Criminal Lawyer - Covering All Bases

There are three main categories of cases in which a criminal lawyer will be charged with defending his or her client against pending jail time. There are infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies, which increase in severity of accused crime and legal punishment through the short but meaningful list.

A criminal lawyer is someone who has all of the applicable state and federal law education and training needed to help each of their clients be heard and helped with the variety of criminal charges they may face. These attorneys have backgrounds in a wide variety of undergraduate studies, , achievement of law degree from an American Bar Association accredited law school, completion of their state bar examination as well as any state ethics exam, if applicable; in order to become a reputable, practicing attorney. Throughout his or her education came the specialization in criminal law. All of the above preparation has offered them with the background in all areas of criminal law including the three levels of criminal misconduct. He or she was able to study a variety of case circumstance and outcomes, as well as develop the best research and defense strategies to present their client’s case to the highest standards before the court: judge and jury.

A criminal lawyer’s training is extremely useful when manipulating the status of law in order to best represent their clients in the variety of infraction, misdemeanor, or felony charges they may come up against. Let us begin with infractions. Infractions include moving traffic violations such as failure to stop, speeding, or absence of seatbelt. You may also be charged with an infraction for litter, failure to report, animal care or child safety violations, which only result in a fine to the guilty party. However, misdemeanor and felony charges result in fines that include jail time from three months in county jail to sixty-five years in the state penitentiary, depending on the severity of the crime you are found to have committed. Misdemeanors are non-violent offenses such as petty theft, minor drug possession, or driving while under the influence (DUI). These criminal offenses are punishable by up to one year county jail and up to $5,000 in fines. Felonies, however, provide the most severe charge and punishment of up to $10,000 in fines and up to sixty-five years imprisonment. Felonies are violent crimes that cause bodily harm to a human being, or death.

Criminal lawyers and civil attorneys are often compared and said to have in some way represent similar cases before the court. First, it is true that all civil cases deal with an individual or company’s negligent actions that brought about an accident of injury or death. Misdemeanors and felonies embody such types of offences (crimes) as well. Second, a great majority of such civil cases are traffic accident related. Majority of infraction charges are vehicular in nature. This allows civil cases to be compared and often tried by criminal lawyers. However, these attorneys do specialize in insisting on the most resourceful strategies to bring light to the evidence, interviews, character, and legal examples that best represent --- for each of a criminal lawyer's clients.