Life as a Criminal Defense Lawyer

Living as a criminal defense attorney isn't easy when your occupation is basically to help those who are arrested of a law-breaking. While some of the clients you meet are innocent, a lot of them are guilty and have had previous run-ins with the law.

Since the law prescribes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty and you chose to specialize in this subject, you've to defend these person by providing the best defense there is available.

There are several strategies you are able to use to get your client off. You can plead insanity or claim that somebody else made the crime. If your client has something to bid, you can have a deal with the district attorney in exchange for the client being granted immunity.

But earlier you decide what options to play, you've to talk to your client. If this person is in jail, you've to go at that place and ask what happened. You should already talk over whether to enter a guilty or not guilty plea because your client will be arraigned soon.

When a trial date has been arrange, you can get a copy of the documents of the case from the district attorney’s office because by law, both sides are supposed to watch everything from the police reports to the evidence.

You'll also get a copy of the people the prosecution will be calling to the witness box as they too will also be aware of that so there will be no surprises on trial.

When it's your turn to cross examine the witness, you had better use whatever is available to cast doubt about their testimony because this is the only way that the jury possibly convinced that your client isn't capable of doing the law-breaking. Using good witnesses of your own is also helpful because they can dispute the claims of the other camp.

Before the jury will get to its verdict, you'll have one final chance to state your client’s innocence when you're given the opportunity for your ending argument. When it's all over, you just have to wait for the decision of the court to take the next course of action.

Your client’s not guilty verdict means your task is done and you are able to go on and work on another client. A guilty verdict means you've to continue as counsel for this person and appeal the jury’s decision to a higher court so you can possibly get a reversal.

The better way to win an appeal is to determine if there's something in the trial that should not have happened or was overlooked. These technicalities are better known as constitutional protections. For example, the client’s confession was made without the presence of a attorney so whatever they told is inadmissible in court. The same goes if a search was made without a warrant.

There are a lot of examples which you can use. You might even cite a case with similar conditions because this serves as precedence to the one you're working at.

The life of a criminal defense attorney is challenging no matter how many times you've been inside the court room. This is because you get to work on another clients each time since someone who was innocent may no longer be charged with the same offense because of the principle of double jeopardy.