Roles of a Criminal Defense Attorneys

Becoming anattorney is not easy. Over that, becoming a criminal defense attorney can be a difficult task to accomplish as it is a challenge to win the case and also do justice to people. Whether or not an attorney deals with a criminal or civil client, the court proceedings should happen according to the law. There are several roles of a criminal defense attorney.

Assessment of the case

The criminal defense attorney starts by meeting their client way before the court dates. They need to understand the case before they create their plans for presenting the case. There are investigators, researchers, and report writers involved in this process of assessing the case. While big attorneys and firms have different people for all these works, small attorneys do all this work by themselves. After the required information is gathered, the attorney can plan and present the case on the day of the hearing.

Handling Pleas

The defense attorney gets an offer from the court to make the accused accept their crimes in exchange for a lesser penalty and sentence. This can happen if the accused defendant agrees to plead guilty to a lesser crime than the one they have been charged with. It also saves time and money because then the accused does not have to go through a trial. The duty of the defense attorney is to find out if this deal is in favor of their client based on the information that they have.They can also negotiate with the investigator for a better deal.

Trying the case

If the accused wants to go for the trial, the attorney advice them to choose the best option for themselves. It is the defendant’s choice whether to accept the states deal or to go through the trial. If a case goes on trial, there are a lot of tasks added in the plan of the attorney. One of the main tasks is creating a sympathetic environment for their clients infront of the jury as well as the judge. It is not an easy task, and every approach needs to be thought well before putting it infront of the jury or judge. It is all about selling your pitch to win the case, like a salesman.

Public Defenders

Public defenders play an identical role. They are hired when the defendant cannot afford the fight the case. Public defenders are allotted by the court and do not have any previos knowledge or interest in the case. They may or may not give their best for fighting the case, unlike the private sector attorneys as they get paid for it by the client. Also, public defender gets a lot of cases together so he or she must divide their time to look into each and every case they get.