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Henrico County Criminal Cases: Building a Defense

Once someone has been charged with a crime, the next step involves hiring an experienced Henrico County criminal defense lawyer to begin building a strong and reliable defense. An attorney will know what methods will work well against the prosecution’s case and will work to mitigate negative outcomes for the defendant. Call today to schedule a free initial consultation.

How a Henrico County Criminal Lawyer Builds a Strong Defense

Building a strong defense strategy really varies from case to case, but typically it’s dependent on learning as much as you can about the case from your client. Criminal lawyers need to know the facts of the case step by step everything that happened leading up to the charge.

They need to know everything about the witnesses involved or that may have information about the case. An attorney must be able to know what witnesses the prosecution is going to use versus what witnesses may be available to help your case, including expert witnesses.

A strong defense strategy is also built on understanding what the prosecution needs to prove in order to get a conviction. In other words, what witnesses are they going to need to provide, what scientific evidence are they going to use, what statements are they going to attempt to enter into evidence in order to get the conviction.

Common Defense Strategies

Defense strategies are very multi-faceted and defense attorneys can employ a variety of methods in discrediting the prosecution’s case. The methods a Henrico County criminal defense lawyer will utilize ultimately varies from case to case, depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the State’s case against a defendant.

Counter-Attack Prosecution’s Case

When counter-attacking the prosecution’s case, a Henrico criminal defense attorney will move to challenge any witnesses or witness statements to show they are not accurate or not prove a violation of the law. Furthermore, defense attorneys can attack the scientific evidence or the technical evidence the State may use. For instance, questioning if there were issues in the handling of drugs that are going to be used as evidence, or how DNA was collected, or with DUIs, whether there was an issue with the machine that was used to test the blood alcohol level.

Provide Alternate Theory

Providing your own case or to provide an alternative theory as to what occurred either through independent witnesses or alibis that are provided from your client is also an effective method. It has the ability to undermine the clarity and certainty of the State’s case.

Mitigating Punishments for Conviction

One more strategy that is used quite commonly is the strategy of trying to mitigate the punishments on a case. When we know the prosecution has enough evidence to convict, we try look for mitigating factors. For example, whether there’s a substance abuse problem and is the client in counseling, does the client have a full-time job, does he or she have a clean criminal record, does he or she have children — anything that we can present to a court to seek leniency with regarding sentencing.

Benefits of Hiring an Aggressive Henrico County Criminal Lawyer

The main benefit of hiring an aggressive criminal lawyer in Henrico County is having someone that will pursue defense strategies and challenge the State’s case. You are going to want an attorney that is not afraid to present the legal arguments, but also to attack the State’s evidence as necessary. You are going to want someone that’s able to think outside the box in developing a defense strategy and in pursuing your case. Plus, you will also need an attorney that can actively challenge the prosecution’s witnesses and their evidence in open court.

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