A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client
I always heard that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. It is true. I learned this first hand.
First, you are too emotionally involved to be objective as you need to be.
Secondly, you cannot think fast enough because of your emotional response to the bad things being said about you. And in my case, I could not believe how dishonest the prosecutors and judges were. They made no attempt to follow any laws and knew that they did not have to do so. The prosecutors deliberately concealed evidence and the judge supported them in doing this. Perjury was the norm for the prosecution and their witnesses. I shall never forget how I reacted emotionally and silently when the prosecutor stated to the judge, “You honor, she has been a social worker and a lawyer. She has been a criminal for a decade.” To this southern prosecutor, the fact that a Black would enter their territory as a licensed attorney and social worker was criminal activity. It was not going to be tolerated. I knew that the only evidence the prosecution had was my legal files seized without a warrant from my home, office and car. I knew that I had not committed a crime with my activity. I did not know the prosecution and how the court and judges would falsify and conceal evidence. They would tamper with the evidence and coach witnesses to lie. I had been practicing law for awhile but I had never seen anything like Brazos County and the 10th Court of Appeals. In the end there will be ten trial transcripts. Every time I mount an appeal or contest something, they create a new record or alter the current one. The ordinary person who hires a lawyer does not stand a chance against the corrupt prosecutors of today in Texas. I have never seen anything like it. For example, they used a loan payment sent to me by a “friend” as an extraneous offense. I went into Heritage Bank because they would not verify the check over the phone. I went to Dallas to verify the check because I was not going to deposit this check into my account without verifying whether it was good. I specifically told the bank that I only wanted to verify the check. I did not want to cash it. The check was still in its FedEx envelop from Canada. I gave the police the telephone number of my friend who had his friend loan me the money. He told them that he did not know the check was not good. I was not the maker of the check and did not know the person who wrote the check. The police did not bring charges as they stated in the record that I did not appear to know that the check was not good and was only trying to verify it. Brazos County stated that they intended to prosecute me for forgery of a financial instrument for this check and used it as an extraneous offense during my trial. They brought police witnesses from Dallas who presented the report that no charges would be pursued in Dallas for this loan payment which was not good. They seized this check from my legal files in my home and this was the basis of their claim. They alleged an intent to prosecute me for possession of a forged instrument even though the document was more than one year old at the time and could not be cashed by anyone and I only had a copy of the check in my files. They were trying to use this copy for their prosecution and the judge allowed it over my running objection against extraneous offenses which had not been declared before trial and there had been no final conviction or charges brought of any kind anywhere. Additionally, the prosecutor used another loan check that I paid the investor $2000.00 to obtain for me from a law firm in Arkansas. I flew to Arkansas on American Airline to verify the check from the USA Bank when they would not verify the check over the phone. This cost me $500.00. The police seized and concealed the airline ticket from American Airline and all correspondence from the bank which included a stop payment on the check that was one year old. The check could no longer be cashed in the United States per banking laws. ( Article 4) I was told by the bank that the check was good. However they alleged that they could not find the signature card to verify. This did not sound good to me. They offered to give me $8000.00 in cash and a cashier’s check for the balance of the $20,000. I refused to take it because I knew that I was planning to spend the money right away. If it were no good( the check), I would be in deep trouble as I could not pay the money back. I would not take the money. I left with the understanding that the bank would call me next week if the signature card could be located. I called a week later and was advised by the bank to deposit the check and allow it to be cleared normally. A stop payment was issued on the check. The prosecutor seized the stop payment and all data from the transaction and concealed it from the jury as well as my ticket from American Airlines to verify the check. The trial judge allowed the prosecution to present extraneous offenses without notice to the defense to show intent to defraud. These checks were in my home and were seized by the police without a warrant. The sworn testimony on the record by Lt. Arnold was that “we had to engage in warrantless searches of her home, office and car in order to obtain enough evidence to sustain a warrant. Moreover the prosecution concealed that all of the exhibits for extraneous offenses were seized by the police in warrantless searches of my home, office and car and were never presented anywhere for deposit, transfer or cashing. In fact, the prosecution and police were upset that I did not just deposit the checks in my account. The Secret Service Agent Napolitano testified under oath that I should have deposited the checks in my account instead of verifying them over the phone or using the procedure that I did which was to see bank management and request verification of the check before trying to cash it. Lt. Arnold in sworn testimony under oath stated, “who goes into a bank and asks if this is a good check?” He was mocking my behavior of verifying checks before doing anything with them. I have always been naturally cautious.
The testimony of law enforcement under oath supports the notion that there was a “government sting” involved and I was not behaving as expected. To me, my law license was more valuable than money. I was not going to risk my license for a few dollars. My license was worth more than the $5800.00 that I was prosecuted for. To them, all blacks are stupid and I was a black; therefore, I was stupid. Other evidence supports the notion of a “government action of some kind”. On the way back from Madrid, I sat next to a DSL Attorney who reported that this was the way he got cash flow. He used the invitations on the internet. I told him that I always thought those type of things were scams. He assured me that they were not all scams. He went into selecting to respond based on private versus free e-mails. When I got home, I looked at the e-mails. They reported that this was a new program per a newly signed treaty. I contacted the IRS to verify this and they assured me that it was a legitimate program. They cited the IRS Code and told me that they would send me the publications. The IRS Agent told me how much taxes to deduct for each country that I might be dealing with per the e-mails. Later IRS denied this conversation. However, I always took down the agents numbers and dates. The police seized all of my personal notes and my daily planner with all my contacts and notes.
When you represent yourself, you do not have a buffer. This is important when dealing with law enforcement and the government. I believe Lt. Arnold when he testified that he had been working with a federal task force and they provided him with the counterfeit documents to use for the search warrant.
Perhaps the Morton Act will help me. I know that I will never represent myself again in anything major if I can help it.
