Intimidating A Government Witness – California Penal Code Section 140
When individuals are charged with intimidating a government witness, this relates to someone using some sort of force, fear, threats of force or fear, or some other angle to put pressure on someone who is going to testify for the government.
Typically, the government is either the people of the state of California – which handles all the cases in the Los Angeles Superior Court – or the federal government can be covered under this. Still, Penal Code Section 140 covers state activity in one of the courts in Los Angeles County.
So, if somebody threatens or exerts some sort of force against one of the people of the state of California's witnesses in a criminal case pending in Los Angeles County, typically what I've seen – and I've seen this happen in preliminary hearings and trial across Los Angeles County, that person is just going to be arrested immediately.
They'll probably put $100,000.00 bail on him, and they may even add other conditions to their bail that block them from getting out of custody.
They take these cases very seriously, and if you're charged with an offense involving intimidating or threatening a witness, you have to get an attorney immediately who has handled these types of cases, knows what the prosecutors are likely to do in the case, and knows what types of defenses work and what types of defenses don't.
Legal Defenses for Penal Code Section 140
The critical fact is you must be making a lawful threat to somebody. Unless there's some protective order where you can't speak to a witness, just talking to a witness is not necessarily a violation of Penal Code Section 140.
Sometimes, people say stupid stuff that really isn't meant to threaten or intimidate a witness. It's just them talking, and depending on the context, where it's said, and how the two parties relate, that's probably going to determine whether or not they can actually prosecute somebody under Penal Code Section 140.
So, we get you in; we go over everything. We look at the context of what happened and try to talk about some angles.
You match the elements with what they're claiming you did. The one piece of the puzzle is that the authorities usually never have your version of events because a lot of times, they make a snap judgment—rush to judgment—and don't get the other side of the story, all the facts, any investigation, or see if any other witnesses heard what happened.
Reviewing Evidence
Maybe there's some available video evidence – especially if it's done in the courthouse, so these are all things that must be looked out for. Your attorney has to have some experience and wisdom in these types of cases before knowing what the prosecutors can and can't win.
Once it's determined whether or not your case is a winnable case from a defense standpoint, that will dictate what strategy we will employ; if we're going to take the case to jury and trial, we're going to get the witnesses, we're going to do the investigation, and we're going to set up the defense where you're involved. We get your version of events.
We'd like to discuss what you can do to help get the right result and what I will do. You'll know what you're facing and what moves can be made to win your case.
If, on the other hand, this is a case where they have the evidence. Maybe there's some video or audio of the alleged threat – some people make phone calls, threaten people, and identify themselves. In that case, they've got the case, and obviously, we will have to do some plea bargaining.
We must mitigate the situation with character letters and, again, putting things in context. Only some things are what meets the eye.
A lot of times—especially in intimidating witness prosecutions under Penal Code Section 140—these things are blown out of proportion. The person really didn't threaten them. It really has to be some sort of credible threat made to the person or the property, another person to actually do something, not just some stupid statement that is not clear and concise.
So, that's where a good criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles comes in to fight for you and get your side of the story out there, and I try to do everything I possibly can to minimize the damage that one of these types of prosecutions can have on you.
We get you in the office. We go over everything. It's all confidential because the attorney-client privilege protects any communications between you and me.
We get down to the nitty-gritty of how the case is going to be defended, what strategies we're going to employ, and what results we are going to be looking for, and then we set about executing a plan to get you what you need to have in your criminal matter.
