The Criminal Defense Process Part 1- Allegation of Criminal Conduct

The Criminal Defense Process Part 1- Allegation of a Criminal Conduct

Hello, my name is Brandan Davies. I am a criminal defense lawyer with the law firm Copley Roth & Davies here in Overland Park, Kansas. In this series of videos, I am going to be talking a little bit about the criminal defense process and basically walk you through a criminal defense case from start to finish. Now, the first part of every criminal case is that there has to be an allegation that a crime has been committed. This can be done through initial police contact, maybe a police officer witnesses a crime that has been committed, or it can be reported to the police by a witness, either someone calling 911 or calling the non-emergency line and reporting that a crime has been committed. Now this kicks off the investigation stage of a case. That’s what the police do and law enforcement does, is they investigate crimes and gather evidence. Now when a police officer goes out so they can gather evidence based on allegations of a crime, they might interview witnesses, take witness statements, they may go collect physical evidence if there is some sort of physical thing associated with the crime; maybe it’s broken glass or maybe it’s fingerprints or something like that, blood samples. Another part of the investigation will be obtaining a search warrant. In some cases, law enforcement may seek out a judge to get a search warrant to search a premises. These are all parts of the investigation stage of a case. Now, at this point, a criminal defense lawyer will have little involvement in the case because they don’t know that the case has even come about yet. And in some cases, the police will go out and investigate a crime and they will find that no crime has been committed or that there is not enough evidence to charge a person with a crime. At the conclusion of some investigations, the police will find that there isn’t enough evidence to find that a crime has been committed and the case will end right then. If the police do believe that a crime has been committed, then they will turn over their findings or their products of their investigation to the district attorney’s office or a city prosecutor, depending on what crime they believe has been committed. Now remember, the investigation stage is just the first process to any criminal case. If you’d like to find out more about criminal cases and how they progress, continue to watch these videos.