Frye Law - March 2020

Frye Law - March 2020

THE Defender

770-919-9525 • FRYELAWGROUP.COM

MARCH 2020

WHY WE OVERPREPARE FOR EVERY CASE

SOMETIMES IT TAKES 3 TUNNELS TO MAKE 1 ESCAPE

On March 24, 1944, Allied prisoners used a tunnel they dug to escape Stalag Luft III, a German POW camp, but they never would have pulled off the great escape if they hadn’t been relentless in their planning and strategy. They dug three tunnels because they knew that even if two tunnels were discovered, at least one of the three would reach completion. In the end, that’s exactly what happened, and they escaped. Sometimes, that kind of overpreparation is what it takes to get the job done. One of the hallmarks of our firm is relentless defense, and for us, part of going the extra mile is being relentless in our pursuit of information the other side might not have. We don’t like to leave things to chance. We bring in information from a broad array of sources, from the conventional to the unconventional. We use everything available to us. We pull in things like performance reviews, and if there is an expert witness testifying, we try to learn what they’ve published and what they’ve likely been taught. If it’s a serious case and a person has a history of mental issues, we try to find that out beforehand because it can affect their testimony. It’s not unusual for somebody who has been charged with a crime to be a victim of something in their own past that has influenced their bad decisions. If that’s the case, we try to understand that, too. Oftentimes, we help our clients find rehabilitation facilities to help support them so they don’t reoffend. We call in experts, when it’s appropriate, to help our clients get to the root of what is going on so they can understand why they made the decisions that led them to the situation they’re in. We use every single tool available to help our clients succeed because, sometimes, that’s what it takes to get the job done. Right now, I’m reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Talking to Strangers.” In it, Gladwell writes about how difficult it can be for people when somebody acts in a way that conflicts with our expectations. As it turns out, people are no better than the flip of a coin at telling whether or not somebody is lying. That means that if something happened to your loved one and you make an off-color joke because that’s the only way you know how to deal with the situation, people are actually more likely to convict you than if you had committed the awful deed but cried and acted exactly how they’d expect you to act in that situation. In fact, it turns out that computers are much better at telling if people are lying than people are because computers don’t have expectations for behavior.

As a defense attorney, if you can understand the specific challenges your clients have overcome, you might be able to understand how somebody is going to behave in a trial. Sometimes when we learn the difficulties our clients have gone through, we can include that in the resolution of the case, and we can be a lot more successful combating recidivism. Whether we’re scouring journal publications written by an expert witness or working hard with our clients to really understand the root issues that got them into the situation, going the extra mile is part of the fabric of Frye Law Group. Just like it took three tunnels for the Allied soldiers to make just one escape, we do our best to cover every base for our clients, every time. –Kim Keheley Frye

770-919-9525 • 1

Published by The Newsletter Pro • www.TheNewsletterPro.com

FOIA LAWSUITS THAT CHANGED HOW AMERICANS PARTICIPATE IN DEMOCRACY DIGGING FOR THE TRUTH

The Freedom of Information Act, commonly referred to as FOIA, has been a crucial part of the democratic system for decades. It was designed to improve public access to governmental records, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always work as intended. In most cases, requests are only answered if a lawsuit is filed. Nevertheless, FOIA has had a crucial role in many high-profile legal cases. Here are a couple of the most significant ones in American history. A JOURNALIST’S 16 YEARS IN COURT California-based journalist Seth Rosenfeld has had some serious contention with the FBI. In 1985, he filed his first lawsuit against the FBI for ignoring his requests for information about the Berkeley protests of the 1960s. The case was eventually settled in 1996, and Rosenfeld was awarded $560,000 in fees. In their settlement agreement, the FBI agreed to be more thorough with FOIA requests. Rosenfeld filed a second lawsuit in 2007 accusing the FBI of withholding information during former President Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Five years later, he was awarded $479,459 in attorney fees. Rosenfeld is known for having some of the longest-pending FOIA requests and has received over 300,000 pages of FBI documents since the 1980s. THE SCOMM SCANDAL In a landmark FOIA settlement concluded in 2013, the federal government paid $1.2 million to settle a suit brought by several civil rights groups over the Secure Communities (SCOMM) Immigration and Customs Enforcement program. The

litigation exposed a plan to create a multi-agency >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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