Today, prosecutors begin to cross-examine a defendant in a Galveston trial over a crazy defense. Defendant says he accidentally shot the victim in the face, got scared that police wouldn't believe it was an accident, and cut the head, legs, and arms off the body and threw them into Galveston Bay, then fled (twice, once after being arrested). For details, check out the Houston Chronicle.

What crazy story has your defendant told to avoid criminal liability?

We had a defendant charged with burglary with intent to commit sexual assault but he claimed it he only intended to commit theft. His explanation of how his underwear was found by the victim's bed was that his hooded sweatshirt that he was using as a mask (wearing it backwards) was too hot. So he climbed up on the roof before entering the apartment and took off his clothes, putting his underwear on his head as a mask, then redressed. Upon entetring the apartment to steal a TV, the victim awoke and confronted him. He said he lost his underwear by her bed as he jumped out of the second floor bedroom window. Of course the whole story has even more bizarre twists and tunrs, but the underwear explanation is really the highlight of the story.

One guy in my court said he was selling pot to get money for Christmas...

I prosecuted a woman for murder who testified she shot her landlord because he was a member of an international terrorist organization that included Bill Clinton.

Update on the cross-examination in Galveston regarding the murder and dismemberment: according the newspaper, the defendant now can't remember cutting off the victim's limbs and head.

I helped prosecute a fellow for UUMV in Ft. Bend Co., when UUMV was a 3rd deg. felony. He had a prior & was enhanced to 2nd deg.

He drove off with a Z28 Camero with T-tops from a dealership, while the salesman went to get permission to gas up the car. We alleged the salesman as the "owner."

The def. was a writ-writer, and quite a legal genius in his own mind. He insisted on taking the stand, where he explained he had the salesman's permission to use the car to drive a multi-kilo load of cocaine to Bay City. He had paid the salesman $500 plus an oz. of 'caine for the use of this car.

He went on to explain to the shocked jury that he only used Z28's or their Pontiac twin, the TransAm, and only if they had T-Tops, to make such large drug-runs. These cars are fast, and that can be handy in trying to avoid the cops, he told the jury. But if you can't shake the cops, well, you need to get rid of the stuff, he said. If you toss it up thru the open T-Top while the car is moving fast, the plastic sack the 'caine is in just bursts, and the cocaine becomes a cloud of dust, which the cops can't recover and use against you. If you try to throw the bag out the side window, on the other hand, the bag is likely to get caught in the slip stream, and end up caught on the windshield wipers of the pursuing cop car. "I had that happen once," he explained to the jury.

He was very calm, very business like as he testified. He always faced the jury when he gave his answer. He didn't try to equivicate. And the jury would have been duty bound to acquit had they believed every word of his testimony. But they didn't. They convicted him in about 10 minutes, and their punishment deliberations also took only about 10 minutes: 20 years TDC.

Up until that moment he had been quite sure he knew far more about trying his case than his atty., who had strongly urged him to not take the stand. After they gave him 20 years, he told his attorney, "I guess I should have listen to you after all." Call it a learning experience.

I was trying an indecency by touching case with the DA. The defendant was the adult-half-brother of the young victim. The defendant took the witness stand spurred on by his counsel.

Counsel asked all the getting to know you questions, then counsel began to ask questions about his sexuality. We sat silently. However, when defense counsel prompted his client to agree that he enjoys looking at nudie magazines, naked females, etc... the DA objects, and we have one of those "hush hush" hearings at the bench. DA states (basically in so many words) that its OUR job to prosecute the defendant, not his attorneys. The defense attorney looks at the judge, completely serious, and states that his client is "weird", that "its obvious by looking at my client that he is weird" and the attorney didn't want the jury to look at him and think that he was "weird" in the way we allged. In so many words, the attorney said that he wanted to get his real weirdness before the jury. And that will go on the record as the weirdest bench conference I ever had.

A defense attorney in Houston (who is now deceased) tried to keep his defendant from testifying. After the testimony was completed and the prosecutor had proved up the case during cross-examination of the defendant, the defendant left the witness stand and walked slowly back to his seat beside his lawyer. The lawyer, loud enough for everyone to hear, said, "Are you happy now?"

In a PMJ case, D's girlfriend took the stand to take responsibility for the MJ that was found in D's car. Claimed she had borrowed the car, bought the MJ, and left it in there before loaning the car to D (who, of course, had no idea it was there).

Prosecutor: "So you just left your brand new bag of dope in the car?"

Girlfriend: "But Mr. Prosecutor, I was so hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh!"

This is not exactly a defense but was the subject of a motion for new trial. Perp was charged with a couple of counts of Indency with a child and enhanced by one rape of a child. We completed the trial. He did not testify and got a bunch of years. His basis for requesting a new trial was a non removable penis ring. He failed to tell his attorney. Since the child did not testify to it the child must be lying. The court did not buy his story

One of our former prosecutors heard the "I'm too big to have done it" defense in a sexual assault of a child trial. The prosecutor then dared the defendant to provide proof to the jury and ended up taking Polaroid pictures in the hold-over cell that were admitted into evidence. Guilty.

Oh, wait, the defendant in the Galveston case has today located his memory regarding the dismemberment of his friend. As the Statesman reports, there was a lot of blood and he used Mr. Clean to clean it up. I wonder if there is a commercial in there somewhere.

First time I've ever laughed out loud after reading a brief -- I've got an agg sex aslt of a child case on appeal claiming legal insufficiency because the evidence showed that the defendant was impotent -- the record shows he had tried injections, inserts, creams, use of a pump (?) and Viagra, and he's even had a penile prosthesis inserted (after the offenses). Thus, he argues that no juror could have rationally found that he molested his step-daughter over the years because "the possibility of performing anal or vaginal sex ten times a week is suspect considering that he only had a 45 to 75 percent erectile function."

My first SJF drug case (way back when) was a 5-minute guilty verdict after the defendant took the stand and testified that the crack and crack pipe found on the floor of his car was not his -- acc. to him, it had been left there by the guy from whom the defendant had just bought his marijuana.

I think I actually heard stifled laughter from the jury box during that testimony ...

Along the lines of "I'm too big" defense, a co-worker of mine in Houston tried an indecent exposure case where the defense was "I'm too small." Defendant allegedly exposed himself to the clerk at Dairy Queen via the leg of his shorts. He testified, as did his wife, that he was so incredibly small, and they even stated the measurements and trotted out a ruler, that it couldn't have reached out the bottom of his shorts leg. The jury acquitted him, saying that any man willing to get up in court and admit how embarrassingly small he was got credit for that.

Years ago, the late Jimmy James was sitting as a visiting judge in the court to which I was assigned. I had a defendant who was on a ten year probation for PCS and hadn't managed to do very well. At the hearing on the motion to revoke, I presented evidence she had violated a variety of conditions, including failing to report, failing to work at suitable employment, failing to pay various fees, and continuing to use cocaine while on probation.

She testified and actually provided what appeared to be very persuasive explanations for her various failures. However, I noticed the defense attorney did not ask her to explain the multiple UA results that were positive for cocaine metabolite. Naturally, I was curious and explored the issue on cross.

She swore she had not been using cocaine, but her boyfriend used it constantly. I asked her if she expected us to believe she had gotten cocaine into her system as if it were "second hand smoke." She said, "Of course not. Cocaine isn't like that." I told her I didn't understand what she was getting at. She paused and then said, "Well, my boyfriend and I are very ... active."

I just kind of sat there. Judge James perked up, looked down at her, and, in his signature impatient tone of voice, slowly asked, "Are you saying that your UAs were positive because you had sex with your boyfriend?"

She looked up at him and, after a moment, said, "Well, I swallow."

It was the only time I ever saw Judge James at a loss for words. After another long pause, he looked at me, and I just said, "I'll pass the witness, Your Honor."

I had a burglary of a building case quite a while back in which a neighbor of the business heard glass breaking and went to investigate with his trusty handgun. He found the defendant standing inside the building, bloody from the broken glass, with money stuffed in every pocket. Mr. Good Citizen held him at gunpoint until the police arrived.

I was most perplexed when he insisted on a trial in this obvious slam dunk. His defense at trial was that the owner (his former employer) had locked him in the building that night and he just wanted out. Since the front door was padlocked (it was), he had to break out the window and he just took the money because he was mad at the owner, so please just convict me of misdemeanor theft.

The jury actually hung up on it! Once we went and got pictures of the back door with no padlock, 10 minute guilty the 2nd time around.

I once had a guy who was a serial rapist in a college town (I'm talking like 75 cases here), got busted, did a long stretch in the pen, got out, and moved to another college town - College Station.
He'd apparently learned from all his prior convictions that using a weapon adds a bunch of time to your sentence. Because when he started attacking women again right after he hit town, he didn't use a knife anymore. Problem for him was that the victims would fight him off and get away. So we had a string of attempted sexual assaults all over town. Finally he attacked a girl, pulled her belt off, put it around her neck to restrain her and raped her. He ended up ejaculating on her shirt.

At his aggravated sexual assault trial (we alleged the belt as a deadly weapon), way enhanced with all the other rapes, he got up and testified, at which time I almost fainted.
He testified and I am not making this up, that yes, he used to be a rapist, as his prior convictions would indicate. But he's not a rapist anymore. After much therapy, he's only a compulsive masturbator. So yes, he did grab the girl, yes, he did put the belt around her neck, but he did not penetrate her, nor did he intend to. He simply finds his compulsive masturbating much more satisfying when he can have contact with a cute young co-ed while doing it. And it was during that masturbation, not rape, that the semen got on her shirt. So he should just be convicted of simple assault......
Cross was something along the lines of "let's go back through your story again, shall we?"
5 minute guilty, 5 minute life....

Kevin, was she revoked?

Maybe the people in New Jersey with the 4 starving boys can use this one: "I just never noticed my child was starving." I tried an Injury to a Child case where the parents were systematically starving their daughter and using all sorts or bizarre punishment. The kid was almost 9 and weighed 38 lbs. and looked freaky, like a little elf. She had sores all over her body and no butt at all, her ribs and shoulder blades protruded, her feet were swollen, red and cracked, and she had a swollen belly like a starving child in Africa. A teacher described her hair "like my dog's when she's shedding." After a month out of their house, she had gained 14 lbs., and was a pretty little girl again. The parents' defense -- "We just didn't notice that she was skinny." Didn't work. Guilty.