The police report can be reduced to an evening into a few pages. The actual charge might be contained on a single line.
The real world isn’t always as neat and tidy.
Perhaps dinner started at seven. A fight broke out at nine. Someone left the house around 10 pm, came back later, and a neighbor called police at around midnight. Or perhaps a driver had spent the evening with friends, then got driving, was stopped a short distance later, took roadside tests, took a preliminary breath test and was arrested. The whole thing could have been turned into a criminal case by the time it was morning.
Criminal defense lawyers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, one of the most important tasks is to put the sequence back together.
Start earlier than the time of your arrest
People naturally remember the moment that was dramatic: flashing lights, officers at the door, handcuffs, or a police call. Yet understanding an incident may require a bit more research.
Michigan law, for instance, considers the relationship of the parties involved in a domestic abuse case. The information supplied by the firm pinpoints individuals such as spouses, former partners, parents of a shared child or dating partner and those who previously lived with each other.
Even the events that preceded the response of police are crucial. Did there have to be a fight? Was there a person who was at the table? What time did the interaction start? Have any of the participants left and returned? Was there any communication prior to or after?
They’re not designed to create an entirely different narrative. They help defense attorneys in the field of domestic violence in Grand Rapids, Michigan understand the allegation in its actual context rather than viewing the time when police arrived as the starting point of all.
The charge itself is crucial. Michigan is a distinct state for domestic violence offenses and the firm’s papers highlight that prior convictions can affect the severity of subsequent charges.
An OWI Stop Has Its Own Timeline
A drunk driving incident can be uncovered in a shorter time, but sequence still matters. The driving itself as well as the motive of the officer conducting contact, observations made following the arrest, roadside procedure including statements, testing and the arrest. If you view all of this as a single incident it is difficult to differentiate between the different functions that each stage of the incident.
Michigan defines the crime as Operating while intoxicated, also known as OWI under MCL 257.625. According to the information provided by the firm, a roadside preliminarily breath test is a method of screening and is not admissible at trial as evidence of intoxication. However, it could be used in determining the probable cause.
That distinction is one reason drunk driving defense lawyers in Grand Rapids, Michigan may reconstruct the stop instead of focusing exclusively on one number a driver remembers from the roadside.
Sometimes the Timeline is on a telephone
Criminal investigations can begin with no police specific evidence.
Sexual offenses may be based on events that occurred earlier. This could have been in a relationship, family situation, or even with colleagues. According to the description provided by the firm that a person can find out about an investigation before ever being charged.
In this case, the chronology can be spread over multiple sources. Communication records can reveal the date when people exchanged messages. Digital records can aid in explaining a series of events. Statements made by people involved can describe the same event differently.
That doesn’t mean a text message automatically is a proof or a disproof of an assertion. That means that criminal sexual assault lawyers in Grand Rapids Michigan will need to understand how communication, statements, issues of credibility, and any other information available fit together.
Documentation and memory are not the Same.
After a stressful encounter it is common for people to recall moments instead of timestamps. It might seem normal to declare “It was in the evening” but this is not enough to answer a legal question.
Documents can aid you in organizing your thoughts. Contact histories, existing messages pictures, receipts court documents, and various other documents may contain dates or times that can help create a more clear chronology. What’s relevant depends on the particular case.
Documents should not be altered to make a situation appear better. An attorney for defense will be able to determine what information could be significant and decide how to deal with it.
A Case Number can’t capture an Entire Evening
Shawn Haff reports more than 16 years in the field of criminal defense in Grand Rapids, and the Criminal Defense Law Center of West Michigan provides more than 1,500 criminal cases dealt with over a period of 25+ years of practice. Its work includes OWIs domestic violence, assaults in the form of weapons and drugs, sexual crimes as well as expungements, retail frauds and driver’s license restorations.
Past outcomes, such as dismissals reductions, acquittals, or favorable pleas cannot guarantee the outcome of another case.
Every new subject comes with its own person and sequence, as well as allegations and proof. It’s what matters.
An arrest can happen in minutes. In just a few phrases, you can make the charge label. Understanding the events that produced it often requires slowing the speed of the night down and looking at what transpired in the sequence it took place in.