How to Lose a Domestic Violence Case
There's a way to lose a domestic violence case. For example, if you take a case to trial that the prosecutors have good evidence on, they've got photographs of injuries, bodycam evidence, and a 9-1-1 tape.
They also have a cooperative alleged victim giving information against the defendant; the defendant makes an incriminating statement; taking that trial, you'll lose.
So, just because you can't afford to have a domestic violation conviction on your record and all of the consequences that come with it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll take the case to trial because that is not the recipe to win the case.
If you want the recipe to lose the case, base your decision on what you can't take versus what is the evidence against you. Is the evidence strong enough to prove you guilty?
If it's strong enough to prove you guilty, then taking the case to trial is simply going to result in a loss, and you will receive worse penalties, punishments, and consequences than if you had just worked out a deal with the prosecutors.
So, your best bet is to sit down with your domestic violence defense attorney and review all the evidence step-by-step. You want to be honest with that attorney.
I can't tell you how often I've seen defense attorneys lose cases because their clients didn't tell them the truth about what was happening, so they weren't completely prepared.
Part of good preparation in a domestic violence case or a spousal abuse case — or any battery-related offense — is having good information from your client about what happened. That means the good, the bad, and the ugly. You don't just say the stuff that might be helpful to you.
Improper Focus on Details of Domestic Violence Case
I think a lot of times, a recipe for not being successful and losing a case is that all you're doing is focusing on what you can't have on your record and being focused on your spin of what happened instead of first starting asking, what are the prosecutors and police going to do to prove the case?
How are they going to put the case together? What exactly are they going to claim that I did in this case? That's where you should start with your defense attorney because your defense attorney will want to know how these guys will come at us.
Once I see how they will attack us, I can determine how we can defend the case and what the right moves are going forward.
But if I don't even know how they're coming at us and all I have is your version — it's funny, I get people coming in and telling me their version, and I look at them, and I'm like, why are you here?
If so, we shouldn't even be talking now. So, start by saying, here's what they will claim I did. But here's the problem with what they're claiming that I did.
Ignoring All The Facts Against You
So, I think the key thing is, if you want to lose a case — and of course nobody does — I'm being sarcastic, but if you want to lose a case, only focus on and only give the information about your side of the story and ignore the other side of the story completely.
Or, if you want to lose a domestic violence case, focus on your version of events. Focus on the bad consequences that can happen to you and let that drive how you deal with the case. That is a recipe for losing a domestic violence case.
So, there you go. That's how to lose a domestic violence case — ignore all the facts against you and only zero in on trying to avoid the ramifications that are going to flow from a domestic violence conviction.
Rather, you need to look honestly at the case and what happened in it and then really sit down and decide what the best moves are, and obviously, you're going to do that with your domestic violence defense attorney.
That's how you're going to decide what you're going to do. You have to sit down with them and get your game plan together because we don't want to lose a domestic violence case.
We want to win the case, and the way to do so is to put together a powerful defense and make the right decisions at the right time based on the evidence that the prosecutors will present against you.
