Mug shots tell nothing about the accused
Posted By Herman Martinez on Jul 27, 2010 4:52pm PDT
Since I DVR all my favorite episodes I rarely watch live television and try my best to watch commercials when I do. Today, I was watching live television and heard a news story stating that they will reveal what mug shots tell about the celebrities that were arrested. In my 15 years of being a criminal defense attorney I have not found a mug shot to show anything about a person that is accused of a crime. Most commonly mug shots are showed by the prosecutors in DWI trials. The most they illustrate is that the person is embarrassed, tired and humiliated. The last thing they want to be is smiling for a mug shot. On the other hand, if they are smiling the prosecutor would be able to use that against them by stating that they accused did not care that they were being arrested of that they were so intoxicated that they did not know that they were being taken into custody for drunk driving.