Heffernan Case Summary

As new assistant district attorney, Heffernan was tasked with reviewing a case on whether or not it should be retried. The defendant had been found guilty of murder; however, during the course of the trial the judge had made a legal error. The defendant had given testimony that he had reacted in self-defense. The defendant’s attorney had requested that the judge instruct the jury in what is considered justifiable use of deadly force and then let the jury decide whether the defendant had spoken the truth or not about acting in self-defense. In this case the judge made an error by denying that instruction.
Heffernan knew that it was very possible the appeals court would reverse the conviction due to this legal error. This would be a predicament as many of the witnesses had moved or disappeared during the year and a half between the trial and appeal. The prosecutors could have read the witness statements but this would not have been as compelling. A conviction would be much more difficult to attain and the situation could lead to possibly setting a guilty man free. There was also the issue that if the prosecutor’s office decided to challenge the appeal that the result would most likely be the denial of retrial. This would not address the fact that a legal right had been denied to the defendant. So by backing the …show more content…
He held conversations with his peers on the process of challenging an appeal and the general outcomes of such a process and found that often a court would uphold the ruling so as to not have an undesirable outcome. It would uphold the conviction without an opinion so that it was unnecessary for the appeals court to give a reason for denying the appeal. This option was attractive as Heffernan worried that the prosecution would be at a significant disadvantage in a retrial, to the point that the defendant could go