HIRE A CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY BEFORE YOU NEED ONE
When is the best time to hire a criminal defense attorney? If you have reason to believe that you might be under investigation you need to hire a criminal defense attorney. The best time to hire a criminal defense attorney is before you need one. Hiring a criminal defense attorney before you are arrested allows your attorney to advocate on your behalf and attempt to convince the prosecutors not to file charges against you.
As a Board Certified Criminal Defense Attorney I know how to get prosecutors to understand why they should refrain from filing charges against my client, and if they do file charges that they should file less charges than they were originally contemplating.
As soon as you realize that you might have a criminal issue, you should hire a lawyer. Some people think that hiring a lawyer makes them look guilty, but it doesn’t. If you get a letter from the IRS and it says that you need to contact an IRS agent as soon as possible, it makes sense to hire an accountant because you want an expert on your side. When you are under investigation for a sex crime, the police officers are not interested in interviewing you or treating you fairly. They are interested in interpreting what you tell them as proof that you actually did what they are accusing you of.
Oftentimes an officer will ask a suspect, “You know why you’re here, right?” The suspect may say, “Yeah, because you’re going to ask me questions about my stepson or my stepdaughter.” If this happens, then the officer will put in their report that the suspect already knew why he or she was being questioned, and therefore acted as if they were guilty. They may continue to ask questions, such as “Do you ever remember touching your stepson or your stepdaughter?” If the suspect says, “No, I don’t remember that,” then the officers will couch that answer as a confession, when the suspect was really just responding to the question.
It is certainly a trap to be in that position where you are being asked questions. If you don’t have a lawyer, you will very likely make statements that could be interpreted as a confession. The best part about hiring a lawyer is that the lawyer provides a barrier between you and the investigator. The lawyer can talk about your side of the story without that side of the story being locked into you. For example, the lawyer can say, “It’s my understanding that the stepson has a very troubled mental history. He has a history of making out crimes against other people, and not just my client.” When spoken by your lawyer, this statement won’t be attributed to you and it won’t lock you into a defense. If you speak with an investigator without a lawyer, you will essentially be giving up all of the defenses. It helps to hire a lawyer so that you can think through all of these things independently and come up with the best defense.
What Are Some Common Defenses Used In Sex Crime Cases?
The real question in a sex crime case is whether or not the alleged abuse happened. That’s the issue that will drive the prosecution and the result of the case. When you have one person saying that something happened and another person saying that it didn’t, it becomes more complicated. In our culture, there needs to be a significant shift away from the belief that a victim of this sort of activity is automatically telling the truth. We really do have to explain why it is that they may not have been telling the truth.
In our criminal justice system, you are supposed to be protected. You are supposed to be in a situation where the state has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. When one person says something, it should not be up to the defendant to explain why it is that that person might have been making it up. In order to have the best chance of acquittal, you need an attorney who is skilled at articulating these types of explanations.
For more information on Hiring An Attorney Before Arrest, a free initial consultation is your best next step. Get the information and legal answers you’re seeking by calling (210) 361-3113 today.