Seattle DUI Attorney | Theory of Corpus Delicti

Nobody wishes to be on familiar terms with or talk to a criminal defense attorney until they are in trouble. There is a specific plague or hex that clients seem to feel trail persons seeking out criminal guidance before they need it. Nevertheless, once you are charged with a felony, you immediately understand how valuable a high-quality Seattle criminal attorney is.

And part of the need for a criminal attorney is the need to decode all of the legal gibberish that is tossed back and forth between the judge and the attorneys. Here are just a couple of expressions you might hear at some point in your criminal process, some you possibly will be acquainted with, some you possibly will not: hearsay, nunc pro tunc; arraignment; omnibus; voir dire; res ipsa loquitor; and on and on.

Well, you’re in luck, because the Seattle Criminal Attorney Blog is here to help you know what one of those legal terms means – corpus delicti. This is a word you may not hear spouted in court a lot, but it is an imperative term for your defense attorney to be on familiar terms with, specifically if you have confessed to a misdemeanor and he or she desires to try to get that confession suppressed. So that you better understand the word, I’ve broken it down for you below.

As I stated above, corpus delicti arises most regularly in the circumstance of confessions, and specifically in the situation of confessions where not a lot of extra facts exists against the defendant. spot, judges and courts, although more than ready to allow in a confession if one is provided, don’t necessarily like confessions, specifically if they are the solitary thing the prosecutor has on a defendant. The rationale is, we be acquainted with false confessions are given from time to time. And we know that juries place in awfully high regard confessions of defendants. So, judges and courts are timid to allow confessions in unless there is some extra unrelated proof of the criminal act.

And that extra independent data of a criminal act is what corpus delicti represents. If there is no corpus delicti, or extra independent support of a crime, the court will not agree to in a confession because there is the chance (whether rational or otherwise) that the confession was erroneously given. Still a little bit confused as to what it means? How about an example.

Let’s say there is a guy. He is standing out in a parking lot with some supplementary citizens around some cars. Let’s say the individuals in the car and the individuals out of the van get into a yelling match, for whatever reason. In the end, the gentlemen in the vehicle choose to leave. As they are pulling away, the driver hears a sound on his auto and turns around. He doesn’t see anyone touching his auto or necessarily by his sedan, but there is only one person in the area. The guy in the vehicle doesn’t check his sedan out until later on, when he glimpses a dent in the side of his van. He surmises it was the gentleman he saw around his auto before.

The police go and pick up the man they suspect of hurting the automobile and take him down to the cops station. Following some chatting and interrogating, they get the gentleman to let in to kicking the sedan. He is seized and charged with malicious mischief.

Time to put on your DUI attorney hat. In this situation, do you feel the rule of corpus delicti exists here? Without the admission, all the cops have for data is the man hearing something happen to his auto, turn around, and spot the gentleman near the automobile. What is missing is any support that the chap hit the car, and that he did it with an intent to scratch the automobile. It is feasible (theoretically, if no admission had been provided) that he was only in the wrong place at the wrong time when the man turned around. For a case like that a corpus delicti argument might be a way to get the confession suppressed.

Corpus delicti, like most other Latin legal expressions, are not difficult to appreciate as soon as they are explained. But getting that explanation can be a very difficult process at times. So why chance misunderstanding a question or a direction since you don’t have the legal education of the prosecutors? The moment you are placed under arrest or think like you can’t leave is the moment you should demand to have a word with a Seattle DUI attorney. A criminal lawyer can not solitarily assist you through the mess of legal gibberish, but help you to keep your lips shut and the police off your back.

Related Posts:

Seattle Criminal Attorney | Probable Cause

Seattle Criminal Attorney | You Can’t Talk Your Way Out of Trouble