Theft of Store Property Charge Against Wishes of Store Owner

[Harold99]

Three things about your friends murder case. First, you were not the defendant. Thus if the judge didn't like the letter you sent there were not going to be any repercussions against you. Second, in a murder trial letters to the court are expected in the sentencing phase, which is where your letter could be used in the manner you described. So it is my guess that was the situation here: you sent the letter to the court to take into account for sentencing. Absent something very unusual it would have been foolish for you to send a letter to the judge about your friend before or during his trial. Third, the OP said he wanted to send an "angry letter" to the judge. Angry letters rarely are useful for getting what you want, at least outside a customer service setting where the person getting the letter has a reason to want to please you. A judge has no need to please the defendant. I think that you would know better than to send that sort of letter to a judge. So I'm guessing that wasn't the sort of letter you sent in your friend's case. Unless your goal was to potentially tick off the judge, of course.

In any event, again, you are the one focusing on how likely it is that the judge in the OP's case will do any particular act with his letter, not me. I've simply listed possibilities. You can try to twist things to make it appear otherwise, but the fact remains I've not expressed any opinion on that and will not do so because I don't know the details of the letter he proposes to send nor anything about the judge that will hear the case.

You truly then have no idea what I am like and how I practice law. That or you like doing what you claim lawyers do: twist things to discredit others.

A great example of you seeing something that isn't there. I have no obligation to respond to everything you say. Some things you say I simply don't feel I need to respond to. Yet you think when I do that that I have some evil, nefarious purpose because I'm a lawyer. You see what you want to see rather than just looking at what is there. When you don't address something I say (and yes, you have done that), do I think you have some particular bad motive in doing so? No. I think you just simply didn't want to address it for some reason. Nothing sinister about it. Yet you want to see evil in everything I do because I am a member of your most hated professional group — lawyers. The bias is obvious. Not surprising as you've admitted that bias before. But you've let that bias shape everything you read from me as though I'm trying to do something underhanded to you. I have no such intent here, Harold.

My sole goal on these boards is to provide those asking questions with accurate legal information. I correct you when you get things wrong. You obviously don't like that, but my goal in doing it is not to attack you. It's about giving good information to the OP. Nothing more. Trust me that I'm not sitting around here saying "how can I make Harold look bad?"

These boards are a terribly ineffective way of communicating and there is too much above to respond to.

Though I can take issue with nearly every sentence you wrote as being incorrect IMO, we would not reach an agreement. IMO, you are too caught up in titles...you being an attorney and me being a lowly contractor. Similarly, the defense attorney in my case thought the supplemental that I added to the police report, before I retained my attorney, could not have been written by a lowly contractor... but it was. This was an example of attorney arrogance who think they own the legal system.

I will only add that when I speak about lawyers, doctors, politicians or gang members, I speak about those groups as a whole and would never prejudge an individual from any of those groups. You included. However, if you begin to walk like a duck, I will begin to connect the dots.

[Taxing Matters]

Though I can take issue with nearly every sentence you wrote as being incorrect IMO, we would not reach an agreement.

We probably wouldn't reach agreement. You view some things much differently than I do. To the extent we have differing opinions neither of us are incorrect. Opinions aren't fact. And our opinions are shaped by our life experiences and how we see the world. Your experiences and mine are likely very different. That's not to say one is better than the other, just different.

IMO, you are too caught up in titles...you being an attorney and me being a lowly contractor.

I'm sorry you feel that way, as that is not how I see you. You are not "lowly" for being a contractor. I admire good contractors. They do something very worthwhile and necessary. And what they do I certainly am not skilled at doing. I have no problem admitting I lack the skills and knowledge that a contractor has.

You, on the other hand, seem unwilling to admit that you lack the knowledge that a lawyer has. My problem with a number of your posts is not that you are a "lowly contractor" but that you don't have a good understanding of the law and don't bother researching the matter before you post something about the law. That then leads to some of the legal information you provide being wrong. But when corrected by a lawyer — including citations and links to the law — you won't admit you got it wrong. You keep arguing as though you know better than I do even though you know you've not studied the law and didn't bother researching the law prior to slapping down in a post what you thought the law was. And you don't bother trying to research it after I correct you nor provide any sources to support your position. You seem to expect people, me included, to just accept your position because you said it. Well, that's unrealistic to expect when you are someone who has no expertise in that area.

My impression is that you continue to argue in those circumstances because you can't stand that a lawyer points out that you were wrong on the law. But that makes about as much sense as me putting up a wrong answer on a contracting board because I don't know contracting and didn't research the issue and then when corrected by you arguing back like I knew better than you did despite your 30 years of contracting experience and me not providing any source to back up my view.

In short, my problem is not about titles. It's about your lack of knowledge about the stuff you post. Again, my goal here is to give good legal information to the people asking questions here. That's harder to do when I have to correct the wrong things you sometimes say about the law. You might benefit from a bit of humility and understand that you perhaps don't know as much about the law and the legal profession as you think you do. That has nothing to do with how smart you are. It's simply a function of the fact that you haven't studied the law and have only very limited experience with it. Just as I have not studied contracting and have very little experience with what contractors do. And I try not to make the mistake of thinking that I know a lot about contracting based on the little bit of experience I've had with contractors.

I'll end with this. Neil deGrasse Tyson stated “One of the great challenges in life is knowing enough to think you're right but not enough to know you're wrong." Overcoming that challenge means opening yourself to understanding that you don't know as much as you think you do. A lot of people think they know more about a lot of things that they never studied than they really do.

[Harold99]

We probably wouldn't reach agreement. You view some things much differently than I do. To the extent we have differing opinions neither of us are incorrect. Opinions aren't fact. And our opinions are shaped by our life experiences and how we see the world. Your experiences and mine are likely very different. That's not to say one is better than the other, just different.

I'm sorry you feel that way, as that is not how I see you. You are not "lowly" for being a contractor. I admire good contractors. They do something very worthwhile and necessary. And what they do I certainly am not skilled at doing. I have no problem admitting I lack the skills and knowledge that a contractor has.

You, on the other hand, seem unwilling to admit that you lack the knowledge that a lawyer has. My problem with a number of your posts is not that you are a "lowly contractor" but that you don't have a good understanding of the law and don't bother researching the matter before you post something about the law. That then leads to some of the legal information you provide being wrong. But when corrected by a lawyer — including citations and links to the law — you won't admit you got it wrong. You keep arguing as though you know better than I do even though you know you've not studied the law and didn't bother researching the law prior to slapping down in a post what you thought the law was. And you don't bother trying to research it after I correct you nor provide any sources to support your position. You seem to expect people, me included, to just accept your position because you said it. Well, that's unrealistic to expect when you are someone who has no expertise in that area.

My impression is that you continue to argue in those circumstances because you can't stand that a lawyer points out that you were wrong on the law. But that makes about as much sense as me putting up a wrong answer on a contracting board because I don't know contracting and didn't research the issue and then when corrected by you arguing back like I knew better than you did despite your 30 years of contracting experience and me not providing any source to back up my view.

In short, my problem is not about titles. It's about your lack of knowledge about the stuff you post. Again, my goal here is to give good legal information to the people asking questions here. That's harder to do when I have to correct the wrong things you sometimes say about the law. You might benefit from a bit of humility and understand that you perhaps don't know as much about the law and the legal profession as you think you do. That has nothing to do with how smart you are. It's simply a function of the fact that you haven't studied the law and have only very limited experience with it. Just as I have not studied contracting and have very little experience with what contractors do. And I try not to make the mistake of thinking that I know a lot about contracting based on the little bit of experience I've had with contractors.

I'll end with this. Neil deGrasse Tyson stated “One of the great challenges in life is knowing enough to think you're right but not enough to know you're wrong." Overcoming that challenge means opening yourself to understanding that you don't know as much as you think you do. A lot of people think they know more about a lot of things that they never studied than they really do.

The thing is TM is that I do not argue the law here very much here. I definitely would not do it with you or any other lawyer. Rather, I state what I have experienced with the law and in courtrooms, which is probably more than most on this board. When I said that I wrote a letter to a judge and it was handed off to both lawyers and it was read to the jury, well, that is real to me but just a bunch of typed words to you. Or it is fodder for you to argue against. But I know that what I wrote were real facts, yet they were gobbled up and spit out like garbage by a slick talking lawyer to the jury. It was disgusting to watch. To see a good friend get railroaded by a slick talking lawyer just because he was good at playing that game with real people. Very similar to my recent experience in that same arena. It was a game to him too.

Twice is enough for me to know what I saw. I will not let anyone tell me I did not see what I saw or to explain it away. Personally, I don't care if a criminal defense attorney gets a guilty person off because a crime is a crime against the State, which is dispersed amongst millions of victims. But when a lawyer plays his magic against an individual it is a totally different game. A game that has a real victim, yet attorneys still think of it as just a game. I have seen enough real stories on TV where the detectives and prosecutors feel absolutely no remorse for locking up the wrong person for twenty years. They just fall back on the flimsy excuse that they "went on the available evidence." Well, when has a hunter who shot another hunter use that excuse and showed no remorse by saying "well, he looked just like a deer." Those words would never come out of a hunters mouth while he fell onto the ground crying over what he did.

People love to influence and convince others of things. Just look at religions and politics. Lawyers have refined that art which give them almost superpowers over others. It must give a lawyer a high to convince a jury of something that is flat out wrong like what Cochran did. How could it not? Especially when they can also convince themselves that what they did was a display of their talents.

Here is another example of my case when the defense attorney showed no conscience, morals or sense of right or wrong. I said that the cars that travel four feet to my left commonly go 70mph is that 60mph zone. He asked how I knew that. I said I drive that road six times a week and witness it. Also that it is common for cars to travel 10mph over the speed limit. Well, even though he knew I was right because he lives in the area and must also travel that road, he comes back with the most BS question and asked, "have you ever reported it to the police." Well, who reports that cars travel 10mph over the speed limit when it is so common? But if he could get a few people in the jury to buy that BS, he would persuade them on what is basically a lie. Which shows he would say anything to win...because it is all about winning, not justice or fairness.

[Mark47n]

While I don't care for this OP Their thread has been, again, hijacked by Harold99's ramblings that are as off topic as they can be.

[Taxing Matters]

The thing is TM is that I do not argue the law here very much here. I definitely would not do it with you or any other lawyer.

Well, you have argued the law with me.

Rather, I state what I have experienced with the law and in courtrooms,

You have, of course, done that too.

When I said that I wrote a letter to a judge and it was handed off to both lawyers and it was read to the jury, well, that is real to me but just a bunch of typed words to you.

I don't doubt that it occurred. But I can also guess that the letter was sent to the judge during the sentencing phase, which is the logical point in the case to do it since the court actually wants to see those letters and hear the comments of people who know the defendant and what he or she is like as a person. Those letters would be provided to the attorneys for both sides and then used in their argument for what sentence they think should be imposed. If my guess is correct then sending the letter in support of your friend for sentencing was a good thing to do. Hopefully it had a positive impact for your friend.

My point, getting back to the OP's situation, is that a defendant sending an angry letter to the judge presiding over his case case before the trial is concluded is a bad idea. That's quite a different situation than a friend sending a letter to the judge for consideration at sentencing. The OP would be better off not to pursue that particular course of action while he still faces trial on his criminal charges.

[Harold99]

While I don't care for this OP Their thread has been, again, hijacked by Harold99's ramblings that are as off topic as they can be.

Only mine huh? Not TM's "ramblings" which are mostly more wordy than mine?

If you don't like a thread do as I do, don't read it. Go in the backyard and pull some weeds instead. Or, go read an "orange man bad" article.

Funny, you don't have a problem with snide remarks made by the front-liners, the stupid litany of questions by pg1067 and his grammar police bs, or the new troll zigner that pollutes these pages. You only have a problem with me. Very curious indeed.

I think that if I went on and on about the general public being criminals and a$$holes deserving of being thrown in jail, that would be acceptable to most here.

Well, you have argued the law with me.

Not much though. But, I would not be offended or put off if a non-contractor thought I was wrong in my approach, or if he thought he knew better. I have seen so many bad doctors, lawyers and contractors, why shouldn't we argue with them and make them prove themselves? Why should we believe a single politician who are essentially lawyers doing what lawyers do?

You have, of course, done that too.

Though, you have yet to admit that there are evil, conscience-less attorneys out there that misuse their power of influence with no regrets at all. You seem to say that they are just doing their job. Or when an attorney personally knows that traffic travels at 70mph, yet he tries to show otherwise, that that is not lying to the jury. If a barn is red, both attorneys should admit that it is red for the sake of upholding truthfulness and upholding their oath not to lie.

[FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]I don't doubt that it occurred. But I can also guess that the letter was sent to the judge during the sentencing phase, which is the logical point in the case to do it since the court actually wants to see those letters and hear the comments of people who know the defendant and what he or she is like as a person. Those letters would be provided to the attorneys for both sides and then used in their argument for what sentence they think should be imposed. If my guess is correct then sending the letter in support of your friend for sentencing was a good thing to do. Hopefully it had a positive impact for your friend.[FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]

It did not have a positive impact. My friend's lawyer was so bad that he did not know that his client was left-handed when the so-called witness saw a man use his right hand to hold the gun. My friend got 45 years for supposedly killing a wife-beating, violent, armed, drug dealing, drunkard who was a Mexican gang member. Can you say 'incompetent lawyer?'

My point, getting back to the OP's situation, is that a defendant sending an angry letter to the judge presiding over his case case before the trial is concluded is a bad idea. That's quite a different situation than a friend sending a letter to the judge for consideration at sentencing. The OP would be better off not to pursue that particular course of action while he still faces trial on his criminal charges.

I agree, it would be stupid to write a letter such as that. Judges are god. Who would want to piss off god?

[Taxing Matters]

Though, you have yet to admit that there are evil, conscience-less attorneys out there that misuse their power of influence with no regrets at all.

I have admitted before that there are some evil and incompetent lawyers out there. Just as there are evil persons in every profession and occupation. I wish that were not true. It'd be great if everyone was honest and moral, but that's not the world in which we live.

Or when an attorney personally knows that traffic travels at 70mph, yet he tries to show otherwise, that that is not lying to the jury. If a barn is red, both attorneys should admit that it is red for the sake of upholding truthfulness and upholding their oath not to lie.

In that example the attorney did not lie, though of course you think he did because he was the lawyer opposing you in that case. He simply asked you a question: did you ever report the alleged speeders? That's a question, not any assertion of fact. It was, IMO a stupid question that I would not have asked in his shoes because it accomplishes absolutely nothing. He was trying to put some doubt in the mind of the jury as to your claims about the speed of cars on that road, but that's not a lie. And it's totally ineffective since I'll bet everyone on that jury had seen tons of speeders and probably not a one of them ever reported one. As much as you didn't like it, though, it was not a lie.

It did not have a positive impact. My friend's lawyer was so bad that he did not know that his client was left-handed when the so-called witness saw a man use his right hand to hold the gun. My friend got 45 years for supposedly killing a wife-beating, violent, armed, drug dealing, drunkard who was a Mexican gang member. Can you say 'incompetent lawyer?'

He may have been incompetent, but I have no way to know. You are biased in that case because the defendant was your friend. So while his attorney may have been bad, I think you'll understand that given the bias I can't just take your word for it. If I had seen the trial perhaps I'd reach a different conclusion.

However, if his lawyer were truly incompetent that would be a basis for him to challenge the conviction, get it set aside, and win a new trial. The Constitution guarantees criminal defendants competent counsel for their defense. Did he ever bring that challenge? If not, why not, if his lawyer was as bad as you say?

I agree, it would be stupid to write a letter such as that.

Good, we agree on that.

Judges are god. Who would want to piss off god?

Not quite god, no. But they do have considerable say over how things go in a case. Good lawyers know to never unnecessarily tick off a judge.

[Harold99]

Did he ever bring that challenge?

Yes, his murder conviction allowed him a State appointed attorney that applied for a mistrial or a new trial. I personally worked with that attorney to help any way I could to prove ineffective counsel. I interviewed witnesses that the defense attorney failed to interview and provided details of the trial that I witnessed. We have been approached by the Innocence Project several times and currently have another attorney working it pro bono (or on contingency). But I do not hold any hope.

Though that attorney agreed that the defense attorney was horrible, he said that mistrials and new trials are mainly granted when the judge does not rule properly on objections. He said we could not get a mistrial because the defense attorney almost never objected to anything. I recall an objection that was never raised when the prosecutor asked the same question about ten times. Even I know the response to that. It is "objection, asked and answered."

So he was never granted a mistrial or a new trial and was never represented by a competent attorney. BTW, that defense attorney is no longer an attorney here in the US and went back to Mexico. I guess he lost every case he took and threw in the towel. What a sea of carnage he left behind.

[Mark47n]

Only mine huh? Not TM's "ramblings" which are mostly more wordy than mine?

If you don't like a thread do as I do, don't read it. Go in the backyard and pull some weeds instead. Or, go read an "orange man bad" article.

Funny, you don't have a problem with snide remarks made by the front-liners, the stupid litany of questions by pg1067 and his grammar police bs, or the new troll zigner that pollutes these pages. You only have a problem with me. Very curious indeed.

I think that if I went on and on about the general public being criminals and a$$holes deserving of being thrown in jail, that would be acceptable to most here.

I call you out because you are the the instigator. While TM continues to engage with you his goals are apparently different than yours, which are to whine about other frequent members here and how lawyers are bad and how you were screwed by the legal system in one capacity or the other.

I already pulled weeds and I can't take listening to Morse code anymore, and it's too crappy to go ride my bike or motorcycle so you'll have to do.

El Presidente Cheeto is bad. He's lied to the American people, verifiably, more than 20,000 times in 4 years to say nothing of graft, corruption the bald-faced incitement of racial violence.

Sure, I roll my eyes at PG1067's grammar based interrogatories and some of the other members quirks, but you take the cake. As has been noted time and again, you rarely comment on the OPs issue, you tend to whine and rant about those things that I noted above. Perhaps you should go and pull some weeds.

[Taxing Matters]

Yes, his murder conviction allowed him a State appointed attorney that applied for a mistrial or a new trial. I personally worked with that attorney to help any way I could to prove ineffective counsel. I interviewed witnesses that the defense attorney failed to interview and provided details of the trial that I witnessed. We have been approached by the Innocence Project several times and currently have another attorney working it pro bono (or on contingency). But I do not hold any hope.

Don't give up until you get the final answer. Some convicted persons do win challenges on ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC).

Though that attorney agreed that the defense attorney was horrible, he said that mistrials and new trials are mainly granted when the judge does not rule properly on objections. He said we could not get a mistrial because the defense attorney almost never objected to anything.

He's right that far more convictions are overturned on appeal based on the judge's errors, but that's in large part because those make up the bulk of post conviction challenges filed in the first place. That's not to say that challenges based on IAC are easy. They aren't, as the other attorney evidently told you. But IAC claims are based on what the attorney did or did not do, not the judge. As for errors by the judge, the judge has to rule on something for that to be an issue. So if an attorney fails to raise an objection during the trial to give the judge a chance to rule on it then there can be no good appeal based on judicial error. That's why attorneys refer to making a record with their objection. Doing that preserves the issue for appeal later. If you don't object and get that objection on the record, the appeals court won't look at it. But when a defense attorney fails to make critical objections in a criminal trial, that still can provide a basis to overturn the conviction on IAC even though there isn't a good appeal based on judicial error.