Following your indictment for a federal case in Los Angeles or anywhere in the nation, the pivotal post-indictment arraignment awaits. This is where you'll be assigned a judge, and the prosecutors will be mandated to hand over all the case-related discovery to your attorney.
Be it police reports, surveillance videos, or wiretap evidence, all the information in a federal case is under the purview of the Assistant United States Attorney. They bear the responsibility of disclosing this information.
Once your attorney reviews it, your attorney is then going to consider filing pre-trial motions. That's why pre-trial motion practice is definitely something that you want to consider if you have a federal criminal case pending against you.
Legal Grounds for a Pre-Trial Motion
Now, I will tell you, I've been doing this for 26 years, and not every federal case warrants filing a pre-trial motion. There's no reason to file a pre-trial motion in a federal case unless there are grounds for it.
Filing motions without a solid basis can backfire. It not only fails to help your case but also risks antagonizing the judge and the prosecutor, potentially affecting the outcome of your trial or plea agreement.
You will also anger the prosecutor who is in charge of the charges and could ultimately offer your client a plea agreement. So, you don't just do things to do them in federal cases.
Pre-trial motions are only filed if they're relevant to the case. For example, if the police illegally stopped somebody and searched them, you can make the argument that the stop was illegal.
Therefore, the search was illegal and anything found during that search shouldn't be able to be used against a particular person because you can't benefit if you're the police from an illegal search.
In that case, a search and seizure motion would make sense. Obviously, your attorney would file that an try to challenge the case. So, that would be a relevant pre-trial motion.
Motion to Block Expert Testimony
Other motions that I've seen filed before trial involve situations where the government was going to try to call an expert in the case and you didn't think an expert was warranted in this particular case. A Daubert motion is an attempt to exclude the presentation of an expert's testimony in a trial.
You could certainly file a motion prior to the trial to try to block the government from having an expert testify against you. The judge would likely hold a hearing on the motion and decide whether the expert was warranted or not.
So, to me, there are different pre-trial motions. One pre-trial motion concerns motions that you try to file before a trial to get rid of the case or attack the government's evidence.
The other type of pre-trial motion assumes there will be a trial in the case and is trying to file motions to ensure that the trial is held fairly and that the defendant benefits in any way they can. So, even though they're both motions before trial, they're pre-trial; sometimes, these motions have different objectives, all aimed at ensuring a fair trial for you.
Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer
In the first scenario, you're usually trying to file a motion to defeat the government, remove their evidence, and win the case.
In the other scenario, in the long run, you want to beat the government, but you realize the case is going to go to trial; you're just trying to limit the damaging evidence that the government is trying to put against your client.
So, if you or a loved one is charged with a federal criminal case, remember, you're not alone. Pick up the phone. Make the call. I stand at the ready to help you navigate the legal process. With 26 years of experience, I have a very strong pre-trial motion practice and can guide you through this challenging time.
Hedding Law Firm is a federal criminal defense law firm located in Los Angeles at 16000 Ventura Blvd #1208 Encino, CA 91436. Contact our firm for a free case evaluation at (213) 542-0994.
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