An interesting thing occured in Miami today. Seven students who had been charged with various offenses had the charges dropped after the State Attorneys office realized that all of the reports looked way to familiar. I have to give props, which I am loathe to do, to the State Attorneys for actually looking at the reports and deciding not to pursue charges on cases that seemed to be at the worst fraudulent and at best not accurate.
This does, however, bring up another issue that is always bothering me. Everytime I have a case that more that one officer is involved, the officers agree which one writes the report and every one of them review that one report right before they take the stand. While I have gotten most of them to admit to that on the stand, it seems inherently wrong that an officer can witness something and months later use a document he did not assist in preparing to remind him of minor details that he in all probability didn't observe. I know, some of you are saying, "well at least you have depositions so what is the problem. You can use the mistakes he made there and impeach him." Not so easy, since a lot of them decide not to come to deposition and they still use the initial officers reports. I would like for a hard and fast rule, no reports, no testimony.
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When a good criminal attorney appears on the scene, the accused can relax, knowing they are in excellent hands. This attorney will determine the charges, confer with the authorities and the accused, do research, check alibis and do hundreds of other things to provide an excellent defense against any charges.
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