Sometimes I wish I was a DA. I look with envy on their lot. (well except for those in the welfare fraud division who have to prosecute poor people in wheelchairs for being a little greedy with the dole) The reason I envy DA’s is that they have such an easy time of it in trials. All they gotta do is show the jury what my guy (the defendant) did and they’ll usually get a conviction. It’s really as easy as all that. They don’t have to come up with arguments like this:
defendant is accused of threatening a witness to a crime to dissuade the witness from testifying (this is a crime in itself – PC 136).
Defendant says: “snitches die with stitches.”
The argument: “This was not a threat, it was simply an observation.”
Now I didn’t make this pathetically strained argument. I heard another lawyer do it. He obviously had nothing else. The joke is if it came down to it I’d probably make this argument too, if I had nothing else. I know this because I’ve made them. Shudder. Probably some of them worked. Hallelujah!
