HOW TO WIN WITH A BAD SET OF FACTS

TRUCKER SET FREE

(Hire an Attorney who cares as if it is his own life)

These facts are kept basic to protect this writer and his client. 

My client called from the jail and stated that; “they caught me with $14,000,000.00 of dope and they have threatened me that I’ll never see freedom again”.  Within the hour I was over to meet Mr. W.  Taking notes feverishly and asking more questions that you could possibly think, I was determined he was innocent.  My thought was that we would have to prove his innocence, a belief contrary to the presumption of innocence.  How do you explain a shipment of $14,000,000.00 to the jury?  It is like smoke coming from the end of the barrel.  Through endless hours of investigation we had a theory.  This was a drug cartel that set up an innocent man.  His rig was loaded in California near Los Angeles, heading to Quebec City.  Yes, Canada has major drug cartels.  He was loaded by trickery, his load locked and sealed.  He was minutes from the Canadian border when he was pulled over.  A search found the narcotics and a lengthy interrogation occurred.  My client was locked up in a small room with no food or water from 5:00 am to 2:00 pm and was interrogated by the State Police, Customs, Homeland Security, Immigration and a Drug Task Force Lieutenant.  It was five against one.  My client assented that he did not know or conspire with others to transport these drugs.

I reminded the jury that the defendant doesn’t have anything to prove – that it is the prosecution that must prove its theory beyond a reasonable doubt.

This case was investigated by not just the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, but also the Bureau of Customs and Immigration Services, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Department of Homeland Security, the Michigan State Police and the Michigan State Police Undercover Drug Task Force.

The case only made sense if this was a deal between somebody on the inside at the origin and distribution of the contraband.  One person misdirects the truck to a remote loading dock, loads contraband in an unsuspecting driver’s truck, puts a pallet of narcotics in the far end of the truck, and only then is the truck directed to the location where the actual load is situated.  The truck is locked and sealed, and the driver can’t break the seal without risking being forced to buy his entire load.  At the receiving end, somebody on the inside arranges to unload the truck.  The driver never knows what is going on, and if he gets stopped he can’t turn state’s evidence because he doesn’t have any idea how the contraband got into his truck.

The prosecutions own investigating officer conceded the distinct possibility that this could have been arranged by  people at the shipping and distribution points, perhaps with an accessory following the truck to make sure that nothing happened to the load.

The prosecutor’s theory seemed to boil down to, “He was driving, and it was in his truck, that’s good enough for us, so it should be good enough for you”.  But that is NOT the law.

It took a fit police officer at least 2 minutes to crawl from the doors of the trailer to the “void” at the far end of the trailer.  Had my client done as the officer suggested and asked somebody at the loading dock to crawl over the load for him to check it, (1) they loaded the truck, so they would have lied about the “void” and (2) if that person was uninvolved, they probably would have told him to still **** off.

Glenn Fey in Smuggler’s Blues sings, “Don’t matter if its heroin, cocaine, or hash, you gotta carry weapons ‘cause you always carry cash”, yet here, no cash, or weapons.  Hence, he was not a mule or drug carrier.

Violations of the Defendant’s log book was improperly made a big issue by the prosecution but a simple argument that evidence of an UNCHARGED civil infraction is not evidence of guild to the life sentence possession charge.

The AFIS (Automated Finger Print Identification System) database does not include all offenders, and they didn’t run the fingerprints found on the narcotics through a California database.  The fingerprints are identifiable, so why not?  Why no effort at all until the defense forced the issue, which I did, and there were no matches found.

Further, the lab tech who analyzed the cocaine testified that there were emblems (barcodes as well) stamped on some of the bundles she received.  Why no analysis of the emblems or barcodes to try to determine the source of origin.

This was the tech’s first time encounter with pipernol – a very unusual substance consistent with this shipment going to the ecstasy lab in Canada.  This affirmed defenses theory that the driver was kept out of the loop so as to avoid him turning States evidence against this powerful organization.  In the end, the jury believed this defense theory and acquitted Defendant in less than two hours.  The ultimate victory for an innocent man who was otherwise headed to prison for the rest of his life.