Your criminal case is about to begin. You have been building yourself up to this moment for the past couple of months and the time has finally arrived. You feel nervous, anxious, and scared all in one. But with the help of the professional nyc criminal lawyer that you have hired to help defend you, you soon start to relax and you may even feel confident about your case.
To receive a guilty verdict, the judge or jury must determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is where criminal defense strategies come into play. This can help the defendant to receive a verdict of not guilty instead. The right attorney is essential in cases like this, so it is important to look around and do your research, for example, you may want to look into people like Jacobson, Julius & Harshberger Criminal Defense Attorneys, and others similar to them, to see what they can do and if they would be a good fit. Always look around and see what is the best choice.
But what are they, and how they can help? Well, let’s find out.
Self-Defense
The category of self-defense is commonly used when someone has been charged with battery, assault, or maybe even murder. If someone wants to use self-defense to help with their case, it means that they have claimed to cause harm or even kill the victim because they were being threatened with violence themselves. Though this can be damaging to hear, you will find that this defense is more common than you may expect it to be.
Of course, you need to be able to prove self-defense for it to be beneficial to your case, especially when accused of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in texas. You will need to show enough evidence that shows tangible danger existed in order to justify why you acted this way. Self-defense applies not just when you have been threatened, but it could also be used when the defendant was protecting someone else from an immediate threat. Whilst this is a common concept to consider, you need to make sure that your attorney has all the evidence needed to thoroughly present this idea.
Innocence
Though pleading innocent seems like a good idea, you will be surprised to learn that a lot of planning and preparation from your attorney must go into this defense first. To receive the best outcome from your case, you need to make sure you have experts and witnesses that you can rely on, as well as having the relevant evidence to hand to ensure that you can prove that you are innocent.
Whilst all you need is evidence that frames another party, there could be times when you need to have witnesses who have strong alibis that place you somewhere else when the crime took place. During this time, it will be in your best interest to focus solely on the strategy that you have put together with your attorney, instead of focusing on what the prosecution is doing.
Insanity
Insanity is a type of criminal defense that may not get used as much as the others. This is because they only work in a small number of situations, as they imply that the defendant is admitting the crime but under alleviating circumstances. For this to work, your criminal defense lawyer needs to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed the crime due to your mental state of mind.
When you come to think about this defense, you will find that this is one of the hardest to clarify. The lawyer must prove that the defendant was unable to differentiate between right and wrong when the crime was committed. But this isn’t the hardest part. You also need to take into consideration that the defendant is pleading guilty to the crime, which could result in further devastating implications.
Constitutional Violations
Regardless of whether you are guilty of a crime or not, did you know that you may have some protections under the Constitution of the United States of America if this is where you reside? These types of violations tend to heavily feature during criminal trials. It is because it takes into account how the defendants are treated, the circumstances of the arrest, and how the evidence was collected, as well as other things.
Depending on the violation of the Constitution you have experienced, there could be a chance that you get your charges dismissed altogether, or the prosecution may be forced into agreeing to a plea bargain for a less harsh charge. By hiring a professional and experienced criminal defense attorney, they will be able to set to work in establishing whether constitutional violations have taken place, and how effective they could be when it comes to planning your defense.
These are the most common types of criminal defenses that you may come across as a lawyer, or if you are someone who is awaiting their trial. You should note whether they will make a difference to your case, as if they do, you could receive a lesser sentence. So, it is well worth considering.