a public defender

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As you can judge by the title, today’s advance release opinions from the Supreme and Appellate Court seem promising but quickly put me to sleep. That may have nothing to do with the opinions themselves.

The Supreme Court issued State v. John M., in which the defendant claimed that the trial court abused its discretion in not permitting the defendant to question the victim about her motive in testifying. His theory was that the victim’s account of the abuse was starkly similar to the victim’s mother’s own abuse as a child and that it would tend to show that the victim’s story was “coached”. The defendant was also precluded from testifying about the victim’s mother’s abuse. The court pulled out the oldest trick in the book, saying that even if the trial court had abused its discretion, because it was a bench trial and the trial court didn’t seem too impressed with that theory, the error would be harmless. The Court also upheld the exclusion of testimony regarding the victim’s mother’s animus toward the defendant, because apparently that is irrelevant to the claim that the defendant abused the victim. What’s that you say? It goes to bias? Well, it seems there was plenty of other evidence from which the trial court could infer animus.

Moving to the Appellate Court, first up is State v. Gonzalez. Basically everybody screwed up. Issues weren’t properly preserved, they weren’t briefed, what seems like a viable motion for new trial based on newly discovered evidence wasn’t properly presented. Clusterf*ck. Habeas coming.

Next, in State v. Abreu, the defendant wanted to introduce evidence of the victim’s “job” as a drug dealer to infer that he was armed and about to attack him or the victim’s BAC or the victim’s status as a fugitive or the victim’s criminal record to support his theory of self-defense. The Court emphatically says “NO”.

This is where I fall asleep. The rest are unremarkable. Read for yourself.