I find myself in a rare moment of agreement with Heidi of Euphoric Reality, who writes to John Jodka Senior following the recent plea deal his son has taken in the Hamdania case:
Not long ago, JJ [i.e., PFC John Jodka] went ballistic when Bacos caved and sold out the other seven. He was so hurt and upset and betrayed. You were the one who told us how wrecked JJ was over Bacosââ¬â¢ betrayal.
Fast forward a few more weeks: JJ is now Bacos. You canââ¬â¢t spin this, Killer. JJ is either a betrayerââ¬Â¦or a liar.
How so? JJ has drastically changed his story. Go back to when you had that man-to-man with JJ. Either JJ looked you straight in the eyes and lied to your face – and you, ââ¬ÅThe Coolest Dadââ¬Â were duped for 5 long monthsââ¬Â¦OR, JJ told you his unit was guilty and then YOU went out and lied to the world – on radio, in newsprint, on TV – about your son and his unit and scammed thousands of dollars of donations under false pretensesââ¬Â¦OR JJ told you the truth all along, but is lying now to make it easier for himself while betraying his brothers. These are the only options – and all are without honor.
Youââ¬â¢ve talked long and loud about inner strength, honor, and integrity. Tell me – where is it now? JJ either lied before, or heââ¬â¢s lying now.
The inconsistencies of pleading guilty under these circumstances are the problem. Any guilty pleas necessarily conflict with massive the public relations campaigns based on factual innocence that have been by parents, lawyers, and the like.
The public relations campaign puts later plea deals under a cloud. This cloud is part of a larger storm system of contradictions based on the fact that these defendants’ innocence has been steadfastly maintained by family members and supporters without really grappling with the fact that not Iraqis, but the accused themselves, are the chief source of evidence in this case because three of the Pendleton Eight confessed.
Jodka (and more specifically Jodka’s father and Jodka’s two lawyers) either were lying then or lying now. This is a problem. Lawyers are not supposed to say what their clients tell them. Nor are clients generally well served by making categorical statements about what happened when those statements are not true, cannot be known, or are based solely on privileged conversations. Lawyers should shut up and just do their jobs in the court room. And family members should not act as the lawyers’ surrogates in this regard.
As bad of a rap as lawyers take, they don’t have to lie and never should lie in the course of defending a criminal case. In court, they are not testifying; they are asking hard questions and drawing inferences for the jury from the facts. They don’t and can’t testify for a simple reason: they are duty-bound to the be loyal to their clients even if they are guilty, and they are also hired guns with no credibility. Thus, they must prove everything they say with evidence from others. There are times to take a plea, times to wait and see, and times to go for broke at trial . . . particularly if your client is factually innocent.
Along these lines, it is also wrong and unethical selectively to report conversations with a client to portray him as innocent when he is, in fact, guilty. Model Rule of Professional Conduct 3.6 states, “A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter.”
In the Hamdania case the prosecution has remained silent; the only thing the media has reported on was public information at various hearings. The sole source of excessive publicity were the statements of the defense lawyers and their gullible supporters in the media and the blogosphere.
I wrote in an earlier entry after LCPL Shumate’s attorney did not ask any questions of his client or the NCIS agents at his client’s Article 32 hearing, “The defense in this case is insulting the public’s intelligence. They are also implicitly insulting the judicial process of the Marines and the honesty of the NCIS agents. They are working so hard on public relations that they are missing their only opportunity to undermine the prosecution’s case in advance of trial.” I have particular disregard for Joseph Casas and Jane Siegal for their flamboyant and self-serving behavior in this case.
Casas and Siegal knew, of course, that there was no way to undermine anything at Jodka’s Article 32 hearing by proffering their client’s truthful testimony. Such testimony would have either been inculpatory or untruthful (requiring Jodka’s lawyers to report this situation to the court). Instead of remaining silent and pursuing their case in court in a workmanlike fashion, they instead lied for their clients in public at various press conferences, while conducting damage control in front of the investigating officer. This tactic dishonors the profession and is also pretty stupid, not least because it undermines a client’s later testimony, including any testimony that is later offered by the government under a plea deal. In addition, too much talk that my-client-is-innocent-as-a-dove could very well make a plea deal impossible, even for a client that is otherwise a good candidate for such a deal. Prior assertions of innocence will function as impeachment evidence and hurt credibility. Won’t Bacos’ testimony be that much more credible when he ultimately testifies in this case in comparison to Jodka? Jodka secured this plea deal in spite of his lawyers’ risky and unethical publicity stunts, not because of them.
All of the anti-prosecution blather on this case should stop. It’s completely unbelievable that two of the eight accused would testify falsely to send their buddies up the river, and that three of the eight would falsely confessed earlier to a crime they didn’t commit. It’s far more believable that the defense in this case made up a bunch of falsehoods to garner sympathy, raise money, and improperly enlist the public and derail the judicial process. The only honorable thing for the various media and blogger-supporters of these guys to do now would be to close up shop, express some faith in the judicial process, admit earlier errors in judgment, and allow this regrettable and tragic, though entirely just, prosecution to continue.
Sticking to your guns, even when it’s clear you backed the wrong horse, is a good way to make a complete fool of yourself. Good and honorable people can be duped out of a surfeit of sympathy and credulity; it’s up to them to respond to events that make it clear that’s exactly what has happened here.
Subscribe To This Feed
