faefrost
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As an attorney myself, I am just surprised at the style of JB in this DEATH PENALTY case. He is way, way in over his head here. Okay, so the motions, the substance of them, that the defense has filed so far, I think those are fine. Tactically, the motions are logical for the most part. But the team in general seems a bit disorganized and JB seems to just not belong in this court room. he should be handling misdemeanors, IMO.
I have seen where he has done okay in some arguments, etc, but the questioning I have seen in these motions is painful to watch. He acts like a
child. He appears to think he is impeaching witnesses when he's not at all. I loved Forgey. He was very polite but stood his ground. I felt sorry for the guy because he seemed baffled by the idiocy of some of the questions and the overall snotty attitude of JB: "Let me see if I can break this down for you again. We'll start from the beginning and hopefully even a moron like you will understand." Arghhh!
JB is that deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance. We all know the type. They know just enough to feel they are authorities but not enough to recognize how ignorant they are. He will never realize he's in over his head. And that's why we are where we are. The strategy here seems to be to get as much money as possible from this case (although he surely did not anticipate how much work he'd actually have to do for the money he received, which really made it all not worth it), and to get famous by affiliation with this high profile case. The strategy had nothing to do with the best interest of casey.
If she were my client, very early on I would have challenged her and forced her to see what her statements, demeanor, etc, would seem like to a judge and jury. I would give her the choice but ultimately, my first goal would have been a reality check and hopefully a plea to negligent homicide, child endangerment, something less than murder one. It would be tough to convince a person like her of the reality but that would be my first priority. And that's what I do with my clients in my family law cases. I give them the truth.
Of course, I cannot guarantee that JB didn't do this but I'd bet he did not. The actions of his client, her family and of himself in the early stages show me he didn't care about anything but being involved in a high profile case. It's a mess.
Well yes. But I would also like to think that you (and ALL of our attorneys around here) would recognize the full gravity of the situation, and the range of their own personal experience. At the point where the client decided to take it to trial I am guessing you would politely but firmly tell them, "OK while I will be with you every single step of the way, we will be getting an experienced death penalty attorney in here and they will be taking the complete lead on this. We will both do what they say, when they say it. I do not have the DP experience to lead this case going into trial." You would put your clients life and interests ahead of your own ego or personal image of self. Even if the client begged for it to be otherwise.