WORLD’S DUMBEST LAWYER TALKS ACQUITTING JURY INTO CONVICTION

OK, we are familiar with a great many urban legends—including a goodly number of confirmed accounts—of dumb-ass lawyer moves, but this one pretty much takes the cake.

By way of background, either side in a criminal case has a right to have the jury “polled” after a verdict, in order to test whether each individual juror in fact voted to acquit or convict (as the case may be). But for obvious reasons, the side who won NEVER asks that the jury be polled, because there is zero upside for your client—only the possibility that the jury might be sent back to deliberate anew—should a dissenting juror reveal herself during the polling process.

And sure enough that is exactly what happened when defense attorney Charles S. Hamilton, III of Seattle, Washington, asked that a jury be polled after acquitting his client in a vehicular assault case.

Predictably, the attorney’s dumb-ass mistake turned his client Patricia Sylvester’s initial tears of joy into sobs of despair when the polling Hamilton-Dumbbell, III requested not only revealed a dissenting vote on the jury for guilt, but ultimately resulted in the trial judge ordering the jury to deliberate until a unanimous verdict was reached—which the jury did. Only that unanimous verdict was GUILTY!

We have to agree with Legal Blog Watch on this point. PRACTICE TIP: When the judge or jury has just agreed with you, zip it.
.
In the elegantly simple words of NYC criminal dense attorney Scott Greenfeild--author of Simple Justice:

“No folks, it doesn't get any dumber than this.”

Hat tip to Martha Neil at the ABA Journal for bringing this dumbest lawyer story to our attention.

Simple Justice blog: "of such abject stupidity that it can't go unnoticed."

After Trial Win, Defense Lawyer Polls Jury, Gets Guilty Verdict (ABA J.)

Jury finds woman ‘not guilty,’ then ‘guilty’ (Whidbey News-Times)

Rule 1: When the Judge Agrees With You, Stop Talking (LBW)