Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

An experienced Los Angeles criminal defense appeals lawyer is critical to ensure that a defendant's rights are upheld.

This is no more evident than in a recent case out of Maryland called State v. Allen. In this case, a man was tried for murder in different trials and there were errors both times that required new juries and new trials.

A criminal appeal in Los Angeles is a right that all defendants have. While the appeal may be different based on the circumstance, for instance a plea versus a guilty verdict at trial, there are still avenues for a case to be heard by a different court.

The bottom line is that everyone makes mistakes. Despite their best efforts, people in the court system can easily say something, do something or attempt something that is against the rules. And that's why there are other sets of eyes looking at the case to ensure that everything was done correctly.

In this case, little was done correctly -- several times.

The case started when Jeffrey Allen was at the home of his friend, John Butler. Allen asked for Butler to drive him home, but he refused. Allen then grabbed Butler's keys and jingled them in front of Butler and insisted he would drive himself home. The two started fighting and Allen ended up stabbing Butler to death. He took the car and later crashed it, which led to his arrest.

Authorities charged him with first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree felony murder, second-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and other offenses. At trial, he was found guilty of first-degree felony murder, second-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and the lesser related counts.

On appeal, the man argued that the judge's jury instructions, which stated that the jury could find him guilty whether or not his intent to rob was determined before or after the murder. For a conviction of felony murder, in Maryland as in California and many other states, the state must prove the person committed a murder while committing one of a list of felonies, typically including robbery, burglary, a sex crime, kidnapping or others.

An appeals court ruled that an "afterthought" robbery can't be strong enough to convict someone of felony murder and, therefore, put a person at risk for the death penalty. They granted a new trial on that charge only.

Despite already having the second-degree murder and other charges conviction, prosecutors went back to trial on a charge of first-degree murder. In this trial, the judge started off on shaky ground when he told jurors that the defendant had already been convicted of second-degree murder and robbery.

Despite objection by his defense lawyers, the judge told jurors during the instructions that the defendant had already been convicted of robbery. An appeals court ruled that by telling jurors that, the judge had already essentially proven a vital part of the case -- that the defendant had been convicted of robbery. If the state showed that Allen had killed Butler, they had the felony murder charge in the bag.

The appeals court awarded the man another new trial on the felony murder charge, though hopefully prosecutors will stop wasting taxpayer dollars and settle for the convictions they already have.

As you can see, being able to spot key problems in trials that have already taken place takes a lot of time and effort. There are scores of pages to read over and issues to look at and present to an appeals court. But it is worthwhile to make sure the defendant was treated fairly and to see that justice is done.