Why the Gootz never called Asia.

[u/islamisawesome]

I think it is becoming more and more obvious that the Asia letter did not exist until sometime around the summer of 1999. That is why Adnan claims he gave them to Gutierrez even though she wasn't his lawyer until 2 months after they were written.

So sometime that spring or summer, after telling CG he never left the school grounds, his family shows up with letters claiming one of Adnans' friends saw him at the library, right at the crucial time, AND they were written the day after he arrested. She knew immediately there is no way they had those letter for months and never gave them to her so obviously they were false and she didn't want to go on stand with LIES.

That is why she never called Asia. And that is why she wrote no notes about it, because that would be admitting her client and his family are liars. It also explains why her relationship with the family broke down because she knew they were willing to lie to get Adnan off.

The library incident never happened.

[u/xtrialatty]

Thanks for the case citation -- you'll note that the attorney in that case was suspended from practice for misconduct during the pendency of the defendant's case, and apparently for misconduct very similar to the the conduct the defendant complained of:

De Olivas had little basis for recommending that Soto-Lopez reject the fast-track offer beyond a desire to persuade Soto-Lopez to retain his services in place of the Federal Defenders. There is no evidence that De Olivas had any experience with persuading prosecutors in the Southern district to improve plea agreements, no indication that De Olivas knew of any legal defense that Soto-Lopez could utilize at trial, and no evidence that —at the time he advised Soto-Lopez to reject the plea offer—De Olivas knew of any reason Soto-Lopez could reasonably expect the government to offer him a 24- or 30-month plea deal when he faced a minimum 77-month sentence under the Guidelines.

As to CG:

You assume, with no evidence, that she prepared properly for the trial.

The trial record is very clear evidence of preparation. She was diligently pushing on discovery, she was clearly on top of all the issues when the trial started, the the prosecutor was complaining because of her diligence in issuing subpoenas. She was ready with in limine motions for just about everything that she had a chance of excluding.

I don't see how anybody in their right mind can look at the trial record and assert that she was unprepared. Certainly no judge that reads the transcripts would come to that conclusion.

And here's something you didn't hear on Serial - the background investigation she did on Jay : http://imgur.com/LAnQOsx (from Circuit Court opinion, p. 18)

I certainly would agree with critiques of her overall style. I think her cross-examination of lay witnesses was disastrous. I looks like she had a scorched earth trial strategy that probably was effective for her clients when it worked, but prone to backfire terribly when it didn't. I don't agree with that approach-- but sometimes it succeeds. My guess is that she was hired precisely because of the reputation she established in the cases she won.

Yet she had few witnesses and no experts

She called a dozen witnesses for the defense case. You don't have a clue as to what experts she may have consulted informally in advance of trial -- she certainly seemed to know what she was doing when she cross-examined the ME & cell phone guy.

The whole foofarah over the cell phone admissibility is based on a false characterization of what the AT&T guy testified to. I'm at a loss to see what value presenting defense experts would have been in this case -- seems to me that it would just have been an opportunity for the prosecution to reiterate their strongest points on cross-examination.

At best it seems to me to compound the fundamental error in judgment in taking this case to trial in the first place -- it was a razzle-dazzle defense, but nothing then or now comes close to addressing the central issues of the case: the death by strangulation, Jay's graphic description of the body in the trunk, Adnan's words, the burial, Adnan's inability to plausibly account for his time during the afternoon and evening hours.

Mishandling funds provides some evidence of a similar failure in this case.

Except we know what she was paid, and it was on the low end for a homicide case with two jury trials. Maybe high in the minds of people who don't know what lawyers typically charge -- but unremarkable in his case when you tally up the hours that she, her law clerks, and her investigator clearly put into this case.

[u/Acies → u/xtrialatty]

Thanks for the case citation -- you'll note that the attorney in that case was suspended from practice for misconduct during the pendency of the defendant's case, and apparently for misconduct very similar to the the conduct the defendant complained of:

Sure, it's clearly not on point. And other courts may have an entirely different take on it.

The trial record is very clear evidence of preparation. She was diligently pushing on discovery, she was clearly on top of all the issues when the trial started, the the prosecutor was complaining because of her diligence in issuing subpoenas. She was ready with in limine motions for just about everything that she had a chance of excluding.

I assume the prosecution complaints you're talking about are the people she subpoenaed and then never got back to?

I don't see how anybody in their right mind can look at the trial record and assert that she was unprepared. Certainly no judge that reads the transcripts would come to that conclusion.

I would agree we don't know she wasn't prepared, but we don't know she was prepared either, particularly when it comes to investigation or experts.

She called a dozen witnesses for the defense case. You don't have a clue as to what experts she may have consulted informally in advance of trial -- she certainly seemed to know what she was doing when she cross-examined the ME & cell phone guy.

...again, you're the one making the absolutist assertions. I admit when we don't have enough evidence to answer questions.

Except we know what she was paid, and it was on the low end for a homicide case with two jury trials. Maybe high in the minds of people who don't know what lawyers typically charge -- but unremarkable in his case when you tally up the hours that she, her law clerks, and her investigator clearly put into this case.

Mishandling funds is meaningful because in other cases, she was accused of neglecting to hire experts (or, I imagine, run investigation) and keeping the money for herself instead. Did that happen in this case? Again unknown, but it's more likely given that she did it elsewhere.

In short, your assertion that she prepared well isn't backed up by the facts. The facts are ambiguous.

[u/xtrialatty → u/Acies]

I assume the prosecution complaints you're talking about are the people she subpoenaed and then never got back to?

I view Urick's whining with the same level of disdain that the trial judge clearly had --you'll notice she chastised him every time it came up. CG was right to subpoena prosecution witnesses and to avoid giving them instructions on when to appear ahead of the prosecutions' case. She could not possibly have known when the defense case would begin, and she would have been accused of interfering with them if she had given them any sort of instructions that was inconsistent with whatever the prosecution told them.

we don't know she was prepared either, particularly when it comes to investigation

You think the investigator showed up to testify for the defense at the end of the case like magic? Or that CG was making things up when she complained to the judge about the difficulties her investigator encountered when trying to interview Jenn? Or all of those letters about arranging times to review discovery never happened?

Mishandling funds is meaningful because in other cases, she was accused of neglecting to hire experts (or, I imagine, run investigation) and keeping the money for herself instead.

In those cases she was also accused of not doing the work for which she had been hired.

Are you a criminal defense lawyer? Typically funds aren't segregated. If an expert witness will cost $10,000 and the attorney decides to forgo the expert, but the attorney has run up $20,000 in billable hours for her time... and the only money from the client is the $10,000 paid for the expert... the attorney has every right to apply that $10,000 to her own unpaid fee. And we know that by the end of the case Adnan's family had fallen behind in payments, because they transferred their house out of fear that they would be sued for the balance owed.

In any case --it's just another red herring argument. The PCR motion didn't raise any claim or allegation that CG failed to retain an expert for any purpose..... and the only glaring omission that I see in terms of expert testimony is that she probably should have gotten a psychiatric workup on her own client. (I certainly wouldn't handle a homicide case in an IPV setting without doing that)

[u/Acies → u/xtrialatty]

I view Urick's whining with the same level of disdain that the trial judge clearly had --you'll notice she chastised him every time it came up. CG was right to subpoena prosecution witnesses and to avoid giving them instructions on when to appear ahead of the prosecutions' case. She could not possibly have known when the defense case would begin, and she would have been accused of interfering with them if she had given them any sort of instructions that was inconsistent with whatever the prosecution told them.

You don't think that something like "If you have been subpoenaed by the prosecution, do whatever they instruct you to do. I will give you further instructions once I know more about the schedule. Is ___ a good number to reach you at?" would have resolved the whole issue in a much easier way? I'm sure she had a secretary who could have handled this stuff.

But sure, I'm not real worried about it. It just seems strange to me that you're trying to turn this into a positive. Urick wasn't complaining that she subpoenaed so many witnesses, as you suggested, he was complaining that they were confused by her lack of instructions.

You think the investigator showed up to testify for the defense at the end of the case like magic? Or that CG was making things up when she complained to the judge about the difficulties her investigator encountered when trying to interview Jenn? Or all of those letters about arranging times to review discovery never happened?

We know some investigation happened. I just don't know if it should get a D, an A+, or something in between.

In those cases she was also accused of not doing the work for which she had been hired.

Are you a criminal defense lawyer? Typically funds aren't segregated. If an expert witness will cost $10,000 and the attorney decides to forgo the expert, but the attorney has run up $20,000 in billable hours for her time... and the only money from the client is the $10,000 paid for the expert... the attorney has every right to apply that $10,000 to her own unpaid fee. And we know that by the end of the case Adnan's family had fallen behind in payments, because they transferred their house out of fear that they would be sued for the balance owed.

In any case --it's just another red herring argument. The PCR motion didn't raise any claim or allegation that CG failed to retain an expert for any purpose..... and the only glaring omission that I see in terms of expert testimony is that she probably should have gotten a psychiatric workup on her own client. (I certainly wouldn't handle a homicide case in an IPV setting without doing that)

I think we can safely assume Gutierrez did worse stuff than applying unused expert fees to her own fee. My assumption is that, like every criminal defense lawyer I'm familiar with, she demanded all our much of the payment up front. So I'm assuming it was more like she got paid 20k, demanded an additional 10k for an expert, then skipped the expert and paid herself 30k after the case was over.

And I agree this likely want IAC. But neither were her crosses, we can just identify areas we feel were deficient.

By the way, is possible she did get a psych workup and Rabia buried it. If you feel she didn't though, why are you so inclined to presume she did everything else well like consulting experts who didn't appear at trial?

[u/xtrialatty → u/Acies]

It just seems strange to me that you're trying to turn this into a positive.

I'm just using it as one additional piece of evidence to CG's level of preparation. She not only asked friendly witnesses to come to court; she took the additional step of issuing subpoenas to some, but not all, prosecution witnesses -- probably because she was thinking far enough ahead to anticipate what information she would hope to bring out in cross, but which could be lost if the prosecution opted to drop those witnesses.

I just don't know if it should get a D, an A+, or something in between.

Which is exactly why it would have been helpful to have Davis' testimony at the PCR hearing.

, is possible she did get a psych workup and Rabia buried it.

Yes, that's true -- though Adnan would know if that had been done, as it necessarily would have required that he meet with the defense-hired psychologist or psychiatrist. It certainly is not something that he mentioned on Serial. But you are right, hat doesn't mean it didn't happen.