Investigator Taken into Custody (New Orleans)
Gwen Filosa, of the New Orleans Times Picayune, reports:
My favorite choice quote: “This matter is not new today,”[ADA Joe] Meyer said. “Every judge in this building has confronted this issue of there are people dying out there because of irresponsible activities by defense attorneys. There are people every day refusing to testify.”
He seems to have confused “zealous advocacy” with “irresponsible activities.” Interviewing witnesses is what we’re *supposed* to do! Not interviewing witnesses, especially in a case as serious as rape, could variously be called “malpractice,” “ineffective assistance of counsel,” or “a violation of the attorney’s duty of zeal.”1
Brethren, every time a judge or an ADA pisses you off, be thankful you don’t have to deal with what our comrades in New Orleans do.
Edit Thursday, 7/15/09, 9:29 PM. See how I make a note that I’m editing my story when I do it? Gwen Filosa and nola.com don’t do that. In the nola.com story as it existed this morning, it said that the investigator spoke with the children while they were out with a sitter as the mother rested after a medical procedure. That section has since been removed. WIth the facts as they are currently presented, it looks like the investigator just took the kids. Not so, according to Filosa’s own prior reporting. This edit earns the “bad journalism” and “media criticism” tags, which were already in the dictablog tag cloud, but hadn’t yet been applied to this post.
1Of course, there are cases where counsel might make a strategic decision not to interview a particular witness or witnesses. Likelihood of the defense team being arrested should not be a factor in this equation.
Posted by AndyCowan on July 16th, 2009 :: Filed under A Day in the Life, Client Service, In the News
Tags :: almost but not quite entirely unlike law, bad journalism, first amendment, media criticism, things that are wrong
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 16th, 2009
The best part of any NOLA.com article is always the comments section. This one is my favorite, but there are so many other pearls of wisdom in there!:
Posted by Nola98 on 07/15/09 at 9:58PM
The way I see it in NOLA…
Public Defenders: criminals defending criminals using criminal means.
District Attorney: the REAL public defender, fighting to protect VICTIMS.
Great job Cannizzaro and Marullo!
July 17th, 2009
Yeah, the protect the VICTIMS by tearing apart families, forcing them to testify by taking away their kids, and cajoling them into perjuring themselves. Way to go, District Attorney’s offices!
I really do hate people some times.