If you have been charged with a serious crime, you should be aware of what it would take for a jury to believe you are innocent. Since the burden is on the prosecutor to prove you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, much of your defense could be to challenge the prosecutor's evidence.

Making the Most of Exculpatory Evidence

Before your trial begins, there will be a discovery process in which the prosecution will turn over their evidence to your attorney to either allow for a fair defense or encourage you to plead guilty. This will include the names of their witnesses, police reports, and test results.

They are also obliged to turn over any exculpatory (facts that could be helpful to your defense) or impeachment (facts that discredit prosecution witnesses) evidence that they find during the course of police investigation.

Since prosecutors have time and effort invested in proving your guilt, they can possess a prejudicial blindness to exculpatory evidence, and it may take a determined and skillful defense lawyer to be alert to the possibility of it. You can help your attorney by writing down detailed descriptions of events soon after they occurred and also anything that comes to mind later as you are privy to discovery, and relaying these to him or her.

In one case, a defense attorney had to track down a metro card that provided an alibi for his client. In another case, an alert attorney found that initial photos and DNA evidence existed that showed a small child was the victim of a dog attack and not murdered as claimed. The child's mother and stepfather, who were unfairly convicted, were eventually exonerated. 

Disputing Scientific Evidence

DNA evidence has an great impact on many criminal cases, and in many old cases, people have exonerated because it. However, there remain many types of forensic evidence that are open to interpretation and dispute, but unfortunately many people who end up on juries do not realize this. Some examples include bite marks, hair evidence, and voice recordings. You may recall the controversy in the Casey Anthony murder case over whether there was a smell of human decomposition in her car and if this could be scientifically proven.

New scientific evidence should only be admissible at trial only if the relevant scientific community of experts accepts it as reliable. Part of your defense may rely on questioning the veracity of the procedures and results with an expert on your side. If the evidence is very questionable, the judge may not allow it to be presented at trial since it could become a basis for a later appeal.

Getting Effective Legal Representation

So to have a good rebuttal defense, you will want to find an experienced and skillful attorney to sift through the discovery evidence carefully to look for holes in the prosecutor's case, and for evidence that could bolster your account of what happened. If there is to be scientific evidence offered, its reliability can be questioned by experts that your defense finds.  

For more information, contact Scott L. Kramer Law Office or a similar firm.