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The defendant is accused of the May 2010 beating death of his ex-girlfriend, Yeardley Love.
Both the victim and the accused played lacrosse at the University of Virginia (this fact will be become important, at least to the defense, in a moment).
This case, and others like it, looks like it will come down to not the interpretation of the law, but the use of terminology by both sides.
When the Commonwealth of Virginia prosecutor called it a murder committed as part of a jealous rage, the defense suggested that "she died in a tragic accident.
" When Huguely stole the victim's computer and threw it into a dumpster on the night of the murder, he did it, said the prosecutor, to cover up the e-mails he had sent her.
The defense countered that throwing away her computer was Huguely's way of trying to get Love to "reach out to him" the morning after their fight.
An April 30, 2010 e-mail he sent to Love before her murder said, "A week ago, you said you would get back together with me if I stopped getting so drunk, and then you (are unfaithful).
I should have killed you.
" The prosecution says Huguely was upset because she had had a relationship with a male lacrosse player from the University of North Carolina.
What the Commonwealth attorney called a threat to harm her, the defense attorney defined not as a threat, but "innocent idiom.
" Okay.
So thusly defined, "I should have killed you" has the same semantic weight as, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" or "I could kill for a cigarette right now"? The prosecution says Huguely kicked in Love's bedroom door and shook her so violently that she suffered brain damage.
His attorney described it as the two having had a "physical encounter.
" He said, "George never, never, never had any intent to kill her.
" He told the jury in his opening statement that Huguely was incapable of a murder plot.
"He's not complicated.
He's not complex.
He's a lacrosse player.
" (I wonder if Huguely, sitting alongside his attorney, suddenly realized, "Hey! Wait a minute! He just called me a stupid jock!") Huguely's attorney urged the jury to consider his client capable of involuntary manslaughter (in light of this "tragic accident") and not premeditated murder.
Potato - potatoe, tomato - tomatoe, murder - manslaughter.
Having been a cop for longer than a week, I realize the function for some members of the defense bar is to provide a vigorous and spirited argument on behalf of their clients, that either the law is wrong, the evidence is wrong, the police were wrong, the prosecution is wrong, or the Constitution is wrong.
"Everybody's entitled to a good defense, his or her day in court," or so we have been told for over a century.
But there are some defense attorneys I know who are both realistic and truthful about their clients when they are indeed guilty of the crimes they committed.
To them, it's not about using various verbal tricks with the jury, but about getting the defendant into the system (mental health, penal, or probation) in a way that is supportive of their rights but also doesn't delay justice or deny the obvious.
In the Huguely case, the jury is not being told the cops arrested the wrong guy, only that he didn't mean to do what the prosecutor has charged him with.
So is this a case of intent or is it just semantics.
There is an old joke, often told among cops and prosecutors about defense attorneys: "You guys could get sodomy plead down to following too close.
" I recall first hearing this in the 1979 Al Pacino movie, "And Justice for All," but it's popular with cops and courthouse people everywhere.
Many pleas happen because of the time-honored and wearying phrase, "in the interest of justice," which is coded language for, "our courts, jails, and prisons are way, way too crowded, so let us cut a deal where you admit to either a lesser version or fewer examples of what we all know you did.
" Ergo, the guy who commits 120 cases of car burglary (with all of the stolen car stereos, IPads, purses, etc.
stupidly still in his possession) takes a plea for five of them and gets one year in the County Jail.
In California, it's common for first-time drunk drivers to plead guilty to what is called a "wet reckless.
" This is defined as reckless driving and being drunk in public, two connected but unrelated charges which, taken separately, make it seem like the defendant drove around committing a few traffic infractions, then hours, days, or weeks later, got out of his or her car and wandered around the streets drunk until discovered and arrested by the cops.
In reality, the drinking and the driving happened in the same moment, but "in the interest of justice," this plea is a popular solution.
I testified as an expert in a civil case where a man who was employed as a janitor at an apartment complex had sexually assaulted a maid, who worked there cleaning some of the tenants' apartments.
The suspect had a prior conviction for rape, which was not discovered because his employer did no background check on him.
He had forced this woman into a small storage closet in the building's parking garage, where he exposed himself to her and made her touch him in a sexual way.
The defense attorney for the apartment complex asked me to describe my understanding of this case of sexual battery and I did.
He replied, "You mean, kind of like two teenagers would do, out on Lover's Lane?" as if to imply the maid had consented to this behavior.
Before I could answer with a firm no, I heard several members of the jury gasp in astonishment at his rude portrayal of a near-rape.
Suffice to say, his side got creamed in punitive damages.
My nominee for Defense Attorney of the Century is Roy Hill.
His client, Amy Bishop, opened fire at a February 12, 2010 faculty meeting in a conference room at the University of Alabama.
She killed three colleagues and wounded three others.
Mr.
Hill gets my vote because he did not deny what his client did, and actually said she was "crazy" (his word) in a televised interview.
He made this statement about a woman who allegedly "accidentally" killed her brother with a shotgun in 1986, and may have sent two pipe bombs to a colleague she hated in Boston in 1993.
Mr.
Hill plans an insanity defense for his client and I thank him for his honesty about the real possibility that her deteriorating mental health was and has been the cause of her actions, not that the cops arrested the wrong person or mishandled the blood evidence.
The most positive function of a defense attorney is to intervene on those rare but troubling occasions when the cops do arrest the wrong person, or when victims or witnesses intentionally or reluctantly finger the wrong person, or the lab people make huge and critical mistakes in their handling of crucial evidence.
The need for defense attorneys to protect the rights of the falsely arrested, falsely accused, or falsely convicted is obvious, necessary, and historical.
But a lot of the public seem to deeply despise criminal defense attorneys for their use of words that suggest it's always someone else's fault.
Wouldn't it be faster, more refreshing, and allow us all to be more supportive of the defense bar in general to hear more of them say, "My guy did it.
He's sorry about it (or he isn't).
My job is to move this case through the justice system in a way that tries to protect his rights, but to provide closure to both sides by being honest about what happened.
" Source: USA Today, February 9, 2012, "E-mail: 'I should have killed you," by Erik Brady.
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