Posted on 09/25/2009 6:43:03 PM PDT by Saije
David James Bell, on trial this week for allegedly kidnapping two young neighbor children, took the witness stand Thursday -- and then got down again without saying a word.
Defense attorney Roger Kraft withdrew Bell as a witness after 3rd District Judge Paul Maughan banned the defendant from telling about how and where he was beaten by the parents and relatives of the children.
Kraft argued that Bell should be able to explain everything that happened that night, including details of the beating.
But Maughan has allowed only limited evidence about the assault on Bell, saying the beating is irrelevant to the issue of how the children, ages 2 and 4, ended up next door at Bell's South Salt Lake home on the morning of July 4, 2008.
Earlier Thursday, the judge gave defense attorney Susanne Gustin a stern tongue-lashing for repeatedly asking questions casting Bell in the role of victim.
"Mr. Bell is here as a defendant, not a victim," the judge told Gustin in open court after sending the jury to lunch. "Nothing that happened to Mr. Bell is an issue in this trial."
The trial has been interrupted dozens of times during the past three days as the judge summoned Gustin and other attorneys to the bench for apparent clarifications and admonishments regarding that issue.
"Every time you come up here, you say 'OK,' but it goes on and on," Maughan told Gustin. "You don't seem to be able to follow the court's orders."
The judge said Gustin was acting more like a prosecutor of Bell's assailants than a defense attorney in a child-kidnapping case...
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
Must be tough on these quisling defense attorneys to get a judge who takes no guff. Maybe he’ll lock her up for contempt if she keeps it up. I’d pay to see that.
That's what passes for defense anymore. they know their client is guilty, so they claim he's the victim.
Liberals drool over neurolinguistic programming. It's, like, God.
Didn’t read the rest of the article but it is not possible for a defense attorney to be a Quisling. They are there to serve one person and that is their client. The government has its own attorney and all the power of government behind them. The judge is not supposed to be on anybody’s side.
Until you have sat in a courtroom as an innocent defendant and had the state or US attorney point at you and tell a jury you are guilty and should be imprisoned, you have no idea what an uphill battle criminal defendants face.
I dunno - looks guilty to me.
Why does that not surprise me? If this is a nation of laws, then I’m the proverbial monkey’s uncle.
Watch now, the family will get sued for damages - and this guy will win.
Everyday, we continue our descent into anarchy.
Why does that not surprise me? If this is a nation of laws, then I’m the proverbial monkey’s uncle.
Watch now, the family will get sued for damages - and this guy will win.
Everyday, we continue our descent into anarchy.
Now that I read it certainly seems possible he was innocent as the jury found. Seems the parents were having a party and the kids “wandered over” to Bell’s house. Parents next beat Bell up. Bell refused to plead to anything because he felt he was innocent. Doesn’t sound like a typical “kidnapping” case.
The government has the power to bring some holy hell down on you and sometimes they do so unjustly.
If you have any healthy distrust of government, why do you assume everyone charged is guilty? Your attitude reflects how difficult it is to be found innocent despite the supposed presumption of innocence. I don’t know this wholecase but I sure didn’t read anything that sounded like a “kidnapping”.
Sometimes seeing an innocent person freed is the most wonderful thing that happens in a courtroom.
If you read what happened, it sounds like the guy and his partner were innocent. Just because they were accused of something doesn’t make them guilty. Before you get upset, read the details. I think if you are fair, you will see that he probably didn’t do anything wrong.
I have to agree on this.
I think the family should have been watching their kids and then they wouldn’t have “wandered over” to the guy and his partner’s house.
Seriously, how did a 2 and a 4 year old “wander over”? Maybe the parents were toasted and didn’t notice?
Maybe people should put their partying lives on hold for a few years after having kids.
Issue in the article was about the beatings and admissibility, defense counsel trying to get that in. My comment was that he’s lucky the parents didn’t kill him, not because he really was guilty but because they clearly thought he was. Don’t know anything about the case otherwise.
Wow, talk about leaping to conclusions and presuming that I am such a despicable person. Let’s assume for a moment that you are correct in your assumptions:
1. Distrust of government? - what precisely has this government done to earn trust? In the last 100 years, name one President that has earned our trust. Fr me, only Reagan and TR were trustworthy.
2. Attitude ? - Tmany “innocent” people are walking the streets, repeating crimes, because of some lawyer’s tricks.
3. Innocence vs. Facts? - If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck; it’s a duck. Can’t change that. Seeing justice done is also wonderful.(see OJ)
Looks like a case of poor police work and simply not enough evidence to convict. Lots of witnesses weren't interviewed.
You need good evidence to put someone in jail, folks.
Just as I don’t assume this person was guilty, I never called you a despicable person. You are very big on jumping to easy conclusions, which is why you don’t belong on the jury of an innocent man.
As for reference to distrust of government, I assumed as a Freeper you distrust government. The prosecution is the government, once again you jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“Too many innocent people walking the streets” does not justify convicting every person charged. Especially the innocent ones. It’s very easy to convict people whether you know it or not. Getting justice for the innocent is hard.
Because people assume every person charged is guilty. They aren’t.
And if you are ever charged with something you didn’t do, you will discover that innocent people often have to plead guilty to something just to get out of the mess.
I’m only describing what I know for a fact.
I once sat on a murder jury with a person much like yourself. It was a case that the state screwed up from A to Z, but two things could not be refuted: 1) his wife was dead and 2) he was the last person seen with her alive.
As soon as we entered the jury room, the first thing I head was “the poor man has been through so much”. The foreman and I said we were not leaving until we had a guilty verdict, because of those two facts. Manslaughter was the verdict.
I later found out that he had killed his first wife the same way. So much for the poor man defense.
Once again you now know that you were on a jury with someone “just like me” and yet we’ve never met. Just maybe you are not a person who is best suited to do justice, just maybe. In any event the man who started all this in the article was found not guilty. But I suppose you know that was a miscarriage of justice.
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