There is a slight rise in the demand for the services of criminal defence lawyers in Perth. These lawyers defend clients that have been charged with criminal acts that range between a felony and misdemeanour in court. Should the client be convicted, he or she could serve a prison sentence, pay a fine, do community work, or more. It’s the job of these lawyers to either ensure that their client is acquitted or get the lightest possible sentence. To achieve this, they could utilize varying defences like:
Affirmative criminal defence
Some defence lawyers will try to minimize the evidence of the prosecution by proving that it isn’t true. With this kind of defence, the lawyer, together with the client, will produce evidence that supports their defence. For instance, if the client is charged with first-degree murder, which simply means the murder was planned prior to its occurrence, they might opt to bring a witness for an alibi. This will be somebody to testify that the defendant couldn’t have committed the crime by giving an alibi for when the crime was actually committed.
Insanity defence
This kind of defence was made famous by TV shows and movies. Unfortunately, it’s not often used or successful. When defence lawyers use it, it admits that the client actually committed the crime but didn’t understand that it was wrong. For this defence to be utilized successfully by defence solicitors in Perth, the client needs to have had a grave mental illness or defect when the crime was committed. Relying on this kind of defence can be risky as the client admits to committing the crime. If the jury isn’t convinced about the insanity plea, the client could be found guilty and, hands-down, receive a harder sentence than he or she might have gotten if they hadn’t used this defence.
Duress and coercion
This is also an affirmative method that defence lawyers use which claims that the defendant was forced into committing the crime because he or she was threatened with unlawful force. The forces need not actually occur; the threat alone could be sufficient to satisfy this kind of defence. The threat doesn’t even have to be against the defendant. It could be against somebody else such as their family member. But the defence can’t be invoked if the client’s reckless actions got him or her into the duress-causing situation.
General Defences
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Self-defence – This defence claims that the defendant’s actions could have been taken to be criminal if the act wasn’t needed for defending him or herself.
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The statute of limitations – This is when defence lawyers claim that the length of time the prosecution legally had to charge their client with the committed crime has lapsed thus all charges be dropped.
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Consent – This acknowledges that the defendant did commit the crime but with the consent of the victim.
These are the varying kinds of defences that are utilized by professional and expert defence lawyers Perth. If you have been accused of committing any criminal offence, make sure that you reach out to any of these experts. They will sit down and go over the facts with you to determine which defence to use.
