Murder Prosecutions and Criminal Defense Investigations

Murder cases may often be similar but no two are ever really alike.  Most murder defendants are found guilty.  Any person being put on trial stands an 80% chance of being convicted.

However some of the accused are actually innocent and getting their lives back is anything but easy.  The burden of proof is on the government but over-zealous cops and prosecutors too often lie and cheat to win guilty verdicts from unsuspecting jurors.  Framing someone is very easy to do for any competent homicide detective. Escaping a false conviction is always a life altering challenge.

If the case is not clear and the evidence is weak, that is where and when the prosecution chicanery goes into overdrive.  Cops hate getting sued and they know if a defendant gets convicted, any potential lawsuit would be dead.   That’s part of the motivation along with protecting their professional pride.  It’s ugly but a fact of life.

Murder cases are the ones that usually require the most work by defense lawyers and investigators.  Because of the incredibly high cost of a murder defense, public defenders get the bulk of these cases. 

The public defenders can either be horrible or very good lawyers.  A defendant is usually stuck with what he gets for a lawyer and simply does not have the ability to recognize legal blunders.  The defendant has to deal from a position of pure faith.

Public defender investigators are generally worthless, unmotivated and poorly paid.   Most private investigators over-rate themselves and pad their resumes more than the girls did their bras at my high school prom.   

Usually a good lawyer knows a reasonably decent PI.  Don’t let some plagiarized Internet website convince you to hire an investigator.  The bums see someone else’s attractive and professionally created website and simply copy and convert it to their own use.  Don’t be fooled.

You could have a great private lawyer but he could be handcuffed by budgetary problems that interfere with hiring needed experts and qualified investigators. Too many lawyers wait until they are desperate before they share their retainer with an investigator to track down needed evidence.

It may be best to pay your investigator separately to make sure he can do the work that needs to be done. 

If you’re rich and can hire the best you usually stand a much better chance. If you're poor that invites the unthinkable. 

If you barely have enough money to hire a private lawyer he really can't share any portion of his retainer with anyone else like an investigator or forensic and other expensive technical experts. 

Chances are good your lawyer will not have what he needs to win because of the failure to find witnesses that can impeach or at least challenge those presented by the prosecutor.

Multiple lawyers on a murder case sounds really good but it can be a recipe for a disaster.  Lawyers fight among themselves like cats and dogs.  They wind up working against each other just to prove a point. Any more than two good lawyers is usually a horrible idea.

Investigators are used to do background investigations on witnesses including contacting their friends, co-workers and enemies.  A proper investigation will uncover perjury, witness tampering and evidence tampering.  Investigators need to go through and analyze garbage.  They need to interview anyone and everyone possible and have an envelope with blank subpoenas handy.

If the investigator is lucky to be in a state that allows one party consent to conversation recording he needs to abuse that all he can.  Likewise placing GPS transmitters on people and automobiles to track their movements can lead defense investigators to the criminal activity of the prosecution witnesses.

Let’s say the motive for the murder is theft it’s often a prosecution witness that may be a more viable suspect if an investigator can document his nefarious activity.  If the motive for murder is to cover a sex-offense perhaps a prosecution witness’ unusual sexual liaisons can take focus off of the accused defendant.

There are a million little tricks that can be used to find the truth outside of the courtroom.  By the time the trial begins if there’s nothing discovered about the state’s witnesses the defense lawyer will be at their mercy.  Of course if there’s either no investigation or a limited one the defense lawyer may surely be defeated.

If the lawyer tells you that you don’t need an investigator on a really serious case watch out. 

Hollywood as the World’s Film Capital is Fading Fast

Hollywood, CA—California has gone Socialist over the last 30 or 40 years. The politicians here never found a tax or a way to waste or steal money they didn’t love. Every successful California business that could has left the not so Golden State or faced a shutdown over tax extortion and over-regulation. They have taken their jobs with them.

The serious jobs loss never even slowed down California’s incredibly corrupt politicians. Thankfully there’s no Berlin style Wall yet, to prevent the flight. Hardest hit by California’s pirate politicians is the film and entertainment industry. As the excessive taxes and other obstacles have impacted this once thriving industry production began running away.

Canada was first to offer a haven for filmmakers through tax breaks and subsidies. That nation learned very quickly that they get much more in return when they host a film production. California’s politicians are clearly too corrupt and stupid to learn from this. More and more once valuable office space is vacant even in prestige locations like inside Paramount Studios. Why stay in L.A. to make films?

I have a friend in L.A. that made a film at her home, driveway and front sidewalk. There were no security requirements, obstructed traffic or anything going on that concerned the city. Still they forced her to pay nearly $1,000.00 for a film permit and they made her pay for expensive liability insurance. It was like watching a police SWAT team dealing with a kid’s lemonade stand.

Now Europe and India has been rapidly taking over making great films. India protects their citizens with a nearly absolute embargo against foreign workers. Germany provides very generous subsidies along with great locations for filmmakers. 

Filmmaking is seeing unprecedented democratization because of technology changes that make filming an editing so much easier an inexpensive. Hollywood has been forced to compete with millions of filmmakers using YouTube and other social media sites.

Taken 2, A Crimefile News Film Review

Los Angeles, CA—Taken 2 has hit the theater screens like lightening!  This action thriller stars Liam Neeson.   There are plenty of action film stars like Stallone, Willis, Norris, Segal, and Schwarzenegger however the difference here is that Neeson can act!

The Taken franchise is a simple one that began with Neeson, playing a CIA operative, Bryan Mills learned that his pretty daughter Kim, Played by Maggie Grace is kidnapped by terrorists in Paris.  Mills hunts down the bad boys and sends them to their makers and saves Kim.

This time in Taken 2, Mills’ ex-wife Lenore, played by Dutch born actress Famke Janssen is taken in Istanbul Turkey.  Most men would pray for their ex-wives to be taken and in fact many have actually arranged to have that happen.  However Mills is the exception because he still carries a torch for the wife he made second class to his government adventures and lost.

Lenore saw her vacation plans ruined by her present husband and Mills invites her and their daughter Kim to Istanbul where he was wrapping up a post-retirement  assignment.  It’s no surprise when all Hell breaks loose.  The excitement, great visuals and intrigue are non-stop.

Neeson has lots of stunt doubles but for a 60 year-old man he’s in incredible shape.  Neeson’s role is as physically demanding as they get. 

I saw Taken 2 at an Imax monster screen theater and is was terrific.  The entire cast was believable in this improbable situation. The script penned by Luc Besson and Robert Kamen was wonderful and the director, Oliver Megaton pulled it off altogether making a sure-fire hit.

On a side note I got to spend a little time with Neeson at a screening of The Grey.  This was only the second time I saw him in person.  The other was nearly a decade ago when he played opposite Laura Linney in, The Crucible on Broadway.

There are two videos below.  One is the trailer and they other is from our meeting last Thursday night in West Hollywood.

Obama Was Neutered By His Media Cheerleaders

Denver, CO—For the last four years our Leftist, mainstream media treated Barack Obama like a rock star.

They went out of their way to avoid asking questions that challenged anything Obama said. 

The media forgave Obama’s abuse of the teleprompter filled with words written by others.  

I don’t think anyone can recall Obama getting anything but softball questions to answer.  The media took on a public relations role for the Obama Administration.

Obama would avoid press conferences like the plague without fear that any discouraging words would come from the press. 

In short Obama lacked necessary experience to deal with the criticisms that would certainly see sunlight in a presidential debate. 

All Obama could do was squirm, stutter, smirk, ramble and repeat words.  This was hardly the image anyone wants to see of a world leader.

It is the mainstream Liberal media that should accept the blame for Obama’s lame performance last night.   That and the fact that an empty suit; along with an army of unelected and un-vetted czars have been running this nation straight to Hell. 

Obama Has Reached The End of His Rope

Denver, CO—The Presidential debate went South for Barack Obama right when he sidestepped and avoided a question about, “Trickle Down Government.”

Obama has become totally dependent on a teleprompter and obviously helpless without one.  Obama stuttered, stammered and repeated words to collect his thoughts during the 90-minute beating he received.  The more words that came out of Obama’s mouth the deeper he buried himself. 

Obama’s problem has been aggravated by the media that has steadfastly refused to challenge him or is policies over the past four years. The media was unable to protect him in tonight’s debate.   Obama was just not used to answering tough questions.

Obama did not seem to have a platform or direction for the education of our children.

Obama lost the debate and the election tonight.  There is no way he can make a comeback from the abyss where he’s landed. The election is just a month away.

Mitt Romney scored points for exhibiting a much better understanding of the material covered in the debate.   Romney was clearly the better communicator of the two.

Obama has disappointed even his most ardent supporters tonight.  

Ignorant Journalists, Guns and Disinformation

Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .38 five-shot revolver with genuine stag Grips from www.eaglegrips.com

Los Angeles, CA—There are those journalists who seem to think are experts on firearms.   At least that’s what they want their readers and viewers think.  For the most part they’ve never fired a gun and if they have it was not under the supervision of a professional trainer.

These folks write and speak words for a living, so they want to be colorful and use what they feel are the strongest terms and phrases.  Too often they don’t have a clue what they are talking about.  That’s when their ignorance is laid bare.

Here are the most misused terms:

1.    Assault Rifle

2.    High Powered Rifle

3.    Point Blank Range

4.    Execution Style

5.    Clip

Journalists for some reason believe cops are experts on firearms.  Some of them are but its rarely the police bosses or their department spokespeople.  Reporters  most often quote gibberish from their police sources.

Most readers think they know just what these terms mean.  Okay here are the answers:

An assault rifle is a long gun or carbine that fires more than a single round for each pull of the trigger.  Often the term Machine gun is used and that can be wrong too.  Then there is the sub-machine gun.  Confused?  Each term has a different meaning.  It may be time to do a little enterprising research!

High Powered Rifles.  Carbines like the M-4, M-16 or AK-47 or the semi-automatic look-alike cousins are a lot of things but high powered is never one of them.  When you say high-powered you are speaking of heavy ammunition with a lot of lead and gun powder.  .308, 30-06 or larger rounds can be considered high powered compared to smaller round fired by the aforementioned carbines or hand gun rounds. 

Point Blank Range. I have seen great defense attorneys embarrass seasoned cops who have used this term during court testimony.  Okay officer, would you please explain to the jury just what point blank range is?  Are you scratching your head now?  Don’t ever use a term you can’t easily define just because it sounds cool.

Execution Style.  Again this term is generally misused when a defenseless victim is shot, perhaps while on their knees.  However execution style is being tied to a stake, blindfolded and shot by riflemen.  That hopefully only happens after some Due Process.  Avoid this term except in actual executions by firing squads.

Clip.  A clip for firearms is a metal device that holds ammunition rounds together.  There are very few types of firearms that require clips.  People trying to describe ammunition magazines redundantly and ignorantly use the term clip.  Clip and magazine are not synonyms.

I ask every so -called journalist who reports crime stories; why not take a simple firearms course?  Why stay ignorant?

One last thing!  Gun store owners or salespeople are not NRA spokespeople!  The may know guns but they are the wrong people to ask about gun control.  Call the NRA and they will get you to the right local person for a really interesting soundbite.  

 

Carice van Houten’s Music CD, A Review

Amsterdam, The Netherlands—In this wonderful city full of the richest art, sights and sounds, is the gifted actress and singer Carice van Houten.  First, I must confess, I love everything this European siren does. 

I first heard van Houten sing in the great Paul Verhoeven film, Black Book (2006).   She was the masterful leading lady of that thrilling film in every respect.  If you’ve not seen it, you must! She swims, sings, dances and acts in three languages.

If you saw the film Valkyrie, van Houten played Nina Von Stauffenberg opposite Tom Cruise.  She also has a role in the successful HBO series Game of Thrones.

This charming lady speaks, sings and acts in Dutch, German and English.  She again caught my attention in a wonderful duet with Kane called, No Surrender. 

Finally van Houten has brought her talent to the recording studio and cut an album titled, See You On The Ice.  The songs are modern and are in English.  This is all new material. 

It’s only a matter of a short time before van Houten catches on in the USA in a big way. 

I got a sneak peek at the CD from van Houten’s promotional efforts and it’s great.

You must check this out on ITunes and other music sources such as Amazon.com.  This is great stuff to play in your car while traveling these upcoming fall evenings.

UPDATE:  Carice has tweeted that there is a delay in getting her music up on ITunes in North America until October 2nd. 

Below is the Official Video of Emily contained in the CD.