Defending People

the art and science of criminal defense trial lawyering

Motion to Change the Facts

Sometimes it’s all you’ve got. [PDF]

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This entry was posted by Mark Bennett on Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About The Author

Mark Bennett
Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.

Comments

5 Responses to “Motion to Change the Facts”

  1. Gideon says:
    29 July 2007 at 4:01 pm

    Beautiful!

    Reply
  2. Justice? : Defending People says:
    28 March 2008 at 7:50 am

    [...] trying to prevent the government from putting the accused in a box. Sometimes nothing (not even a motion to change the facts) will keep the client out of a box. On those occasions the defender tries to make the box as big as [...]

    Reply
  3. Judgie says:
    29 May 2008 at 8:29 am

    Champion Magazine, mid ’80’s. Article by Gary Trichter, the Great American Genius-turned-Buffalo Bill. Only needed a one-page motion then, pointing out that since the American system of justice provides for a fair trial, and since the facts in the case at bar are a lay-down for the prosecution, it would simply be Un-American to proceed to trial based on the facts at hand, thereby necessitating a change in facts. It’s short, sweet, generic, and even a New Mexican could read it.

    Reply
  4. Mark Bennett says:
    29 May 2008 at 10:08 am

    Damn. There really is nothing new under the sun! (I wasn’t reading the Champion back in the mid-80s since, well, I was in high school. . . .)

    Reply
  5. Judgie says:
    29 May 2008 at 1:25 pm

    Mark, don’t feel bad: Trichter, McKinney and Pena all plagiarized (I mean engaged in collaborative writing as we call it after graduating from law school) Trichter in May 1995-you were busy reading that big-assed Texas certificate saying you were finally a real lawyer about then; it’s excusable. Here’s the 1995 quote and cite, though:

    In many DUI cases the prosecution has more than enough inculpatory facts which causes the trial to be a one-sided matter. The American system of justice is supposedly premised on the notion that, like baseball, the game should be played fair by two teams that start out on an equal basis. Accordingly, in situations like this, a Motion to Change the Facts is appropriate so that the defendant has a fighting chance. An example of this motion is shown in Exhibit 22 (Yes, this is the authors’ attempt at humor.)

    Example 28, Trichter, Gary, McKinney, W. Troy and Pena, Michael, DEMONSTRATIVE EVIDENCE IN DUI CASES, 19 Champion 4, 13 (May, 1995)

    Reply

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