Defending People

the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering

Motion to Change the Facts

Some­times it’s all you’ve got. [PDF]

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About The Author

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.

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5 Responses to “Motion to Change the Facts”

  1. Gideon says:

    Beau­ti­ful!

  2. […] 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 […]

  3. Judgie says:

    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.

  4. Mark Bennett says:

    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.…)

  5. Judgie says:

    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)

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