Wudge, I certainly understand what you've said in this post. There is no question that your knowledge of the law is superb.
I guess my biggest disappointment lies with my perception of Andrea Lyon's knowledge of the law and propensity to be creative while thinking "outside of the box". I am both surprised and disappointed that someone who could envision the tactic of locking herself to the witness stand during her closing arguments, could not envision an effective path of movement to remedy what to all of us is a grave miscarriage of justice, resulting in an innocent man wasting a significant portion of his only life in prison.
Thank you for your analysis and patience with my continued outrage at this situation. I hope you understand that I think she is a perfect fit for Casey Anthony to receive the justice I feel is deserved.
I well understand where you've been coming from. Many other posters have had a gut reaction similar to yours.
At a moral level, such reactions are easy to appreciate, for it's crystal clear that something is wrong. However, the problem lies not with the trapped attorneys. I assure you that none of them wanted to be in that position. Still, consider the fact that Wilson's attorneys asked him if he committed the murder. They wanted to know even though they assuredly understood what the possible outcomes were.
Experience has well taught me that many attorneys would not have asked Wilson that question. For unless Wilson decided to confess of his own volition, an affirmative answer was going to place those attorneys between the anvil of legal ethics and the sledge hammer of easily understood morality. Yet, they still asked the question. In doing so, they acquired knowledge that Logan was not the murderer. Wilson was the murderer.
I could easily (and I believe successfully) argue that if Wilson did not trust that his attorneys would uphold their oath and not violate Wilson's attorney-client privilege, then Wilson would never have truthfully answered their question. And if he had not truthfully answered their question, Logan would still be in prison.
There are a lot of huge problems within our system of jurisprudence. We have crooked judges. We have judges who are horribly biased in favor of LE and prosecutors (so much for a fair trial). We have prosecutors who are just plain evil or, at the very least, claim to have absurd ideas of what constitutes exculpatory and/or exonerating evidence and/or if they need to disclose such to the defense. We have police who religiously uphold the blue wall of silence, which means they refuse to police their own but they're fine with policing others. And then we have cases with circumstances similar to those in "Logan".
Though "Logan" certainly represents a problem within our legal system, such cases are very rare. More importantly, they do not arise because the attorneys caught in the trap are inherently fiendish individuals.
I know of no path that would have likely freed Logan. All of the attorneys involved checked for such a path with the State bar, legal scholars, judges et al. No one, anywhere, professed to know of such a path. Moreover, if in a similar case in the future, an attorney were to violate the client's privilege and a landmark case was handed down -- whereby some poor wrongfully convicted soul did gain early freedom -- I would argue that future Wilsons would not confess if they were asked "did you do it" by their attorneys. No trust, no truth.
FWIW
