Ninth Circuit Reversed Yet Again

SCOTUS vindicates a lawyer who had characterized his own client as a "stinking thief jailbird" during trial.


The high court reinstated a conviction in the case of Lionel Gentry, a California man convicted of stabbing his pregnant, drug-addicted girlfriend during an argument.

"To be sure, Gentry's lawyer was no Aristotle, or even Clarence Darrow," the court wrote in a short, unsigned opinion.

Still, the lawyer's choice of words or strategy did not rise to the level of harming his client, the court said. The lawyer may have had good tactical reasons for presenting the case the way he did, the high court added.

"By candidly acknowledging his client's shortcomings, counsel might have built credibility with the jury and persuaded it to focus on the relevant issue in the case," the court said.

A bit of an overrationalization by the Court if you ask me, but the decision does seem to be correct.