Reducing Aggravated Assault Charges to Lesser Offenses

(The content below was transcribed from an interview done with Acacia Law. We think you'll find it much easier
and more enjoyable to read this way.)

Interviewer: Interesting. Are there any other examples of really unusual cases, or tricky ones?

Acacia Law: Oh, absolutely. I some of these cases you have to understand it doesn't mean that the end result was a ‘not guilty’ across the board. What you're trying to do in many cases when you go to trial and are defending multiple counts is you have to address the serious ones first.

For example, in the case I just recounted, obviously the aggravated assault where you're looking at 5 to 15 years in prison is the most important one. I have a large number of cases where people are looking at very serious charges. I might be able acquit them on those serious charges so they do not have to go to prison, but instead might have the charge reduced to a misdemeanor or something where they are eligible for probation instead of jail time.

Interviewer: That certainly is helpful for your clients.

Acacia Law: And I’ve defended hundreds of cases like that. And essentially, to give you another interesting example that sort of fits along that line, I had a client who was very high on crystal methamphetamine. He was driving with a passenger who was slightly younger than he was. He was only around, I'd say, 20 at the time. Some police officers were behind them, they were way out in the middle of nowhere in Phoenix, but they were dispatched to another scene. However, when my client saw the lights go on, he thought that they were after him because he was suffering from paranoia due to having ingested too much crystal meth.

He led the police on a 95 to 100 mile an hour chase for probably about 5 to 6 miles, so it was technically outside of the city. They were running through stop signs and it was extremely dangerous. They finally stopped the car in a field, spun it around, and got out of the car, apparently holding a .45 caliber.

The police got behind their car doors and they started firing at him. They claimed that he fired back, and so he was charged with aggravated assault against the police officers with the intent to either harm or kill.

Interviewer: That sounds very serious.

Defending Aggravated Assault With Intent to Harm or Kill

Acacia Law: That charge carries a sentence of 7 to 21 years in prison. He also was charged with kidnapping with respect to the other person who was in the vehicle, who was claiming he didn't want any part of it and wanted to get out. This person claimed that he did not want to be part of the high-speed chase or the shootout.

When we went to trial, I was able to show by testimony from the ballistics experts, based on where the bullets ejected from his .45 caliber, and based on his positioning in the vehicle, that it was clear that he was firing not at the police officers but at approximately 45 degree angle from where in fact the police officers were.

The jury did not believe that he was trying to fire at the police officers. And when I cross examined the person who was in the vehicle, I was able to get him to admit that he honestly didn't even remember which hand the defendant had the gun in. So they acquitted him of kidnapping as well.

Interviewer: That’s a great outcome.

Reduction of a Charge Can Result in Probation Instead of a Jail Sentence

Acacia Law: I'm not a fan obviously, and I'm not advocating domestic violence and I'm not trying to diminish violence in general, but my experience over the years that usually it is very, very rare for one person to simply pull out a gun and just shoot somebody for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Usually something precipitates it, and with this case that I just described, my client was obviously impaired. He was a young kid, and although he was firing the gun, obviously he had no intention to harm the police officers. Probably if the officers hadn't drawn their guns and gotten behind the vehicle, he might not have been worked up enough or cared enough in order to actually pull that gun in the first place.

Interviewer: Yes, I understand.

Acacia Law: You know, again, a lot of different outcomes occur. In other cases that I have defended, I probably have resolved and reduced 300 to 400 of them to probation instead of jail time. This would be the kind of case where the client was looking at and was actually offered by the state 4 years, 5 years, or 10 years, and it is very common for me to get them probation.

It takes a lot of work. I might be working on these cases for anywhere from 10 to 15 months. A lot of times they have co-defendants, but the bottom line though is that my clients don't go to prison. And that's how I get my referrals.

My clients hire me instead of opting for a public defender. I'm not criticizing public defenders; I know that they're busy. However, they don't really look at the case, look at the people, and try to figure out exactly what went on here, what are the real facts, what could not possibly have happened. Because of their busy schedules they can’t sit down and examine the evidence.

Interviewer: Can you give an example of a case where you thought, or at least the defendant thought they were doomed, and you were able to get a good result? Maybe a case where the odds were the most stacked against somebody, and you prevailed somehow?

Cases That May Appear Indefensible May Still Result in a Favorable Outcome

Acacia Law: I have one that just occurred just a year or two ago. I had again, a case with possible racial overtones. My client was African-American, and his co-defendant was also African-American. They were charged with assaulting a white man in an apartment complex.

My client was convinced he was going to be convicted because he was black and because there was two of them against the guy. With extensive research, I was able to show that a ten-year-old girl had watched the entire incident through her living room window.

I called her as a witness and had her tell the jury what she had seen through the window. She explained that it was the white man who had put up his fists first, and who was yelling, and they acquitted my client and found him not guilty.

I wasn't shocked. Even the judge, before the jury came out, believed that they would find him not guilty, but my client did not believe it, so they came back unanimously not guilty.