rhornsby
Board Certified Criminal Trial Lawyer
I have a couple of motions questions ...
are the motions concerning the death penalty and jury instructions being filed for appellate reasons only ?? If that's the case can we assume that means they fully expect to go to trial and do not intend to accept (if any is offered) a plea deal?
And what happens to motions filed that have not yet been heard ... there were 11 motions concerning DP and jury instructions filed last November that have not been ruled on ... does the defense have to file something to withdraw those?
The defense has filed 4 new ones trying to accomplish the same thing using different reasons and it's confusing what happens to the old ones filed using other reasons ... :waitasec:
Many times, motions are filed in case the state of the law changes while the case is on appeal. Recent examples of changes in the law have been the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) declaring that the death penalty is unconstitutional if imposed on juveniles, and most recently on the "mentally retarded."
But the SCOTUS would have never reached those decisions if the "issue" had not been properly reserved for appeal. With that said, the motions filed earlier on are such motions and are filed by most DP lawyers, the more recently filed ones claiming sexism and "financial burden" are questionable to say the least.