Playing a Video of a Lion Trying to Eat a Child in a Simple Robbery Case Will Undo A Conviction

[Elderberry]

prosecutorialaccountability.com by Bert | Apr 4, 2019

TX: Turns Out Playing a YouTube Video of a Lion Trying to Eat a Child in a Simple Robbery Case Will Undo A Conviction

Sometimes it feels like this website provides public service announcements to prosecutors, making it clear what they are not allowed to do. If these announcements strike you as catering to the lowest-common-denominator, well, we don’t really know what to say (except, perhaps, don’t eat yellow snow). This stuff happens in real life. Actual prosecutors—people who have been through law school and presumably passed a bar exam that includes an ethics component—make certain decisions, and those decisions sometimes backfire. With all of that, look at what the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“CCA”) wrote yesterday:

    Playing a video of a lion trying to eat a baby to argue for a high prison sentence in a simple robbery case was an improper use of a demonstrative aid because the video invited an analogy that was not anchored to the evidence presented at trial.

So, yes. That just happened.

We will not occupy your time with a penetrating review of the opinion. It seems like the court’s conclusion says it all. Feel free to click the link for a 22-page analysis of what unfolded. Here, we share some of our initial observations:

More: http://www.prosecutorialaccountability.com/2019/04/04/tx-turns-out-playing-a-youtube-video-of-a-lion-trying-to-eat-a-child-in-a-simple-robbery-case-will-undo-a-conviction/