Lies my Missouri public defender told me: With Carol's freedom at stake in bogus "assault" case, Patty Poe cooked up some double whoppers, with cheese (Part 5)

Patty Poe

Trying to quantify the outrageous nature of lies Missouri public defender Patty Poe told Carol and me over the past four or five months is a difficult task. But on a scale of 1-10, the following lie about a key element in the "assault of a law enforcement officer" case against Carol probably ranks at 9.98.

Poe's nutty response grew from emails No. 4 and 5, in which Carol showed that both the Misdemeanor Information (MI) and Probable Cause (PC) Statement in her case were wildly defective, meaning the charges must be dismissed. (All of Carol's emails, plus Poe's responses, are embedded at the end of this post.)

Poe responded with the following drivel to email No. 4 regarding the defective MI:

The information is sufficient as to count I, it states: caused physical contact with Jeremy Lynn, a law enforcement officer without the consent of Jeremy Lynn by pushing him" and those allegations are contained in the probable cause statement. Often probable cause statements contain information that is not relevant or that is uncharged, such as the "barreling head first" is not charged. At trial, I would argue it is irrelevant and therefore should be excluded.

Here is how Poe responds to email No. 5 regarding the off-the-charts defective PC Statement:

Again, the probable cause statement and the information is sufficient to support count I.

In both of these responses, you will note that Poe resorts to one of her standard "literary techniques." She makes zero citations to law that might support her point. Even in the rare instances when she does throw in a citation, it's almost always wildly off target.

Why do the issues here matter? Taken together, the MI and the PC Statement are the charging documents against Carol. Under Missouri law, the MI shall "“[s]tate plainly, concisely, and definitely the essential facts constituting the elements of the offense charged." If done properly, this should fulfill the defendant's Sixth Amendment right "“to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation."

The PC Statement is supposed to provide evidence that supports the MI. Missouri law requires a PC Statement to set forth sufficient facts to "support a finding of probable cause to believe a crime was committed and the accused committed it." In short, a PC Statement is a document of facts, which is supposed to support the MI, which is a document of law.

In Carol's case, both fail miserably. As we have shown, the PC Statement includes numerous false statements, plus multiple omission of facts that point toward Carol being not guilty. Either shortcoming, under Missouri law, is grounds for the charges to be dismissed. But we have not even touched on perhaps the most grave shortcoming of all.

That goes back to Poe's claim that the MI and PC Statement are sufficient. Well, no they aren't -- not even close. That's probably why Poe included no citations to law to support her claim. Carol and I most certainly can cite law to show that both charging documents are deficient.

Our law comes from a case styled State v. Kirby (MO Ct. of App., 2004), which involved a detective named Kirk Rose, who swore in an affidavit about evidence pointing to alleged possession of a controlled substance. The affidavit stated that a "cooperative individual" had informed Rose that the defendant possessed marijuana at his residence.

This is almost identical to what happened in Carol's case. Debi Wade, author of the PC Statement, claims Carol made physical contact with Officer Jeremy Lynn by pushing him after he burst into our duplex apartment for an unlawful eviction on Sept. 9, 2015. Wade admits that she did not witness the alleged pushing incident but was "advised" of it by . . . well, we have no idea. Like the "cooperative individual" in Kirby, this person has no name or identifying characteristics. It could have been another cop, it could have been landlord Trent Cowherd or one of his associates, it could have been one of the thieves that serve on Cowherd's eviction crew (which helped steal almost all of our personal belongings), it could have been a ground squirrel out in the front yard. (The PC Statement and MI are embedded at the end of this post.)

The court in Kirby made it clear that the use of such an unidentified source, with no effort to corroborate the source's account, will not support a finding of probable cause. From the Kirby opinion:

In the present case, although the affidavit included facts which indicated the personal knowledge of the “cooperative individual,” there was no reference to any corroboration of this information by Detective Rose in the affidavit. Detective Rose did testify at the suppression hearing that he took steps to corroborate the information given to him; however, this testimony was not presented to the issuing court in support of the application for the search warrant.

Here, there was no discussion in the application or affidavits of Detective Rose's verification or corroboration of the information provided to him by the “cooperative individual.” Thus, there was no substantial basis for the issuing court's conclusion that probable cause existed to issue the warrant, and the trial court did not err in granting the motion to suppress.

Are there any signs of verification or corroboration in Debi Wade's PC Statement? Nope, not even close. That means Patty Poe, when claiming the charging documents were sufficient, was full of horse feces.