What Does A Defense Attorney Do?

A defense attorney is a storyteller, and when you hire a criminal defense attorney, you hire someone to tell your story.

Jury trials are a rare example of the human fondness for oral storytelling. Stand-up comedy, podcasts, and audio books all fill the same space, fulfilling thousands of years of human tradition through telling stories. 

Jury trials lend a different aspect to story telling, one intent on explaining what really happened. A defense attorney guides the jury through events leading up to contact with the justice system. Usually, people make this contact with the justice system based on a small snapshot of one moment of time.

Someone made a mistake in their relationship.

You fought with a friend and it went too far.

A teen didn’t know how to stay away after a break up.

How Does A Defense Attorney Help?

A good criminal defense attorney tells the story of how that moment came to be, what forces and dynamics led to that moment in time, and what motives and biases led to the decisions made in that moment. The role of defense attorney is to spread light on the bigger picture.

The law sees itself as purely rational, seeking to apply black and white facts to a black and white statement of the law.

• An affidavit for arrest lays out the accusations that someone has violated the statutes.
• Jury instructions tell jurors to determine whether each element of the crime has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

These are very strict and logical attempts to apply the allegations to the technical terms of the laws. However, real life is much more complicated than that. Real life involves history, emotion, perspective, bias, relationship, motive, and all the complexities inherent in the human experience. A criminal defense attorney is here to bridge the gap between an accusation and the whole story.

Whether in plea negotiations or during a jury trial, a defense attorney tells the whole story and provides context for a narrow attempt to apply the law without a complete understanding of the whole story.  

The Attorneys At The Datz Law Firm

Our attorneys at the Datz Law Firm will spend time with you so they can get the whole story. They are skilled criminal defense attorneys who can convey your story to a jury or in a plea in a meaningful and effective way. Should it become necessary to go to trial, our attorneys have your back.