Law is important for maintaining peace and making society secure, but there are times when someone might accuse you of a criminal offense that you were justified in committing. Houston criminal attorney Tad Nelson has over 25 years worth of experience in the courtroom and knows how to apply the right defense strategy to any criminal case.
There are many types of different crimes and they have various defensive measures which work in different ways depending on the details of the situation. If you are justifying what you did or didn’t do, such arguments are known to be the basis for the best defenses. There are many potential courtroom criminal defense strategies. Some are based on legal-conflict and other are based on legit purposes.
The Necessity Defense
This type of defense is when the accused is forced to deliver justice. The argument is that the act was carried out because of certain circumstances. In other words, there was no other choice and the accused had to take matters into their own hands. There are some conditions that determine whether the action meets the standards of the necessity defense or not.
- The act was intended to stop greater evil.
- There wasn’t any other reasonable course of action or alternative.
- The unlawful act couldn’t be more than what was necessary to avert evil.
- The act was effective or probably effective towards averting greater evil.
A Defense of Legitimate Purpose
There are some laws that use terms such as fraudulent purpose. The person who is accused says that, he/she didn’t commit the act for these purpose of committing a fraud, and therefore didn’t breach the law. These defenses are usually accepted when the law states a purpose, and the court feels that the accused didn’t commit the act for the purpose defined.
Defense of Legal Conflict
By the name you can guess what it is all about. These are rare cases when the person accused raises the legal conflict defense. It is also known as Legal Dilemma, when someone claims that what he/she did or didn’t do, would have concluded in some sort of breach of the law.
In simple, the situation was inescapable and the law would have been against the defendant no matter how the situation concluded. This type of situation usually occurs because of the people making legal code in the jurisdiction didn’t think it holistically or clearly with regard to the drafting of the law/ordinance. There is a difference between necessity and legal conflict. In legal necessity, the action is undesirable, while legal conflict is when there is no legal course of action.
The Double Jeopardy Defense
In these United States a person can only be tried for a criminal offense once. It doesn’t matter if they are convicted at trial or not. If someone is tried for a criminal act a second time, that person can claim for double jeopardy. It also includes prosecuting the similar action under different charge. A person can’t be charged for another criminal offense if the action wasn’t illegal yet, or at the time when it was carried out.
Self Defense
In this defense, the accused claims that the assault was because of an offense by victim. In cases where someone kills another person the court should be convinced that it was unavoidable. The attack on victim was the absolute action that was unavoidable due to the treat to one’s self or another person.
Houston Criminal Attorney Tad Nelson
If you’re faced with the possibility of jail time and fines on the basis of criminal charges being filed against you its important to understand that we’re here to help you.
Tad Nelson is among the most respected and best experienced criminal defense attorneys in Houston for persons charged with serious felonies and in need of an attorney who knows how to fight. If you need to speak with Houston criminal defense lawyer Tad Nelson, call 713-659-0909.