» Entries tagged with "belief"
Defining a Win
There’s a mostly-written motion still up on my office computer screen. When I finally close the file, I’m going to try not to read it. It will just make me angry. My client’s case was dismissed on Friday, but there were strings attached. He agreed to a $200.00 forfeited collateral on a new citation in exchange for a complete dismissal of his federal criminal case. Compared to a lot of defendants, the result was great. In most cases, I’d be happy. This case is a little different. It shouldn’t have been charged in the first place. The statute containing his supposed violation is so broad it could mean almost anything. I might be violating it by writing this post, and you could be violating … Read entire article »
Filed under: Clients
Bias-Logic
When people hold a certain belief, they tend to view almost anything even arguably relevant to that belief as proof the belief is true. In the context of being a criminal lawyer, that often comes up when I tell clients I am going to move to suppress problematic evidence. I encounter resistance from them based on a kind of logic (I use the term very, very loosely) born almost entirely from their bias. The typical situation in which I encounter such logic involves a client who believes a witness is a liar. His unshakable belief in the witness’s dishonesty has led him to believe that every other bad thing the witness might say about him is convincing proof that the witness is a liar. He fails to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Clients
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