Seattle Criminal Attorneys | Trials
Trying a criminal case as a Seattle criminal attorney is one of the scariest, most exciting, most fulfilling things a person can do. You’ve got a bunch of people rooting against you (in criminal defense there is no such thing as a home field advantage), and I’m not only talking about the prosecutor. You’ve got someone’s livelihood on the line, and you have a tiny feeling in the back of your head that even if you put on the perfect case, even if everything just falls into place, that you might still lose. And it’s true, you might.
I read a blog post by Grey Tesh yesterday called “Trying Cases,” and he discussed his feelings about trials and why he likes to do a lot of them. And I agree with a lot of what he said. Though I won’t steal his article word for word, he did spark some things I thought I might discuss here as well.
First, as a Seattle criminal attorney, I prepare every case like it might go to trial. For some cases, it doesn’t mean much work. For others, it means a lot more work than other attorneys might do who see a lost cause and want to plead the case out as quickly as possible.
By preparing each case thoroughly, though, I am able to accomplish three goals, all of which help my clients in the end:
(1) I have all of the information I need to get the best deal possible if trial is not a reasonable route;
(2) the prosecutors begin to expect I will know my cases inside and out and will be prepared to negotiate/prepare them fully; and
(3) I am constantly honing my criminal defense skills so that I continue to get progressively better with each case.
Second, Grey says that he thinks trials are the only time we get to work on a level playing field. Though I wish that were true, I’d still say the deck is stacked against a criminal defendant while on trial, particularly in a DUI trial, when often there is breath test evidence, though in other criminal matters as well. I think the reason is that it is hard for people to shake the idea that people usually aren’t charged with crimes they didn’t commit. As a Seattle DUI attorney this becomes increasingly tough because people have been conditioned (and their jury instructions will tell them) that if someone blows .08 or higher they are presumed to be DUI. I think trial affords the opportunity to be heard and to sway people to your side, but I still think the prosecutor gets the home field advantage.
The reason trials are so great, though, is that even though the prosecutor has the home court advantage, as Grey points out, you get the advantage of actually forcing the state to prove their case. This means they have to present evidence, defend their witnesses from my scrutiny, and have enough skill to convince the jury that they are right and I am wrong.
This is harder than it sounds. I’m not the most seasoned criminal defense attorney, but I’ve been around the block a few times, and the one thing I know is this – prosecutors don’t take as many cases to trial as we might think. And, particularly for private criminal attorneys, they don’t have the time to prepare for a case like we do (that’s why we make more money). This does level the playing field in the sense that there is a chance to win every criminal case that goes to trial – you just never know what is going to happen.
And finally, you have to be ready to take every case to trial if the state won’t give you something better than you’ll get after trial. Even if it’s the most minuscule of cases in your eyes (because in the client’s it is not).
For example, I had a guy charged with illegal fishing, a gross misdemeanor in Washington State. The guy was out crabbing and his measuring device broke. He did his best to measure and thought the crab was legal. As he was coming in from the water he saw a wildlife officer, sought him out, and asked him to measure the crab. It came up less than an 1/8th of an inch short. The officer cited my guy for illegal fishing. The state wouldn’t drop the charge. I said let’s set this for trial, filed a motion to suppress the evidence, and charged ahead. Before the motion hearing the state changed its mind and made an offer my client couldn’t refuse. That is how it’s supposed to be done.
As a criminal attorney, you don’t necessarily have to like going to trial. But you do have to like fighting for your clients, and you have to enjoy doing what you can to get this problem behind them and get their life on track. Once you start doing that, trials don’t seem so bad.
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