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Marty Hayes wrote:Hello everyone, Marty Hayes here. I was just made aware of this thread, and frankly, I am somewhat dissapointed that none of the posters here actually took the step to contact me and allow the the ability to address some of the issues here. If you want the straight scoop, go to the horses mouth.

Anyway, I guess I am here because LabRat seems to want to take issue with my opinions as Director of the Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network, so here I am, LabRat. Please feel free to pose any questions directly to me, and I will attempt to answer them promptly and respectfully, (despite my not being a trial lawyer).

Welcome aboard! And no, I didn't even think about emailing you (or whatever). Dunno why, but just didn't. But glad you found us. I found your article interesting.

gigag04 wrote:

...I was posting in agreement with this statement:
...Meaning, I think cops should understand wanting to speak to your lawyer.

etc

Aha! Violent agreement! Sorry, I just now picked up on this post, now I see what you meant.

Fangs wrote:

ELB wrote:It does seem to me that the vast majority of self-defense shootings, no attorneys are initially consulted, the defender apparently says whatever he says, and in the end he comes out OK.

Joe Horn? Hehe, but I do agree with you in regards to Texas at least.

Yes, well Joe Horn's entire scenario wasn't exactly in the "vast majority" of self-defense shootings, was he?

gigag04 wrote:Sure criminals have defense attorneys, but so do cops when they are involved in a critical incident.

I am not sure what this is supposed to mean, but I will note that I expect criminal defense attorneys have many many more actual criminals as clients than they do cops or Joe Citizens, unless the attorney works solely for a police union or association.

Labrat,

There are no guarantees that anyone, cop, DA, jury, or judge, will interpret what you say or do not say in any particular way. I do think there is enough experience to say here are what the trends are.

Criminal defense attorneys defend a lot of people, the vast majority of which are guilty. Ergo the vast majority of their clients probably can NOT help themselves by talking, and I would suspect that same group probably has a hard time expressing themselve logically even when they are not under pressure. Thus SHUT UP and wait for your lawyer is good, straight forward advice (especially if you are under the influence of something, but more on that later).

Ayoob, Farnam, Suarez...and Hayes... have experience with this same crowd. However, they are providing advice to a specific subset, the good-guy citizen CHL-type who has just justifiably shot someone in self-defense. They know at least as well as any, and better than most, criminal defense attorney how the police proceed with an investigation, and how that investigation is influenced by what the cops find on the scene, ESPECIALLY if it is not initially obvious what happened. These same guys have made it their vocation to study this type of situation, and pass on their conclusions to their students. (And in the case of Farnam, I have seen defense attorneys in his courses second his advice). Thus, in this particular category of incident, I tend to believe they have the edge in experience.

But sure, there are no guarantees that anything you do or don't do will help.

You are of course free to do as you wish, and good luck to you. I just find it perplexing that your basic objection boils down to be that one guy in particular, Mr. Hayes, has a J.D. but has not taken the bar exams and practiced as an attorney, so his advice is no good. This does not seem logical to me. But if it works for you, and you want to wait for your lawyer before talking to the cops, press on.

It does seem to me that the vast majority of self-defense shootings, no attorneys are initially consulted, the defender apparently says whatever he says, and in the end he comes out OK.

No trial experience? Really?

Not as a criminal lawyer, sure but neither does Massad Ayoob, nor John Farnam, nor Gabe Suarez, but all have extensive experience not only in trials about shootings, but as shooters, investigators, "investigatees", researchers and witnesses for both sides. I would say their advice trumps most criminal defense lawyers wrt to self-defense shootings, and they have been involved with the whole process from end to end. As far as I can see, they have given the same advice when they were being paid as when they weren't. It would be a good idea to listen to them, regardless of their (non)status as a practicing attorney.

LabRat wrote:I couldn't help but notice that the Armed Citizens writer has a J.D., but has not passed the bar; i.e., not a practicing attorney and I have to assume no real trial experience.

Just a thought as to who's giving advice. Remember, you got that video advice for free and its worth exactly what you paid for it.

Actually, the writer does not have a J.D., since it was Marty Hayes' wife Gila who was the writer.

That said, regardless of Mr. Hayes' bar status, it appears his career was as a police officer and police trainer, so it is possible he might have a better insight into how and why cops do things, and how investigations really go, than many practicing lawyers, no? I note that Massad Ayoob is one of his cohorts in this article. He is not unknown as a consultant in the self-defense legal circles, so I assume he would associate with someone who is very far off the track. I find Ayoob difficult to read sometimes because he spends a fair amount of this time on the doom-and-gloom of self-defense, but case's such as Hickey's might tend to push one in that direction. Plus, its easier to write about case where everything goes wrong than the ones that go right.

And in any case, Mr. Hickey won his case. Not a grand slam, but a win nevertheless.

srothstein wrote:
... There must be more to the story than we know for what else occurred in hsi case, but the being charged is very possible.

The link above is to a case history of the, um, case. It is from the ACLDN point of view, of course. Interestingly, it says the guy who was charged is (publicly at least) of the mind the cops and prosecutor were just doing their job, but his ACLDN advisors have a much less charitable view.

The sticking point seemed to be that some folks had a hard time getting around the fact that an armed man shot at three unarmed people, two of them women. Disparity of force wasn't a strong argument for some people. This was exacerbated, I think, by the fact that he did not get his story in early. The article says the cops that wrote the report, based on the statements of the complainants, did not seem to make an attempt to match the physical evidence of the scene to the statements.

The complainants said he came out into the middle of the street and shot them -- they did not come on his property. However, all the blood was in his driveway, and the photos show the expended shell casings in his driveway. When the complainants sued him in civil court, they changed their story to say it DID happen on his property -- in order to make the insurance liability kick in. (His attorney got to use this discrepancy in his second trial, IIRC).

This may support the notion you ought to give the cops at least an overview of what happened AND point out any evidence. Doesn't mean they will pay attention to it tho.

Note as well that his injuries, cuts and bruises on his head, were not documented by the police, and apparently not by the jail house doctor, who in any case was not predisposed to be sympathetic to anyone in jail. Altho either the doc or a jail med tech told him he probably had suffered a concussion, this did not make it to trial. Hence perhaps insisting on going to the ER (or ED, as the medheads seem to want to call it these days) and getting an independent accounting of any injuries might be a good idea. Not a time to be tough and suck up the pain.

Here is an article on a guy who did not talk to the police, and it sounds like he regretted that to some degree. Two women (one trained in martial arts) rushed his wife in his home driveway -- he intervened, asked them to leave, they started punching him, then were joined by a male. At that point he shot two of them; two fled, he unloaded his gun, got his trauma kit, and treated the one who fell.

He only made a minimal statement and said he wanted a lawyer present for a full statement. Instead, the cops stuck him in a interrogation room by himself for several hours, took statements from his three opponents (no one killed only wounded), and then charged him. They never did take his statement, nor did it appear that they made any attempt to document his injuries.

$100K cash bond (i.e. was not allowed to use a bail company -- had to pay it all himself). 71 days in jail while money was gathered. Two hung juries. Did not fight a civil case against his him, just paid the policy limit ($100K).

Appears in the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network. Massad Ayoob involved.

http://www.armedcitizensnetwork.org/ima ... 2010-9.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;