TAYLOR'S KILLERS ARE SCARED... AND THEY SHOULD BE

by Kristine, This Suit Is Not Black

Four kids, ages 17, 18, 19 and 20, have been charged in the unpremeditated death of 24-year-old Redskins safety Sean Taylor. They were also charged this weekend with home invasion with a firearm or other deadly weapon and armed burglary. ESPN reports that two of the four have confessed to what they’ve done, but police are saying little more than that the event was a simple burglary gone terribly wrong.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I know a lot about being a lawyer - lawyering, if you will. But based on what Hollywood has taught me, a good defense lawyer should try to paint his or her client as a humane and repentant victim to gain sympathy from the media, the public and, eventually, the jury. The defense lawyers on this case are wasting no time.

“These are young boys who are absolutely terrified about the position in which they find themselves,” said Sawyer Smith, who represents two of the defendants. I’m sure they are terrified. Unfortunately though, my attention sits with Taylor’s fiancee and how terrified she must have felt as she cowered under the sheets holding her baby daughter as men broke into her home. And how that fear turned into panic when she heard her bedroom door get kicked in and her future husband get shot. And the panic that turned to pain when she lost him last Monday morning.

Another lawyer representing one of the youths painted his client as a scared child. “My client has not, I don't think, come to terms with what is being alleged. He's in a position, dressed in the orange jumpsuit over there in the county jail, thinking about his life and thinking about his future. You can only imagine the things going through his mind now."

Yes. Imagine that.

Don’t get me wrong, Taylor was not a saint - he’d had his own run-ins with the law - but for all intents and purposes, the people around him have led us to believe that he was taking a turn for the better. That he was growing into a man, into a husband and into a caring father. These kids, if the confessions are to be believed, shot and killed Taylor, robbing him of his most valuable possession.

So don’t call upon our heartstrings to think about the inner workings of your client’s mind as he ponders his future, especially since helped rob a 24-year-old young man of that very luxury. Your client, sir, should be happy he has one to worry about in the first place.

Maybe this whole thing will help him choose his next venture more carefully.