Legal opinion of the plot of the movie 'Con Air.'

But the authorities would not even know for sure there were actually two other men.

Why would they run? Because Poe had just defeated both of them, and knocked the third man unconscious to the ground. Them running would not prove their guilt.

 

That does not matter. The man who is dead cannot give his side of the story.

What probably happened is that Poe made an initial statement to police that he was attacked by three men, but the police were skeptical and still referred it for prosecution.
If this had been a real life situation, it is likely that Poe would not have had another opportunity to tell his side of the story to the court before pleading guilty as part of the plea bargain. He probably had a bad lawyer. Maybe his lawyer was a public defender and was overworked with too many other cases. Something like this would not be entirely unrealistic.

The court system can often be like a conveyor belt. Judges very often do not listen to the defendant or give them any chance to tell their side of the story in the court room. Many people do not realize that.
This man took the plea bargain, so it never came to that stage where all the details of the story would be laid out and unveiled in the courtroom in front of the judge.

 

If you and two friends were at the bar and were attacked by another person and he killed one of your friends and you did nothing wrong why would you flee. Poe is in custody and if you testify you can help get justice for your dead friend.

Also I had to just rewatched the start of the movie but Poe's wife knows them. At minimum she knows the guy that was hitting on her. She said he was a regular. He even said he was a regular hound dog which would make you think that others in the bar know them. All three of them could be clearly seen in the bar. I would have to assume that people in the bar could identify the other two that ran away.

Also I watched up to the sentencing and saw no mention of the other 2 being in hiding or unavailable.

 

There is no doubt his lawyer sucked. Poe wanted to plead innocent and the lawyer convinced him otherwise.

 

They had reason to flee. Poe had just beat them up and defeated them and knocked one of them unconscious.

They may likely not have known that the other man who had been knocked out was actually dead, or maybe they did not care, if they had not personally known him very well. Or maybe they were the type of people who preferred to avoid interaction with police. There are many of these types who frequent bars.

 

Maybe the scene but after he was arrested why not cooperate? Why not give a statement about what happened? You may run home but are you going to leave town?

 

That is such a naive comment, I don't even know where to begin with you.

Please use your brain and think. Why would they go to the police? It's perfectly reasonable that they might not, or might not want to go to the police.

I doubt that the police made any effort to even try to track them down.

Poe did not know their names.

 

Wouldn't the police want to go to them?

 

Oh, how naive you are.

Tracking them down would take lots of work. Think about it from the perspective of police. The police are searching for two men based on the descriptions of Poe and his girlfriend, who might even be lying about there having been two other men. And even if police find the two other men, there is a probability that those men might deny having been there that night.

And even if police can gather all this additional evidence, it might not change the case too much.

 

Isn't that their job?

 

Oh how naive you are.

Police don't have unlimited resources to investigate every possible lead. If this had been first degree murder, it is more likely they might have done more investigation, but what happened here was more like one man killing another man in a fight, not entirely intentionally but because he used excessive force.

So let's suppose police wanted to investigate this lead. Think about what they would have to do. It would likely not be as easy as you think.

 

Most competent lawyers will usually advise their client to take the plea bargain. Unlike what many people think, this does not likely mean that the lawyer gave bad advice.

What the lawyer probably did not do is carefully analyze and think about all the evidence in the case and then present it in a way the judge could easily see other things about the story.

The lawyer probably did not do his due diligence. Because he did not, he did not see the way he could present a strong defense, and so he believed a jury would be likely to convict. If he thought a jury was likely to convict, then getting his client to accept a plea bargain likely would have been the best course of action.

Maybe the public defense lawyer even thought that Poe deserved one or two years in prison, and so he did not want to have to waste his limited time and resources on defending Poe, thinking that Poe would likely be sentenced to only one or two years (which did not turn out to be the case).

 

Please stop being insulting and calling me naive. I make no personal assessment of you.

Your telling me that if someone like Poe, decorated military officer, claims he was attacked by 3 people, one with a knife, the wife and staff knows these people are regulars at the bar and the police have no time to investigate the claim. If they used a credit or debit card they would probably know everything about them. And given that they are regulars you would think someone in the bar would know there names. It also seems like a small town so I wouldn't be surprise if they are well know by the staff or other customers.

 

Hmmm... Seem to be making my case the lawyer sucked.

 

I apologize. What I mean is that your opinions and perspective on this is naive.
By that I do not entirely mean that you are stupid, because for many of these things the majority of people in society probably hold the same naive thoughts on this as you.
The thing is, you just presume the system is fair, when in reality you do not really have a good understanding of how it actually works (theory is different from practice), and so you do not realize all the ways it can often be unfair.

 

Why can't I say the exact say thing about your opinion. Let's take the Poe case and assume it happened 10 times. If we have the situation where Poe and his wife claimed he was attacked by 3 people in the parking lot. The 3 people are probably known to the bar's staff and some patrons. Poe kills one in what he claims is self defense and the other 2 flee and never file a police report. My guess is in my 10 time experiment more often than not the police will try to find the other 2 and question them.

 

I think she was his girlfriend, not wife. It's unclear the police interviewed the wife about how much she knew about those other men, which probably would not have been much. We do not even know of these other men were regulars at that bar, and even if they were it might still not be easy to track them down. This was a time when many people commonly still paid with cash. It is also very likely that those men might not want to return to that bar for some time.

Unfortunately for you, I am not going to waste my effort here arguing about how easy or difficult it would have been for the police to identify those men.
So maybe it ends right there and we will just have to disagree.

If it is very easy for them to do. It is my contention that is was probably not.

To be able to understand this, you also have to look at what the police thought they would be likely to gain, even if they succeeded in finding those 2 other people.
Those 2 other people might lie and claim they had never been involved in the fight. The 2 other people might lie about what happened. There would probably be no way to know for sure if they were lying, in that situation. So the authorities might not have gained anything from all their work to find those 2 people. Which is more additional reason why they might not have viewed it as worthwhile.

 

It just goes to show that if you ever find yourself to be a character in TV show or movie that you want to be the one with good, and generous, scriptwriters.

 

Did you think it was a documentary?

 

No. Why do you ask?

 

It was a BS judgement. But it was also integral to the movie plot.

 

I think he's just asking about the likelihood that such a BS judgement could occur in real life. And I would say it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

You can read plenty of other threads posted in the Law & Justice section about cases that involved very questionable judgements. You think it's difficult to make a BS judgement when the logic is just a little bit complicated rather than simple, and it's not impossible for them to claim they thought they had adequate reason for deciding the way they did?

If a judge made this decision in real life, there is no way he would be reprimanded or face any consequences. The prisoner would be lucky if the decision even got overturned by another judge.

 

Lots of reasons. Maybe they did something wrong. That still doesn't mean Poe is not guilty. Maybe one of them had a prior warrant for their arrest.

You have to realize they did not immediately know that their friend was actually dead at the time. And they might not even have known that man very well, so it could be possible they would never find out he had died, or they might not care enough to go to police.

The way the prosecutor and judge saw it, it had just been a bar fight. Lots of times the type of people that get into bar fights do not want to take matters to police.

What you are bringing up is mostly a non-relevant factor.

The man who ended up being killed did not flee, and so Poe does not get the benefit of the doubt just because the other men that happened to be with the man that night did.

 

Why are you bringing this up again when the last reply to me was:

It certainly doesn't seem you have changed your mind and are going to start agreeing with me. What makes you think I have changed my mind?

 

What I meant was maybe we would just have to disagree about that specific issue.

I'm sure you are intelligent enough to realize how seemingly normal people who hold government positions of power can come to decisions that you and I both agree are very wrong.