July 4th is a great time of the year. Adults and kids look forward to the fireworks, ice cold drinks, and hot dogs and burgers on the grill. While we’re celebrating with friends and family, it’s important to remember the history of the holiday, and the constitutional protections afforded Americans in this country – as opposed to other countries across the globe. Most folks that watch TV are familiar with the fundamental rights of “remaining silent” and “unwanted searches and seizures.” But, perhaps the strongest right any American can have is their unwavering right to a criminal defense attorney that can confront witnesses on cross examination in a jury trial. While it’s impossible to measure, I expect that this right has freed more Americans from custody than perhaps all the other freedoms contained in the bill of rights combined.
One of my favorite trial stories happened in a possession of a controlled substance case I was working on. My client was having marital problems with his spouse. She planned to have him arrested and deported so she could inherit the house, the kids, and his money – she just needed to come up with a way to do it. She pondered the issue and discussed it with many of her friends. One day, she came to the conclusion that she was going to make up an allegation of family violence assault by him. She would say he slapped her. Before she called the police, she would plant some cocaine on him that she had bought from a guy on the street. When he was arrested for domestic violence, the police would search him, find the dope, and charge him with a felony drug case – a deportable offense.
So that’s exactly what she did. One fine July summer day, while my client was grilling burgers on the grill, she came up to him and kissed him. She slowly dragged her hands down his back and slipped her hands into his back pockets, as if to fondle his rear end. She then went into the house and called the police. Crying on the phone, she yelled that he had slapped her in the face. The police immediately arrived and took my confused client into custody. Upon a search of his person pursuant to arrest, the cops found a small baggie of cocaine in his back pocket. My client, stunned, immediately said “she must have planted it on me!” Once he was in custody with an ice hold, the wife moved quick. She tore up the sofas and chairs and placed small baggies of cocaine on the floor. She called the cops again and told them she suspected her husband was a full-blown drug dealer, and that she had found his “stash.” What’s worse? She called them back a week later and forced her daughter to tell them a fake story that he had molested her.
So now, my client was facing an assault family violence charge, a possession of a controlled substance charge, and was facing two new serious charges for sexual abuse of a child and manufacturing a delivery of a controlled substance. I decided we should set the possession of a controlled substance case for trial. If we could show the DA’s office in a jury trial how much of a liar my client’s wife was, we may win that case, and get the DA to drop all the other cases. It was a long shot, but it was his only shot. We found the security camera video from outside my client’s house. It showed him grilling and his wife sticking her hands in his back pockets while she “hugged” him. We found the wife’s friends, who she had confided with about the charges she was going to manufacture and place on my client. At trial the wife was cross examined about her story. The security camera video was shown to the jury where she places her hands in his back pockets minutes before she called the police to have him arrested. The cherry on top came when her best friend was called by the defense to testify against her. Her friend explained that the wife had told her at lunch that she was going to put charges on him in the exact way it happened only a week before his arrest. It took the jury 20 minutes to come back with a not guilty. Within 2 weeks the DA’s office dropped the rest of the charges – unable to believe the wife’s accounts any further. My client was released from ICE custody and got his papers to stay in the country. He later sued his wife for divorce in family law court and got the house and full custody of his kids. A happy ending to his story, and a powerful reminder of our constitutional rights and why they are so valuable to us all. Call Hindieh Law today if you think you need your rights protected.
