Your Criminal Defense Lawyer

You have the right to remain silent. You have a right to have an attorney and if you can not afford one, one will be appointed for you by the court.” These are words most of us are familiar with from watching crime show dramas on television. These are the words the duty bound police officer recites to the criminal when he or she is arrested and put in the back of the police car, handcuffed and about to be taken to jail. In theory- the arrested are innocent before proven guilty in a court of law but in reality the second those handcuffs go on, the presumption of guilt is pretty strong and the presumption of innocence seems to be an obscure thought somewhere in the back of the arresting officer’s mind.

For anyone who has ever been on the wrong end of those handcuffs the first thing you need to know is to take your rights seriously. There is a reason these rights exist and the right to an attorney is one that should be acted on. A criminal lawyer should be the only person you confide all to because your attorney is the only person who is working for you in the criminal justice system to help ensure your legal rights are protected whether you are innocent or guilty of the charges being laid against you.
Many defendants make the mistake of listening to their Miranda rights and then promptly ignoring them. Defendants being arrested for any charge no matter how serious or minor can not talk their way out of the charges by talking to the police. Any information that a defendant feels they have that can help reduce the charges against them or prove their innocence should come from their defense attorney and not themselves.

If you are able to hire your own lawyer all the better and it should be the first phone call you make once you are booked. Hopefully you have already found an attorney since it can be very hard to shop for a quality attorney while you sit in a holding cell with one allotted phone call to make. Your criminal lawyer should be just that- an attorney that specializes in criminal law. There are tons of lawyers out there and they all have a specialty. And just because you had an attorney who was wonderful with your divorce of family law issues- doesn’t mean they are properly trained and equipped to handle a criminal matter. Another point you will need to consider up front is the cost for your attorney. You will need to get a pretty good ballpark figure from whomever you choose to represent you since legal representation is not cheap and if you have an involved case that requires your attorney invest a lot of time and investigative detail to it may add up quite quickly to a substantial number. It is well worth the price to have an attorney on your side since they are being paid to fight for you.