What is a cold case prosecution? A cold case prosecution occurs when years or decades have passed since an alleged crime and a citizen is then charged with the crime. The result of such a passage of time often puts the citizen in an impossible situation where he cannot defend himself and cannot produce an alibi or witness for his defense as often the State seldom can even name a date, month, or year in which the crime occurs.
One would assume if a citizen accused cannot defend themselves from such allegations the prosecution would be unconstitutional and therefore not permitted. Unfortunately the Tennessee Supreme Court does not find an unfair trial a bar to prosecution in most cases.
These cases fall into three categories, 1. Accusatorial delay 2. Prosecutorial delay and 3. failure to give a speedy trial. In categories two and three, the court will only find the prosecution unfair if the state “intentionally caused the delay for tactical advantage”. Unfortunately, under accusatorial delay (when the defendant waits many years or decades before the charges are brought) the accusation the delay need not have occurred in order to gain a tactical advantage and the prosecution has to be deemed fair.
As an attorney for citizens accused of crimes, I strongly feel no prosecution should be allowed if the defendant cannot still fairly defend himself, regardless of the reason.
Two classes of crimes often are brought with such a delay are child sex crimes and murder. Notwithstanding the serious nature of both of these allegations, our nation of freedom and probations against unfair prosecution should never permit significantly delayed prosecutions. Yet, our courts often do and many innocent people are sent to prison over these allegations.
I have successfully defended two prosecutions over 40 years each both resulting in freedom for my client, including one who had been convicted and was serving a life sentence at the time I took his case.
We are currently defending sex abuse allegations resulting from event that allegedly occurred 16 years in the past and 9 years after the alleged “child victim” turned 18 years of age and have defended many other delayed sexual allegations.
There is never an end to society’s knee jerk reactions to lock its own citizens in cages for a lifetime, even decades after an alleged crime is committed. Only the most experienced attorneys have the resources and experience to defend these crimes.
In the defense of the citizen accused,
Frank