Ordinary Nothing

There are so many wrong things in this story, that I don’t know quite where to begin. A man accused of murder is being granted a new trial, after it being discovered that at the time of the original trial his lawyer was using cocaine.

Let’s start with a simple quote from the article:

The judge wrote that defendant Robert Sagasta’s new attorney proved that Gallego’s “impaired mental and physical condition during trial due to his use of cocaine resulted in deficient representation.”

It’s practically a classical lawyer joke right there. This lawyer was using cocaine, had an impaired mental and physical condition, causing him to provide deficient representation, and yet nobody at the time noticed. Guess the behaviour on a light drug like cocaine isn’t enough for someone to notice they’re not dealing with a regular lawyer.

More so, the original trial took place in 2000. The new lawyer started with the appeal proceedings in 2004. So for several years nobody thought to check into the behaviour of the defence attorney, probably because it wasn’t that suspicious. Nice.

Another great quote:

“I’ve always prided myself on giving 110 percent to my clients. That was a stressful time in my life, and it’s history,” Gallego said. “I’ve never been healthier mentally, physically and emotionally, and I’m thankful that I had the mental fortitude to tell the judge what I told him out of respect for the system and my client.”

First of all, always be wary of people giving more than 100 percent. Always. Because, quite frankly, nobody can possibly ever give more than 100 percent. If they claim they do, they are either lying, or are exceedingly bad at math and simple logic.

Second, good to know that he still thinks that even during the time he admits to being very distracted (family issues, it seems), and admits to have been doing a really bad job, he was still giving 110 percent.

Third, this whole fortitude in coming forth to confess to the judge thing? Which does sound admirable… This was done years after the fact, with a potentially innocent man sitting for quite some time in jail, and only after being prompted (strongly?) by the new lawyer. Plus, he came forth and told about the family problems, but neglected to mention the cocaine angle. This only came out later.

via The Legal Reader.

May 5th, 2005 at 17:39 EET | Categories: Legal | Track comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.