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.