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Originally Posted by FRPLG
I am not a lawyer but from my recollection there were multiple parties involved. 2 of which are Taylor and his associate. He has simply been charged with pointing a gun at one of the other parties. Now the one true legal discussion I read about this was months ago but the only known evidence at that time was the statements of the other parties. The state's attorney attempted to settle with both Taylor and his associate. This was noted as being revealing to some legal analysts as they viewed the attempt to settle with Taylor as an acknowledgement of the weakness of the state's case because the only evidence comes from being made by questionable characters. They also felt that the more serious crime commited has been attributed to Taylor's associate as he was charged with actually swining a bat at the other parties. The attempt to settle with Taylor's associate was seen as two fold. First it was another sign of the perceived weakness of evidence and second it was felt that the attempt was also a play to turn Taylor's associate; again another sign of weakness. Both Taylor and his associate did not settle. The basic consensus at the time I read this article was that one of two things will happen. Either Taylor will get off or he will settle to a much lower charge. A charge not requiring a mandatory 3 year sentence. This is of course assuming there was no unknown evidence and again this was months ago. I'd love if someone had a more recent outline of the case as it stands now.
I might be optimistic but when a prosecutor doesn't seem too eager to go to trial I am thinking he may know that he is going to have to settle at best. The prosecutor hasn't fought too hard against any continuances and he certainly can't still be investigating. It is a pretty basic situation. I would think if he felt he had an airtight case he'd be more eager to get this done. I hope.
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FRPLG, nice post, you reminded me of some things. I had forgotten about the prosecution's attempt to settle. We may not know the evidence against Taylor (and I guess we might never know what the evidence is since we're not lawyer's with the DA's office down there). But the attempt at settlement by the prosecution is pretty telling; but Taylor's rejection of the settlement is even more telling. If a prosecutor tries to settle, his case could be weak, or maybe he's just got too many other cases on hand and just wants to clear a couple off his desk. The fact that Taylor and his lawyer decided to reject the plea seems to indicate that they too feel that the state's case is weak. I think if any good defense lawyer thought there was a chance Taylor could get convicted in a trial, he would advise Taylor to take the plea. But he didn't. We may not know the evidence, but I think that's pretty telling. You're right, he's probably good to go.
Anybody know when the trial date is?