Having been through the nightmare, what I can tell you is this, Ken may be right here...best pay zillions in the beginning to avoid googles of zillions on appeals, fines, loss to your reputation, etc.  HOWEVER, one thing to note is that money can't buy a verdict.  Period. 

You, as a defendant need to be actively involved in your case and accept nothing less than things are accomplished after each hearing, deposition, phone call, etc.  You need to build your TEAM. Yes, team of attorneys, consultants, etc. and be prepared to pay some big bucks for them.  You will need to project manage and coordniate the efforts in your case.  Your attorney will not project manage...that's up to you!  Accept anything less and you're accepting a team to defend you that is less than the best. 

There are plenty of attorneys who are out there (as we have recently discussed on list) who do take lots of money to do nothing.  It is up to you to educate yourself on court procedure.  Your attorney will not do that for you.  Wise up and learn.  The wiser you are on case law, statute law, legal proceedure, the more likely your attorney will realize that he can't bluff you. 

There are many online sources to educate yourself.  Loislaw.com, for example, offers a 30 day free membership where you can search statute law and case law in your state.  From someone who did her own case research and had a hearing result in a favorable verdict for the defense, you can do it.  In fact, my attorney nearly passed out when I sent him all the case law via fax.  He called me 20 minutes later and said, "This is *exactly* what you need to win."  Days later, the verdict came in and it was EXACTLY what we had hoped! 

The sooner that you stop crying and mourning your loss of the "good life" and start to work on your case, the sooner you will see the end to the nightmare. 

The time to see false allegations put to bed is NOT at trial.  It's well before then.  A good
attorney should be working to get the charges dropped prior to any trial.  In fact, prior to any hearing.  I see, in the cases I've been acting as a fledling consultant, waaaaayyyy too many  attorneys that think that "time" is on their side.  They wait it out....postponing, schmoozing, wandering aimlessly in hopes that a "rabbit" will appear out of the proverbial magic hat. Except on LA Law, this does not happen.  There is no smoking gun that will magically appear over time.  Time will not make memories so fuzzy that people will forget entirely what they allege. 

You, as the defendant need to make things happen.  If you have been charged and your attorney doesn't have the police reports, tell him to go get them.  They often can be purchased for $10 or less.  Get medical records, statements.  Tape phone calls.  Save email messages.  You never know when they might come in handy. 

Remember, your team is paid by you.  Think of each member as your employee rather than the person who will get your butt out of trouble. He/she is accountable to you.  You need to be a good micro-manager!  If your team is failing, it's either because you have the wrong team, or you're not a good manager, or both.  Remember, you are not working with your team to build a friendships....you are working with them to get the job done in your favor.  It doesn't matter that they like you, only that they are doing a good job and serving your best interests.

Being informed and educated is the best weapon you have...in fact, that's all you have!  If you think, for one second, that you can walk into trial, unprepared and wing it then you will fail. As the saying goes, he who fails to plan is planning to fail. 

To those of you whose case is pending...start your case law research now.  Start gathering a list of case law for situations that are pertinent to your case.  For example: if the police kept
questioning you even after you asked for an attorney, start looking for case law in your state that supports that the questioning should have stopped the moment you asked for an attorney.  Once you have your case law library built, create a spreadsheet and list the cite as well as the basics of the case law, including specific language. 

In one case I recently was working on (incidently, the charges were dismissed), I did all of the case law research.  I had all of it organized in folders, my spreadsheet completed.  An hour before trial, there was to be a hearing on whether statements given to the police after the defendant had invoked his 5th amendment right to silence could be used against him.  I wasn't there, but there was a brief break and I received a phone call from the defendant after he had discussed with his attorney what the prosectuor wanted to do. (e.g. use parts of the statements for rebuttal purposes if the defendant took the stand.)  The attorney, ignorant as can be, agreed to this and was waiting to get into the judges chambers for the actual motion to occur.  The defendant, annoyed and furious, called me during this break.  He told me what was going to happen and I wanted to hit his attorney on the head with a stick.  He had NOT read anything I sent to him.  He was winging it!

I told the defendant to hand the phone over to his attorney.  And, told the attorney that he had a job to do and was failing to do so. (Basically, gave him the FUD conversation...fear, doubt, uncertainty that he might be turned in for legal malpractice and failing to protect the rights of his client.)  As I talked, I pulled out copies of the case law and asked him if he had the files I created with him.  And, surprisingly, he did.  (I suspect that he had not moved them from his briefcase since I sent them to him.)  We talked about the case law which supported that the statements could NOT be used, rebuttal or otherwise and why. 

Within 45 minutes, I got a call back from the defendant who was literally giddy.  Long and the short of it....without the statement made to police there was nothing to implicate the defendant in the crime.  No evidence, no witnesses, only a statement from a disgruntled former spouse!  Based on case law, the state had nothing.  No case.  The prosecutor had to let the defendant go. 

I wasn't paid a dime for any of this.  But I do know that the defendant was on the ball and wasn't convinced that his attorney was doing the job...and he wasn't.  But, because the defendant HAD read what I sent to him and was educated he knew what needed to happen and pushed the attorney to the limit.  Doing so, resulted in the false allegations going away. 

Moral to the story...knowledge is power. 

Kris
 

In a message dated Thu, 28 Feb 2002  3:56:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, Kenneth Pangborn <pangborn@a-team.org> writes:

>     Tong and I just spoke at some considerable length about two men we
> had both spoken to about their cases. One of the men has been a long
> time list member from New Jersey. I had spoken to him in some great
> detail about his case, making some serious suggestions of things missing
> from it I felt were likely to be legally fatal. We had spoken of me
> doing jury selection for him and the like. He decided however after
> speaking to his lawyer that he had the case "nailed" and that t would
> financially ruin him to have to hire me to help. After all, he had to
> protect his credit rating, he had worked so hard for that Amex Gold
> card.
> 
>     Most of you who have been on the list any amount of time already
> know where this is going. Of course he was convicted, the jury was out 7
> minutes. But his credit rating wasn't hurt from getting in over his head
> paying me. I am sure he can call up the First Bank & Trust and get that
> $60,000 loan he now needs to get the same lawyer who sent him to prison
> to do his appeal.
> 
>     Another guy whose lawyers had bullied him into the notion of NOT
> doing ANYTHING to prepare a case, but sold him that they had made a
> great deal for a plea bargain for him. I had told him a whole laundry
> list of things that the plea was a HORRID idea. (The guy IS innocent.)
> Well the judge announced this morning that he would NOT accept an
> expungement after 6 months, he would NOT accept not sending him to jail.
> And he would NOT keep his name out of the sex offender registry. In
> addition to Florida, the Pennsylvania authorities said they they too
> would not accept any plea deal with Florida and would seek him for trial
> there. In short, ALL of the things I told him is what he was confronted
> with this morning. ALL of the things the idiot lawyers promised him
> proved to be manure!
> 
>     I absolutely HATE being right. Two for two this morning. Of course
> neither man will contact ME directly because I was VERY "abrasive" with
> them as the suffered with their delusions. Both of these men are
> innocent, now BOTH will be doing LONG stretches in prison.
> 
>     Why do I get "abrasive?" To PREVENT things like this! To warn people
> of that train on the tracks, and get them off before they splat on the
> windscreen of the locomotive. Some people you can save, others you just
> can't.
> 
> #############################################################
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