Criminal Attorney: Presenting the Client as Innocent

Presenting a Defense
The prosecutor in the criminal court has to establish the guilt of the person charged with crime beyond reasonable doubt to convict him and the defendant has to present his defense through his criminal attorney to save himself from being convicted and getting sentenced by the court. Depending on the circumstances of the case, the criminal attorney prepares the presentation aiming to prove his client not guilty or lessen the degree of the crime and resultant punishment.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Very often the criminal defense attorney tries to present that the accused person did not at all commit the crime and therefore do not deserve to be punished. A person accused of some crime is deemed innocent as per law till convicted in the trial or admits his guilt. Therefore even if the person charged with crime remains silent or does not do anything to defend himself, the onus lies on the prosecutor to satisfy the jury about the guilt of the defendant. Ironically even where the defendant remains silent and do not present his defense through any criminal attorney, he can still escape conviction if the prosecutor fails to convince the jury of the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. A good criminal attorney tries to exploit this onus on the prosecutor to prove beyond reasonable doubt by arguing that there is indeed ground for reasonable doubt. There may not be enough evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the accused person.

Alibi
Here the criminal attorney tries to prove that his client was somewhere else at the time the crime was committed (alibi defense) and therefore could not be a party to the crime being not present at the scene of the crime. The criminal attorney has to arrange for testimony to prove that his client was at that time at some place other than the place of crime.