Chris - The Legal Issues - A Prosecutor's Perspective

[CWCVillie Shopkeeper]

Being polite or pretending to be extra retarded isn't likely to make that much or a difference. If you have sex with your elderly mother the judge has a pretty good idea what he's dealing with. About all it would do is keep him from catching a contempt charge.

The only words Chris should speak in court from here on are during the acceptance of his plea.

Chris: Inevitably does chris shit (Stomps, makes mean faces, interrupts "SHE", etc.)
Judge: "Okay, Christian Chandler, you will be going to jail for contempt of court. Guards-"
Chris: "DON'T CALL ANYBODY" *sprays*

Let's be honest, based on what he did with Michael Snyder with a light charge imagine what he will do when facing a maximum of 10 years. He already stomped around during his short hearing this morning and interrupted the court correcting the Judge's pronouns like a twitter fag.

 

[Learned Hand]

I had been following it until it got locked and I guess it has been subsequently re-opened. It appeared there was probably an Idea Guys like situation going and given the rampant faggotry of Bella both in the thread and her own general GOTISness, Nothing struck me as particularly damaging for her criminally, beyond speculated child pornography, or exonerating for Chris. That thread is tedious due to rampant socking and nothing I read in the revised OP jumped out at me as significant enough to influence this case.

What kind of overwhelming influence would have to exerted on Chris could cause a prosecutor to offer a better plea deal? Is that something they would consider? Chris and the entire situation surrounding this affair is so fucked that I don't know that anyone can predict how it would proceed going to trial and how a jury would react to Chris. He's his own worst enemy and I don't see most people caring much that he chose to believe some basic cluster B teenager. Chris is an adult who chooses not to know better. I don't know how he overcomes that.

Completely true. I suppose my line of speculation is couched around capacity, someone with malicious intend convincing someone else with limited cognitive ability to act on their behalf, and the apparent theft.

It's been a long time (a decade or more) since I tackled anything involving a conspiracy or cabal, so I'm very rocky on the relevant standards.

 

[Lorne Armstrong]

Question for the people who actually know what they're talking about when it comes to legality - what are the odds Chris could get off of this lightly if he made it clear he was a retard every time he interacted with the judge, but then kept his mouth completely shut every other moment and didn't do tard shit like stomping his feet and interrupting to get his pronouns correct or spout off dumb asides? I'm getting the impression if he was just quiet, polite and refrained from being a nuisance by speaking/acting out of turn it could massively benefit him to the point of averting the vast majority of the potential punishment here.

The odds are 0 because if Chris is acting this stupid in court, then there’s no way he was smart enough to shut up when he was interrogated by Greene County detectives. Chris has already told the cops everything. I don’t think he’s going away for a decade or more, but Chris is going to end up with a felony conviction over this, with jail time and RSO status/probation/sex offender treatment after release.

 

[failson-lawguy]

https://embed.kiwifarms.st/threads/...nd-her-clique-of-extremely-sick-people.96787/

I don't know if you all have been keeping up with this thread, but it seems Chris had some predator enablers that took money from him, encouraged and facilitated his activities, and tried to get him to kill himself.

This opens up a whole can of worms in terms of culpability for Chris and these others, and contours some of my previous assessments even in this thread, assuming everything in that OP is true.

This entire situation keeps opening up to new bizarre substantive criminal charges, it honestly feels like a crim law professor's hypo. I still think that Chris is probably culpable for the incest, and again would be shocked if he's not culpable for a rape charge if it's coming, but if this is true, is also simultaneously a victim and participant in a conspiracy, but my guess is that the participant part will be more operative here. Although he wasn't fully aware of the conspiracy's ultimate aim, if there was a conspiracy at all, he was at least aware of the criminal aims and acted in furtherance of it, which is all that really matters in a conspiracy's required factors of 1. agreement 2. with specific intent 3. to commit criminal acts/defraud or commit immoral conduct.

From personal experience in a similar diminished capacity conspiracy recently, the conspiracy itself isn't that useful in creating a showing of duress absent some actual threat, or for the calculus of the underlying capacity to the crime committed as part of the conspiracy, but generally, hopefully, the undue influence is taken into account by prosecutors for plea arrangements, and judges for sentencing.

Also charging conspiracy on this seems like a nightmare absent a rape charge, Fed doesn't have incest in Title 18, it's all state based, and although virginia could long-arm this, it just doesn't seem feasible for a mostly rural commonwealth like this.

 

[Unpleasant]

From personal experience in a similar diminished capacity conspiracy recently, the conspiracy itself isn't that useful in creating a showing of duress absent some actual threat, or for the calculus of the underlying capacity to the crime committed as part of the conspiracy, but generally, hopefully, the undue influence is taken into account by prosecutors for plea arrangements, and judges for sentencing.

This has been my experience when dealing with the literally retarded who were involved in retail theft rings. The charges weren't quite as balls to the walls as they were for the ringleaders, but they were charged appropriately, and received lighter (probation + time served) sentences in the end, whereas the ringleaders went to prison. It's easy to manipulate a total moron into doing the heavy lifting for you- and it's easy to tack on conspiracy and/or accessory charge(s) whenever there is proof showing that you directed a moron to do that heavy lifting.

By literally retarded I guess I really mean figuratively retarded- not the helmet and juiceboxes sort, but the somewhere between Forrest Gump and Chris sort, closer to Chris. Very pliable and malleable personalities who know (or should know) stealing is wrong, but who will do it anyway when they're getting a little pay and attention out of it. They weren't quite mentally ill enough that our DAs were comfortable charging the leaders with abuse of a handicapped person, though.

That said, those situations were a little different than this- here we have Chris being exploited directly for no real personal gain other than laughs on internet. In those cases, the tards were getting paid, and they all pointed fingers directly at the guys paying them. I think you would be facing a much harder time proving some uberweens "forced" Chris to fuck his mother and attaching any sort of culpability to them.

 

[Learned Hand]

@Unpleasant and @failson-lawguy Thanks for those replies. Your assessments make sense and agree with my personal notions on the issue.

My general take on the entire thing based on what we think we know so far is that Chris is almost certainly culpable for his actions, and I think anyone who's still clinging to a NGRI defense is truly lost in the weeds, and I am split on diminished capacity: I do not think this affirmative defense will help him avoid a conviction ( or a guilty plea as obviously he's pleading guilty in that scenario), but I do agree with what @Alexander Hamilton and others have said when they indicate that Chris's cognitive ability and mental state may put a wet blanket on the severest of penalties that may befall him.

I am torn on Chris avoiding serious penalties on a rape charge, however. Barb, for all of her faults, deserves justice as well, and if the court finds her incapable of pressing charges or indeed incapable of consent, I don't feel it's in the best interest of justice to lessen Chris's sentence balancing both of their capacity issues that may be at play.

As for Chris's purported enablers, in a perfect world there may be justice, but Greene County is simply too small and too strapped for resources. Despite Chris's modest profile in the public consensus, I doubt there will be much motivation to go after these others unless some truly heinous act is uncovered. It's just the way it is. When confronted by these situations, I simply remember the words of my first supervising counsel when he said "just do the best with what you have." There is no sense in wishing for more.

On a broader note, I find a certain irony in having a better legal discourse and exchange of ideas among other anon lawyers on the farms than I have had in interpersonal interactions with parties with disparate views in years. State of the profession, I suppose.

 

[ScaliasGhost]

@Unpleasant and @failson-lawguy Thanks for those replies. Your assessments make sense and agree with my personal notions on the issue.

My general take on the entire thing based on what we think we know so far is that Chris is almost certainly culpable for his actions, and I think anyone who's still clinging to a NGRI defense is truly lost in the weeds, and I am split on diminished capacity: I do not think this affirmative defense will help him avoid a conviction ( or a guilty plea as obviously he's pleading guilty in that scenario), but I do agree with what @Alexander Hamilton and others have said when they indicate that Chris's cognitive ability and mental state may put a wet blanket on the severest of penalties that may befall him.

I am torn on Chris avoiding serious penalties on a rape charge, however. Barb, for all of her faults, deserves justice as well, and if the court finds her incapable of pressing charges or indeed incapable of consent, I don't feel it's in the best interest of justice to lessen Chris's sentence balancing both of their capacity issues that may be at play.

As for Chris's purported enablers, in a perfect world there may be justice, but Greene County is simply too small and too strapped for resources. Despite Chris's modest profile in the public consensus, I doubt there will be much motivation to go after these others unless some truly heinous act is uncovered. It's just the way it is. When confronted by these situations, I simply remember the words of my first supervising counsel when he said "just do the best with what you have." There is no sense in wishing for more.

On a broader note, I find a certain irony in having a better legal discourse and exchange of ideas among other anon lawyers on the farms than I have had in interpersonal interactions with parties with disparate views in years. State of the profession, I suppose.

Despite what some other attorneys have said about a lenient plea here, if there are actually rape charges filed I don't see him escaping a prison (or institutional commitment) sentence of some sort. A quick review of the VA criminal codes on rape/sexual assault indicates there is a 5 year mandatory minimum on crimes relative to what Chris allegedly did. (Sexual intercourse w/o consent, forcible penetration).

While I can see a plea deal involving only a plea to an incest charge, if rape/SA charges are brought I think a prosecutor would want some prison time attached to that incest plea. Sex offender registery is also a given.

 

[rigors]

Interesting topic. In a former life I was a probation officer for kids. I worked with a LOT of 16 year old nonces. I can see the differences between UK and USA but if there is physical evidence plus his statements and interrogation, he's getting some charge as the professionals have said before.

 

[MeganDodgedABullet]

I'm assuming a few ween\alog "concerned citizens" have been in touch with the popo, alleging conspiracy/incitement/yadda yadda...

I'm hoping Mr Lawyer is the type who likes the sound of his own voice more than being on top of his brief. Would be great if he refers to his client as "slow in the mind" or "naive" or "not high functioning", the ensuing chimpout would be first class milk.

The odds are 0 because if Chris is acting this stupid in court, then there’s no way he was smart enough to shut up when he was interrogated by Greene County detectives. Chris has already told the cops everything. I don’t think he’s going away for a decade or more, but Chris is going to end up with a felony conviction over this, with jail time and RSO status/probation/sex offender treatment after release.

He is exhibit one for someone who is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is, the kind of client who can't keep his yap shut and thinks he knows better. Truth is gonna hit like a liquid nitrogen shower ( which is prob the only thing that could clean him up)

 

[Learned Hand]

He is exhibit one for someone who is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is, the kind of client who can't keep his yap shut and thinks he knows better. Truth is gonna hit like a liquid nitrogen shower ( which is prob the only thing that could clean him up)

I don't think this is necessarily true, Chris isn't acting out of some haughty place of superiority. Chris has always had an adversarial relationship with authority that goes back over a decade. I recall something that has been said a few times in this thread -- it's not that Chris doesn't know or understand his wrongdoings, he just can't tolerate being held accountable for them, so the police (JERKOPS or whatever he calls them), court, school administrators, etc are all an enemy that he feels are personally attacking him.

As for his outburts in court, that's just Chris being Chris. His telling the court or "negotiating" with them that he will cooperate if he can retrieve his toys is just another example of his walling off of authority, and I don't think comes from a place of feeling superior.

 

[Coleslaw]

Most of the time it comes down to playing the numbers. In most jurisdictions, for a prosecutor to secure a conviction, you need to persuade twelve jurors unanimously of the defendant's guilt (note: some states do not require there to be twelve jurors, but the verdict must be unanimous ala Ramos). In other words, for a defendant to keep his case alive, the defendant only needs to convince one person to create a hung jury. If a jury ends up hung, a mistrial is declared, and the entire trial has to be redone. A mistrial buys time for the defendant if he's out on bond and puts pressure on the prosecution to offer a favorable plea agreement or drop the case entirely. The setup naturally favors defendants by design.

Bench trials are typically invoked by defendants when the facts are particularly unsympathetic or the conviction rests on a complex issue of law, rather than facts. If you get a total shitbag defendant, a jury might vote to convict on the basis that the defendant is a shitbag, for instance, rather than the substantive nature of the charges. By the same metric, if the offense is legally complex and requires a difficult analysis, a judge might be a better evaluator in that instance.

Is Williams going to follow Apodaca down the drain?

 

[Pickle Built]

Being polite or pretending to be extra retarded isn't likely to make that much or a difference. If you have sex with your elderly mother the judge has a pretty good idea what he's dealing with. About all it would do is keep him from catching a contempt charge.

Not a lawyer so idk how hard it is to get one, but shouldn't douig things like interrupting the judge with "IT'S MA'M" and literally throwing a fit by stomping your fit and demanding you leave to get your stuff be grounds for at least one contempt of court charge?
Or is Chris's tism card coming in clutch yet again?

 

[robobobo]

Not a lawyer so idk how hard it is to get one, but shouldn't douig things like interrupting the judge with "IT'S MA'M" and literally throwing a fit by stomping your fit and demanding you leave to get your stuff be grounds for at least one contempt of court charge?
Or is Chris's tism card coming in clutch yet again?

It depends on the judge. He could have had the bailiff drag Chris away, but as our legal people have pointed out, judges are used to having retards and insane people in the courtroom and you probably have to kinda work at pissing them off before they'd start swinging the contempt hammer. Also relevant is the fact that Chris was just acting out in general and was not doing anything like directly insulting/threatening the people in the room. If he'd started curse-ye-ha-me-haing the judge, it would have been much more likely to provoke a response. Being a tard with poor impulse control who blurts out stupid shit is not remarkable for a defendant.

To bring things back into lawyery domains, how much work do you think Heilberg is liable to be putting into this? I ask because Chris seemed blindsided when asked to present a bond plan, clearly there hadn't been any coaching done to prepare him for the question. Maybe there hadn't been any time yet, the article mentioned he'd only been assigned to Chris that morning, but I'm curious whether our lawyers think he's going to actually put hours into the case or if he'll wake up on the morning of the hearings, check his calendar, say, "Oh yeah, that crazy fucker guy is up today," spend ten minutes or less skimming stuff so he doesn't look completely unprepared in court, and just wing it.

 

[Second-Hand Boat Supplies]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but what does “pending charges” mean in a case like this? That phrasing implies to me, as a layman, that they have specific charges in mind but can’t act on them yet. What standard has to be met before a charge can be brought given that Chris is already in custody until September? Is there a limited number times additional charges can be added on?

Again, thanks to all of the legal minds sharing their thoughts. I’m really enjoying auditing this class at KFU’s school of law lol

 

[silentium]

Idk why people are bringing Chris possibly being goaded on by a ween into doing this whole thing?

It changes literally nothing in the current situation. If Chris is found to be competent (which he will) then it'll still land him in shit, as he actively took every step on his own even if he was egged on. In fact I would not be surprised if the prosecution would straight up flip it to their advantage by pointing out that it indicates premeditation.

IF he by some miracle is deemed to be NGRI, then it's just further proof that he cannot be left to his own devices and needs to live in a facility.

 

[Alexander Hamilton]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but what does “pending charges” mean in a case like this? That phrasing implies to me, as a layman, that they have specific charges in mind but can’t act on them yet. What standard has to be met before a charge can be brought given that Chris is already in custody until September? Is there a limited number times additional charges can be added on?

Again, thanks to all of the legal minds sharing their thoughts. I’m really enjoying auditing this class at KFU’s school of law lol

So yes, it likely means they have specific charges in mind. Pending charges can mean all sorts of things, depending on who is speaking.

Virginia appears to use an indictment system, at least for felonies, which means you present your case to the grand jury. But when I say present your case, it's really not a high burden... there's a reason they say a good prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.

However in Virginia, it seems, you have the right to an examining trial to see if the case should even be presented to the grand jury. And actually putting a charge on the board starts that clock - hence Chris' examining trial coming up in September on the incest charge.

So since Chris is being held without bond, there's no rush to slap charges down - especially the more complex ones - and start that clock running.

There's no real standard to meet, besides being able to win the examining trial and get to indictment.

As far as a limited number of times, once the indictment has been issued by the grand jury you have to go back and represent and get a superseding indictment if you wanna mess with it.

But that only really is an issue if you're dealing with stuff from the same incident/time period.

So it may be that Chris ends up with one case for the incest, one for the rapes if rape is charged, and one that contains both the epo violation and the financial abuse since that was the same transaction.

But this also depends on exactly how Virginia deals with mixing felony and misdemeanor counts from the same incident. I've prosecuted in one jurisdiction where I could stick a misdemeanor (epo violation) on the bottom of a felony (financial abuse) and one where I would have to file them as separate cases, one misdemeanor and one felony.

 

[ScaliasGhost]

To bring things back into lawyery domains, how much work do you think Heilberg is liable to be putting into this? I ask because Chris seemed blindsided when asked to present a bond plan, clearly there hadn't been any coaching done to prepare him for the question. Maybe there hadn't been any time yet, the article mentioned he'd only been assigned to Chris that morning, but I'm curious whether our lawyers think he's going to actually put hours into the case or if he'll wake up on the morning of the hearings, check his calendar, say, "Oh yeah, that crazy fucker guy is up today," spend ten minutes or less skimming stuff so he doesn't look completely unprepared in court, and just wing it.

Always assume that an attorney is going to spend an appropriate amount of time representing his client. What exactly that looks like in this situation is hard to tell at this point.

IIRC the attorney already requested several mental evaluations, which indicates he's taking this seriously. And while I don't know exactly how bond is handled in VA it's not uncommon for there not to be a specific plan a few hours after an attorney is handed a case. He seems to be doing a fine job so far. And sometimes there honestly won't be much to do besides show up at a scheduling or status hearing or wait for more evidence to come in.

(Also, keep in mind that disagreements that may develop over his particular litigation strategy are different than saying he's doing a bad job at representing his client. He will likely have more (legally relevant) info on Chris than we will ever see)

 

[AnOminous]

It depends on the judge. He could have had the bailiff drag Chris away, but as our legal people have pointed out, judges are used to having retards and insane people in the courtroom and you probably have to kinda work at pissing them off before they'd start swinging the contempt hammer. Also relevant is the fact that Chris was just acting out in general and was not doing anything like directly insulting/threatening the people in the room. If he'd started curse-ye-ha-me-haing the judge, it would have been much more likely to provoke a response. Being a tard with poor impulse control who blurts out stupid shit is not remarkable for a defendant.

He's already on the line for so much serious shit that why would a judge even bother with some $100 contempt fine or sending him to jail where he already is?

Sorry if this has been asked before, but what does “pending charges” mean in a case like this? That phrasing implies to me, as a layman, that they have specific charges in mind but can’t act on them yet.

The press release comes from the Sheriff's Office, not from a prosecuting attorney. They aren't prosecutors. They are investigators, so I wouldn't assume they're using some legal term of art. I would assume they just mean the plainest English interpretation, that they're investigating and planning on charging him with other things.

Maybe they won't or maybe they'll charge him with something else but rape seems like the most obvious thing, or elder abuse, or both. Don't be surprised if something comes out of left field either like CP or stealing that $750 from Barb after the EPO, if he even did that.

 

[debordwasright]

Imo the Tucker feature basically means Chris is completely fucked. It's national news now, and maybe even the focus of another pointless culture war. I'm not a law talking guy but there's no way the prosecutors are going to let him off easy

 

[Edelweiss]

Imo the Tucker feature basically means Chris is completely fucked. It's national news now, and maybe even the focus of another pointless culture war. I'm not a law talking guy but there's no way the prosecutors are going to let him off easy

Correct, the fact that it's already made headlines means a slap on the wrist is out of the question.