Hoping That Evidence In Your Case Gets Thrown Out? Understand How Motions To Suppress Work
Your criminal defense case starts a long time before your trial will. In many cases, defense attorneys will ask the judge in a case to make some important decisions about what evidence the jury is allowed to hear through motions to suppress evidence. The success or failure of these motions will eventually shape a lot of the events at trial. If you've been charged with a crime, this is what you need to know about motions to suppress.
How do motions to suppress evidence work?
Motions to suppress are generally made on paper, rather than argued in court, although the judge in your case may allow both the prosecution and your defense attorney to make some oral arguments. The papers your attorney gives the judge are called pleadings, which state the reasons that your attorney believes that certain evidence against you should be excluded from the trial process. The prosecution will also give the judge similar pleadings, which state the reason that the state believes the evidence should be included in your trial. Once the judge reviews all of the pleadings, he or she will decide whether the evidence stays in or gets thrown out (or "suppressed"). Then your trial can proceed.
What makes a successful motion to suppress?
There are several good reasons to request a motion to suppress evidence:
- Evidence was improperly seized without a valid search warrant.
- Evidence was seized or you were searched in violation of the law.
- There was no probable cause (which is a legally justifiable reason) to search you in the first place.
- There are questions about whether or not evidence was tainted.
- Testing that was performed on you, like a blood alcohol content test, wasn't scientifically accurate.
- You were deprived of your right to an attorney during questioning by the police.
- You were coerced into testifying against yourself through harsh interrogation methods.
- The police or the prosecution abused their power in some way.
It's important to understand that motions to suppress are seldom clear-cut issues—usually both the defense and the prosecution believe that they have a valid argument about the legality of the evidence. That means that there are no guarantees that a motion to suppress will succeed. For example, in a recent Wyoming case, defense attorneys tried to have evidence thrown out in a drug case based on the fact that a signature was missing on the affidavit (or official statement) given to support the probable cause for the search warrant that was used to seize the drugs. The judge decided that the missing signature was really a clerical error, not a true violation of the law.
On the other hand, had the motion to suppress been successful, the prosecution's entire case would have likely crumbled due to a lack of evidence. That makes even the thinnest chance for a successful motion a good use of your attorney's time and an important effort.
The importance of pretrial motions regarding the evidence in your case can't be overstated. If you haven't yet consulted an attorney, talk to one like Robert Speer, The Magic Lawyer, today.
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