Category Archives: Our Consulting Practice
Using a consultant to develop a defense theme for your case
A defense to a criminal case has a theme. Otherwise, your defense is going to be a haphazard series of arguments that may wind up confusing the jury. This theme should be developed as early as possible so that the investigation and the motion practice can help gather evidence to reinforce this theme. A sex crimes consultant can help you review the evidence to not only establish a theme but to come up with a plan to establish this theme through a variety of method. We call this plan a battleplan because we view every case as a war. Every war is carefully scripted out but anyone that has ever fought one knows that this plan is nearly impossible to stick to 100%. Nevertheless, having a plan that is deviated from is far better than not having a plan at all.
While you can use your consultant to develop the theme right before trial, it will be much easier to hire the consultant in the beginning of the case to develop the theme from the start. If you do this right before trial, you will have to work with what you have. Once the theme is developed, you will want to look at every single aspect of the trial and make sure that the theme is present in every question, comment, motion, etc. Again, the consultant will be able to help you do this so that you have more input into your own trial. If you need a Child Sex Crime Consultant for your case, call us today.
Using a sex crimes consultant to check in on your trial lawyer
One of the problems clients have when dealing with lawyers is that they have no idea what they are talking about. If your lawyer tells you something about your case, how do you even know it is the truth? How do you know if the lawyer is on the right path on your case? One of the best ways to check in on your lawyer is to use a sex crimes consultant. You can do this at the beginning of your case, right before trial or anytime in between. Like anything else, what you get out of the consultant depends on what you put into it. What do you want to know? What concerns do you have? Write all of this down so that you can have an intelligent conversation with your consultant.
The more information you give your consultant, the better. You should have a complete copy of your discovery (unless some documents are under protective order) and this should be forwarded to your consultant along with a punch list of items (questions and concerns) for the consultant to handle. The consultant can then provide a report to you that answers all of these items. You can then take that back to your primary attorney to discuss your case from a better position. If you need a sex crimes consultant, call us today.
Dealing with facts beyond change in a New Jersey sex crimes case
Lawyers fail to appreciate the importance of facts beyond change when developing their trial themes. You will lose all credibility with the jury if you ignore facts beyond change. If you do not incorporate the facts beyond change in your defense, it will be very difficult to win.
A fact beyond change is just that, a fact that you must accept and that you can’t do anything about. If your client admitted to being alone with the child at issue and you can’t explain why he or she would say this when it wasn’t true, then this must be part of your trial theme in one way or another. It must be explained or dealt with. Ignoring it will not help you. Another example is if your client has a criminal record and it will come out. In one trial I had, my client had a criminal record. Instead of just ignoring it, I told the jury that my client was likely set up by another party because they knew about his criminal record and he would make a good fall guy. Thus, instead of running from his criminal record, it became part of the theme.
The same holds true for a sex crime case. In just about every trial, there will be bad facts that you will have to deal with. A trial lawyer’s job is to determine how to deal with those facts. With the ones that are beyond change, ignoring them will not make it go away. Thus, if they are not part of your theme in one way or another, you lessen your chances for a great result.
