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Quirky legal victory
#1
I just had a trial where my client was convicted, but I got an acquittal for my client's co-defendant that I did not even represent.

My client was charged with theft over $2,500 which is a class D felony in Tennessee.  Based on his criminal history the absolute max he could have gotten was 6 years.  DA offered 4 years.  My client is in his 50's and said that there was no difference to him between doing 4 years or six.  So even though I did not have a real strong theory for defense we took it to trial.

My client was alleged to have stolen a cash till out of a register at Wal Mart.  He had a co-defendant who the state claimed was acting as a look out.  He was charged with "Facilitation" of theft over $2500 which means he would be convicted of a felony one class lower, and a class E felony is the lowest level felony in Tennessee.

The prosecution was sloppy and I was all over it.  The jury found my client guilty, but only of an "attempt" to commit a misdemeanor theft under $1,000.  That was a class B misdemeanor that only carries 6 months.  My client had already been in jail that long so he left the courtroom a free man.

The quirky part is that the law regarding "facilitation" only applies to felonies.  So even though the jury found the co-defendant guilty of "facilitation" of an "attempt" to commit a misdemeanor theft there is no such crime in Tennessee.  So the judge ruled that the co-defendant was acquitted and not guilty of anything under Tennessee law.

The attorney for the co-defendant did nothing.  The jury found his client guilty of the facilitation he was charged with.  The only reason he got an acquittal was that I got the charges reduced so much for my client.  You can not facilitate a misdemeanor.
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#2
Good job Fred!
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#3
So if somehow you had arranged a plea down to a misdemeanor would it have ended the same? Or what if your guy had been found not guilty? At that point it seems that nobody is saying a felony didn’t occur, just that they didn’t prove your guy guilty.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall

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