<h1>Appealing a criminal case part 4</h1> <p>Now, what we found out on appeal just going through the file, just going through what&rsquo;s in the record and this is what&rsquo;s really fun I know Cynthia does this, incredibly well on all her cases. Just because you&rsquo;re not in the trial court anymore doesn&rsquo;t mean there is not little nuggets of, of wonderful treasure, there for you to find. Well we found in, in the record, payments to a translator. She was on the clock at a hotel, on the county&rsquo;s time during this time when the trial court refused to give a translator, to this young lady. Ok? So the argument, which I don&rsquo;t think the state has a dog in that hunt and I think they should shut up and you should object if they start blabbing about,&rdquo; she didn&rsquo;t get a translator!&rdquo; they don&rsquo;t have a dog in that hunt. Ok? You should object to that! But if they do speak up, note; is there a translator available? Are they on the county&rsquo;s time? Are they already there ready to go? But the trial court just won&rsquo;t give her one!</p> <p>So the court of criminal appeals did not reverse this case based on the translator issue. They reversed it on, the trial court not being neutral and detached. A biased trial judge. Ok? But the translator issues were very very clear. So don&rsquo;t let yourself be put in that, put in that, situation. Don&rsquo;t translate for people, don&rsquo;t let family members translate. If, there&rsquo;s a federal case, I&rsquo;m sorry can&rsquo;t remember the name of it right this moment but , it was in different district in, I think it was in southern district. And they were prosecuting, man from an African country. And he spoke an unusual language. And so he was held, Gosh! I don&rsquo;t want to say 3 or 4 years, without a translator! And the government&rsquo;s argument was; well we can&rsquo;t find one! We&rsquo;re having so much difficulty finding a translator. Well, the clerk of the appellate judge called; ok this is Houston ya&rsquo;ll ok? Not Berney. This was Houston. They could find a translator for, any language that&rsquo;s around. Ok? So the appellate court put in the opinion that his briefing attorney found a translator within 15 minutes of picking up the phone.</p> <p>Ok? So that didn&rsquo;t fly either! That didn&rsquo;t fly either! Oh! We don&rsquo;t have anybody who speaks that language. Ok you&rsquo;re in Houston! Ya you do and plus there&rsquo;s telephonic system&rsquo; where you can call and it&rsquo;s located in Houston. Right since you knew that. And then, and then they can translate telephonically, if you can&rsquo;t get the person to, San Angelo or Burney or wherever you handling your case. Enojado means mad, for those who don&rsquo;t know. Ok.</p> <p>Pretrial motion practices; Ok. Many times I&rsquo;ll get in appellate record and there&lsquo;ll be all these beautiful motions in there, and no rulings! Don&rsquo;t just file those things you have to ask for rulings. You have to put em&rsquo;&rsquo; in front of trial court and you have to, present your motion and you have to get a ruling or they&rsquo;re no good. They mean nothing. Ok? So don&rsquo;t forget to litigate them. Many of the good trial judges what they&rsquo;ll do is before you know, you began a trial, they&rsquo;ll go through the list of all the pretrial motions. But that&rsquo;s your job as defense counsel. You need to have the list of argue motion you need to go through, create a matrix! And go through and check of was it ruled on? What was the ruling? When did he rule on it? Ok? You got to have that!</p>
Los Abogados
  • Francisco Hernandez
  • Daniel Hernandez
  • Phillip Hall
  • Rocio Martinez