Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel And Your Florida Criminal Defense Case

When you hire a criminal defense lawyer, it is because you are counting on him or her to get you out of trouble, or at least to get you into less trouble than you are currently in. If you are being unfairly accused of a crime, your lawyer’s job is to show the jury that there is reasonable doubt about your guilt, or else to show the judge that the state violated your rights in collecting the evidence that it is using to prosecute you. If it is obvious, even to you, that you committed the crime of which you are being accused, then your lawyer’s job is to protect you from excessive punishments by negotiating a plea deal where you receive a sentence at the lower end of the sentencing guidelines in exchange for your guilty plea, or else plead guilty to some of your charges in exchange for the court dropping the others. Lawyers cannot always get you the results you want in a criminal case, even when everyone plays by the rules. If your lawyer’s errors are so serious that they constitute a violation of your right to a fair trial, you have the right to appeal your conviction. If you received a wrongful conviction because of your previous lawyer’s mistakes, contact a Tampa criminal defense lawyer.

Due Process of Law Does Not Require Criminal Defense Lawyers to Be Infallible

The Supreme Court decision Strickland v. Washington in 1989 laid out the criteria by which a lawyer’s errors can be considered a violation of the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. If the lawyer provided ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant has the right to appeal his or her sentence or conviction on the basis of Sixth Amendment violations. Specifically, the appellant must show that the lawyer made a major error and that this error caused the court to convict the defendant.

These are some examples of lawyers’ errors that appeals courts considered serious enough to warrant overturning the conviction or sentence:

• A lawyer did not notice that his defendant had already been tried for the same crime. He should have petitioned the court to drop the charges based on the “no double jeopardy” rule.
• A lawyer was absent from her client’s sentencing hearing.
• The charges that the lawyer defended the client against were not the same as the ones with which the state charged the lawyer’s client.

In other words, these are specific major errors that directly affected the outcome of the case. Other cases involving “world’s worst lawyer” scenarios led to the court upholding the defendant’s conviction. These included cases where the lawyers were habitually drunk, experiencing age-related memory loss, or in the midst of active psychosis.

Contact Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Bryant Scriven

A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are suffering the consequences of a wrongful conviction and want to appeal it.  Contact Scriven Law in Tampa, Florida to schedule a consultation.

Source:

sunethics.com/le—ineffective-assistance.html