There are a lot of federal courthouses in California. They are all carved up into different jurisdictions. Depending on where the alleged crime took place, that will dictate which federal prosecutors will deal with it and which federal court the case will be in.
This is obviously one of the first steps in determining whether you can actually beat your federal case because it has to do with the prosecutors and judges that are going to be dealing with the case, and depending on what type of evidence they have in a close case, a tough jurisdiction would not be in your favor; whereas, a jurisdiction that is more liberal, reasonable and open minded would put you in a stronger position to get the result that you're looking for.
Insufficient Evidence
The first way to beat a federal case is the have the evidence to beat it or be in position to argue that the prosecutors do not have the evidence to convict you of your federal case. In order to assess this, obviously you're going to use your common sense, but you're also going to sit down with a seasoned federal criminal defense attorney who has handled cases in the jurisdiction where your case is pending and who also has all the facts and circumstances surrounding your case so they can inform you, educate you and give you a good idea if you really do have a chance to beat your federal case.
Strategy Decisions
This is a crucial thing to determine right from the beginning when you have a federal case pending against you. I'll sit down with my clients. We'll go over everything and we will make the strategy decision as soon as we are able to about whether we're going to try to fight the case and beat it; whether we're going to try to negotiate the case; or whether we're going to cooperate with the government. These are all things that have to be assessed in any federal case if you're doing your due diligence and thinking about in the right frame of mind.
The prosecutors are going to charge you with certain crimes and there will be elements of those crimes that they're going to have to prove. That's one of the basic ways to beat federal case, which is to be able to show a jury that the prosecutors are unable to prove the elements of that federal case against you because they simply do not have the evidence. Or, maybe they're working with wrong evidence.
They have evidence but it really doesn't have anything to do with you. Or, maybe it's evidence that's been mischaracterized by some witnesses. That's one of the jobs of your attorney is to get your side of the story, get the evidence that supports your defense and either use that in a jury trial to fight the case or bring that to the prosecutors attention in a professional manner so they can look at it and re-evaluate your case, possibly dismiss the case, put lesser charges in or use that to negotiate a plea agreement.
Experienced Federal Defense Lawyer
The bottom line is, if you want to beat your federal case, your first step is to get a great attorney to be your champion to put your position out there to the judge, the prosecutor and even to a jury if that's necessary in order to get that not-guilty verdict so you can move on with your life.
You don't want to put yourself in a position where the feds have the evidence against you and you're trying to fight and beat your case because they're just going to get more and more tough on you and you're potentially going to put yourself in a worse position.
So, get to an attorney as quick as possible. Really take an honest accounting of the evidence that the feds have against you in a criminal case, and you and your attorney will sit down, look through everything and make the final decision — if you can beat your federal case — and if you can, what it's going to take to do it. What type of investigation is necessary?
What type of witnesses are going to be necessary? Are you going to have to testify in a federal case in order to be successful? These are all things that must be discussed, assessed and decided upon if you want to be in the best position to have a chance to beat your federal case.
