| Welcome | About us | Contact Us | Disclaimer |
| Arrested | --> Strategy | Our Clients | Legal Process |
Admitted
United States
Supreme Court Bar
|
Developing a Defense Strategy You work closely together with your criminal defense attorney to develop a defense strategy. Your defense strategy will typically emerge as you work with your attorney educating him about the facts of your case, the names of witness and how they may help or hurt your case. This information is then compared with the prosecution's evidence. This is an ongoing process that is developed as information becomes available to your attorney. The process is never the same in any two cases, simply because the facts and evidence is never the same in any two cases. Your attorney may start with a tentative theory of your defense. This tentative theory will influence the questions and topics first addressed by your defense attorney. The client's answers will serve to guide the defense attorney into other areas of inquiry. The defendant's responses to the attorney's questions often shape the defense strategy. Your defense attorney will never collaborate with you to make up a false story. No good criminal defense attorney will ever lie to the Court, or assist another person to do this either. Defendants usually benefit from telling the defense attorney the truth, as they see it. It is well known that multiple versions of the truth can coexist in the defense of criminal charges. This explains how the police can tell a story that is so far from what the criminal defendant perceives as the truth. The police may state that a defendant struck another person and the defendant is charged with a serious assault. In reality, the "truth" is that the defendant was only protecting him or herself from being attacked and was acting in self-defense. A reasonable person could find that the truth also lies somewhere in between these two versions of the truth. If the defendant was not truthful with the defense attorney and insisted on saying that he or she did not strike the "victim" then the defense attorney would never have the information necessary to decide that a "self-defense" defense was both truthful and available. The fact that a story may be told in a variety of ways does not prevent each version from being accurate. |
No two stories ever told by criminal clients will ever be the same. Confession: Defendants who tell their lawyers confession stories admit that they did what the prosecution claims: "Yes, I did break into the house through a window and steal the stereo." Complete denial: Defendants who tell their lawyers complete denial stories assert that the prosecution's claims are totally false. An "alibi" is a familiar type of complete denial story: "I was in San Francisco when the house was robbed. I have no idea what they're talking about." Admit and explain: This story falls between the "confession" and "complete denial" stories. Defendants who tell, "admit and explain" stories agree that part of the Prosecution's claims are accurate, but assert legally critical differences: "I did go into the house and take the money, but I went in through the front door with a key after the person who lived there gave me permission to borrow the money." No matter which approach is taken this is the ground from which the defense strategy will grow. The defense strategy must also take into account factors such as the reliability of defense and prosecution witnesses, community attitudes towards the crime and the police, and the defendant's "moral culpability." All of these factors will be used to develop the defense "theory of the case" that is consistent with provable facts and explains events in a way that favors the defense. |
Driving Under the Influence
