The first is the story of a young (and arrogant) federal prosecutor who was absolutely sure he had a case against my client. Indeed, the case looked airtight. My client was caught red-handed with illegal drugs. Plus she confessed.
You can’t get more straight-forward than that, right?
Turns out that the prosecutor didn’t get all the facts.
The facts: My client was sleeping in the backseat of a truck. Further back in the truck were illegal drugs. The truck driver owned the truck. He was her boyfriend. He was also married (but obviously not to her).
So there she was, sleeping in the back of the truck (with drugs nearby) when the truck driver drove onto an air force base right past the sign that said, “All vehicles passing this point are subject to search.” Yes, he did that . . . (defense lawyer = 
)
The purpose of the sign was obvious: If you drive past the sign, you consent to a search. If you consent, the search is legal under the Fourth Amendment. I don’t know why he drove past that sign under the circumstances. Maybe he wasn’t the best reader.
My client woke up as the officers were searching the truck. Her boyfriend, in a panic, took her aside and said, “You gotta say the drugs are yours. If I get charged, I’ll lose my job.” (Apparently, he was also terrified his wife would find out.)
So my client did it. She confessed and said the drugs were hers. She was charged with a federal crime because they were on federal property.
First, I tried to talk the prosecutor out of insisting on jail time, which would have totally ruined her. She would have lost her job as a laundress. She was barely hanging on financially and otherwise.
He wouldn’t budge. He insisted that she should go to jail.
Me = 
Then= 
I filed a motion arguing that the search was illegal as to her because a sleeping person can’t consent to a search.
Guess what? The judge agreed with me. During the evidentiary hearing, he turned to the prosecutor and said, “I don’t see how someone can come out of sleep and give consent.” Winning on my motion would mean that the evidence would be excluded under the exclusionary rule. (Evidence obtained in an illegal search can’t be used in court.)
As soon as it was clear which way the wind was blowing, the prosecutor asked for a recess and said he wanted to talk to me. Needless to say, the case ended to my client’s satisfaction.
Had the prosecutor probed a little more and gotten the whole story, he might have seen that the case was stronger against the truck driver, who owned the truck and actually consented to the search.
One more story to illustrate the point. One of my clients was given a reckless driving misdemeanor for driving too fast in a parking lot. Ordinarily, things like this are not criminal, but she was going so fast, it was charged as a misdemeanor (criminal).
The officer had drawn a map of the parking lot showing her path and where he stopped her. We hired a professor of physics and engineering who went to the parking lot, took measurements, did the calculations, and said there was no possible way that her engine could get going at that speed given the short distance. My guess was that she was going too fast—but not as fast as the officer said.
We sent the calculations to the prosecutor. Some time passed. Charges were dropped. I assumed they verified the calculations.
The prosecutor could have refiled the charges, accusing her of going at a dangerous speed that the car could manage. But, see how that looks? A jury would wonder how the officer got it wrong the first time. Her theory was that the officer lied. Refiling the charges would look as if the prosecutor (and officer) were targeting this particular person.
In fact, the prosecutor didn’t recharge the crime. The matter was entirely dropped.