Legal Question in Criminal Law in South Carolina

You ask a good question and its an intelligent one. However, it would be irresponsible of me to try and answer it without more information. The last thing I would want to do is guess and send you or your son in the wrong direction.

All I really know about your son's case is that there is a witness that may or may not be able to identifiy him and that there are several other witnesses that can state he was not near the location of the crime. If this was the only evidence and I was absolutely certain of that, then I might be comfortable answering your question. But I need to be careful. Your son deserves nothing but the best advise possible and without more information I am not in a position to advise him. I do not know what the police think they might have, or what other investigations they have done since the arrest, or if they have put everything in the paperwork. I do not know if there are any other witnesses, fingerprints, if any evidence has been found. If anything taken from the crime scene has been recovered.

In order to render competent advise, I need to be sure of all of these things. One of the first things that I look at when investigating a charge for one of my clients, is what the Probable Cause was for the arrest. That is always a good starting point. I do not know how old your son's case is, but I often will request a Preliminary Hearing on these types of cases. That can often be an invaluable tool for learning what sort of evidence that the police have and do not have. Its often will give a defense attorney a direction to pursue. The other thing that I try to obtain in the beginning of a case is one of the investigation reports. They are usually very detailed and are written in a cronological order of events, who was interviewed, what was discovered, what evidence there is, and so forth.

I hope this has helped some. I know that it didn't answer your questions, but maybe it helped give you an idea of some of the things involved.

My firm in in Horry County and I accept cases throughout the state. You are welcome to call if your considering retaining a defense attorney.

Robert Johnston

843-828-1137