As a Baltimore criminal defense Attorney, most often the first thing I do when hired to defend someone is to look at the applicable law. Each crime requires that certain underlying elements be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to either a Judge or a Jury. If these elements are shown to be met, your challenge as a defense attorney becomes more difficult. Likewise, if you can show that your client’s actions (or lack thereof) fall short of what the crime’s elements require, you have a strong defense based on legal grounds.
It is important, however, to never lose sight of other areas of inquiry that may provide a path to the successful defense of your client. The law can be a very exact master, and this also applies to the various rules that the various parties to a case must follow. Just as one can defend a client on legal grounds, one can also try to show that certain rules were not followed.
Last week, I was in Annapolis for a hearing on behalf of a client charged with several very serious crimes. Initially, the hearing was supposed to be nothing more than a standard “get together” between the State and Defense to go over housekeeping issues and prepare for the eventual trial. What began as a standard hearing quickly changed course.
Defendants have certain Constitutional protections and these form Court rules that require the State to act in a certain way when bringing their case against your client. One of these rules deals with the amount of time the State has to bring their case against your client. Whether you call it a “speedy trial rule” or something else, the bottom line is that the State’s Attorney’s Office must bring their case within a certain number of days or your client’s constitutional rights will be violated.
As I prepared for this hearing, it became evident that the State had not met this burden and that they had taken too long to bring their case against my client. The Rule says you must bring the case within a certain number of days and that number had come and gone. At this moment, all the evidence in the world took a backseat to the administrative rules that govern how we bring our respective cases to court.
When the Judge took the bench and the case was called, I informed the Court that I had a preliminary matter. When asked by the Judge what I had to say, I, without emotion, confidently made a Motion to Dismiss the case against my client due to the fact that the State had not brought the matter against my client in the requisite amount of time.
Immediately, the Prosecutor and her assistant began a frantic search through notebooks, files, and other collections of documents, searching for something that would counter my assertion. A brief recess was called so that the Prosecutor could confer with her Supervisor and find out what was going on. Finally, the Judge returned and the matter was recalled.
The Judge asked the State for the response to my Motion. There was little they could say. The evidence was clear, specifically that my client had been served with his papers on a certain date and that day to the present day was simply too long and had violated my client’s right to a timely trial.
With no fanfare and even less emotion in her voice, the Judge announced that the case was dismissed. My client was free and the legal matter was over.
All the work, all of the preparation, research, prior hearings and out of court meetings had led to this: the complete evaporation of the case against my client in the matter of seconds. This was certainly a victory and one that my client was very pleased about.
My point here, however, is that a criminal defense lawyer must always look at every possible angle when searching for that which will lead his client to victory. In this case, it was a technical (and pretty rare) error on the part of the Prosecutor’s office. But I picked it up and used it to successfully defend my client.
Client’s have rights and the Court has rules. In this case, not following the rules cost the State more than any amount of defense evidence could have done. But it took looking for it, recognizing it, and making the move.
This information is not intended as legal advice and is provided for informational purposes only. Every situation is different and, therefore, a different application of the law may apply. If you have a specific matter you wish to discuss, please contact our office and we will be happy to have a Baltimore criminal defense attorney discuss your particular matter with you.
