Koehler Law client found not guilty after D.C. simple assault trial

A Koehler Law client was acquitted of simple assault after trial last week in D.C. Superior Court.

Our client was charged with simple assault after he was accused of threatening another person with a knife.

The case was the second of two misdemeanor trials heard by the same judge that day. Both trials resulted in not-guilty verdicts.

Back-to-back trials as a Philadelphia public defender

Back when I was a public defender in Philadelphia, we used to do back-to-back trials in misdemeanor court.

On my best day, I had two not-guilty verdicts, one right after the other. This feat even drew grudging praise from Stuart Schuman, our notoriously difficult-to-please misdemeanor supervisor.

We had certain informal rules about trying cases back then.

The first was that you never wanted your trial to follow an acquittal. The thinking was that judges, being human, might be reluctant to acquit two defendants in a row for fear of appearing biased toward the defense.

The second was that you never wanted to try a case with a supervisor from the prosecutor’s office sitting in the courtroom.

Just as defense lawyers were conscious of our own supervisors watching us, we worried that a judge might be reluctant to rule against a young prosecutor whose performance was being monitored.

A recent trial in D.C. Superior Court proved both of these theories wrong.

Two misdemeanor trials in D.C. Superior Court

The misdemeanor courtrooms at D.C. Superior Court are very different from the chaos I remember from Philadelphia.

Judges generally take the bench on time. They know the law. And the judges, courtroom clerks and U.S. Marshals treat the people appearing before them with respect.

It is also unusual for a judge to conduct multiple trials in a single day.

When two or more cases are ready for trial, the assigned judge will typically keep one case and “cert” the other cases to judges who have time available on their calendars.

On this particular day, my simple assault case was competing for the court’s attention with an unlawful entry case being handled by one of my colleagues.

Both of us wanted our cases tried before the assigned judge, a former public defender who is knowledgeable, pleasant and experienced in criminal matters.

We were therefore pleased when the judge agreed to hear both cases, one after the other.

The first trial results in an acquittal

My colleague’s unlawful entry case went first.

The prosecutor failed to have the government’s witness identify the defendant in court. When the omission was pointed out during closing argument, the judge declined to allow the government to reopen its case.

The verdict came quickly:

Not guilty.

I was happy for my colleague and his client. At the same time, I remembered that old Philadelphia rule about never wanting your case to follow an acquittal.

Then I looked behind me.

A supervisor from the U.S. Attorney’s Office was sitting quietly in the back of the courtroom, apparently observing the prosecutors.

Now both of my old public-defender superstitions were in play.

Our D.C. simple assault trial

I need not have worried.

The prosecutor in our case presented the government’s evidence and challenged the character evidence we introduced on our client’s behalf. Character evidence does not arise frequently in misdemeanor trials, and the rules governing its admission can be complicated.

Ultimately, however, the government’s case depended heavily on the testimony of the complaining witness.

Cross-examination exposed problems with that testimony, including the witness’s tendency to exaggerate what had happened.

After hearing the evidence and arguments from both sides, the judge found our client not guilty of simple assault.

Two trials. Two defendants. Two acquittals.

So much for the old Philadelphia rules.

A not-guilty verdict in a D.C. assault case

After the verdict, I met my client, his wife and his son in the hallway outside the courtroom.

I hugged all three of them.

Then we got our client out of the courthouse and on his way home.

There are few things more satisfying for a criminal defense lawyer than walking out of D.C. Superior Court with a client who has just been acquitted.

That is why we do this work.