Thankfully, in the US, you have the right of innocence until proven guilty in court of law. However, even if you are found guilty for any reason in any case, you have a variety of options available to you. These often come in the form of post trial appeals, and can be extremely challenging for inexperienced lawyers to take on. For this reason, it is vital that you seek out an attorney that has extensive experience in both criminal trials, as well as criminal appeals. Although it is extremely challenging to overturn any type of federal criminal conviction, it is not impossible. Therefore, you are going to want to seek out a post trial appeals lawyer that has extensive experience, and has personally handled numerous successful appeals in the Eleventh Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals.
For your attorney to provide you with criminal appeals, it is required that there is evidence indicative of an unfair trial. These grounds can include procedural problems, such as a mistake on the part of the judge, a mistake on the part of prosecutors, or law enforcement. As an example, if a law enforcement agent falsified the evidence in your case, the prosecution did not adhere to the rules of discovery in your case, the judge did not instruct the jury correctly, or if a witness in your case perjured themselves, these are a few of the many reasons which may have caused you to receive an unfair trial. Therefore, you would be allowed to pursue criminal appeals in your case, to potentially reverse the conviction or sentence that has been placed on you. In addition, you can also pursue post trial appeals after plea agreement as well, and your appeals attorney will be able to provide you the knowledge and services required in order to do this successfully.
In federal criminal appeals, it is vital that you have an attorney with the skills to thoroughly examine all of your trial records to find any and all legal errors that occurred. This can include jury instruction mistakes, rulings of evidence, additional defendants that should have been charged in your case and much more. It is vital that your attorney thoroughly review each of the facts available in your case, as well as the evidence on record. In so doing, your post trial appeals attorney can discover whether your initial trial lawyer could have represented you better by a more aggressive strategy, or by undermining available testimony or evidence. If there is any possibility for criminal appeals, you deserve a strong representative that can find them and exploit them on your behalf. What’s more, if your attorney has exhausted all of the direct post trial appeals available to you under the law, you could also pursue representation in habeas corpus actions. Regardless of the case that you are involved in, or the conviction and sentence that has been placed on you, you deserve every opportunity to ensure that you received a fair and just trial. The best way to ensure that this has happened is to retain a solid and aggressive criminal lawyer that can defend you both pre-and post trial and potentially procure your freedom.