Damned Lawyers

This is my take on SPM's appeals. I have tried my best to translate lawyer-speak into plain English. All of his appeals have been rejected. He has had to jump through all kinds of legal hoops to get ahold of stuff like the recording suggesting that the plaintiff's mother was planning on suing him for money well before the trial was over. There is and can be no physical evidence that can be re-tested or suddenly 'appear' out of the abyss that is the Houston Crime Lab, so he is at the mercy of the court of appeals, whose 'stellar' judgment during Rosenthal's term will be discussed later.


1. His lawyer failed to object when the prosecution/witnesses started calling the plaintiff 'victim'...Even though, in theory, it had not even been proven that there was a crime committed. So much for 'innocent until proven guilty'.


2. He failed to object to people claiming that, based on their expertise, the plaintiff was telling the truth. No expert can prove whether someone is telling the truth based solely on their words. I don't care how many episodes of 'Lie To Me' you've watched, it's still impossible. The best anybody can do is make an educated guess.


3. He did not bother to ask the plaintiff's mother if she intended to sue for cash. If his strategy was truly to portray the child as a pawn manipulated by lying adults, don't you think it might be important to establish what the motive was?? Ramirez, the mother, spoke with someone about it before the trial, who told her that filing during the trial might hurt her case, so she waited.

"I [Wellmaker] have been informed that Maryvel Ramirez denied in an affidavit that she told me that she spoke with Ed Hennessey before the criminal trial; that he said that if he filed a civil lawsuit at that time, it would hurt the criminal case; and that he agreed to file a civil lawsuit after the criminal trial was over.
I reiterate and can substantiate the contents of my previous affidavit, as I recorded the conversation."

So not only is she obviously planning the civil case, but there's recorded evidence of it! Mr. Defense Attorney must have forgotten about that bit of evidence.


4. Counsel opened the door or failed to object to irrelevant, prejudicial testimony.
Specifically, the lawyer allowed the investigating officer to swear up one side of the court room and down the other that Coy was going to rape his own daughter, and do it soon. The defense lawyer asked if it was true that she had no actual evidence of this, and she says "“That’s not correct. I FEEL he was grooming her to sexually assault her later on.”"

Oh, fantastic. Well, I FEEL like I have 10 billion dollars and a body that won't quit. Is that all it takes to prove in a court of law that I do? Are FEELINGS now considered solid evidence?
So, you say, does the judge support Coy's lawyer in objecting to the woman presenting her feelings as facts? No, he tells her to define 'grooming' for the jury, so they can get a real good picture of what she FEELS he is guilty of.

He allowed the plaintiff's mother to accuse Coy of using drugs and beating women, including his wife. We're all pretty sure that he smoked pot like a motherfucker, and in 1998 he was accused of hitting a woman, but that case was dismissed. This stuff had absolutely NOTHING to do with the case being tried, it was brought up to smear Coy, to make the jury dislike him.

He failed to object to the prosecution using the name of his company, 'Dope house records' as a weapon against him. I guess he should have named his rap label "Fluffy Fuzzy Bunny Meadow". You should always consider your eventual trial when naming your record company. Or something.


5. The Plaintiff's mother said that her father died of a heart attack after learning of the alleged abuse. What does this have to do with determining Coy's guilt or innocence? It's tragic, if it's true, but it contributed NOTHING to the trial except for giving the jury another irrelevant reason to hate South Park Mexican.


6. Counsel failed to object to argument that the complainant’s testimony regarding the offense was uncontested;
This is a tricky one. Testimony can be uncontested and still be false. If I say "I shit gold", and you say "I'm not even going to argue with you about that", technically my testimony is 'uncontested'. But that doesn't make it true.
The testimony the prosecutors were talking about were things like "The girls spent the night at Coy's House. Uncontested!" "This is a picture of Coy's house. Uncontested!"
Um, no shit it's uncontested, it's also pointless and irrelevant! But by repeating it over and over and over, they allowed the jurors to feel like there was no argument in Coy's favor. That all the prosecutor's evidence was uncontested.


7. Counsel invited and failed to properly object to argument attacking him for trying to hide the truth and keep [Coy] out of jail for a fee.
The prosecutors claimed that the defense lawyer was getting paid to keep Coy out of jail, while they were paid to find the truth. That's one of saying "All the lawyers here are getting paid." Another way to say that would be "The prosecutors get paid to try and put people in jail regardless of guilt or innocence, while I, the defense lawyer, get paid to defend against false claims and find the truth."
Did he speak up effectively? No he did not. He objected, got slapped down, and shut up. Thanks, defense council!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33106215/Coy-Trial-Habeas-Corpus?query=sheets