Building an Oakland Robbery Defense

If you were charged with robbery, consider seeking the services of an experienced criminal defense attorney. An attorney with specific experience building an Oakland robbery defense could scrutinize the evidence against you and fight to protect your rights. Call today to schedule a consultation.

Defense Strategies

The first step for any attorney is to review the police report to see if there are factual or legal problems arising out of the client’s arrest or detention by law enforcement. If there are legal problems with how the police conducted the arrest or search of the charged person, an attorney can file motions to have any subsequent evidence suppressed by the court. If that evidence is suppressed, in many instances it may result in the case or the charges being dismissed in their entirety.

The next step is to conduct an investigation independent of what law enforcement did by bringing in an investigator, contacting eyewitnesses, and looking for physical evidence such as videos of the scene or surveillance videos.

Physical Evidence

There may be issues with some of the physical evidence obtained by the police. Even if it is obtained lawfully, there still may be problems with the evidence that suggests it is not connected to the person who was charged with robbery. To fight this evidence, attorneys may use a combination of filing motions, doing an investigation, and following up with people who have been previously interviewed by law enforcement.

A lawyer may also bring in their own evidence. Nowadays, homes and businesses are frequently equipped with cameras that not only portray their property but even the surrounding areas. Buses, taxi cabs, and rideshare cars often have internal cameras, so law enforcement sometimes but not always look for these. An experienced attorney will have an investigator working on their behalf to find out if there are such videos that law enforcement did not get. In some instances, the physical evidence may show that the alleged robbery did not happen the way the police claim it did or show that it was somebody else altogether who committed the robbery.

Identification Issues

The alleged victim of the robbery may have identified the person who was charged as being the actual assailant, but there may be problems with that identification. The defense attorney could bring in evidence suggesting the identification is tainted, questionable, or otherwise cannot be trusted. It may have been made under highly suggestive conditions, and if that is the case, an attorney can and should bring motions to have the identification called into question. If the identification is the bulk of the evidence, then the case itself may fall apart and therefore be dismissed.

Plea Deal Considerations

It is always very hard for an attorney to recommend a client plea to a robbery charge because it is both a felony and a strike charge. However, there may be instances where the legally-admissible evidence against the client is so great and so strong that if the client were to decline the offer, proceed to trial, and get convicted, the consequences would be significantly greater.

Another situation in which someone should plea to a charge is if they are charged with not only robbery but significant other felony counts that the district attorney is agreeing to dismiss in exchange for a guilty plea. Again, the attorney would likely recommend in the event there is pretty compelling legally admissible evidence against the client, that the client plea so that the bulk of the charges would be dismissed in exchange for the plea. Again, even under those circumstances, the attorney would only do it if the offer was reasonable in terms of how much time somebody is going to serve.

Importance of Hiring a Local Attorney

The biggest benefit of having a local attorney is the relationship that that attorney has with the district attorney’s office in terms of negotiating the case for what is commonly referred to as a plea bargain. The attorney will also have an understanding of the makeup of the jury pool, which will be invaluable should the case not settle and go to a jury trial. An attorney will know who best suited to sit on a jury for their client in a robbery case.

The more experience the attorney has with the local district attorney’s office and the judges, the better likelihood of a lower offer, reduced offer to a different charge altogether or perhaps even, in the best-case scenario, an outright dismissal. For help building an Oakland robbery defense, you should consult with a skilled local defense lawyer.