Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Creative Defense Lawyering v. Reality

I work with some pretty creative defense attorneys, but I don't think any of them would have come up with this (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars):

The judge in the Glenn Howard Griffin murder trial has blocked a defense tactic that attempted to undermine DNA testing by claiming it contradicts scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

* * *

Defense attorneys had hoped to claim some DNA testing has established that American Indians descend from Asian or Sibe- rian ancestry.

The LDS Book of Mormon teaches early Americans’ ancestors are ancient tribes of Israel.

'Because orthodox members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claim to have a spiritual witness, or revelation, concerning the truthfulness and historicity of the Book of Mormon, (defendant) will argue, expressly or implied, that it is … DNA that must be wrong and, therefore, rejected,' prosecutors claimed in a motion to ban the tactic.

In his order issued Wednesday, 1st District Judge Ben Hadfield granted the prosecution motion . . ..
Imagine the possibilities had that ploy worked - any bit of inculpatory evidence could be excluded if you could conjure up some religious belief that it contradicted!

1 comment:

jedijawa said...

Are you suggesting that someone would misuse religion in that way? I'm shocked ... shocked I tell you. ;-)