Being charged with a crime can be scary, especially when it can have severe repercussions like prison time, fines, and restrictions on everyday living. While there are no guarantees that your chosen criminal lawyer can change the outcome of your legal situation, they have a number of defence strategies at their disposal. Alongside providing guidance and advice, your chosen criminal lawyer may be able to use some of these legal defences in your unique legal predicament:
Claim of Right
If you’ve contacted criminal lawyers on the Gold Coast because you’re being accused of a theft-related crime, ask your chosen lawyer whether ‘claim of right’ might be a worthwhile defence option.
A claim of right describes taking property because you thought you were legally entitled to it. To explore such a defence, you must firmly believe you were entitled to property or money from the person or business you took it from. The belief must be of a legal entitlement, not just moral.
Consent
Consent is a popular legal defence for charges involving assault, theft, and sexual offences. If you can prove that the plaintiff or applicant gave consent for sex, assault, or the taking of property, you may be able to reduce your charges or have them dropped altogether.
Proving consent can often be challenging. It’s also not always possible, especially in sexual cases and those involving people under the legal age of consent. However, the best criminal defence lawyers work hard to achieve a desirable outcome for their clients.
Mental Illness
While not a legal defence to be used lightly, mental illness is something your criminal lawyer may explore to explain why you committed a crime. After all, people can suffer from impairments when they commit crimes.
Your lawyer might be able to help you prove that you acted under a defect of reason due to a disease of the mind. If there’s evidence to suggest that you had a mental illness when committing a crime and didn’t understand what you were doing was wrong, you may receive a lighter sentence.
Provocation
Being charged with murder is life-changing. If convicted, you can spend several years in prison. Minimum non-parole periods can vary between jurisdictions, but you can typically spend a minimum of 10 years behind bars.
However, if circumstances allow, your chosen criminal lawyer might be able to have your sentence reduced to manslaughter if they can prove you were provoked. The provocation legal defence may come into effect if you can prove that the deceased person’s conduct led to you committing the crime. You must also be able to prove that their actions or behaviour would have caused any reasonable person to lose control.
Self-Defence
Self-defence is a commonly used strategy to help clients achieve a ‘not guilty’ verdict. To be eligible to use this defence, you must be able to prove that your conduct was necessary to defend yourself or someone else and to protect your property from being interfered with, taken, damaged, or destroyed. Your conduct must also be a reasonable response to the situation.
There are no guarantees that legal defences will prevent you from being found guilty of crimes. However, your chosen criminal lawyer may be able to provide you with sound legal representation to help you secure the best outcome possible, given the circumstances.