during trial of a crack cocaine dealer, defendant hides a bar of soap on his person. he is searched and the soap is not discovered. judge tells defendant (outside presence of the jury) that if he removes the soap from his pants in jury's presence he can be cross examined in all matters.

defendant announces that they have rested their case and defendant reaches into his pants removes the soap and throws it onto the table.

I think that defendant has committed a testimonial act and I want to cross-examine him. Can I do this? I need a case ASAP!

Defense: Objection, your honor, irrelevant. The presence or absence of soap on the person of the defendant does not make any material issue more or less probable in this trial.

Judge: Sustained. Save it for punishment, Mr. Prosecutor. I think the jury understands what is going on.

Prosecutor: Thank you, your honor.

Is there some analogy or story that I don't know that relates to soap and testimony?

If the defendant hid the soap, how did the judge know he would have it, or more importantly, that the defendant might hold some "magna carta-esque" belief that soap somehow is the key to winning his case?

If the judge knew defendant had soap in his pants, why didn't he just get the baliff to remove said item?

What is so wrong about having soap in your pants? Was it Irish Spring? I hated that stuff. Stank.

the case turns on the use of a CI to buy the crack. The CI was searched prior to the buy and no drugs were found.

THe defense theroy is that the CI smuggled crack in his pants past the search and then planted it on the defendant.

The point of the soap was to show that something could escape a search by the police prior to a buy

Well, that does show some imagination.

But, really, the best you can probably get out of that is an instruction to disregard or a motion for mistrial.

I'm still wondering if the judge knew the soap was there beforehand, in order to warn the defendant about it, why didn't he have an officer remove it before resuming trial?

District Court in Session
NO: Firearms
Food/Drinks
Cameras
Soap

quote:

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Originally posted by A.P. Merillat:
District Court in Session
NO: Firearms
Food/Drinks
Cameras
Soap

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You only need to add knives and banjos to that list.

I understand that this past session a bill that narrowly escaped passage would have placed banjos into the same deadly weapon catagory as guns, i.e. deadly weapons per se. But Shannon might have been joking about that.

I always thought the old joke went something like this:

Q. What's the last thing a drummer says to his band?

A. Hey, dudes. I've got some really great ideas about some songs to write.

(Apologies to Kelly Keagey, the drummer for Night Ranger, who told that joke this morning on a nationally-syndicated radio show.)

But I was wrong. The joke really goes like this now:

Q. What's the last thing a drummer says to his band?

A. Hey, you guitar and bass dudes have really filthy hands. Here, I've got some soap ....

It would appear that the soap smuggling caper ultimately is more of a concern for the court security folks. While I can understand the proffered evidentiary strategy, if an inmate can smuggle a bar of soap into court, what would he NOT be able to smuggle in that is approximate in size and weight to a bar of soap? Seems defense counsel might be in for a pretty good tongue lashing from the judge for not somehow giving a heads-up to the court about this little dog-and-pony show. And couldn't someone else just as easily have been the demonstrative exhibit in this case?

As an aside, JB:

quote:

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What is so wrong about having soap in your pants? Was it Irish Spring? I hated that stuff. Stank.

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Your view may be a bit narrow. According to the commercials, Irish Spring apparently has a vortex that vacuums attractive purportedly Irish women into each bottle of the company's body wash. What red-blooded inmate wouldn't want to have that asset at all times? Now, if only they could tinker with that system to suck in cell phones ....

[This message was edited by Scott Brumley on 09-04-09 at .]

And we have a winner for post with most entertaining unrelated thoughts.

I shall post no more.

To the contrary, that was a compliment. Any legal hack can babble on about due process this or double jeopardy that. Only the aficionado can make it irrelevant and entertaining.

And here is Scott at home:

quote:

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Originally posted by Scott Brumley:
I shall post no more.

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I always find your posts funny and insightful. Don't even joke about ceasing to post.

Yeah, that's what I meant to say.

quote:

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Originally posted by David Newell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Scott Brumley:
I shall post no more.

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I always find your posts funny and insightful. Don't even joke about ceasing to post.

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Same thing Newell said.

So, how large was the bar and exactly where was it hidden. Inquiring minds want to know. And, if it was a testimonial act, then surely the defendant will be required to wash his mouth with the soap (as well as suffer the cleansing cross-exam).

JB, what I want to know is did you pose for that shower picture so you could pin it on Brumley?

Too much information is being requested.

What you don't want to see is the rest of the Pictorial, or the magazine from which John pilfered that image.