For what it is worth, the defence lawyers on this file are both excellent people doing the most thankless job ever. I can't post about strategy or what they might be thinking because I know and speak to them.
But let me offer this suggestion - every time you hear evidence of the painstaking hours a police officer put into doing his or her job to the highest standards of competence and professionalism you should at least in part be thanking criminal defence lawyers like them.
While no court or inquiry has ever found actual misconduct by Calgary Police in respect of the David Milgaard wrongful conviction, it was only after the witnesses spent hours being interrogated by CPS that they suddenly gave statements about how Milgaard did it (when as we all know he did not).
I know nobody here was bashing the defence lawyers, but perhaps nobody was thinking about praising them either for the essential job they are doing to make our system legitimate.
And then they go home to their families carrying all of this stuff with them just like everyone else.
And by the way, making up a phantom suspect is not a real thing that is allowed never mind it being a common tactic. You need court permission to run a third party suspect defence and trust me the court doesn't just let you run it if there is no basis for it.
|