Special Feature: The Mythical, Mystical Grey Wolf Answers Your TV Law Questions

MandM: Can you take a blackberry or other Internet ready/camera cell phone device into court and view a link to someone's photo gallery during a trial?

Grey Wolf: It depends on the Court and the judge. In California state Court, you can bring blackberries in and use them while court's in session while Federal Courts will not let you take a camera phone in the court. They make you take it back to the car or leave it at the entrance of the court. Also, even in California state courts, I have seen judges yell at lawyers who were looking at their blackberry in court rather than paying attention and if your cell phone rings in court, I've seen people get sanctioned.

MandM: How easy or difficult is it as a DA to get someone off the sex offender list (specifically in RI) in exchange for a statement which will hurt your nemesis?

Grey Wolf: Once someone is on the list, they cannot be taken off the list absent act of the legislature, pardon by the governor or determination of factual innocence by a court. A DA does not have the authority to make such an offer.

MandM: As a defense attorney, how often to you go out into the field to do your own detective work? Such as interview potential witnesses and sniff around
for missed evidence?

Grey Wolf: It is very rare because usually a defense attorney is afraid to find evidence that hurts the client. They'd rather attack the prosecution's case on reasonable doubt and raise questions that the police have not answered and let the doubt linger.

MandM: How often to defense attorneys or DAs lie, cheat, and deceive each other as a tactic to psych each other out? Or to to get the other side to agree to deal (say with a false, manufactured piece of evidence/document)?

Grey Wolf: Rarely. However, exaggerating what something says or overreaching during an argument or interpreting things in more favorable ways is common. In fact, this is the main job of a lawyer.

MandM: What constitutes "entrapment?" For example, if a cop pretends to have been kicked off the force and to be drunk, and to slip you the combination to a safe; when you (the criminal) go to the safe to unlock it and steal some fancy jewelry and the cops are there waiting to arrest you after you open the safe, is that entrapment?

Grey Wolf: Good question because television and movies always screws up what entrapment is and have characters screaming it at every opportunity. Indeed, in reality, it is very rare. Entrapment only exists if (1) the criminal activities originated with law enforcement officers; and (2) the defendant was not predisposed to commit the crime prior to contact by the government. This means that merely providing the opportunity to a predisposed person to commit the crime is not entrapment. So, in your example, the person opening the safe would be determined to be predisposed to commit the crime by the mere fact that they opened the safe and it was thus not entrapment. In fact, bar review courses recommend that when answering a question about entrapment on the bar exam, you always answer that the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime.