Article Index
Murder Investigation: Preserving the Crime Scene
Murder Investigation: Autopsy
Autopsy: Searching for Suspected Poison
Homicide Investigation: Interviewing Witnesses
Crime & Punishment: Murder & Violent Crimes Penalties
Combatting the
Prosecutor’s Tool - Fear
Not every criminal defense lawyer is capable of representing an individual accused of first-degree murder. An attorney who has never handled a first-degree murder case is at a severe disadvantage. Homicide prosecutors in Boston, Cambridge, Dedham and Worcester are usually tough, shrewd and experienced. At a minimum, your lawyer should possess the same qualities. Attorney Mahoney has defended five individuals accused of first-degree murder and as an Assistant District Attorney prosecuted numerous murder cases.
Murder cases are unlike any other criminal case. The high stakes test both the accused and the lawyer. In many states, first-degree murder is punishable by death. In Massachusetts, capital punishment exists only in the Federal Court. But life imprisonment is a death sentence, the prison cell nothing more than a coffin with a working toilet. Those accused of first-degree murder – often half-crazed with the fear of suffocating slowly in a damp, concrete sepulcher – are only too willing to trust anyone willing to offer them hope, even if the source is the poor bastard crawling the walls of the next cell. A battle tested lawyer knows his responsibility to the client extends beyond the courtroom; he has an obligation to keep his client informed, to advise him honestly, and to try to keep him sane while the case works its way through the system. A client whose mind is gone is little help to himself or his attorney.
The police and prosecution go to great -- sometimes extraordinary -- lengths to convict a citizen they have charged with murder. It is not unusual for a dozen or more detectives to work a single murder case. Increasingly, the prosecution relies on forensic evidence to place the accused at the scene of the crime. In an effort to seal his victory, at trial a prosecutor may call experts in forensic disciplines ranging from DNA analysis, toxicology, pharmacology, crime scene reconstruction, fingerprint analysis, blood splatter analysis, ballistics, bodily fluid analysis to pathology. Now, more than ever, a criminal defense lawyer is called upon to have a working, if not intimate, knowledge of the high tech forensic evidence a prosecutor might marshall against his client. What might appear to be damning scientific evidence at first blush may, in fact, demonstrate the accused's innocence.
In Attorney Mahoney's experience, the prosecution is never to be trusted, in a murder case least of all. Prosecutors habitually charge individuals with first-degree murder when the allegations, at most, support a charge of manslaughter or, at worst, no charge at all. When a prosecutor has a weak case, he knows his most powerful, insidious and persuasive "evidence" is fear. Fear, desperation and loneliness will make his case for him; the accused's fear of being strapped to a gurney, watching the latex hand reaching for a syringe dripping with potassium chloride, or his fear of permanent isolation. Perhaps too the lawyer's fear will shore up his case -- the lawyer's fear of standing helplessly, incompetently and silently, as his client, shackled and wild-eyed, is led from the courtroom. Fear, the prosecutor believes, will drive the decision making, compelling the accused's lawyer to offer a plea of guilty to 2nd degree murder. In most cases, the prosecutor need only indict and wait. Fear, while real and potentially overpowering, should not deprive the accused -- particularly the innocent -- of his right to a defense. An experienced defense lawyer can be counted on to properly analyze the prosecutor's evidence, to offer solid advice, and to skillfully and aggressively attack the prosecutor's evidence at trial.
If you or a loved one is charged with murder, hire the best criminal defense lawyer and hire him as soon as possible. Decisions made at the very beginning of a case often prove critical; poor decisions oftentimes prove fatal. Attorney Mahoney can be reached at 617-492-0055 24 hours a day.