Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Add on to proof of evidence not defendants

The burden is always on the prosecution to prove each element of the offense charged. Here it looks like the DA could have trouble proving knowing possession. Being on probation or parole, or having a prior conviction does change anything about that. What is does mean though is that your fiance and his lawyer have to be very careful in how they present the case so that the jury never finds out, especially if the priors involved drugs.

Re: Add on to proof of evidence not defendants

Sorry--found an error in the last post i made to this question. This is the corrected text:

The burden is always on the prosecution to prove each element of the offense charged. Here it looks

like the DA could have trouble proving knowing possession. Being on probation or parole, or having

a prior conviction does NOT change anything about that. What is does mean though is that your fiance

and his lawyer have to be very careful in how they present the case so that the jury never finds

out, especially if the priors involved drugs. There are many technical rules about using prior convictions as evidence. A criminal defense attorney should be expected to know them and devise ways of blocking the DA from using the priors.

Re: Add on to proof of evidence not defendants

I've read the other replies and intend to only augment them. The criminal defendant also has the option to waive a jury trial and try the case to the judge. The D. A. has to also agree however they will normally do that to shorten up the trial and not insult the judge. Who they may have to be in front of several times in other cases. This is a decision that involves really knowing the judge's decision pattern.

However you asked the big �why' question. Why plead guilty when the person is really innocent? Because - fear of a bigger/greater punishment (judges make a practice of adding on to the sentence if the criminal defendant pushes the case to a trial) - fear of a system that goes wrong as often as it goes right (money to hire a competent attorney is an essential ingredient in the mixture) - fear of the uncertainty - fear of facing the audience i. e. the jury in the courtroom - fear of facing their own human frailties in an unknown environment i. e., the court house. O. J. faced an opponent, the D. A. of Los Angeles, who had made several fundamental mistakes - the D. A. of Los Angeles blew it. O. J. had a well funded defense team; and the jury let racial prejudice control their decision i. e. hatred of the white dominated police force also helped O. J.. When becoming a great military leader one has to learn where to fight battles. There's a reason why Lee lost at Gettysburg. He shouldn't have fought there. Lee should have taken Johnson's advice. That was to retreat, pick his ground, and defend. The O. J. trial should have been held where the murder took place, not in Downtown Los Angeles. The O. J. trial is not an anomaly in our criminal justice system if you follow the criminal defense of very wealthy people that are charged with crimes. Heaven may be the same for the wealthy and the poor. But the criminal justice system certainly is not.

Are you an attorney

You advised your fiancee not to accept any plea bargains. I hope you are willing to do his time as well.

Re: Add on to proof of evidence not defendants

Thanks for your posting. I like the advisement given by Mr. Hobbs, since it underlines that there are MANY factors involved in a case, and no case is simply just a "take it or leave it" situation. Even in O.J.'s case, as we learned after the fact, some of the attorneys strongly urged him to plea bargain, rather than go to trial. And after the trial was over, he did over a year in prison.

If you want advise on how to "prove a man with a prior conviction is innocent", you have it all backwards. It is the prosecution that has to prove him guilty, and it is the job of a good defense lawyer to show that not all the elements are sufficiently proven. Of course, that is different in every case.