Attorneys defend guilty as well as innocent people. Often a Criminal Attorney is hired when the police start questioning a guilty person. This prevents them from providing the police with self-incriminating evidence. A person may have been stealing items out of homes in a neighborhood for many months. Finally a person matching his description is seen leaving a home with a large screen television. The witness also saw the type of car he was driving. After the police checked a computerized data base for that car, they saw that a convicted burglar owned one.
When the police contacted him, they said they just wanted to ask him a few questions. They didn’t read him his Miranda rights or take him to the police station. He decided to tell them that he would call his lawyer and then meet them at the police station. The police asked him to state where he was on a particular night. A Criminal Attorney will never condone his client lying, but he won’t let him incriminate himself either. The attorney will just recommend that he not answer a question. Eventually the police admitted they had a witness that saw him and his car. However, the attorney countered that there are many people who drive the same make and model car and witnesses are often wrong when they identify people and cars. It is also difficult for people to see things on a dark night.
Based on this limited evidence the lawyer tells his client that he’s shouldn’t answer any additional questions. The police don’t have enough evidence to charge him, so they let him go. The attorney tells them that they must contact his client through them. There is no forensic evidence linking him to the burglary. The police cannot find any person such as a pawn shop owner that has been buying the merchandise from him. The witness was an older person who passed away the next year. Therefore the case just languishes. James E. Hitchcock is one of the lawyers in Defiance, OH that defends people charged with crimes and under investigation. People who believe they are under suspicion by the police can call him.
