Should Anne Taylor Be Disbarred?

“How can you defend an obviously guilty client?” is a question that must surely be asked of defence attorneys the world over every day.

It is a reasonable question that has a nuanced answer. To begin with, who says the accused is guilty, and if he is so obviously guilty, why bother with a trial?

The fact is that many defendants who appear to be guilty, when the evidence against them is absolutely overwhelming, turn out to be innocent. Back in the 1950s, Dr Bodkin Adams was charged with murdering two of his elderly patients and, rumour had it, he had killed many more. When however he stood trial for the first murder, the defence was able to prove that the elderly woman he was supposed to have killed and had been given a year to live after suffering a stroke, had survived for two and a half years under his care.

After the defence was also able to produce the report books of her nurses, the prosecution case fell apart, and indeed it appeared that these women had been coached by the prosecution.

After the doctor’s acquittal, the trial judge suggested he might entertain a bail application if the defence were inclined to make one. The Crown dropped the second murder indictment, and Dr Adams walked free.

In this case, no crime had been committed, but what about when there is absolutely no doubt? In May 2001, Linda Carty murdered a young mother, smothering her with a plastic bag in the trunk of her car. This was a bizarre case; Carty had wanted to steal the victim’s baby and pass it off as her own, a foetal abduction, but by the time she was able to recruit a gang of miscreants to kidnap Joana Rodriguez, the young mother had given birth.

Carty and her co-defendants were arrested in short order, and because this was Texas, the death penalty was on the table. Realising that without Carty there would have been no crimes at all (a home invasion robbery, violent assaults and the kidnapping as well as the murder which was committed by her alone), the State offered her co-defendants reduced sentences if they testified against her.

Judge Carol Davies of the 17^th District Court appointed Jerry Guerinot to defend Carty. The former Windi Akins was appointed as co-counsel. Carty was uncooperative but insisted she was innocent, that she had been framed by wicked drug dealers. In view of the evidence against her, this put Guerinot in a difficult position. He had Carty examined by a psychologist, but in spite of telling him he did not believe his client lived in the real world, Guerinot was told there was no evidence of mental disease.

When the case came to trial, his strategy was to blame Carty’s co-defendants; he didn’t dare put her on the witness stand. She was convicted and sentenced to death.

Guerinot’s reward for doing his best for an obviously guilty client was to be slandered on both sides of the Atlantic years later.

The case of Bryan Kohberger was not so clear initially; the first piece of evidence against him was DNA. After butchering his four young victims in that Moscow student house, he left in a hurry, apparently forgetting the knife sheath. Some stellar work by the FBI and the interrogation of non-criminal DNA databases produced a match - the DNA on that knife sheath belonged to the son of a man who had donated his own DNA.

Following an extensive investigation, Bryan Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania and extradited to Idaho. DNA evidence is compelling, but it can be challenged successfully because DNA profiling is not a science, rather it is an art that has been dressed up by scientists and presented to the public as magic. In practice, a DNA profile is lines on a piece of paper. If there is a large quantity - if for example a burglar cuts himself breaking a window when he enters a building and leaves several drops of blood - that will yield a conclusive match. With tiny quantities however, there can be problems.

After she was appointed as Kohberger’s attorney, Anne Taylor did not attempt to challenge the DNA evidence. She did though apply successfully for a change of venue. This was an uncontroversial application, one that was granted. Local prejudice might have been an issue with a jury. This though was about the only uncontroversial application she did make. The most absurd, so absurd that Judge Hippler could barely suppress a laugh when dismissing is, was to exclude the DNA evidence on privacy grounds.

Taylor also wanted the familial DNA evidence suppressed because the police obtained it without applying for a warrant.

In law, there is a doctrine known as the fruit of the poisonous tree which is used to exclude evidence that has been obtained illegally. The seldom mentioned rationale behind this is that the police might break in and plant evidence - a murder weapon say - in the home of a suspect. While it is possible to plant DNA evidence, it is hardly possible to alter a suspect’s DNA, which is what appears to be the inference here.

Anne Taylor made many other applications, almost all of which were rejected and the last significant of which was to allow the defense to point the finger at other people (one can hardly call them suspects). These turned out to be men who had some association with the victims. This begs the question, why were these men not on trial instead of Bryan Kohberger?

That having failed, along with the suppression of her client’s incriminating Internet activity and much else, Anne Taylor offered a plea deal. My client will plead guilty to everything if the death penalty is taken off the table.

The State’s willingness to accept these terms has come in for a great deal of criticism, but the idea that if convicted and sentenced to death, Kohberger would be executed anytime soon is fanciful. The last execution in Idaho was carried out in 2012 for a murder committed in 1984.

Although Anne Taylor was obliged to zealously defend her odious client to the full extent of the law, an attorney is first and foremost an officer of the court. That means that although she can defend a guilty client - even a client who admits his guilt to her alone - she cannot mislead the court. This can be a tricky business to say the least, but if Kohberger admitted his guilt to her, she could not ethically have put him on the stand. In short, she would have to argue that the State had not proven its case but without impugning other witnesses.

This and the fact that she threw in the towel immediately Hippler rejected the alternative suspects nonsense begs the question how long had she known for certain that her client was indeed a mass killer?

It remains to be seen if any action will be taken against Taylor, but at the very least, the State should scrutinise her bill of costs extremely carefully and penalise her for any gratuitous waste.

Finally, look at the image below, is this the way an attorney looks with admiration at a client for the right reason, or does she have the hots for this monster?