Five Star Law

The Constitution also gives you the right to an attorney and to a trial that is fair. The trial also has to be conducted timely and in front of a jury if you wish so. Understanding these rights is the best protection you can have to ensure that they are respected. When under arrest or subject to a search, these informations can be of great use in making sure you’re able to know and enforce your rights.

Ask the attorney the extent of his/her work background
and experience ?

When hiring an attorney, you are hiring someone that you can entrust your case with and someone who is qualified to aggressively defend your rights. Many attorneys will open their private practice right out of law school without absorbing the invaluable experience that comes from working at either a District Attorney’s Office or the Public Defender’s Office. Although many of these attorneys may be qualified in their own right, you want to seek an attorney who has cultivated his/her trial skills before opening up their own private practice. Prosecutors and public defenders spend their time in the courtroom on a daily basis. They are exposed to various types of cases and they handle a wide range of criminal matters. An attorney who has gained such experience before going into private practice is at an advantage. He/she has gained training and experience in the rules of evidence, the Penal Code, the Vehicle Code, the Health and Safety Code, etc.

How many jury trials has he or she engaged in ?

Ask the attorney how many jury trials he/she has conducted or engaged in. This is a CRUCIAL issue. Many attorneys advertise that they are trial lawyers when they have not in fact completed a jury trial or they have only engaged in a bench trial or two. You should be weary of an attorney who has not taken any cases to jury trial. This should send a red flag because these types of attorneys are only interested in settling a case and not necessarily fighting for you or for your case. Depending on the circumstances, it is not always wise to push a case to trial if it is against your best interest. However, if you have valid defenses and you would like to fight your case, then you need to hire an attorney who is going to fight for you. You need an attorney who is not afraid to go to trial and who is confident and skilled in his/her courtroom abilities.

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10. They don’t have fingerprints/DNA so the case must be dismissed; the State’s evidence is weak – the case must be dismissed.

This myth has been around for decades but it has become more prevalent lately thanks to television programs like CSI-Miami. For example, let us imagine that a person is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm because the police found a pistol in the closet of the bedroom he shares with his girlfriend. After the police seize the weapon they will almost always dust the weapon for fingerprints and, lately, they will also swab the weapon for DNA. In nearly every case there will be no fingerprints nor will there be DNA found on the weapon. This is because fingerprints are left only on hard, shiny surfaces. The only real hard and shiny surface on a pistol is the barrel. A pistol is rarely picked up by the barrel. Likewise, DNA is found only biological tissue. Rarely is enough biological tissue left on the handle of a pistol to permit an analysis to be performed.

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