THE FACTS:

DA’s only witness – the victim of the alleged assault –  happened to be in prison far away in Florida.

My guy with his previous criminal history (“history” sounds so important but WINSTON CHURCHILL he ain’t) was looking at substantial prison time if he were convicted. When the trial came up – well, lo & behold the victim was still safe asleep in his Florida cell and the DA had done nothing to get him.   It would have involved lots of  paper WORK and who wants to do that?

So the DA did what DA’s do;  dismissed the case and then immediately refiled.  The clock on “speedy trial” would start running all over again giving the DA time to get his witness from that Florida prison.

I got mad and  stood up in the courtroom complaining about the DA acting in an unethical way by refiling the case knowing he wasn’t  going to lift a finger (“fill out all that paperwork?  not very likely”) to get his witness.

THE DENOUEMENT

When the trial date comes round again – two months later – there’s  the guy  from Florida State Prison sitting in court.  As soon as my guy sees him he takes the DEAL they’d been offering him, getting him back to State Prison (he doesn’t get a trip to Florida) and so there goes another case that hits the skids.

THE LIFE LESSON

The DA makes a point of telling  me that if I hadn’t have made such a big production calling him a low life scumbag DA (or words to that effect)  he  may very well have never gone to all the trouble he did.

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION:

1.  Do you think knowing all you know about Murray he’ll make the same mistake again.

2.  If you were the Defense Lawyer what would you do?

3.  Do you believe the DA about only doing all that paper work cause Murray pissed him off?

4.  Was the DA just saying that to get under Murray’s skin?