who ignores that and thinks he or she can simply bluff a jury does so at his/her peril. Of course persuasion and making the most of the evidence that favors my client is important, but to be truly successful a good lawyer has to tie that in with the law. Among other things, that matters because should the case go to appeal, it won't be a jury reviewing it. It will be a panel of judges looking at the trial record and those judges are very much focused on the law. You have to keep in mind that litigation does not end with the jury verdict.

    I get that you are going off what you have evidently seen in a few trials you have been involved with or attended. But what you see there is only a fraction of what goes into litigation. Most nonlawyers watching a trial miss the significance of a number of things that they see at a trial, and they of course have no idea what takes place before and after that trial. Litigation is the whole process, from evaluating the case when the client comes in the door to the final appeals decision, and not just what you see at the trial. But the impression you have of what litigation involves isn't quite accurate. You seem overemphasize bluffing a jury. The law and facts do matter. Simply being an eloquent speaker to try to win the hearts of the jury is not enough to succeed. It's certainly useful, of course, but you need more than that. You are putting too much stock in that and not enough on the law and evidence that is the foundation of any trial. You need persuasion, evidence and the law to succeed in trying cases. That's why so much effort is put by lawyers on framing the evidence they have to line up with the law. If you watch good lawyers in trial, you will see that is exactly what they do: they set up their case — the story they tell and the evidence they present — to match up with the law. So yes, I tell people in this forum what the law is because that's the starting point for any legal matter. How things might play out in trial is another matter and the outcome of which is impossible to guess from just what is put in forum post. But perhaps I need to make that distinction more clear in the future given your comments.

    You can't get a sense of what a lawyer does in litigation from posts here. This is not courtroom after all. You have to see what the lawyer does in litigating cases — and that means far more than just seeing a trial, btw — since much of litigation takes place outside the trial and moreover more than 90% of all cases, civil and criminal, settle and never reach trial.

    Think of it this way. There is no way I could really assess your work as a contractor without actually seeing it. If you had a habit of posting truly wrong information about contracting then I might see that you weren't good. But apart from that, I'd have to see your work and be knowledgeable enough about contracting to know what to look for to know if you were truly good. Same thing with a lawyer. To know how well a lawyer does in litigation you need to actually see what he/she does in litigation and have enough knowledge about litigation — the entire process — to be able to know what to look for and how to judge what the lawyer does. Seeing posts on a message board isn't going to be helpful in judging either the contractor or the lawyer. All I'm suggesting here is that you can't say whether I'm good or bad at trial work from these posts. I'm certainly not asking you presume I'm good. I know that you can't make that determination as you've not seen what I do in litigation. I'm simply saying you shouldn't presume that I'm not good for the same reason — you've not seen what I do in litigation.

    And I thank you for your comment that I offer a lot of "good stuff here" and recognizing that I try not to bash people. That is ultimately my goal in these forums: to give people some accurate, useful information and point them in the right direction to resolve their issues without attacking them or making them feel bad for asking their questions.
    This is a long response so it's hard to comment on all of it. I will say that when you know nearly all facts of a case and then watch it played out in a courtroom, the law doesn't matter that much. I am a detail oriented person and I know what I witnessed. The law was absolutely ignored by opposing counsel and the jury. With my friend who is now rotting in a jail cell for 45 years, he is there because an inferior attorney went up against a real trial lawyer. In both cases it was disgusting with unfair outcomes...all because of the quality of lawyers involved. Lawyers that have no visible track record.

    None of this is real until it happens to you or someone close to you. As for it happening to clients, well, I have a lot of clients too and they do not compare.

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