Maybe you’re wondering how I could have handled so many murder cases, with a seemingly good track record, without anybody reading about me in the newspaper or seeing me on the evening news? It’s because of some sound legal advice I received from a very good lawyer I chanced meeting on my way into the Richland County courthouse between the time I took the South Carolina bar exam and I found a job. When I decided to go down to the courthouse to watch real lawyers doing what real lawyers do.
To my great good fortune I ran into I. S. Levy Johnson, Esquire, at the courthouse. I didn’t know who he was at the time and, when I asked him where I could watch the real lawyers in action, Mr. Johnson, who always had a humorous glint in his eye, almost burst out laughing at my new naiveite.
He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Son, its Monday morning, and the real good lawyers avoid the courthouse like the plague. They avoid the courthouse because its filled with gung-ho judges determined to assert their bona fides in the war against crime, puffed up prosecutors perpetually running for office, newshounds looking to stir the pot, and victim’s rights advocates beating their own drums. If you want to catch the real lawyers at work, you’d best come back around about Thursday afternoon. Come back after the judge has given all his fire and brimstone speeches and purged himself of the urge for retribution. When the prosecutor just wants to move his backlogged docket, the newshounds have met their deadlines for the week, and, after the advocates have faded away having lost interest. That’s when the real lawyers show up to ply their craft. I took his advice to heart and tried my best to stay out of the spotlight as much as I could over the course of my career.
Retired now, I no longer feel constrained writing about my murder cases and will tell you about my last murder case nobody ever heard of. It began when my client’s unemployed, sometime boyfriend coming over to her house one night, as he did whenever the mood struck him, and she welcomed him in, as she often did, to relieve the monotony of her daily life. You see, at barely nineteen years old herself, she was stuck living at home watching for her younger brothers and sisters and caring for her disabled grandfather so her mother could work double shifts at a downtown hotel doing housekeeping. She dreamed a lot of dreams for herself, but never dreamed she’d be charged with murder.
This particular morning, her boyfriend noticed the family car parked in the driveway and said he needed to borrow it so he could take care of some “business.” My client told him no because she had to take her grandfather to his doctor’s appointment later that morning. He got angry and started looking around the house for the car keys. He got madder and madder when he couldn’t find them. Thinking they might still be in the car, he went out to check and my client hastily locked the door behind him. This pissed him off even more when he tried to get back in causing him to bang on the door and threaten my client if she didn’t open it.
She refused and watched helplessly as he walked back over to the family car, picked up a rock, and yelled he was going to smash out the windshield if she didn’t give him the keys. She grabbed a kitchen knife and stepped out into the yard to tell him to stop or she’d call the police. When he saw her holding the knife, he came towards her aggressively asking, “What? You gonna stab me with that?” To his great surprise, that’s exactly what she did. She stabbed him once in the groin severing his femoral artery. She did call the police but he bled out before the police or ambulance could arrive.
To the police it looked like she stabbed her unarmed boyfriend, so they charged her with murder and her poor mother hired me to defend her. To be honest, my last murder case didn’t turn out to be much of a case after all and I was able to get it dismissed before it ever got started. I was able to get Judge Kristi Harrington, the judge in my Gansta Style case, to dismiss the case under the South Carolina’s Protection of Persons and Property Act that changed the law of self-defense in a couple of important ways.
First, you no longer have to prove you fear for your life to justify the use of deadly force. The new law presumes you fear for your safety anytime someone threatens you on your own property. And, second, you no longer have to retreat before you can use deadly force. You can stand your ground to protect your home and property.
The prosecutor argued the boyfriend hadn’t broken into my client’s house, he was invited in. I argued, although he’d been invited into the house the night before, he was subsequently locked out and told to leave. The solicitor argued he was unarmed and their domestic dispute didn’t warrant the use of deadly force. I argued she was entitled to, but didn’t need the presumption of fear, because she was on her property when he threatened her and approached her aggressively.
The most important aspect of the new law is, it not only strengthened the defense of self-defense, it granted immunity from prosecution. Judge Harrington agreed with my arguments and dismissed the case outright without the need for a trial much to my client’s relief. The media rarely covers motion hearings in criminal court and not a word of my victory appeared in the media.
It was a fitting end to a fifty-year career as a criminal defense attorney and I think Mr. Johnson would agree, that’s all a real lawyer should care about. My advice to anyone based on my experience is, if you have a lawyer who thinks your case is their ticket onto the front page or the evening news, you probably need another lawyer.
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