Singing Loudly

So, we won our case yesterday that involved a charge of terroristic threat.

The state presented their evidence, which was laughable, and we chose to rest our case without offering anything. The state simply couldn't prove that the defendant was the guy who called in the threat. It was alleged that our client called in a bomb threat to his former employer.

It is upsetting that the prosecutor chose to waste 8 months of our defendants life with an unsupportable charge; waste the day of 6 jurors who said afterwards that they didn't even need to hear the closing statements as it was clear the prosecutor had nothing; and waste the day of a judge who could have been hearing a case with merit. I imagine that the answer to this is that the prosecutors were looking at their evidence through rose colored glasses, which happens to the best of us.

They offered a police officer who could only read from a police report of what happened. Of course, like any good attorney, you object to that hearsay evidence. It was sustained each time by the judge. After more times than I have fingers, the police officer got upset and yelled at us. After that the prosecutor decided that he shouldn't direct exam the officer any longer. Then they put up the person who answered the phone. On cross-examination we asked whether there were other employers who were sick that day, if it was possible someone else could have called, and if they had phone records that showed it came from our defendants phone or anything else to prove a link.

Glad to have the case finished. Not surprisingly the client was completely ungrateful and just started telling us that he couldn't find a job now because of this and that his life was ruined. He was pleased to get a copy of the judgment, while we were pleased to remind the prosecution to gather stronger evidence.