There are some cliché criminal defense arguments that almost never seem to work.
Yet defendants still insist on using them.
They are as follows:
Blaming the alleged victim
If you’re accused of breaking the law, it’s often a bad idea to blame the alleged victim.
This is especially true when making a bail argument or tendering a plea for the court’s consideration.
These are moments when the defendant is asking the court for leniency.
And many judges become irritated when the defendant takes a defiant stance and begins making accusations against the alleged victim.
So think long and hard before you take this approach.
Also, if you do decide to pin blame on the alleged victim, be ready to back it up with some solid evidence.
I should add that a different standard applies during trial.
Unlike a plea hearing or a bail argument, a criminal trial is intentionally adversarial.
Accordingly, it’s usually the right time and place to attack the alleged victim’s conduct and credibility.
Blaming the police
As part of my job, I watch a lot of police videos: body cam videos, cruiser cam videos, booking videos, etc.
While police usually behave with restraint and professionalism, there are times when they cross the line.
Maybe they spoke to the defendant in a rude or antagonizing way.
Maybe they used more force than necessary when making an arrest.
Whatever the injustice may be, blaming the police for your criminal charges is often a losing argument.
Again, this in the case during plea hearings and bail arguments.
Most judges give police officers and state troopers the benefit of the doubt in nearly every scenario.
With that being said, if you have good evidence of police misconduct, use it.
But if it’s the defendant’s word against the police, the defendant will lose almost every time.
Playing the sympathy card
Men, I’m talking to you.
The judge doesn’t care that you’re your grandmother’s personal care assistant (PCA) or that you have half a dozen children.
Defendants on the brink of being locked up plead for mercy all the time saying that they have dependents relying on them.
It never works.
Probably because the judge often perceives it as a lie.
Nevertheless, such arguments seem to have a far higher rate of success for female defendants.
So if you’re a female defendant with family members relying on you, it’s often a good idea to let the court know.
Denying positive drug or alcohol screens
For some reason, judges and probation officers hate when defendants make lame excuses for positive drug or alcohol screens.
Such screens are commonly imposed as a pretrial release condition or as a probation condition.
When alcohol screens come back positive, defendants often blame some type of over-the-counter medication, usually Nyquil or Tylenol PM.
(Once I even had a defendant insist that a honey bun triggered his positive alcohol screen. Unsurprisingly, the judge didn’t buy it.)
Likewise, defendants will blame positive drug screens on everything and anything but narcotics.
While I believe that false positives are real, many judges refuse to think that a scientific device failed to work properly.
Even worse, they view your denial as proof that you’re unwilling to admit to your drug or alcohol problem.
The solution, in many cases, is a direct jail sentence.
Nevertheless, if you have genuine proof that a positive test is in fact false, it goes without saying that you should present it to the court.