Capital offenses come in all different forms, but ultimately they hurt another person's body or reputation. A criminal defense attorney is granted the important job of ensuring that his client is not unjustly convicted.
Capital offenses definitely require criminal defense attorney expertise. Those who have committed capital offenses will need to hire an attorney to represent them in court,
preferably a lawyer who has already had success in reducing other criminal sentences.
What is a Capital Offense?
Capital offenses are those that involve the intentional or unintentional murder of someone for a variety of reasons. Some examples include murder during kidnapping, murder during robbery, murder during rape, or murder during burglary. Murder of a police officer or any other state or federal peace officer is also included.
What is the Penalty for a Capital Offense?
The penalty for a capital offense is death. At times, that may be reduced to life imprisonment if the help of an expert criminal defense attorney is enlisted. Usually bail is not an option, so the defendant will spend his life in prison. But for a convicted criminal who was facing death, a reduction to life imprisonment is literally a lifesaver.
Other Types of Criminal Lawyers
Besides capital offenses, there are several other branches of criminal law that are studied by a criminal defense attorney. Some attorneys choose to specialize in one category, while others prefer to have a broad knowledge of the entire law.
One branch of criminal justice includes violent crimes like armed robbery, assault and battery, arson, carjacking, homicide, kidnapping, and a handful of other offences. Typically a violent crime is one where the offender caused or intended to cause harm to another individual whether he used a weapon or not. These types of crimes are punishable by varying lengths of time in jail, depending on the type of crime committed.
An individual accused of assault and battery is actually answering for two separate offenses against another person. Assault indicates that an individual feels threatened, like something violent is going to happen to him because of the way the accused acts toward him. Battery occurs when the accused has followed through and harmed the threatened individual. In cases of assault and battery, a criminal defense attorney will be able to explore options relating to intent and defense that can significantly reduce or completely eliminate a guilty verdict.
Another branch of criminal law includes crimes known as white collar crimes. These are non-violent crimes like fraud, embezzlement, or insider trading. While these crimes don't harm other individuals physically, they do hurt reputations, emotions and sense of well-being. Some, like identity theft can totally shatter the victim's financial life.
The final branch of criminal law reviewed here is DUI offenses. DUI offenses have the potential of harming or even killing others. Many accidents caused by drunken driving results in serious injury or even death to the victims. For this reason, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is a serious offense. Now, for those who have been accused of DUI crimes, a criminal defense attorney can provide help through his knowledge of police procedures at the scene of the arrest - namely his knowledge and expertise on the complexities and possible inaccuracies of breathalyzer tests and more.
