When it comes to criminal defense, part of the strategy of having a successful defense is not necessarily getting a not guilty verdict every single time in a jury trial. Of course, we would love to do that, but some cases are just simply not made for that. In other words, the prosecutors have the goods on the defendant. If you go to trial you're going to lose. The client's going to pay a bunch of money and get a much worse punishment than if they would have just worked out a plea bargain with the prosecutors.
The key for me though in getting successful resolutions in criminal defense is that I figure out what the best character traits are of the client, what the client has going for them so that I can show the prosecutor and give the client's version of events, give the client's story so that that particular client is going to be in a position to be successful. That's one of my main jobs. That's why when I meet with people, I talk to them, I ask them questions. I find out about them and I need the good, the bad and the ugly. In other words, I have to get the full picture. Don't just tell me your one-sided version. Tell me from the prospective of what the police are going to claim or what the alleged victim is going to claim so then I know, here's what's going to be claimed and then we can start talking about why are we in this position? Why did you do this? And we can really start to get down to the nitty-gritty of what happened.
Telling Your Side of the Story
Because a lot of times the police really do a one-sided investigation and your story is not put out there, so it's your criminal defense attorney's job to get your story out there. This success story that I've talked about here in this video, this person had a lot of great things going for them. They were in college. They were a student athlete. They were on scholarship. They had no prior criminal record. And even the crime itself — they got tempted. I think peer pressure got them involved in this and ultimately, I was able to pick some things out of the crime that actually helped get the people's property back related to this theft offense and they were cooperative with the police when the police came. They were remorseful and they tried to do everything they could to make things right once they were caught.
This is important information. This is stuff the prosecutors need to know. You've got someone who did something stupid, you've got somebody who has a bright future, so now are we going to destroy that future by forcing a felony on them, putting them in custody and basically ruining their life. Now, somebody could argue that they ruined their own life because they did what they did. That's true. But people make mistakes, and good people make mistakes. So, the prosecutors do have a heart. Of course, they're out to do justice. They're out to protect the public. The out to deter and punish those people who commit crimes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all is lost. That doesn't mean that this is a lost person.
So, what I have to do as your criminal defense attorney is, pick out the good things about you, pick out the good things about your case and blow those up for the prosecutor and judge so that you can end up with the best possible result. So, if you're interested in something like that, pick up the phone. Let's talk. Let's meet and let's figure out what can be done to protect you, your rights, your reputation and your freedom.
