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Don't Be Fooled By These 4 Common Misconceptions About Criminal Law

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Criminal law is commonly misunderstood due to inaccurate representations on television and in film. If you are facing criminal charges, you need to act on accurate information to achieve the best possible responses. 

The following are four common misconceptions you should be aware of to avoid mistakes in defending yourself against criminal charges:

It's not possible to be convicted without evidence.

In many cases, there is no evidence possible, and the entire case relies on someone's word alone. Witness testimony can in some cases be enough to arrive at a conviction against the defendant.

Don't assume that you're safe because there is no physical evidence of the criminal charges against you. You need to build up the strongest possible defense even if your charges are based on one's witness's accusations alone. 

An individual who files charges can drop charges at any time.

In a lot of cases, charges filed by a victim cannot be dropped even if the victim wants to drop them at some point. If the individual filing the charges claimed that a crime was a committed, police and the prosecutor may follow through with charging the defendant anyway.

Those who were charged who have talked the victim of the crime out of the chargers may still have to go through with being tried anyway. 

A criminal defense attorney will always try to prove that the client is not guilty.

In some cases, it may be in the best interests of the charged individual to seek a plea bargain deal or another means of minimizing the consequences of charges rather than to try to be found not guilty. 

If it will be hard to prove that you're not guilty and there are plea bargain options, your criminal lawyer may recommend that you avoid trying to fight the charges for the best possible outcome. 

 A case cannot be continued if the defendant wasn't read his or her rights.

Policemen are required to read an arrested individual his or her Miranda rights at the time of their arrests. However, that doesn't mean that resulting charges are thrown away if the defendant brings up the fact that the Miranda rights were not read.

If Miranda rights were not read at the time of the arrest, the only result is that anything the arrested individual said at the time of the arrest will be inadmissible as evidence in the case. However, the charges will still hold. 

For more information, contact a criminal defense lawyer near you.