While people do not plan on being arrested and facing criminal charges, many good people find themselves in this situation. Any encounter with the legal system can be intimidating but one that can result in a loss of your liberty and permanent damage to your reputation is even more worrisome. The jails are full of people who made the mistake of assuming that the best thing they could do was cooperate with the police to try and “clear things up”. When that did not work out, many of those who employed this failed strategy simply accepted the first plea offer presented by their public defender. It is important to know that an arrest is simply an accusation, which may be based on false or flimsy evidence or motivated by political pressure to make an arrest. An experienced Wichita criminal defense attorney will carefully investigate the factual evidence that underlies the charges against you, review the District Attorney’s discovery packet which includes key documents and evidence against you and interview potential witnesses. Based on these efforts, an experienced criminal defense attorney will develop an effective strategy for defending you from the pending charges and seeking a reduction or dismissal of the charges against you.
Many people when arrested limit or damage their potential defense strategy by volunteering a version of events that they believe is helpful. These spontaneous explanations are almost never helpful to developing an effective defense strategy and may limit the available defenses available to your Wichita criminal defense attorney. If you find yourself in a police station under interrogation from police officers, it is easy to be confused as you are under extreme stress and often hostile questioning. Even if you do not intend to share incriminating facts, you may share information that is damaging to your case. The stress and confusion of the situation may also mean that you make mistakes on details or specific facts that later are used to show the inconsistency of your version of events. The key is that your attorney’s defense strategy must explain the existing evidence in a consistent way so what you tell the police may make it more difficult to develop an explanation of the facts that establish a reasonable doubt regarding your guilt. Your attorney will also try to make you sympathetic to the jury, but if you provide inconsistent versions of the facts, this can make you less sympathetic.
The key to keep in mind is that in developing a defense strategy, your criminal defense attorney will develop a version of the truth that is most favorable to you and creates a sympathetic picture of you with the jury. This is sometimes called the attorney’s “theory of the case.” There are different ways to interpret the same set of facts, and it is better to let an experienced criminal defense attorney develop this story, than for you to do so during police questioning. Your Kansas criminal defense attorney will have access to all of the evidence against you when developing your theory of the case. Because you do not have the benefit of knowing what evidence the prosecutor or police possess, it is easy to provide information that is inconsistent with the evidence or that is damaging given the other evidence against you.
The bottom line is that an experienced criminal defense attorney in Kansas will have the background and experience of handling hundreds perhaps thousands of cases. This means that your attorney will have the skill and expertise to develop a theory of the case that gives you the best chance of obtaining an acquittal or dismissal of charges. If you find your self arrested and asked to answer questions, you should politely indicate that you do not wish to discuss the matter until you have an attorney present.
Contact a skilled Wichita, Kansas, DUI lawyer at Cummings & Cummings to determine what legal options are available in your situation and to begin planning your most effective defense. Call 316-264-1548 for a Free initial consultation.
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The Wichita, Kansas, law firm of Cummings & Cummings, LLC provides experienced and aggressive legal representation in criminal defense and personal injury cases. We serve the south-central Kansas region including cities such as Augusta, El Dorado, Derby, Mulvane, Newton, Andover, Salina, Kansas City, Cheney, Kingman, Wellington, Winfield, and Eureka.
