Definition of threat..legal definition

[quincy]

Ok. So I went in. My lawyer was an hour late. We approached the bench,and right off the back he tells the judge that we aren't pleeing out and we want a trial. I'm horrified by this! The prosecutor gets asked by the judge what her statement is, she tells the judge she may want to resolve this today. My lawyer ignores her for the most part and calls me outside.

This is where it gets good. We go over the police reports and there are mismatching statements about what happened. The police wrote in the report I admitted to threating with a knife and have it on body cam. I never said anything close to that so if they do indeed have body cam footage this will show they are making stuff up. Also, one witness told police that I kept putting my hands in my pocket saying f u bring it on to the store employee..this actually made me laugh..first of all it didn't happen second , if I was trying to make a hasty escape why would I stop and turn towards them and call them out. The next blunder is that the police lied about watching the surveillance footage that day.During the arrest the police were advised that they could not obtain the footage because it is stored off site and would take a few days to get. Let's also not forget to mention that apparently they have no proof I stole anything. They found some merchandise stashed nearby but when checked for finger prints there were none. This is also a lie. I watched them lift prints and there were prints along the top edge of the box, quite a few of them..but the police report says there was none. Oh geez there is so much more, but moving on..

My lawyer tells me something about commiting a robbery but on a scale a minimal robbery,but he would talk to the prosecutor quickly. He briefly walks in to speak with her for about 4 minutes.. He comes out and CLAIMS she says she is starting to think this is more of a shoplifting case but has no deal to offer at the moment. I am a bit weary of this statement by my lawyer but he says to trust him. I told him he's a lawyer why wouldn't I trust him.

Now I'm not too sure what's going on here but I feel about 25 percent better...

It appears your attorney is doing a good job of representing you. I think you have good reason to feel better.

Thank you for the update.

Good luck.

 

[Dubdidit]

It appears your attorney is doing a good job of representing you. I think you have good reason to feel better.

Thank you for the update.

Good luck.

Your welcome. I do have a few more questions if anyone has some extra time (and patients with me lol). I kind of tried to discuss these with my lawyer but he did seem like he was in a little bit of a hurry to answer them right now. As I stated in my update, there were some "lies" in the police report. If my attorney can prove that any of the statements given to, or recorded by the police are in fact untrue, or not entirely accurate, would this automatically give me a victory in court?

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

Short answer. No

 

[quincy]

Your welcome. I do have a few more questions if anyone has some extra time (and patients with me lol). I kind of tried to discuss these with my lawyer but he did seem like he was in a little bit of a hurry to answer them right now. As I stated in my update, there were some "lies" in the police report. If my attorney can prove that any of the statements given to, or recorded by the police are in fact untrue, or not entirely accurate, would this automatically give me a victory in court?

There really is no such thing as an "automatic victory." A police report might contain errors but most are not material errors. That said, a police report potentially could be used to impeach an officer's testimony in court.

Your attorney seems to have a good handle on your case and it would be highly unlikely that he would miss anything that could lead to a court victory and/or dismissal.

Good luck.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

Reading about your recent experience in court again I'm honestly not yet seeing anything that surprises me and several of the things you mentioned might not be as deceptive as it seems. First, for the last three years now there really hasn't been any reason for a criminal defense attorney to file a discovery motion in Texas unless they needed something very unorthodox, or just want to cover themselves by filing the motion right before trial. Our discovery rules are very detailed per statute and you simply invoke the statute and that is the same as filing an all encompassing discovery motion.

It doesn't necessarily stand out to me that you say you saw them lift prints and they reported they found no prints. They are not going to analyze prints at the scene. They are going to take lifts and it very well may appear that they have a usable print on them but when they bring them back for the fingerprint analyst to review them they turn out to be unusable either because they are partial or because you have multiple prints on top of each other. VERY common especially for an item like merchandise in a store which you would expect to be touched by lots of people over time.

I can almost guarantee you that the officers are actually telling the truth about viewing the surveillance video that day. In any store like this the surveillance video can be played back easily on the monitors in the loss prevention office, but may require special steps or special authorization to make a hard copy. They probably just went back into their control room and viewed it and made arrangements to get a copy later. This is exactly the kind of thing that an officer would do without you knowing about it. You may have been in custody or even being driven to jail when they went in to take statements and review evidence.

As for the other incorrect statements it is certainly something that can be raised in trial but its often just a result of an officer typing their report later after the arrest or even after their entire shift, and making mistakes.

Finally when your defense attorney describes this as a robbery but on the lower end of the scale... that is exactly how I would describe this to you if you were my client. This sounds like a technical robbery but with extremely non-aggravating facts. Its exactly the kind of case that a prosecutor might want to plead down and/or offer deferred on. The prosecutor probably just needs a reset to contact the victim and ok a proposed plea offer.

Defense attorneys often do look hurried and maybe even like they are taking your case lightly but it may be a case of bad customer service as opposed to bad lawyering. For example you were freaking out because you were thinking you might be going to trial that day or in the near future and your attorney likely knew there was no way the case was going to trial on the current docket so they were relaxed about it.

 

[Dubdidit]

I understand. I mean I guess it's kind of hard to ask questions and regarding cases like this if not even the person asking the questions knows what they really have or don't have on. as far as the prosecutor goes. Does he or she personally review the evidence? Like footage and statements or does she just read the report and go from there.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

The prosecutor is going to have to have copies of all of the evidence in order to give it to your attorney. Whether she chooses to look through it all or not depends on how thoroughly she does her job. I'd think its safe to assume she will at least look at the most relevant evidence like the surveillance video and any statements that you made and any statements that the victim made.

 

[Dubdidit]

That's what I figured. However our city has 12000 cases back logged! This may help me out our it may hurt me. Right now everyone is doing things fast rather than proper to get the the case load lightened. So o guess I just gotta see how things play out

 

[quincy]

... So o guess I just gotta see how things play out

Yes. That is generally the case. It is hard to predict outcomes.

Good luck, Dubdidit. Providing updates is always appreciated on this forum so if you have the opportunity to post back, it would be nice.

 

[Dubdidit]

Update

2 counts of robbery 2nd degree felony each carrying up to 20 years per charge....dropped down to 1 count of misdemeanor theft max punishment 6 months...whoooooo I was truly lucky. Apparently I did admit to the officers that I told the employee that I had a knife.. they had me dead to rights on this one and the d.a spared me any real trouble. I asked my attorney why? N he said the prosecutor liked him lol..1 year probation..I'm good with that!

 

[quincy]

2 counts of robbery 2nd degree felony each carrying up to 20 years per charge....dropped down to 1 count of misdemeanor theft max punishment 6 months...whoooooo I was truly lucky. Apparently I did admit to the officers that I told the employee that I had a knife.. they had me dead to rights on this one and the d.a spared me any real trouble. I asked my attorney why? N he said the prosecutor liked him lol..1 year probation..I'm good with that!

A single misdemeanor is certainly a heck of a lot better than two felonies. Good news, Dubdidit!

Thank you for the update.