Criminal Creativity

Criminal defense work is always interesting, but just when you think you have seen it all, a client comes along who is accused of being particularly creative.

Take for instance this young accused. I have been reading that grapeseed oil was the next big thing, but making oneself too slippery to be caught by the authorities is ingenius! The stun gun issue is another post.

My personal favorite was a former client who was accused of attempting to superglue her lover's ears, nose and mouth closed while he slept. They had been arguing and she apparently wanted to take the most direct route to ending all communication.

The Often Arrested

In addition to talking to people about the details of a crime, criminal defense invesigators must ask potential witnesses whether they have any criminal convictions. You can never assume that some one's record is clean because they seem like a law abiding citizen, nor can you assume it's dirty because they live in a high crime area. And it's not always as easy as going down to the courthouse and looking for yourself, as people can have records in another county or state, or under another name. Sometimes this line of questioning can be awkward, especially to people who have no record and are offended by the implication. Most of the time, people with records are happy to talk to you about it, perhaps too much so.

As a young investigator, I once made the mistake of not asking a witness that I subpoened to court about his record. I found him the morning he was needed to testify, he proved our case by his observations and I was just so elated. When I telephoned the attorney to tell her about the witness, she asked me whether he had a criminal record. It was then that I realized I hadn't asked, but he was already on his way to the courthouse. The attorney and I both agreed that as long as he wasn't a murderer, she'd still put him on the stand. Turns out he WAS a convicted murderer. The attorney put him on anyway, and our juvenile client ended up getting a break.

I once interviewed a 400 pound biker in Sacramento who told me he had been arrested 431 times and he had no idea what all he had been convicted of. This guy was pretty scarey. He did not like what I was there to talk to him about (an old murder my habeas client had been convicted of) and I knew he was not going to like it when I subpoened his butt to court. At my suggestion, I interviewed him on his porch. No way I was going inside THAT house. True to my name, I needed a witness that day, and the busy street he lived on provided it. I didn't even care that cats had pissed all over the couch on his porch causing me to have to change my clothes immediately afterwards. This is why an investigator keeps a change of clothes in the car.
All this got me wondering -- what person holds the record of most times arrested? Lincoln, Nebraska actually keeps tabs on this sort of thing. Edward Rooks holds the record there with 652 arrests. Given new sentencing laws, the often-arrested are a dying breed. Literally.

Seems the Guinness Book of World Records has given the title of "Most Arrested" to this guy: Henry Hollis, everyone's favorite busker.

btw, Did you know that the co-writer of the Guinness Book of World Records was a murder victim? You learn something new every day on the internet.

The Eternal Question

I'm told that inside a holding cell area, in another county than my own, is graffiti that says,

"My father was locked up here, I was here, now my son is here. When will it end?"

My public defender friend told me that each time he walks by the graffiti, he's tempted to scribble the response:

"When your family stops committing crimes."

This always makes me chuckle. I wish the answer was so easy tho.

Rather than trying to solve the system's problems in a blog post, here's some fun facts about graffiti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti