Chris - The Legal Issues - A Prosecutor's Perspective

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debordwasright said:
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
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Even before the Tucker piece, the Sheriff's Office had already issued a press release. They don't do this for most cases. They already considered it something they needed to say something about, and now it's a national disgrace focused on their county, and covered by a guy who a lot of people in Greene County specifically probably watch.

This case also already involves multiple counties. He committed his crimes in Greene County, is currently being held in Orange County, and had his first hearing in Charlottesville, in Albemarle County, after being arrested in Henrico County.

Also the fact that they appointed him someone who is apparently one of the best lawyers in the state indicates they're taking this seriously. They don't want to fuck this up by having some half-wit overworked public defender screw up the case with ineffective assistance of counsel.
 
debordwasright said:
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
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I have had a couple old people normies bring up chris with me in the past week. of course it wasn't the shock of him fucking his mom, it was the idea that a man was being held in the female jail cause the man decided to call himself a woman, which devolved into "see how sick these so called tranny people are" So chris is for sure well known in the states now.
 
ScaliasGhost said:
(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)
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This is a really good point and can't be stressed enough. I've read a lot of appellate decisions that deal with ineffective assistance of counsel claims, because it's fairly standard practice to tack on one to any appeal you make and people who lose big at jury tend to appeal, especially in jurisdictions where you can get indigent appellate counsel.

The biggest thing those decisions make clear is that there's a large swathe of deference given to the decisions made at trial by trial counsel and it's really difficult to rise to the level of ineffective assistance - you're guaranteed an average/competent lawyer essentially. Not a good one.

The other thing to consider is that the client ultimately controls the representation. If Chris wants to take this thing to a jury trial and demands to testify, his lawyer can do nothing to stop him. He can't even get off Mr. Chris' Wild Ride because unlikely a privately retained attorney he can't fire his client (and even those guys only get to do that with the court's permission and in certain circumstances, once they're on a case.)

From a lay person's perspective there is a very good chance that at some point, or various points, Chris' lawyer looks like he's doing a crap job. This will almost certainly be caused by Chris and/or the realities of being court-appointed counsel in a criminal case rather than the lawyer actually doing a crap job.
 
Alexander Hamilton said:
This is a really good point and can't be stressed enough. I've read a lot of appellate decisions that deal with ineffective assistance of counsel claims, because it's fairly standard practice to tack on one to any appeal you make and people who lose big at jury tend to appeal, especially in jurisdictions where you can get indigent appellate counsel.

The biggest thing those decisions make clear is that there's a large swathe of deference given to the decisions made at trial by trial counsel and it's really difficult to rise to the level of ineffective assistance - you're guaranteed an average/competent lawyer essentially. Not a good one.

The other thing to consider is that the client ultimately controls the representation. If Chris wants to take this thing to a jury trial and demands to testify, his lawyer can do nothing to stop him. He can't even get off Mr. Chris' Wild Ride because unlikely a privately retained attorney he can't fire his client (and even those guys only get to do that with the court's permission and in certain circumstances, once they're on a case.)

From a lay person's perspective there is a very good chance that at some point, or various points, Chris' lawyer looks like he's doing a crap job. This will almost certainly be caused by Chris and/or the realities of being court-appointed counsel in a criminal case rather than the lawyer actually doing a crap job.
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Another problem is the image many people have that "good lawyer" means you beat your charges.

Some cases are total dogs. On the surface this sure smells like one of those. Even a fantastic attorney can do little more than buy time, chase procedural issues, and negotiate a better deal if it as bad as it seems... and given that there is an unsolicited confession to the act as well as very damning circumstantial information disclosed to another party prior to that (the correspondence between Chris and Null where in retrospect it was pretty fucking clear it was Barb)... well, that's just the public information. Heilberg could be the best lawyer on the planet but I don't see beating this- unless Chris is able to be proven to a delusional psycho (he isn't), Barb has no physical trauma or evidence, and she is on sound enough mind to defend him.

I realized a long time ago, that if I wasn't "in the know" on a particular case, there would likely be a lot of details I'd never find out about outside of just luck. Talk with any detective on a murder or rape case after the fact and they'll tell you all sorts of absolutely horrible things that never made it into the admissible evidence, or which were never publicized. I had no idea until recently that one of our more high profile local murderers had also raped the 80 year old woman he killed... and that they recovered the knife used to murder her deep inside of her abdominal cavity during the autopsy. The most lurid, prejudicial, or sometimes not completely proven but still pretty damn likely details float around in the confidential information sections of reports and evaluations.

Let's put it this way, I bet whoever searched 14 BC washed his hands, took a long shower, and burned his clothes afterwards.
 
Alexander Hamilton said:
The other thing to consider is that the client ultimately controls the representation. If Chris wants to take this thing to a jury trial and demands to testify, his lawyer can do nothing to stop him.
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He can, and is actually required, though, not to assist him in perpetrating a fraud on the court. If you ever see a lawyer on direct allowing the client to go off on some long monologue instead of directing it, odds are good he believes his client is probably lying. An attorney who actually outright knows or should know the client is perpetrating a fraud on the court may be obligated to withdraw from representation for cause.

Dershowitz actually tells criminal defendants seeking his representation that if they actually tell him they're guilty, he can't make an argument to the court that is based on their innocence, making it quite clear that if they want him to argue they're innocent, but they're actually guilty, they need to lie to him, too. Legal ethics in a nutshell.
 
AnOminous said:
He can, and is actually required, though, not to assist him in perpetrating a fraud on the court. If you ever see a lawyer on direct allowing the client to go off on some long monologue instead of directing it, odds are good he believes his client is probably lying. An attorney who actually outright knows or should know the client is perpetrating a fraud on the court may be obligated to withdraw from representation for cause.

Dershowitz actually tells criminal defendants seeking his representation that if they actually tell him they're guilty, he can't make an argument to the court that is based on their innocence, making it quite clear that if they want him to argue they're innocent, but they're actually guilty, they need to lie to him, too. Legal ethics in a nutshell.
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The way I've seen this handled most usually is before they let their client get started they get permission from the court for their client to testify in the narrative - this signals to the judge and opposing counsel what's about to happen but doesn't taint their client to the jury, media, etc. It also prevents the prosecutor from repeatedly objecting to narrative testimony. Everyone just lets the defendant go.

And then typically they ask a few questions on the record to protect themselves later before letting their client go off - questions establishing they talked about this and the lawyer advised the client not to testify and the client understands they don't have to. I should note these questions usually get asked any time a criminal defendant testifies, so don't assume just because you hear them the defendant is about to lie.
 
AnOminous said:
Dershowitz actually tells criminal defendants seeking his representation that if they actually tell him they're guilty, he can't make an argument to the court that is based on their innocence, making it quite clear that if they want him to argue they're innocent, but they're actually guilty, they need to lie to him, too. Legal ethics in a nutshell.
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A high school friend of mine became a small hometown law talker.. DUIs, family court type stuff, and he once told me that too: if you ever need my services, just don’t tell me you’re guilty, even friend to friend.
 
kaien said:
This was, after all, the misconception that led Barb to flush their life savings away on Rob Bell.
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Real good point. Bell secured them a sweet deal(c’mon.. light probation for assaulting an officer?) and they STILL considered it a miscarriage of justice because they didn’t walk away cleared of all charges with a $40 million counter settlement and a letter of exoneration from the president.

All the things like that are what give me a shred of hope that Chris won’t go down without a fight.
 
@Alexander Hamilton Thoughts? https://twitter.com/Real_Xi_Jinping/status/1424025647056363520?s=19 (Archive)
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Alexander Hamilton said:
The biggest thing those decisions make clear is that there's a large swathe of deference given to the decisions made at trial by trial counsel and it's really difficult to rise to the level of ineffective assistance - you're guaranteed an average/competent lawyer essentially. Not a good one.
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It's early and I'm a bit fuzzy-headed, so I may be misremembering the exact details, but the big difference between a civil malpractice claim and a criminal ineffective assistance of counsel claim is that in the former you only need to show that whatever the lawyer did wrong or didn't do could have changed the outcome, while in the latter you have to show that it would have changed the outcome, a much higher bar to clear.

The guarantee isn't average competence, it's minimal competence.

It also occurred to me that they might use a different indigent defense list for felonies than they do for misdemeanors, so Heilberg might not be one of the works-by-volume PDs.
 
Mason Verger said:
All the things like that are what give me a shred of hope that Chris won’t go down without a fight.
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I wonder when, if ever, the reality of his situation will sink in and what that will bring? Will he fight with everything he's got to get back whatever is left of his old life that he can or will he give up when it all comes crashing down? Chris was full of piss and vinegar at the hearing, but it had only been a few days. There isn't going to be any Barb, lego, or fast food in his near future unless his tard armor comes though bigly. Life as he knows it is over even if he gets bonded out and finds a stable place to live. I know I don't appreciate the strength of his delusions because the power they hold over him continues to surprises me.

It has to settle in, right? Day after day in a cell. Shitty food. No discord or vidya. He's gotten essentially micro-dosed on the justice system without lasting consequences, but this is different. I know Chris will most likely just retreat further and further into his mind. It's just hard for me to fathom how far he can go.
 
I just noticed that Chris stayed at a motel almost an hour and 3 counties away from their home. Seems kind of strange to go so far when there should reasonably be places to stay in both Ruckersville and Charlottesville, and that Chris should've at least figured he'd need to stay in touch with Greene county authorities after he was removed and Barbara was hospitalized. Do we know why he did this?

Will this play into his legal proceedings in any way or is it just a strange detail?
 
silentium said:
I just noticed that Chris stayed at a motel almost an hour and 3 counties away from their home. Seems kind of strange to go so far when there should reasonably be places to stay in both Ruckersville and Charlottesville, and that Chris should've at least figured he'd need to stay in touch with Greene county authorities after he was removed and Barbara was hospitalized. Do we know why he did this?

Will this play into his legal proceedings in any way or is it just a strange detail?
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Maybe he had no idea that there will be no Evergreen for him and planned to go to Seattle from there? Or maybe he wanted to hide to, in his own words, "ignore the drama"?

silentium said:
He's not wrong though.
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Yeah, people on the internet made Chris fuck his elderly mother. And this guy is one who's gonna put Chris into this "poor vehicle".
 
break these cuffs said:
I wonder when, if ever, the reality of his situation will sink in and what that will bring? Will he fight with everything he's got to get back whatever is left of his old life that he can or will he give up when it all comes crashing down? Chris was full of piss and vinegar at the hearing, but it had only been a few days. There isn't going to be any Barb, lego, or fast food in his near future unless his tard armor comes though bigly. Life as he knows it is over even if he gets bonded out and finds a stable place to live. I know I don't appreciate the strength of his delusions because the power they hold over him continues to surprises me.

It has to settle in, right? Day after day in a cell. Shitty food. No discord or vidya. He's gotten essentially micro-dosed on the justice system without lasting consequences, but this is different. I know Chris will most likely just retreat further and further into his mind. It's just hard for me to fathom how far he can go.
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His realization can be sped up when that shit actually IS gone, which will happen sooner than later I think. When he gets informed that there’s literally nothing left to go back to.. house, toys, magic rocks, Barb, any possibility of attending cons for a long time.. maybe he’ll realize the state of Virginia is truly his new “mommy” now, so he better get used to it.

But.. it’s Chris. He zigs when you’re sure he’ll zag. He could fight for immediate dismissal because he hates the thought of missing a new MLP cartoon. And nobody truly knows how much “magical merge” copium he’s on these days. He may go full on: “YE DARE TO JUDGE A GOD!!”
 
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