The attorney for a convicted murderer has introduced a new aspect to the case. The convict may sometimes have trouble trying to “appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct” because of a brain injury. If the attorney is successful in his plea, his client may get an exceptional sentence that reduces his prison term by five years.
In the original trial, the 50-year-old convict pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge involving the death of a man by strangulation in January 2010, in Tumwater, Washington. In light of the possibility of impaired judgment, the attorney has asked for a 10-year sentence, though the prosecution would like 15 years. Under Washington law, the judge can reduce a sentence below the standard range under certain circumstances.
The attorney says the brain injury his client suffered in a motorcycle accident in 2006 affected his “capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired.”
An expert for the defense elaborated on the convict’s condition, saying he had sustained “a severe head injury with ‘bilateral frontal lobe contusions’” and he “bruised the part of his brain responsible for thinking, reasoning and problem-solving,”. “It has been established that [my client] was a law-abiding individual that supported himself and his family before his brain injury,” the attorney wrote in court papers. “After his motorcycle accident, he lost everything. He went from being a law-abiding person to a homeless veteran, brain-damaged and with no family support.”
The convict was invited to stay at the home of his future victim after meeting the victim and his sister at a local welfare office. He was to help them renovate a home on their property.
On the evening of January 14, 2010, the two men were drinking. The victim’s sister testified she heard the men up as late as 4 a.m., still talking. When she woke up, the convict told her he had killed her brother and she ran to her van and drove away. The killer chased her, but she managed to escape.
There are so many factors that can contribute to a crime, and it takes someone with the skill of a New York Criminal Lawyer to untangle them all. A good defense requires tenacity, knowledge, and solid legal ability – a New York Criminal Lawyer possesses them all.