Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Who was the Lawyer?

A post on the Volokh Conspiracy led to the court decision on an interesting case before the Fourth Circuit US Court of Appeals, argued (and won) by a third-year Wake Forest Law School student.

Best I can figure, the facts are as follows: A felon disarms his drunk wife (who had threatened to shoot him) and takes the gun directly to his work place, intending to turn it over to the police. When he gets there, the police are waiting and arrest him for having the gun in his possession. He pleads guilty after his lawyer tells him there is no "justification defense" and is sentenced to 15 years in the pokey. (OK, this is a very brief summary of the case.)

After reading some of the decision and the comments on the original blog posts, I wonder why the original prosecutor felt it necessary to prosecute this case in the first place. It seems such a travesty of justice. The poor guy did four years for trying to do the right thing, primarily because he got rotten legal advice. The prosecutor gets off the hook but also so does the defense attorney. Shouldn't at least his name be published to protect other citizens?

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