I have a case coming up for trial soon where the defendant's mother has approached a key witness and asked the witness to "plead the 5th" when she is called to testify. Of course there are no 5th amendment implications for the witness. The mother just wants her to keep quiet so her son doesn't get convicted.

I am certain that the defendant's mother has tampered with the witness by requesting that she withhold testimony, but I am wondering if those statements are admissible in the current trial. It seems that the mother's statement is an admission against interest, ie., it is a crime, but can I use that in the trial of her son?

No, not unless the mother testifies.

I think that she will wind up testifying. So will daddy and he has been doing the same thing.

Retaliation or witness tampering by the defendant can be admissible as evidence of guilt. BUT only if those acts were committed by defendant or if the evidence shows the acts of others were committed at his request.

I have some law on that at the office if you need it.

Could it not also be used as evidence of bias of the witness though? I don't have any caselaw at my fingertips on this, but it seems logical.

That too, G. But that witness has to testify in order for it to be brought up. Good point on the bias.

On what other issues would it be admissible?

Mother and father testified. On cross examination they both admitted that they had spoken to some states witnesses but vehemently denied asking them to keep quiet. The defense attorneys never objected.

Did y'all put on rebuttal showing the attempts to tamper?

It makes these posts so much more interesting and helpful when the person who asks a legal question follows up with the rest of the story. Thanks, Staley.

Perhaps more people would post the rest of the story if TDCAA rewarded them with valuable prizes.

We didn't attempt to put up any rebuttal evidence because it was very obvious that the witnesses were lying. The jury certainly didn't buy it. The defendant got 99 for agg. assault with a deadly weapon, and 20 years each on two counts of deadly conduct.

The defendant, a real smart fellow, also made a telephone call to one of his witnesses from jail the night before she testified. When she realized we had the call on tape she decided she would go ahead and tell the truth when she got on the witness stand.

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Originally posted by JB:
Perhaps more people would post the rest of the story if TDCAA rewarded them with valuable prizes.

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Perhaps Brownlee would post more trial stories if the TDCAA dangled some more of those fancy tdcaa dominoes as a prize. You know she protects the ones she has in her safety deposit box, only removing them for holiday family celebrations.

How about some TDCAA dice? Not fuzzy dice, but gamblin' dice! Or TDCAA guitar picks, emblazened with Scotty Brumley's likeness?

Or banjo strings, complete with a coupon for an autograph on a reasonably-priced copy of a novel penned by a suave investigator/author/musician extraordinaire. I've heard there might be a band that would play the presentation ceremony. I think they'll play for drink tickets. And they don't tamper with witnesses.

My favorite was the TDCAA Swiss-Army knife, a tiny little thing that came in handy so much more often than you'd ever think it would.

Now Gsquared I told you not to tell anyone where I had them dominoes hid !

I think we need a TDCAA store on our website, complete with T-shirts, dominoes, knives, banjo strings,sherry dispensers....OK maybe not.

I would replace my Perverted Justice mug with a TDCAA one if they gave them out

I'll buy you a TDCAA mug if you'll ditch that other thing . . .

Heck, I'll buy you a second tdcaa mug (one for home, one for office) if'n you'll let me use that perverted justice one as a trotline weight. Probably have to fill it with cement, but it should work just dandy.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Stacey L. Brownlee:
I think we need a TDCAA store on our website, complete with T-shirts, dominoes, knives, banjo strings,sherry dispensers....OK maybe not.[QUOTE]

I'm holding out for my own line of signature drumsticks, but AP says he wants his photo-likeness is imprinted on the sherry dispenser...But it has to be imprinted in real imitation gold, so that it looks classy.

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Heck, I'll buy you a second tdcaa mug (one for home, one for office) if'n you'll let me use that perverted justice one as a trotline weight. Probably have to fill it with cement, but it should work just dandy.

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We all know that trotline weights are not needed for noodling. But a genu-wine set of APLI noodling gloves (I hear real pros wear chain-mail gloves those sometimes used in packing plants), with a nifty little TDCAA logo on them, would be primo.

REAL noodlers don't wear gloves.