A Lawyer Dog in Training

Photo by Brenda VanCuick

Recently, in Louisiana, when the police were interrogating a suspect, the suspect invoked his right to counsel by telling the interrogator, “Just give me a lawyer, dogg.”  The court — twisting and contorting plain language and basic legal principles to reach its predetermined outcome, as courts are known to do — found that such language was not an invocation of the right to counsel.  The interrogator simply would have no way of knowing whether this suspect was asking for “a lawyer, dogg,” or a “lawyer dog.”  One writer for WaPo observed: “It’s not clear how many lawyer dogs there are in Louisiana, and whether any would have been available to represent the human suspect in this case[.]”

Ignorance of the law is no excuse (unless you’re a prosecutor)

In this hot-off-the-presses case of State v. Smith (court decision here, On Point summary here), a Wisconsin prosecutor made an improper closing argument to the jury in an effort to win a conviction.  In a “sarcastic” and “belittling” manner, the prosecutor criticized the role of defense lawyers (in this case, public defenders) and also attempted to shift the burden of proof to the defense.  (These are two of the sleaziest, yet most common, tricks in the prosecutor’s bag.)  Then, on the defense lawyer’s motion, the trial judge declared a mistrial.  However, despite the prosecutor’s misconduct, the state was allowed to retry the defendant.  But why?  And how can defense lawyers prevent this from happening in the future?