Famous Legal Blunders
Even lawyers make mistakes. If you think all attorneys are infallible and incapable of making legal or ethical blunders, read on.
Barry Bonds
In 2008, federal prosecutors in California charged major league baseball player Barry Bonds with failing a steroid test in November of 2001. Since this was only one month after Bonds had broken the home run record for Major League Baseball, it was cause for sensation.
However, it was a mistake. The actual year Bonds failed the test was 2000, not 2001. Bonds attempted to use this error as leverage to dismiss the case, but to no avail. The mistake was quickly clarified and the case moved on.
Andy Warhol
Edward Hayes was not only one of Andy Warhol's legal advisers, he was also a Manhattan lawyer, a former district attorney, and the basis for the character Tommy Killian in the Tom Wolfe novel "The Bonfire of the Vanities."
One of the assets in the estate of Andy Warhol was Interview Magazine, with a circulation of 160,000 at the time of his death. His estate sold this magazine based on a down payment but with the balance guaranteed by promissory note, payable to a company called "Andy Warhol Enterprises Inc."
The only problem was that Hayes had dissolved this company a week before the promissory note was signed, meaning the payments were made to a company that no longer existed. Ultimately this resulted in the loss of $7 million to the estate.
Rebecca Simpson
In 2006, the attorneys for Rebecca Simpson, in a noted solicitation of murder case, neglected to inform their client of a five-year jail term plea bargain offered by the prosecution. Simpson instead went before a Connecticut jury in a two-week trial, where she was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years.
When the judge learned of the lawyer negligence, he dismissed the verdict and ordered a new trial to take place. The prosecutor offered the same plea bargain again, which Simpson immediately accepted.
Information in this post gathered in association with a Raleigh DWI lawyer
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