What is a Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Role?
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In this video, Houston criminal defense lawyer, Jim Story discusses the attorney’s role in the Texas criminal law process.
Houston Criminal Law Video Transcription
Criminal defense lawyers protect your constitutional rights in the criminal proceedings. The police officers, and the investigators, and everyone involved with the state, they’re not necessarily there to protect your rights. They’re there to prove that you committed a crime. So that’s their focus. Their focus is finding evidence that incriminates you.
The role of a criminal defense attorney is to represent your rights in this process. Where you’ve got the power of the state, or the federal government, arrayed against you, the criminal defense attorney acts as a shield that keeps them away from you, keeps them from talking to you, and keeps them from trying to get you to make statements that will help them prove their case.
Our job is to inform you of what the criminal process is like, what the steps are. And then to look at the evidence and advise you of what it looks like. Whether we believe they will be able to show that you’re liable on this charge or not. And, as a criminal defense attorney, we will enter into charge bargaining on your behalf, sentence bargaining on your behalf.
And we will also construct, bring in witnesses, and expert witnesses if necessary, to put on evidence on your behalf at a jury trial, if you choose to go to a jury trial, or possibly a bench trial, if you would rather go to the judge in that situation.
And so we are there to answer all of your questions, shepherd you through this process, and to make sure you’re not taken advantage of by overzealous government officials.
