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Originally Posted by dandydany
Nnobby45 's remark makes me feel worse as he points out what the lawyer should have done. So now, that poor man is in jail ( not you Nnobby45 ). Fiddletown, I'm sorry if my remark about lawyer hurt you,...
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Not to worry. One has to have a thick skin in my [former] line of work, and I'm not necessarily a fan of [other] lawyers. But I think I have to clarify some things about Harold Fish's lawyer.
[1] Based on my reading of Fish's appeal brief and the court of appeals decision tossing out the verdict, it's probably unfair to blame everything on Fish's lawyer. It looks like Fish's lawyer was prevented from putting on some evidence and making some appropriate arguments by certain rulings of the trial judge. The court of appeals found at least some of those rulings to have been erroneous and therefore overturned the verdict. So Fish's lawyer tried to do some of the things he needed to, but he was blocked.
[2] We've talked here about the ways in which a claim of self defense is unique. The thing is that criminal defense lawyers usually have very little experience with self defense claims. The typical defenses in criminal cases are: I wasn't there (alibi); I didn't do it (some other dude done it); It was an accident; I was insane. Criminal defense lawyers have a lot of experience with these defenses, and they do them well.
But self defense is completely different. If you claim self defense, you admit you were there, you did it, you intended to do it, and you knew what you were doing. Handling a self defense claim is unique, and few lawyers have much experience with them.