If You Don’t Investigate Your Federal Criminal Case, Then You are Giving the Advantage to the US Attorney
A Criminal Defense Investigation of a Federal Criminal Case
“I would strongly recommend any young man to stay away from criminal law. It’s not a good place to be, unfortunately.”
Your Investigation is the Most Important Part of Any Case
What boggles our minds is the lack of effort, even by the “big firm” federal criminal defense firms to do any sort of investigation on their own for their clients, rather they simply rely on whatever the US Attorney provides through the discovery process. In fact, it is actually quite rare for a federal criminal defense attorney to attempt any sort of investigation. This in turn creates a situation where the United States Attorney controls everything and has all of the leverage. Unlike most federal criminal lawyers however, we conduct an extensive investigation and the fruits of our investigations change the cases in our clients favor.
Freedom of Information Act
Lead federal trial lawyer Jim Amberg is the master of obtaining our own evidence through state and federal freedom of information act requests. Basically, almost all public bodies have to provide you with documents if you request them. What happens is that they will provide you with all sorts of things you never expected. A prime example is foia requesting police reports of specific acts in a RICO case. Jim once obtained 1,000 pages of police reports that the government never turned over, probably because their agents never bothered to obtain them. Once those cops got on the stand at trial, Jim blasted them with their own reports, contradicting the government’s central argument in the case.
Street Investigation
Talking to witnesses, something that should be the first thing done in a federal criminal case, is usually never done by the federal criminal defense attorney. Contrary to that approach, we send expert investigator Marc Herron out into the field to talk to everybody and anybody that can help with our defenses and strategy. Because Marc is also an attorney and has worked with us for years, he knows how to find people and figure out the truth of what is happening. Marc has pulled a rabbit out of his hat on many occasions at trial, resulting in epic acquittals for our clients.
Electronic Investigation
We know that people love to use social media. Because of this, we heavily investigate social media and the internet in general to find all sorts of dirt on witnesses, including the investigating agents. Using this tactic, we have uncovered statements by cooperating witnesses that directly contradict their testimony at trial. It’s always a great day for the defense during a federal criminal trial when we blast a cooperating witness with their own Facebook lies.
Expert Review
Phone dumps, dna testing, ballistics. These are all issues that come up all of the time in federal criminal cases. We know and use the best experts in Michigan and throughout the United States. Our lawyers are also very skilled in electronic evidence review, including understanding how to access everything in a cell phone and performing cell phone location analysis.
Complex Discovery Review
A federal criminal case can have millions of pages of materials and thousands of physical exhibits. The government when providing discovery to the defendants generally redacts large portions of it and makes it almost impossible to determine who is who and what is going on. It takes a federal criminal defense attorney with extensive experience in sifting through the mountain of discovery to find the important things that can win the case. Because of the nature of the amount of discovery, many times we employ Chris Antone to act as a discovery coordinator. Chris is a tremendous help and makes it possible to hone down the discovery to the key issues.