Updated Thursdays

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Motion in Limine


***
I've edited the first paragraph for clarity.
 
***

If you've been reading the blog for long, you know that the first issue brought up in Coy's Habeas Corpus was that his defense lawyer failed to object to the prosecution, and prosecution's witnesses, repeatedly referring to the complainant as 'the victim' in court. I have been staring at this paperwork for over a year now, and it just never really jumped out at me until now. This week I started reading the court's response more carefully, and...Holy shit.



The defense lawyer tried to file a 'motion in limine' to prevent the state and the state's witnesses from referring to the child as 'victim.' Since it hadn't been proven that anything had happened to her, it makes sense. 'In limine' means 'at the start', and from what I can find these motions are usually submitted before the trial, when they were deciding what evidence and witnesses could be used.



I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like an oddly specific request. Like, “please don't knee me in the balls and then infect me with the Ebola virus.” Why would you even bring it up if there wasn't a good reason to believe it was going to happen?



This motion was denied, presumably by the judge. I'm trying to find a copy of the paperwork, but until then I'm going off what's written in the response to Coy's Habeas Corpus.



So...What does this look like to me? It looks like Lewis, a former prosecutor, tried to head off a strategy that he knew would be employed during the trial; implying to the jury that there was no question a crime had occurred, and creating a victim. Once he was told “Sorry, we're not going to prohibit the home team from breaking the rules”, he was left with a choice. Object repeatedly whenever the term is used and 'antagonize' the jury, as the Appeals Court put it, or let it slide unless the breach was extremely obvious.



On page 13 of the Habeas Corpus, the Appeals Court said “...merely referencing O.S. as a “victim” does not undermine confidence in the outcome of the trial...”



But Coy's defense strategy was built around the idea that nothing actually happened to the child in question; that there was no crime committed, and therefore, no victim. A decent strategy, I guess, given the lack of physical evidence, except that the State, who's case was built on this child's testimony, undermined it by telling them repeatedly that she was the victim.



By allowing it, the court discounted Coy's entire defense. Nothing presented in his favor mattered because they established at the very beginning that they had a victim; if you have a victim, someone must have victimized her.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been reading this blog since the beginning. I appreciate all your time and effort Incandesio. I really hope one day Los will be FREE. I have a quick question about Los. You know the song "In My Hood" is it really him in the video if it was how did they film him and why didn't he show his face? Iv've always wondered about that.

E*Jay said...

They didn't show his face cuzz it wasn't him....

817South said...

Its noot hiim

beanieman said...

Happy late B-day Los!! Much love homie!! FREE SPM!!!

Eric said...

Incandesio, the Habeas Corpus gave a perfectly reasonable explanation on why it didn't matter if the girl was referred to as a victim. The jury understood that the State still had to prove it, and Mr. Lewis would object when the word "victim" was used in a harmful way. It didn't matter.

What killed the defense was the fact that they couldn't contradict the victim and her testimony. I would be fascinated to know why Carlos didn't take the stand. I believe it's because he wouldn't be able to explain away everything that the victim said, at least not in a credible way. Mr. Lewis knew that, and so did Carlos.

Anonymous said...

Hey incandesio can you ask SPM if he has to do full sentencing and get out in 2047 is he still rap and make music?

Anonymous said...

There is a official In My Hood music video with Los in it

Incandesio said...

Eric:
The Texas Court of Appeals also once gave a explanation of why it didn't matter if the defendant's lawyer was *sleeping* through the trial. Just because it's an explanation doesn't make it 'perfectly reasonable.'

Although Coy's lawyer should have objected each time it was used, his failure to do so doesn't make it okay. It's extremely prejudicial, especially considering the entire defense was built on the premise that there was no victim.

Incandesio said...

Anon 10:29:
I don't know for sure, but I doubt it's him.

Anon 7:54:
Hopefully that won't be an issue, but he'll see your comment when I send this post in.

Anonymous said...

I have a question to spm, which rappers would you like to collaborate with? I would like to hear spm and zro or gt garza. Who do yall think he should rap with?

Anonymous said...

Haystak, 8ball, berner & e40 spm well u please klab wid them ?

Anonymous said...

spm just posted a new post on his facebook page yall check it out

Eric said...

If Chip objected to it each time, he would have been overruled each time. This would have hurt the defense even more because it would have made them look desperate and stupid. That's why Chip wanted to limit his objections to shit that actually mattered.

Incandesio said...

If Chip had objected it's very unlikely he would have been overruled, as the prosecuter was 'assuming facts not in evidence', which is a very proper reason for objecting.

Even if overruled, it would have preserved the issue for appeal. Since it was not preserved, Coy was not able to use it in his appeal, and could only use the lawyer's failure to object as evidence of incompetent counsel, something with a much tighter definiton, which is notoriously hard to prove.

Anonymous said...

INCANDESIO THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT LUCKY LUCIANO JUST POSTED SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT NOT SURE IF ITS HIS REAL PROFILE BUT ITS WORTH CHECKING IT OUT HE POSTED SAYING SPM IS COMING HOME IN 4 MONTHES LINK IS AT THE BOTTOM

https://m.facebook.com/?refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F&_rdr

Incandesio said...

Anon 7:40

Thanks for the link; I'm not going to spread it around unless I see proof, but I'll keep my eyes open. Good looking out.

ejguev0626 said...

I think both of dem GT nd Zro dey kill da beats matter in fact dey murder dem

Anonymous said...

i just hope its not a fake account and its actually real

Incandesio said...

Lucky Luciano answered it on Twitter; it's a fake page.

Anonymous said...

yeah i saw it :( wats up with this people creating fake pages and posting fake info