pretty unbelievable his Lawyer did not try and convince him to just plead guilty..don't know how after seeing the disclosure he ever thought he would be able to raise any reasonable doubt..but I do have a question..lets just say the gun was hidden by Smich and let's just hypothetically say there was a struggle and Tim had grabbed the gun and it went off...could the defence retrieve the gun? If Smich believed there would be prints from Tim on the gun..could defence use the gun as evidence and have it tested or would it have to be given to crown first? I am pretty sure this didn't happen but was just curious of the way crown/defence operate..I am sure defence will have their own evidence is that correct? or are they there just to question and argue existing evidence?
I have no answers to this. I thought that LE was tasked with managing evidence collection, to be used by both Crown and defence. Defence can of course, call their own witnesses and provide their own testimony (and do not have to disclose it in advance to the Crown, unlike the Crown's responsibility). If the defence lawyer wanted to retrieve a murder weapon, imo, he would be prudent to have LE with him at the time, to preclude charges of tampering and/or contamination.
I was wondering something similar however. What if MS knows where the gun is (obviously), and he could provide its location, and he knew it didn't have his own prints on it (because perhaps he didn't use it), but he knows whose prints could potentially be ON the gun (DM?). Would it help with his case? I doubt it, since he was also a party to the crime, even if not pulling the actual trigger. For all we know, the gun may have already been retrieved.. and is in evidence.. we haven't gotten that far into the trial yet.
I am wondering.. what happens in a case where say, MS is willing to admit whatever his part was in a crime, but his accomplice and co-accused wants to deny any involvement whatsoever in the crime, wants to claim he wasn't even there, and MS is NOT willing to state any of the accomplice's involvement, and not willing to be a Crown witness against his accomplice.. he's just going to let the dice fall where it may, based on other evidence.
If MS doesn't take the stand in his own defence, because he will also be incriminating his accomplice at the same time, then he is risking doing a lot more time than he perhaps necessarily would have, if he had been willing to testify? Is the 'Code' amongst criminals so strong that it is potentially worth an extra 15 years of one's life?
