Case of shooting from a motor vehicle with serious violent felony charges

Case Description

Client accused of shooting at someone on the street after an argument while passenger in vehicle driven by girlfriend. Charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy, and shooting at/from a motor vehicle (19 years potential).

Legal Strategy

Initially, his girlfriend was supposed to help him with the defense of both of their cases, but the girlfriend's public defender suddenly stopped contacting us back, so we knew she was likely making a deal with the State. The client was not given any plea agreements that wouldn't have ended in a substantial jail sentence, so we opted for trial. In a careful review of the victim's statements, his description of the shooter seemed to change over the months, and this created doubt. Another fact we were able to exploit was the fact that his girlfriend was given a plea deal in order to avoid jail, with the agreement that she would have to testify against him. We used this agreement with the DA as evidence that she had a reason not be truthful about who was responsible since she would receive a reduced sentence.

Challenges

The girlfriend testified against him that he was, in fact, the shooter. The man who was shot in the leg testified and identified Client as the man who shot him. Due to it being a serious violent offense, and the fact that a firearm was used, his minimum jail time with good-time credit would have been 13.6 years.

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Resolution

The case ultimately went to trial, and by attacking the weaknesses in the case, we were able to convince a jury that he was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and he was acquitted on ALL charges. The interesting thing is that his girlfriend, the one who testified against him, ended up pleading to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery with a deadly weapon; 2 felony charges, which she ended up on probation for. Meanwhile, our client went free with no charges, no jail, no probation.