Lawyering JonBenet

Lawyers are required as officers of the court to inform the authorities if their client is about to commit a crime. The Ramseys were about to, and in the process of, commiting several crimes relating to the coverup, such as falsely reporting a federal crime and interfering with an investigation, etc. If Bynum, knowing this, didn't report it to law enforcement, he would have lost the ability to practice any type of law, should he have been caught. I doubt Bynum would have taken that chance for John Ramsey or anyone else. If John Ramsey even attempted to tell Bynum what was really going on, Bynum would have cut him off and said "STOP - By law, I can't be privy to that information."

 

The only time a lawyer or shrink is legally obligated to notify authorities is when a client informs them he intends to commit a crime of any sort, including suicide. The point being to ensure public safety.

In this country our legal system operates on the presumption of innocence. Guilt MUST BE PROVEN in a court of law. Until it is, we are all presumed innocent. So any confession to a lawyer is NOT a finding by a jury of a client's peers of guilt and therefore, the lawyer cannot prepare any defense of that client based in guilt. A lawyer has a legal obligation to prepare that client's defense to uphold his presumed innocence and place the burden of proving otherwise on the prosecutor.

 

Deja Nu

"So any confession to a lawyer is NOT a finding by a jury of a client's peers of guilt and therefore, the lawyer cannot prepare any defense of that client based in guilt. A lawyer has a legal obligation to prepare that client's defense to uphold his presumed innocence and place the burden of proving otherwise on the prosecutor."

Thanks for this explanation. I would wager that Haddon, Morgan, etal. knew who killed JonBenet before her body was found.



.

 

Spade, one thing on which I'm sure we'll agree is that if JR and PR told Haddon et al the same story we've all heard, they surely knew who killed JB. And yes, I agree that the call was most likely made before the body was "found" the first time......

 

I think John Ramsey could have gotten information from Bynum without putting him in that position.

He might have asked him about the law regarding accidents. Child molestation. Age related questions. What would happen if he tried to take his family out of state? What would happen if an accident was reported to LE? What would happen if a child was taken to the emergency room and found to have been sexually abused?

I mean, just for instance. Bynum could have figured out a lot from the questions and quided his answers.

I have also wondered if perhaps Dr. Beuf was called in the night, as well.

And let me say, I have NOTHING to suggest this happened except the circumstances we are all aware of and the never subpoenaed phone records, including the blank one that finally showed up a year later "volunteered" by the Ramseys.

But in the absence of fact, one only has speculation. If Hunter had done his job and the Ramseys had helped LE all along, I wouldn't have to speculate.

 

I sincerely doubt that John and Patsy Ramsey called Mike Bynum at midnight to tell him, "Hey, we're going to be killing our daughter tonight and need to get some legal advice." Come on, that's just too far fetched.

But would they call their lawyer friend early in the morning to say, hey, we accidentally killed our daughter and need some really good legal advice? Yeah, happens all the time. Did Bynum coach them through writing the ransom note, staging the crime scene, wiping the body down? No, again too far fetched. And the Ramseys aren't stupid people. They are both clever, cunning and highly intelligent. And let us not forget that John Douglas' Mind Hunter book was found right on John's bedside table. For anyone not familiar with that book, Douglas is a retired FBI profiler who wrote about his work in some very infamous cases. One particularly had features of the crime that appear to be duplicated in the Ramsey case.

To implicate any of the Ramsey lawyers in the commission of this homicide is wrong, wrong, wrong. To implicate them in any cover up or staging of this homicide is wrong, wrong, wrong. To suspect they knew what happened before the police were called is logical, reasonable and probable, which is most likely why phone records were not found. Be careful where you tread, FFJ'ers. :nono:

 

I agree with Deja Nu that it's very unlikely that the Ramseys would have called in the middle of the night for legal advice before setting up the staging, but I do think, they probably called in the morning. Maybe they didn't even tell him everything - maybe they just said something about JB being missing and added some little tidbits about wondering if it might be a pedophile somehow related to her pageants (more staging) and that they were worried that someone might somehow try to blame one of them if JB turned up dead?
I wonder if Bynum had advised John to have a witness for all the things you mentioned (and then nearly had a heart attack when he found out who the witness was.)

Giving them a lot of time to get those particular ducks in a row.

And, wouldn't the parents be screaming to anyone who would listen to try to find those phone records that could potentially be instrumental in catching the 'perpetrator'? So why didn't they?

Guess it doesn't work that way if you already know who the perpetrator is.

 

Not only that, but wouldn't you want to have the phone records checked, JUST IN CASE, this "killer" had called that number at any time, even as a "wrong number", just to make sure John answers, or to verify that it was John's phone. I get wrong numbers on my phone, don't you, wouldn't they?

For that alone, I'd be screaming to check the records to assure that any number that may have called it was thoroughly checked.

 

I do suspect they knew what happened before the police were called. And if they did, something seems wrong with that to me. I don't see how they could be implicated in the commission of the homicide or any staging, but cover-up ... if they did know before the police did, it looks like cover-up to me. It's not?

 

Deja, I don't think anyone was saying that John and Patsy called Bynum (or any other lawyer) BEFORE JonBenet was killed. I didn't get that implication from what was posted. I think when they said the lawyers might have been called during the "night," they were including the early morning hours (when it was still dark) after JonBenet had been fatally injured.

Once again, no one suggested Bynum (or anyone else) coached them through staging the crime scene. I think the suggestion was that they may have called Bynum to get an idea of the legal consequences BEFORE the crime scene was staged, but they didn't go into details with Bynum, just generalities, and certainly never touched on the actual subject of JonBenet's death or crime scene staging.

I don't think anyone was implicating the lawyers in the commission of a homicide or in the staging of the crime scene. From what I saw in the posts, everyone was pretty much saying what you said ... that it is logical, reasonable and probable that the Ramseys called their lawyers SOMETIME before the police were called.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I didn't see any FFJers cross a line or tread where they shouldn't. I understand your natural inclination to defend your comrades in law, but I don't know why it's wrong, wrong, wrong to suspect ANYTHING considering what we know of the corruption in this case.

JMO. Please don't hurt me. cguru:

 

another one bites the dust

If Mike Bynum was called prior to the 911 call, then the theory that JR wasn't in on the staging bites the dust. Unless the call was just to say they found a ransom note and ask if they should call the cops. If that is the case then Mike Bynum let them down because he should have advised them to call AG security first and if not that, to at least make sure to advise the cops that they had been threatened that the house was being watched and care would need to be taken that not alot of cars park right in front of the house.

 

Fear

“To implicate any of the Ramsey lawyers in the commission of this homicide is wrong, wrong, wrong. To implicate them in any cover up or staging of this homicide is wrong, wrong, wrong. To suspect they knew what happened before the police were called is logical, reasonable and probable, which is most likely why phone records were not found. Be careful where you tread, FFJ'ers.†Deja Nu

“Their stock-in-trade, I've found, always is fear. They try to appear as these wide-eyed, scanning, tenacious, fact-sniffing bulldogs incapable of being tossed off the scent of guilt that leads directly to a perpetrator's incarceration or back pocket, depending on the crime.†Bill Johnson Rocky Mountain News August 30,2006 (writing about Lacy)

“Fear is the mind killerâ€. Frank Herbert Dune

 

A reminder........No Fear = No Beer! :toast:

 

For the record, a new poster started a thread trying to incriminate Bynum as being involved in JB's murder. I immediately challenged this poster with a warning, saying unsubstantiated accusations against peripheral players in this crime, who have not been named as a suspect or even hinted at as being under the umbrella, will not be tolerated at FFJ. The poster then threw a slam at me for stating FFJ's position on accusing people of committing crimes with no evidence to back it up. The first post got the poster warned. The second post got her banned. As far as I can see, no one on this thread has accused any of the Ramsey lawyers or any other lawyers of being involved in any crime.

 

And that's exactly what I was saying ... except you said it so much better.

 

"I understand your natural inclination to defend your comrades in law,"

My post was not to defend any lawyer and certainly not the likes of Hal Haddon. My post was to protect FFJ and Tricia from suits on the basis of claiming Burke Ramsey killed his sister or that the Ramsey lawyers knew she had been killed by someone in the family and helped to cover it up. I'm glad to hear, WY, that someone who did was banned. Let us remember as we discuss various topics that we are not the only ones reading here. There is a VAST difference, Spade, between wisdom and fear, i.e., fools rush in.....

 

Deja Nu

"My post was not to defend any lawyer and certainly not the likes of Hal Haddon. My post was to protect FFJ and Tricia from suits on the basis of claiming Burke Ramsey killed his sister or that the Ramsey lawyers knew she had been killed by someone in the family and helped to cover it up."

Perhaps you can point out ANY post that you feel places FFJ and /or Tricia in jeoprady of litigation. Hope you also can explain why having an opinion that the Ramsey lawyers knew who killed JonBenet is grounds for a lawsuit.

 

Hmmmm, I don't remember the hat, but WY and I were "on duty" when they came aboard. We both had our fingers on the "ban button" after that first post about Mike Bynum. WY gave them a warning, and they got snitty with a whole bunch of insulting stuff, and WY kicked them out toot sweet. I think it was when the board was going crazy right after Lacy set Karr free. Suddenly, all the people with personal perps came out of the woodwork saying, well if it's not Karr, then it has to be _________ .

I'm afraid you missed A LOT of good stuff during the two weeks of the Karr fiasco! There were bodies and hats flying everywhere. I was getting about four hours of sleep a night, and that's probably more than WY and Moab got. It was quite a ride, but worth it all to see the truth finally coming out after all these years.

 

I honestly don't remember what the poster's hat was, but the fugly attitude was very clear. Oh, it just came to me - was it Truthseeker? Or am I thinking of someone else?