Not guilty in Georgetown, South Carolina
We finished a criminal trial in Georgetown this afternoon, and the jury found our client not guilty of kidnapping, burglary, and CDVHAN. It was a long few days of trial, and I’m glad to be able to breathe for a few days – in the morning I’m starting a three day seminar/training on SFST’s (standardized field sobriety tests).
Yesterday I stood in the parking lot at the courthouse with my client and his family stopped so he could see his children. It was a poignant moment to see my client, normally a hard, tough guy, melt as his three year old son hugged his neck and kissed him, saying “I love you daddy” over and over. And it was harder knowing that this man could be sent to prison for up to 30 years if I was unable to help the jury understand his story.
Just now, I went back and read a post from a few weeks ago on credibility - and I believe that this trial, more than any other I’ve had, was a lesson in credibility. We began the trial with allegations of misconduct on both sides – and discovered in the course of a pre-trial hearing that the allegations were not true. But this theme seemed to continue throughout the trial, as even the judge accused me of “miscontruing” the law while talking to the jury, and did so in front of the jury.
This may have been one of the most contentious trials that I’ve had, but when you believe in your case, on either side, I suppose that is going to happen and emotions will run high.
By the end of the trial, the state’s attorney had placed herself in a corner with a string of witnesses who were caught in a series of lies. She had left out any evidence that hurt her case, which forced me to put it into evidence and point out that she was keeping evidence from the jury. She did not call the police officers who were at the scene and who responded to the call, and the only conclusion that I and the jury can draw as to why is because the testimony of those officers would have hurt the state’s case.
The state’s attorney spent a great deal of time accusing me of using “smoke and mirrors,” a staple for prosecutors’ closing arguments in this circuit, even when the prosecutor appears to be using “smoke and mirrors” to try and get a conviction.
I believe at the end of the trial the jury followed the law, and understood that the state had not proven their case beyond any reasonable doubt. I hope that it also made a difference that I tried to speak the truth to the jury, to make the witnesses speak the truth, to make sure that they saw all of the evidence, and that I did not have to resort to “smoke and mirrors” to present our case.
