Young lawyer scores double whammy with US High Court
I was going past CNN's legal news page when I found this link.
Funny. In our jurisdiction, one of the rights this new star lawyer espoused - the right of an accused to cross-examine witnesses brought in to testify against him, is one of the more fundamental provisions of Rule 119.
CNN.com reported:
In Crawford (vs. Washington), the Supreme Court in March agreed with Fisher and ruled that defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine witnesses used against them in trial.
In practice, the right to cross-examine witnesses brought to testify against an accused isn't exercised as well as one would hope. As some Bugoys know, I sat through an hour of testimony by a police officer in a drugs case in the Pasig RTC. The police officer's testimony, like many before his, was so riddled with holes that it was easy to discredit (so much for the presumption of regularity). The PAO lawyer who used to sit in that court hardly lifted a finger to defend her clients. The current lawyer, however, as a result of his human rights experience (he used to work closely and in coordination with the AHRC on several HR cases) is a different story: his litigation skills got the judge to openly berate the testifying officer and have his testimony stricken from the record.
You could tell that the people being prosecuted in the Dangerous Drugs Court are but small fry in the drugs picture.
I got stuck in a room filled with people who may or may not have had to lie, cheat, and steal just to support their habits (see the inq7.net story on cellular phone theft), but so what? That's what we signed on for. Those guys will one day be our clients.
That they lie, cheat, and steal for their addictions doesn't make them all that different from us, I think. Although we don't have tattoos of flying dragons and gang signs on our biceps, our tattoos are smaller, in more discreet places.
Funny. In our jurisdiction, one of the rights this new star lawyer espoused - the right of an accused to cross-examine witnesses brought in to testify against him, is one of the more fundamental provisions of Rule 119.
CNN.com reported:
In Crawford (vs. Washington), the Supreme Court in March agreed with Fisher and ruled that defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine witnesses used against them in trial.
In practice, the right to cross-examine witnesses brought to testify against an accused isn't exercised as well as one would hope. As some Bugoys know, I sat through an hour of testimony by a police officer in a drugs case in the Pasig RTC. The police officer's testimony, like many before his, was so riddled with holes that it was easy to discredit (so much for the presumption of regularity). The PAO lawyer who used to sit in that court hardly lifted a finger to defend her clients. The current lawyer, however, as a result of his human rights experience (he used to work closely and in coordination with the AHRC on several HR cases) is a different story: his litigation skills got the judge to openly berate the testifying officer and have his testimony stricken from the record.
You could tell that the people being prosecuted in the Dangerous Drugs Court are but small fry in the drugs picture.
I got stuck in a room filled with people who may or may not have had to lie, cheat, and steal just to support their habits (see the inq7.net story on cellular phone theft), but so what? That's what we signed on for. Those guys will one day be our clients.
That they lie, cheat, and steal for their addictions doesn't make them all that different from us, I think. Although we don't have tattoos of flying dragons and gang signs on our biceps, our tattoos are smaller, in more discreet places.
