Southern California Defense Blog

As a former public defender I have seen first hand the benefits and consequences to letting a public defender handle your case. Although the public defenders are highly skilled and experienced attorneys, they are severely overworked. They carry a caseload of up to 20 clients a day! What this means for their clients is that the public defender cannot afford to spend more than a few minutes on the client’s case before moving on to the next case. If your case happens to need more research or a closer look, it is possible that the public defender will simply not have enough time to do the necessary work.

The Public Defender is so overworked that they often times fail to build a meaningful relationship with their clients; they simply do not have the time. This means that they will not have the time to sit down with you and listen to your side of the story. They also will not have the time to answer your phone calls and questions.

Continue reading "Why should I pay for a lawyer when the public defender will handle my case for free?" »

You are facing a serious legal matter. Often it can lead to you going to jail, or losing your job or your driving privilege.

You may have hired the first lawyer you spoke to. You may be feeling a little uneasy about the answers that lawyer is giving you. Maybe your phone calls are not always being returned. You are unclear about the direction your case is headed. What do you do?

Continue reading "YOU HAVE TOO MUCH AT STAKE TO NOT SEEK A SECOND OPINION ON YOUR CASE" »

A recent study from an economist at Harvard concluded that defendants who have a court appointed lawyer, who is paid for at taxpayer expense, serve more jail time than defendants represented by federal public defenders. The study found that defendants represented by court appointed lawyers who bill the county by the hour do an average of eight months longer in jail than those who were represented by the federal public defender.

There is a common misconception among some people that if you or a loved one receives a private court appointed lawyer that this means that somehow the quality of representation will be better or different than if you have a public defender handling your case. This study seems to cast grave doubt on that theory.

It is a very good idea to seek the representation of an experienced private criminal defense law firm when you are accused of a crime. Wallin and Klarich has been helping people stay out of jail for almost thirty years. Please feel free to call us for free phone consultation about your case at 888-280-6839. We can make the difference between jail and freedom.

The police cannot enter your home to seize your property without a search warrant. While there are certain specific exceptions to this rule in most cases the police must ask a judge for a warrant to search your home before they can enter.

A citizen has a right to refuse to have the police enter their home without a search warrant. This applies to homeowners and renters as well. It is almost always a very bad idea to give law enforcement permission to search your home without first obtaining a warrant.

In a recent case the police had strong evidence that inside a home there was a very large amount of heroin. The police decided that the occupants of the home might destroy the evidence if they did not enter the home immediately. They did not get a search warrant. They did not get permission to search.

Continue reading "Six Million Dollar Heroin Arrest Dismissed for Failure to Get Search Warrant" »

Writ of Habeas Corpus

Many people who are found guilty after a jury trial feel that they were unfairly convicted. They often feel that their trial lawyer did not do a good job representing them. In some cases, a person who does not feel that he received adequate legal representation can be successful in winning a new trial.

The legal process that is followed in most of these situations is the bringing of a writ of habeas corpus. Usually a petition alleges that you received inadequate representation at your trial. One of the most common grounds cited by those who feel they were wrongfully convicted is that the lawyer was incompetent for failure to call certain witnesses to testify at trial.

In a recent case a defendant was found guilty after a jury trial for rape and related charges and was sentenced to 94 years in prison. He was found guilty in 1996. However, more than ten years after his conviction the court of appeals has recently reversed his conviction and has agreed with appellate counsel that his trial lawyer was incompetent.

Continue reading "Can I Win a New Trial if My Lawyer Was Incompetent and Failed to Call Witnesses in My Defense? " »

There seems to be a trend developing of people taking pictures of themselves doing wild and crazy things, and in particular using their cell phone cameras to photograph themselves having sex. This might be great entertainment to show your friends at parties, but people who take pictures like this need to be more alert about what they leave stored on their cell phone – particularly if the picture is of you having sex with your underage girlfriend – or you and your friend’s smoking dope – or you and your friends tagging a railroad trestle, or whatever else you might think is cool, but illegal.

Some people go so far as to post such pictures on the internet on popular websites such as MySpace. This can be big trouble because these pictures can come back to haunt you if law enforcement gets a hold of them. On a site as popular as MySpace, you can be sure someone from law enforcement is going to eventually run across it. And perhaps you are not aware that once you post a picture on the internet you have lost whatever privacy you may have expected to have.

Not only do you need to be vigilant about taking pictures of yourself doing incriminating things, you also need to be wary of anybody else taking your picture while engaging in “wild and crazy” behavior. It is one thing to do something stupid/illegal, it is another to allow someone else to obtain photographic evidence of it – evidence that can be used against you in a court of law. I have seen numerous stories on the news about people getting in trouble because someone photographed them at a party and I have handled cases where the evidence against my client was the pictures obtained from their own cell phone.

Continue reading "SEX CRIMES AND VIDEOTAPE" »

If you are going through a divorce, and you and your spouse cannot seem to agree on terms, you may be heading toward a trial. If that’s the case, you should be asking yourself, “Do I have a trial lawyer?” Even if you already have a lawyer, you should still ask yourself that question. I say that because many attorneys who practice family law fancy themselves as “trial” lawyers, simply because they spend a lot of time in the courtroom. However, spending time in the courtroom and actually conducting trials are two vastly different things. Not all family lawyers are trial lawyers.

Trials in family law cases are a peculiar animal. There are many specific, technical rules that apply to the rights and duties of the parties who are preparing for trial. Conducting a trial on a family law case is not the same thing as conducting any other type of hearing.

Continue reading "Hire a Trial Lawyer — Not Just a Family Lawyer" »

In California if you have two prior strikes and you are arrested for a new felony you will be facing 25 years to life in prison. Many people do not know that what determines whether you will be facing a “third strike offense” is your prior convictions and not the nature of the current felony that you may be accused of.

This means that no matter what felony you now are accused of, you can go to prison for 25 years to life if found guilty of that new felony, if your prior criminal record includes two prior strike felony convictions. The two prior “strikes” can have occurred at the same time to qualify for three strikes punishment.

An example of two prior strikes: twenty years ago you were found guilty (or plead guilty) to two separate counts of robbery (Penal Code Section 211). This would act as two prior strikes, even if the two robberies were committed at the same time. A prior strike or strikes can occur even if the felony conviction occurred in another state. This is where your choice of a lawyer will be critical. You should be retaining a criminal defense firm with tremendous experience in defending three strikes cases so they can properly analyze whether your prior record can be used to make your case a “three strikes case”.

Continue reading "3 STRIKES MEANS 25 TO LIFE IN CALIFORNIA" »

If you were sentenced to prison within the last few years, it is critical that you have your sentence reviewed by an experienced criminal defense law firm. Recently, the United States Supreme Court ruled that California’s sentencing laws for felony matters were unconstitutional.

The California legislature has rushed to try to change the law to prevent thousands of sentences from being reversed. Two new California Supreme Court decisions were just handed down within the last week. In many ways they “muddy the waters” even more.

To determine if you or your loved one’s case may qualify for reversal and a sentence reduction the individual facts of your case must be reviewed in detail. Only then can a determination be made as to whether these new Supreme Court rulings could lead to a reduction in the sentence you or your loved one is serving.

Feel free to contact our experienced felony criminal defense attorneys at Wallin and Klarich who have years of experience in felony sentencing matters. Call us 24/7 at 888-280-6839.