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Attorney and Defendant at the same time..... Login/Join 
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A pending case accuses a defense attorney of false alarm--calling a particular officer to a disturbance that did not exist.

That same attorney represents a defendant in an unrelated case and has requested a suppression hearing based upon the same arresting officer's lack of reasonable suspicion and/probable cause...the usual boilerplate suppression motion.

I would prefer to keep the officer from being cross examined by a person he recently filed a case against....but I don't know if there is any legal basis for this request. If the attorney were court appointed, I would ask the judge to appoint someone else, but the attorney is retained.

I can't find any ethics rules that would require disqualification because of a conflict....
 
Posts: 526 | Location: Del Rio, Texas | Registered: April 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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What if a pro-se defendant wanted to cross examine an officer in a suppression hearing?
 
Posts: 689 | Registered: March 01, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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That's okay of course. Clearly, a defendant has a right to cross examine....my issue is not with the examination occurring or the officer answering questions.

The issue is more about the effect on the other case--that the atty is the atty and not the defendant. What if the attorney / defendant in the other case agrees to a continuance or advises her client to plead? Or goes to trial and loses and makes mistakes? Would a defendant be able to claim ineffective assistance of counsel because: 1. the attorney was too nice to the state/officer in hopes of getting preferential treatment in her own case? or 2. the attorney was focusing on the wrong issues because of personal animosity toward the officer?
 
Posts: 526 | Location: Del Rio, Texas | Registered: April 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I don't see how there can be any conflict until that attorney creates one in his questioning of the officer. Your remedy then is to just object to being irrevelant/outside the scope of the hearing.
 
Posts: 106 | Location: Galveston, Tx. | Registered: May 17, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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