Innocent Defendant Facing Criminal Charges: What are Your Options?
Posted July 9th, 2018 by Anthony Carbone, PC.
Categories: Criminal Defense.
Innocent conviction, while an act of injustice, happens occasionally in New Jersey. The suspects who are not guilty of crime still must go through the process of defending themselves, but fortunately, it doesn’t always mean they’ll have to take it to trial. Nevertheless, finding a way to avoid conviction is necessary.
Filing the Case in Question
Most of the time when a case is filed in New Jersey, the only information available is from the police report. This limits the information to make a decision and doesn’t even take into account that the report may contain misleading information. The fallacies can result from misstatements, lies from witnesses, or errors/bias from the policeman writing the report. Minor discrepancies from the truth may occur in incidents, such as assault vs self-defense. Going to trial is a very real option, but the costs can be quite extensive, and therefore lawyers prefer to resolve this before it reaches that far.
Pretrial Actions
Having communication with a lawyer in the early stages can enable you to intervene before the charges are officially filed and brought to prosecution. Sadly, this often does not work, and the defendant needs to wait for them to be filed before anything can be done. However, that doesn’t mean you are out of luck.
Your lawyer can begin to collect evidence as you lay out all the facts including your relationship with the “victim” in question (if there was one). They may also begin to track witnesses and take statements. With that, your lawyer may have enough information to persuade the prosecution to dismiss the charges. For example, your lawyer could have figured out by going through all the information in alignment with the facts that the events could not have played out the way they would have if the defendant was guilty. Unfortunately, this may be tricky as well because they don’t want to give away too much information in the event the case proceeds to trial.
The Waiting Game
Sometimes cases like these prove the person innocent on its own by way of letting it play out. This can be the best move for a defendant, but also can take a long time (up to several months) for the prosecution to realize.
Contact Us
Obtaining a well-practiced attorney is your best bet in this type of situation. Luckily, the Law Offices of Anthony Carbone has the type of experience and successful results you are looking for throughout New Jersey. Call our offices today for your free consultation and we’ll make sure you get the results you deserve.
