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MARNA FRANKLIN,
02.06, Oklahoma County Public Defender's Office, recently moved to OKC from Tulsa, where she worked the trenches at the Tulsa County Public Defender's Office. How is she adjusting to Oklahoma County, you ask? How about by winning two jury trials in consecutive months(!!) Both involved charges of Possession of CDS and one had facts you will not believe. CASE #1: Tried a couple of weeks ago (verdict the Tuesday before last). Client was a passenger in a car being driven in a "high crime" area. Cops stopped the car, saw "furtive" movement by client and found a crack pipe and a rock in the backseat floorboard (behind client's passenger side seat). Client had three priors for KCSP, UUMV, and some other innocuous felony, and took the stand, claiming that he was merely scratching his leg and did not know the pipe or the dope was there since it wasn't his car. Not guilty! This case was tried before Judge Tammy Bass-Jones. CASE #2: This was another Possession of CDS case tried before Judge Susan Caswell and a not guilty verdict rendered on December 6, 2005. Check out these facts: Client was hanging out at someone's house and the someone did not want him there anymore, so the someone calls the cops. Client did not budge. He just stayed there till the cops came. Shockingly, the cops discovered that client had an outstanding arrest warrant and arrest him on the spot. During the search incident to the lawful arrest, the cops discovered a rock of crack cocaine in his shirt pocket(!) The arrest and the search were iron-clad, no way to attack those, so the evidence comes in and client did not testify. How do you approach such a case, much less win it??? Well, what Marna did is attack the police investigation and argue to the jury that client was at the house, knew that homeowner had called the cops and that they were on the way, he thus had every opportunity to get rid of drugs if he knew they were there. This is a case where the cops had such a slam dunk of a case that they apparently failed to follow up on the basics: they did not seize the shirt to show the jury, other persons were present at the house and were not interviewed (that may have been surprised when the cops showed up and put the rock in client's shirt pocket without his knowledge), and essentially did nothing other than arrest client and seize the crack. This is what Marna argued in closing and essentially the jury found a reasonable doubt that client had knowledge of the dope. Amazing facts to take to trial, much less actually win. I have dismissed the so-called "CSI effect" where jurors watch crime shows on television and expect the State to present sophisticated forensics as part of the evidence, but maybe there was some of that going on here. This reminds me of a cross-examination I did of the investigating officer in a lewd acts case I tried with Ron Jones in Enid several years ago. While I was preparing it I made a list of what the cop actually did. Then I made a list of what he did not do. The more you sit there and think about, the more specific things you can think of for a cop to do in an investigation and when the list gets long enough, it sounds like the cop really did not do much of anything. Perhaps there may be something to this CSI effect. Interesting.
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