Difference between revisions of "Vietnam Criminal Defense Manual - First meeting with client"

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Petition the court with special focus on both the factual and legal violations.  See, Article 6 of the Constitution prohibiting coercion and CPC, Article 58 of the Criminal Procedure Code allowing for defense counsel to be present at the time of interrogation.
 
Petition the court with special focus on both the factual and legal violations.  See, Article 6 of the Constitution prohibiting coercion and CPC, Article 58 of the Criminal Procedure Code allowing for defense counsel to be present at the time of interrogation.
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Investigation
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Both the prosecution and the defense rest on a detailed investigation.  As mentioned above, your client is in jail based on some bad facts as reported by the Head of Investigating Body or a police officer.
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Practice Tip No. 5:  How far does an investigation have to go to find evidence?  The law established specific steps that must be followed.  See, CPC, Articles 34, 35, 36, set out some of the required duties of the government investigators. 
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The police investigation may be sufficient to charge someone with a crime, but it is not always as detailed as a legal defender requires. This is because crimes are sometimes charged based on appearances, rather than truth.  For example, your client is charged with robbing a Pho restaurant. Your client is arrested because he looks just like the bank robber.  He was arrested based on his appearance.  The truth was that your client was at work a kilometer away when the bank was robbed.  The truth is in the details! 
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IV.3 Suggestions for Investigation
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Here are some suggestions for investigation.
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3a Be Quick
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3b Easy Sources of Information
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3c The Crime Scene
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3d Witnesses
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3e Witness Statements
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3f Physical Evidence
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3g Hard or Soft Evidence
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3h Expert Opinion
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The above are just some areas of investigation.  More investigation techniques will be discussed in the section covering specific defenses. 
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IV.4 Investigation of Physical Evidence
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An investigator must know what to look for and how to interpret what is found.  What may infer guilt to the prosecutor may also be indicative of innocence.  Typically, the charging document reflects the prosecution's theory of the case.  For a successful prosecution, this theory must not change.  The legal defender's task is to analyze the prosecutor's theory for errors, misinterpretations and exaggerations.
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"Hard evidence" is evidence that will not change.  For example, a gun or stolen goods are both physical objects that may be related to a case and will not change their shape or form.  Fingerprints, photos, blood are also examples of hard evidence that will not change. 
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"Soft evidence" is evidence that can be interpreted and changed over time.  Soft evidence usually refers to witness statements since perception and memory can change over time.  Witnesses also have different motives to give a statement that reflect on the truth and reliability of the witness themselves.  A skilled attorney finds weakness and misconceptions in witness statements.
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A skilled attorney can also change "hard evidence" to "soft evidence." Some physical objects can be changed by perception and interpretation.  For example, your client was found with blood on his clothes and charged with stabbing a man with a knife.  By testing the blood it was discovered that the blood was not the victim's blood, but rather from a pig that he had brushed against at the market.  Here, the prosecutor's theory was that victim's blood was on your client's clothes.  The first impression was that your client was involved in the stabbing because blood was on his clothes.  The correct interpretation, however, was that the blood was not the victim's and your client was innocent. 
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Perception of physical evidence and interpretation of this evidence is based on what physical evidence is found at the crime scene.  Association of an accused with a crime is commonly based on what physical evidence is found at the crime scene and what evidence was near the accused.  At the same time, physical evidence can exclude individuals or objects as the above stabbing case has shown. 
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IV.5 Sources and Examples of Physical Evidence
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It is important to think about what types of physical objects lead to association or exclusion of the accused.  Some common items are listed below.

Revision as of 14:29, 7 June 2010

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