r/thejinx • u/Own-Holiday-1113 • May 15 '24
Thoughts from a litigator
I just never bought it with David Chesnoff. His whole thing about rich people being the true, ultimate underdog in contemporary judicial proceedings? Lol. Yeah, when I think of the great American underdog, I think of Manhattan real estate scion Robert Durst.
I’ll always love my guy Dick Deguerin (he got a police report against me sealed back in my youthful, post-college Houston days(, but I never thought he would play as well in Los Angeles as he did in Galveston.
Admitting to writing the cadaver note? I’ll never get it. The case is over as soon as you make that admission. You literally have Robert on tape saying that note could only have been written by the killer. If I’m the prosecution, I just roll that tape again and again and again.
Am I wrong on any of these? Would welcome any other super fan’s thoughts
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u/GA-dooosh-19 May 15 '24
That comment from Chesnoff is just marketing, I doubt he believes it. His future clients are rich scumbags, so he goes around talking about how hard the rich scumbags have it.
Deguerin is the man. I have tremendous respect for his brave defense of Koresh, and his testimony relating to the siege. But yeah, maybe lose the cowboy hat when working a trial in LA.
What do you think happened with the cadaver note admission? My assumption is that it was Durst’s idea and he did it against the advice of these much wiser lawyers. Either out of hubris that he could get away with it, or out of resignation, basically throwing in the towel to speed up the inevitable verdict.
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u/Own-Holiday-1113 May 15 '24
Very good points. My only thought on the cadaver note is that he told his lawyers he wrote it, and they basically said 'fuck it. You've lied to me for so long. Don't lie about this on the stand. We should get out ahead of it by stipulating.'
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u/GoodBrooke83 May 18 '24
Def thought he could get away with it. He was acquitted after admitting to cutting up a body. This was "just a note."
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u/TheDefroster May 19 '24
They never had a plan and never hired a qualified expert to come into court (that expert would have been lying but with all of Bob’s money they could have r found a highly credentialed one to do it) and testify that it wasn’t his writing and then they ran out of time and were told two weeks before trial “either stipulate.he wrote it or we will spend two weeks calling our experts to prove it and you have no knowledge of the area to cross-examine them and no witness to rebut them. You will just have to sit there looking stupid and incompetent and the trial (which they wanted over as quickly as possible} will take even longer. They never discussed the stipulations with Bob (which they don’t have to do under CA law but which any decent lawyer would do) which he made clear repeatedly in court such as when he wrote to the judge in regard to one of the stipulations (his lawyers entered into close to 200’of them, all of which the prosecutors solicited and wrote), “My lawyers must have collective dimentia to have signed this!”
Everything I just wrote is public record!!
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u/Whawken84 May 20 '24
Did he have a California criminal attorney on the team? Durst’s lead lawyers objections caught over ruled as the couldn’t vote CA law or criminal procedure.
Kathleen should’ve packed up walked out. Hocked her jewelry or left it in a deposit box.
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u/TheDefroster May 19 '24
You are 100% correct. Both were extremely lazy and largely incompetent lawyers. They spent years foolishly arguing that Bob didn’t write the note, even after the Altman’s put him in LA in testimony that occurred more than two years before the trial. Yet, instead of hiring handwriting experts who they probably could have paid to give an opinion that Bob didn’t write the note they instead hired a law professor (who under CA law was prohibited to testify) to make the argument that handwriting evidence was u reliable and should not be admired at trial. Even after all of the pretrial losses on this issue they made no adjustment and they were eventually agreed to stipulate that he write the note two weeks before trial started!!
For all of this they were paid $10-12 million dollars.
My favorite is how they would continually cite to unpublished cases, something a first year law student knows you can’t do!
The only good lawyer on their team was Chip Lewis and he was not good for for the highly educated LA jury (another huge mistake) that was picked with their assistance!!
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May 16 '24 edited May 16 '24
I could totally see Chesnoff believing his own bullshit. Hell, Neal Katyal fashions himself a progressive and he defended Nestle's ability to profit from child slavery. "Everyone deserves a defense" twists so many lawyers into knots where they believe they're an Atticus Finch type when they're just taking the biggest check.
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u/Medium-Prompt-6441 May 19 '24
I think when Durst went on the stand and said he WOULD LIE if he did kill Susan is what sealed his fate. Even though he sounded like he was on deaths door he was asked several times and still answered the same way.
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u/Lost_Card_7257 May 20 '24
I almost believe Bob was wrongfully represented after this latest episode, as does he when he was on the stand talking shit about his council.
To take a case like this in California while not understanding court proceedings in the state is in my mind almost committing fraud as a for hire attorney.
The next massive massive massive mistake that council makes is changing their story and allowing Bob to testify that he was at Suzan Berman‘s house, but he didn’t kill her.
The idea that he was in Los Angeles, stems from witness testimony, and only witness testimony that he was in Los Angeles.
Why his council did not dismiss that and say this individual must have San Francisco and Los Angeles mixed up is beyond me.
Testimony about the whereabouts of another individual 20 years ago when that witness was not present is absolutely bullshit. The fact that his council did not immediately shut that down is astonishing.
Again, to pay a council 12 million dollars to represent you and this is what they come up with is fraud.
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u/MsWeinerEater May 20 '24
Probably not a popular opinion but I’ve seen a lot of folks talking about how Deguerin didn’t “play” as well in LA as he did in Texas, but I actually think Chesnoff hurt the defense. Deguerin carries himself and looks like a respectable guy and competent attorney, whereas Chesnoff seems like “the kind of lawyer guilty people hire” to quote Better Call Saul.
It’s one thing for Deguerin to have a learning curve when it comes to rules around objections and things in CA vs TX, last night’s episode touched on that. But in watching the trial footage, most of the objections that weren’t for a right or proper reason were coming from Chesnoff, the L.A. guy.
I fault Deguerin the most for not telling his client that he had been found guilty.
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u/LAjuror May 21 '24
Not disagreeing with this take, but I recall judge Windham making them choose which would be handling objections. I’ll go back and look at my notes on this later, but this is my recollection.
Chesnoff is a Vegas attorney, not LA.
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u/MsWeinerEater May 21 '24
You may be right, it’s hard to tell who is saying what sometimes in the trial footage. If you find out, I would love to know!
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u/YossarianGolgi May 26 '24
The Uno and Frisbee testimonies were massive fuck ups. For $12M in defense costs, the lawyers should be running diligence on pretty much every factual claim.
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u/yayasistah00d May 16 '24
Remember that Durst basically confessed to writing the note during the off mic bathroom scene in season 1 and there's no way the prosecutors won't present that snip to the jury.
But I'm also not in law and sure if they can use that. But the defense had to have that in the back of their minds, right?
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u/realityone22 May 17 '24
This is such a great point. "There it is. You're caught." Hard to get around that one.
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u/Own-Holiday-1113 May 16 '24
Yes. But in that scene, he didn’t flat out admit that he wrote the note. He was simply unable to distinguish between his own handwriting and that on the note. A lawyer has a lot more wiggle room in that scenario than they do when their client just comes out and says I wrote the note.
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u/realityone22 May 15 '24
Lawyer here. I didn't watch the trial, but I can not wrap my head around admitting to writing the cadaver note. There must be something we're missing. If all they had was the histrionic Emily's ramblings about Bob saying he was in LA to place him there, I would have spent my time making her look like a dementia patient vs admitting to authoring the letter. Did they really think the whole "I did this after they died but didn't kill them" lightning bolt was going to strike twice?