I respectfully disagree, Stella. In this day in age of forced confessions by LE and other issues I would want an attorney present even if I knew I was innocent. Google the Joshua Kezer case. Perfect example of small town justice rotten to the core.
Again, I am not defending CC's actions, but yes...I would want an attorney present immediately.
I agree that confessions are coerced at times but my study of history tells me that although it does continue to happen, it was in the past, especially in cases of people of color or people with mental disabilities, that forced confessions were more common.
The point is, although a person may need to be concerned about that as an investigation unfolds, and
possibly lawyer up when ater considerable time has passed and it looks like the investigation is no longer concentrating on all possibilities, but instead, concentrating on one, innocent person while ignoring other leads, at the
beginning of a crime, hours, even days after, especially a crime of this level of horror, the survivors do not think about their own rights or lawyers or anything of that nature.
I've stated this before, as have others here, that in my own experience with death, the first reaction is one of trauma, shock, grief, terror. Not anything else that may be happening in the larger world. The fact of the death narrows one's field of vision until the only thing that exists is ones agony and thoughts of the dear one who is gone.
And, in cases of crime, when it involves the murders of a person's own family - children or wives - crime victims like Mark Klaas and John Walsh repeatedly state that these feelings of terror and agony preclude any thought of lawyering up, in those beginning stages especially, and that instead, a desire to aid LE by whatever means necessary, including allowing intense personal scrutiny through giving whatever evidence LE desires, doing lie detector tests, etc, is about the only response an INNOCENT person has to an investigation.
A great example is the case featured last night on 20/20 of little Mikelle Biggs, an 11 year old who went missing ten years ago. Her father was heavily scrutinized, for a year. He was the main focus for a while of LE's investigation. Instead of shutting down and lawyering up, he gave them EVERYTHING they wanted - repeated, lengthy interviews which may have amounted to interrogations, lie detector tests, voice stress tests, psychological analyses, etc. He became enraged that the focus was on him and he was enraged about the loss of his child but he states he never thought of getting a lawyer. He only thought of doing whatever it took to clear himself in LE's eyes so they could find his child.
Mikelle's father was eventually cleared and LE now has a prime suspect in a very brutal killer who in prison for a different crime. But the important thing is that people in these situations of intense scrutiny do not think of themselves first, they think of their murdered loved ones. I'm not sure why that is hard to understand.
To me, the opposite is what is hard to understand. Remember, it was not a year, months, weeks or even days before Chris retained a lawyer, it was HOURS. Who the heck even thinks of such a thing at such a time, especially when it is obvious that scrutiny of family is necessary to rule them out so others can be considered? All I would be thinking is "Catch the *advertiser censored*. What do you need, LE?"
(At least, the family believes it! WTH?! :bang
