The Lawminatrix

The 911 call was bizarre. The hasty decision to pull the plug on Gary Coleman (in conflict with what he’d stated in his Living Will) also struck me as odd. Add to that Shannon Price’s contention that, despite their divorce, she should handle his estate because she was still his “common-law wife,” and we have an Unholy Trinity of Weirdness. Her manager claims to have seen Shannon’s pain. Good thing, because no one else has! Note to self: pick a health care proxy who doesn’t have a direct interest in hastening my demise.

admin General Law 911, commonlawmarriage, garycoleman, livingwill

As recently as 1997, being judged solely on our DNA was a concept reserved for futuristic SciFi movies like Gattaca. Be warned: the future is now! Despite 2008 legislation prohibiting genetic discrimination, some people apparently think it’s okay to fire an exemplary employee simply because she carries the gene for breast cancer. Now, I’m a realist, and it may turn out that there were other, nondiscriminatory reasons for this firing…but I doubt it. This employee’s only bad choice was confiding in her employer about the genetic test results. Soon, genetic tests will be available at pharmacies over the counter. If you’re really concerned, buy one of those (and pay cash, if you really want to be off the grid). Then, if you find something concerning, you might opt to open Pandora’s box and use your health insurance to consult a qualified physician. Sure, it’s illegal for employers to fire you because of your genetic test results, but as the old adage goes (kind of), a $30 genetic test kit is worth $100,000 in attorney’s fees.

admin General Law discrimination genetictest dna GINA genetic firing

Three jurors who handed down a “guilty” verdict in the 1993 murder trial of Alfred Trenkler have written to the judge who presided over the proceedings in an effort to procure another crack at justice for the convicted bomber.

Why? Because they read Perfectly Innocent, a book chock full of “evidence” they didn’t see while the case was ongoing. 

To recap: a full and fair trial of the defendant resulted in a finding that he had placed a bomb that detonated while a police officer was trying to disarm it. The blast killed Boston police officer Jeremiah J. Hurley Jr., and maimed a fellow officer.

There’s a reason some evidence is not admitted at trial. I won’t explain the Rules of Evidence here, but suffice it to say that what’s excluded is kept out because it is not reliable, or because any “probative value” it may have is outweighed by the likelihood that it will cause jurors to reach a verdict based on emotion rather than fact.

It’s probably true that, in most cases, jurors would “switch sides” (or at least think about it) if given the chance to review all the proffered evidence that was not admitted at trial. Excluded evidence is generally sensational, like “hearsay” / gossip, really graphic photos, unauthenticated “damning” letters, etc.

For the unindoctrinated, this is exactly why jurors are not allowed to see it! It’s persuasive but not necessarily accurate. Enter the tell-all book, a thorough description of all available “proof” tending to show that the (long since convicted) defendant may be innocent.

In this case, the hero is played by attorney Morrison Bonpasse who, notably, had no involvement in the Trenkler case. His passion for vindicating a man he perceives to be innocent is commendable, but he should know better than most that only new evidence, not available at the time of trial, would convince a judge to retry the case. Excluded evidence that had no place in the courtroom to begin with cannot provide the basis of a motion for a new trial.

The only thing Attorney Bonpasse’s book serves to reopen are the wounds of the victims’ families. Perfectly Innocent? “Perfectly Insensitive” is more like it.

admin General Law crime, evidence, trenkler, trial