Image taken from comicvine.com
Welcome back to Daredevil Month everyone. In keeping with yesterday’s promise about looking into Matt Murdock’s court history, I decided to look into the files of Nelson and Murdock for their earlier cases. One case, focusing on a woman working for a man who was suddenly and inexplicably drained of his blood, piqued my interest.
Background
Image taken from marvel.wikia.com
In issue #18 of Daredevil (2002), the brother of a woman named Adele Santiago came to the offices of Nelson and Murdock seeking their help for a case. According to the brother’s story, his sister was working for Victor Hierra, a known drug kingpin who was in failing health at the time of Adele’s employment. One day, Hierra suddenly falls to the ground dead, with every drop of blood suddenly gone from his body.
Adele is later beaten and arrested as an accessory to the crime, despite (or because of) a lack of evidence. While Murdock as Daredevil goes looking for answers, he begins experiencing events that make him doubt his sanity (including Foggy finding Jack Murdock’s remains in a box in the office, a criminal falling through a elevator floor, etc).
In the end, it turns out to be the work of a criminal called the Coyote, a teleporter with the same powers as the Spot. who was working for a cartel at the time he was asked to murder Hierra. The murder was inspired by Coyote’s ability to smuggle drugs, weapons, and human beings faster than the cartel’s rivals, including Hierra, so the decision was made to eliminate that competition.
In issue #21, Coyote was defeated, and his human trafficking victims are both saved and testify to Coyote killing Hierra.
My Thoughts
There’s a blog I recommend you read through if you’re interested in the real life legal actions that would have to happen in a case like this (the blog’s written by real lawyers too). All of the information they present on issue #18 is very interesting, not to mention gives the reader a stronger look at what all a lawyer in the Marvel universe would have to go through.
As for me though, I’d argue that there could be no case made against Adele, even before Coyote’s victims were rescued. Sure, Adele was the only other person known to be in the room with Hierra, but that doesn’t prove anything in a world full of people who can go invisible and teleport wherever they want. There’s no evidence that would suggest that she had anything to do physically with the murder, and any forensic scientist could easily prove that.
A good lawyer could also easily prove all of this during the trial. The way I see it, any prosecuting attorneys would have a tough time proving that Adele knew or was contacted by anyone, super powered or not, that would recruit her help in killing Hierra. Then again, I’m no lawyer, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt, especially if real lawyers already did their legal review of the issue anyway.
How do you think this case would go? What would Foggy have done if Matt hadn’t been around to take down Coyote? Leave a comment below, follow me on Twitter, and don’t forget to check out the Comic Books vs The World Youtube channel. Keep returning to the blog to enjoy daily content during the last few days of Daredevil Month!
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