Real Truth About Burglary Cases In Los Angeles
Regarding burglary cases in Los Angeles, the prosecutors and judges hate them. I feel sometimes — and I've been doing this for twenty-five years — like they put themselves in the shoes of the victim and they think, this could have been me.
These people break into people's houses where there could be a violent confrontation, and they take it personally when someone commits a burglary—especially if it's a residential burglary. It's essential to review an overview of California burglary laws.
If it's a commercial burglary — someone's car or store — they are a lot more reasonable and accessible to deal with in Los Angeles regarding burglary crimes. But if it's a burglary of a home — in other words, a residential burglary — especially if there's a person present during the burglary, the person who gets convicted of that crime will be looking at a strike and mandatory prison.
The only way to avoid mandatory prison is if your defense attorney can show the judge and the prosecutor that your burglary involved unusual circumstances. In other words, it was a burglary out of the norm.
It's not the usual home invasion burglary where people are going into somebody else's home with the intent to steal a bunch of property.
I've seen people get drunk and go into someone's home, not even intending to take anything. Maybe they got the wrong house or were so drunk and just looking for someplace to stay.
There are all sorts of different scenarios regarding this burglary case in Los Angeles. But the truth is, know that the prosecutors and judge start from a remarkably jaded position, and they're going to try to put anybody charged with residential burglary in prison for as long as they possibly can.
Avoiding a Conviction
So, it's up to your theft crime defense attorney to get your version of your story and all the mitigating information about you so they can try to avoid that prison sentence and prevent the burglary conviction. Because if you are convicted of residential burglary, it will stay on your record for life.
The three-strikes law in California makes a residential burglary a strike. There's no such thing as a misdemeanor residential burglary, so you'll have a felony on your record for the rest of your life. That's the truth about burglary cases. You'll never be able to own, use, or possess a weapon or ammunition. You won't be able to vote.
You lose a lot of rights when you get this felony, and like it is said, it never comes off your record. So, if you were to pick up another felony in the future, you'd be a second striker. You'd be looking at double the sentence you usually would if you didn't have the strike on your record.
There are all sorts of different burglary cases. I've seen burglary cases charged with residential burglary that shouldn't have been charged as residential burglary. I've seen burglary cases where the person shouldn't have been accused of anything because they're not the burglar. So, you have a defense in the case.
So, you have to sit down with your attorney right from the gate, and this is the truth about these burglary cases. Once you've looked at all the evidence and discussed with your attorney what we will do with this case, you have to decide from the beginning. Are we going to fight it?
Are we going to try to negotiate a plea bargain? Once you have that decision, we can start to put the pieces into place—getting character letters, doing an investigation on the case if that makes sense, talking to witnesses, setting up a mitigation package to give to the prosecutors, or setting up our defense to fight the case in a jury trial.
So, once you have your road map of where you're going in this burglary case, you want to stay on your path. You don't want to start talking crazy to the prosecutor as a criminal defense attorney in a burglary case where you alienate everybody and make them emotional in the case where you have no defense in the case. Why would you do something like that? Because you won't get a good resolution for your client.
Develop an Effective Strategy
If, on the other hand, as a defense attorney, if I know in a burglary case — and here's the absolute truth about these things — if I know that we're going to fight it all the way, I'm not going to waste my time talking to the prosecutor about it. I may give them some information that I don't want to give them.
I may give them some defense strategy, but I'm never going to do that. I'm not even going to try to resolve it with them. I'm going to set up a game plan to defend the case.
But if, on the other hand, I know I'm going to resolve the case, then I'm going to take a completely different approach to these burglary cases because we don't want to anger the prosecutors and the judge. We'd like to point out the mitigating circumstances.
We want to get our client's version of events across because, often, in these LA burglary cases, the police conduct a one-sided investigation. They don't talk to any witnesses who might help the defendant. Maybe they talk to the defendant; maybe they don't. A lot of times, when they do talk to the defendant, they spin what the defendant tells them.
So, it's my job as your attorney to get your version of events out there — your side of the story, the good things about you so that you'll be treated somewhat in this burglary case.
There will be no rush to judgment, and we will show that this is an aberration and will never happen again. We can get you the result you must have. Make the call today. We have vast experience defending clients against all types of theft crimes.
