Alabama Federal Criminal Lawyer
I recently appeared in Alabama in one of the federal courts therein representing one of my clients in a large-scale drug trafficking case. The appearance was in the middle district of Alabama at a courthouse there on 1 Church Street in Montgomery, Alabama.
It's a beautiful building – rich history – one of the best federal buildings that I've seen in my travels over the course of the last twenty-five years. I believe it was established in 1838 and just some of the architecture and just the rich history of the President that they have there.
I think the building that's there now is named after President Johnson. It's just a wonderful historical building with the history dating back many, many years. As far as how the court handles business, I was able to litigate my case.
I thought everything was handled in a very professional manner. I actually filed an illegal search and seizure motion, an illegal stop and that was litigated with multiple attorneys and the troopers came in to testify and I think in the end my client got a very fair result.
He was alleged to have been bringing in over five hundred pounds of narcotics and driving it through Alabama and was pulled over. The dogs searched his car and the narcotics were seized with a number of weapons. But, all in all, I thought the result was good based on the circumstances and that the prosecutors and judges were very fair and reasonable.
Type Of A Strategy for a Case Pending In Federal Court In Alabama
One of the first things that I do if I'm retained on a federal case anywhere in the United States is I get a good local counsel to work with me. In Alabama, I have a great local lawyer that I worked with recently who was very professional, on top of things, knew all the court procedures, and him and I worked very well together in getting the best possible result for the client.
It's nice to have somebody that knows the ins and outs of the court system. That combined with someone like me who's been doing this a long time and has had a lot of good results for my clients, is a nice combination to really figure out what happened in the case and what the best strategy is going to be moving forward. That's really what I do.
I get the client in, we go over everything, we find out how strong the government's case is against them and then we decide our strategy and we put together a strong investigation. Any motions are filed that are necessary. You're not going to just file some frivolous motion. It has to be certain that's warranted based on the facts of the case.
But, Montgomery, Alabama was a great place to deal with a federal case and if you have a case there and you want to get some insight from somebody who has been doing this a long time, give me a call. We can discuss and meet and figure out what I can do to help you to move forward.
Federal Sentencing Guidelines
When it comes to federal cases – whether it be in Montgomery, Alabama – anywhere in Alabama or anywhere in the United States – the federal sentencing guidelines are all the same for each of the states, and because it's the federal government, any attorney can practice in just about every single federal court.
A lot of them though do require that you have local counsel with you just to make things go easier and smoother. But in reality, it's the same sentencing scheme across the nation and it really just kind of depends on where you are and what crime you are alleged to have committed in relation to how the government treats those types of cases.
So, so you really want somebody who's been around the block when it comes to a federal case because the prosecutions are typical, in my experience, much more sophisticated and you can be looking at some significant time served at 85% of the time.
You want to make sure you get somebody who has been down the road before that you're about the travel, knows the strategies to employ and can really get your story across and the good things about you because a lot of times these federal investigations can be very one-sided and you want to make sure that your story gets across and the good things about your life are presented to the judge so that your result is the best that it can possibly be.