What are the Best Criminal Defenses in CA?

Last Updated on July 19, 2025

If you are charged with a crime, you will be asked to plead guilty or not guilty. If you plead not guilty, you and your criminal defense attorney will need to present a defense to show the prosecutor does not have enough evidence to prove your guilt. To do this, you and your criminal lawyer must determine the best defenses for your specific circumstances. Here are the 11 most common criminal defense strategies used in California:

1. Self Defense

Easily the most commonly used criminal defense strategy in violent crimes cases, including domestic violence, self defense means that you reasonably believed you were in physical danger and used the minimum required physical force to prevent that danger. Despite the name, self defense doesn’t have to involve protecting yourself from harm; it can also mean protecting someone else from injury or death. As long you don’t resort to deadly force, you can also act to protect your property from theft or damage —and you can even use deadly force to protect your household from invaders.

Self defense laws only permit you to use the minimum required physical force to prevent a particular danger. If the only way to stop an attacker from taking your life or the life of another person is to kill them though, self defense can even include homicide. When someone misjudges a perceived threat and takes another person’s life, they can even argue that they practiced imperfect self defense, meaning they should be charged with only voluntary manslaughter rather than murder.

2. Lack of Evidence

The burden of proof in a criminal case is on the prosecutor, not the defendant. If the prosecution lacks enough evidence to show you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, you should walk free. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean that the jurors have eliminated all doubt whatsoever, simply that it would be unreasonable to believe that a defendant is innocent of a particular criminal act.

3. False Accusations

Many criminal cases come down to one person’s word versus another’s. Any time the crux of a legal matter rests with another person claiming they have been victimized by something you did, you may be able to argue that you are the victim of a false allegation.

These defenses are particularly common in domestic violence and sex crime cases but can also be used in violent crime and theft cases. They are most successful when there is evidence that the supposed victim has something to gain by accusing the defendant of a crime.

4. Lack of Knowledge

While you need not know that something is against the law to be guilty of a crime, you do need to be aware of your own role in a criminal activity. The necessity of a defendant to be aware of their actions is the same concept behind the insanity defense —a person who does not know they are doing something wrong cannot be held responsible for those actions.

For example, to be guilty of drug trafficking, you must know you were transporting drugs. If you borrowed a friend’s car, not knowing it had a kilo of cocaine in the trunk, you would not be guilty of trafficking.

5. Legitimate Accidents

Along the same lines as a lack of knowledge is a lack of intent. The law recognizes that people have accidents and, in most cases, you cannot be found guilty for something that happened due to an accident. If you acted negligently or recklessly though, you could still be guilty of a lesser crime in some circumstances.

For example, if you were driving and didn’t see a bicyclist making a turn in front of you and accidentally killed him, you probably wouldn’t face charges. If you ran a stop sign while drunk driving and accidentally hit a cyclist as a result though, you could face felony DUI charges for vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. Always talk to a lawyer before attempting to use this common criminal defense.

6. Forced Confessions

It is hard to prove that a confession made to police was coerced through violence, but you could argue your confession was coerced if you were left in an interrogation room for hours without food or water. If you asked to speak with your lawyer and your request was illegally denied by the police, you will have a greater chance of having your confession thrown out of court. Remember that just because you confessed does not always mean you need to plead guilty.

7. Mistaken Identity

Just because someone says they saw you commit a crime does not mean you are guilty. Many people have been put behind bars simply because they look like someone else, so arguing that your arrest is simply a case of mistaken identity is a much stronger defense than many believe. Beyond that, criminal defense lawyers often see eyewitnesses providing testimony that a person looked a certain way only to change their story when they see the defendant charged with a crime. For example, they may originally recall a tall man with dark hair and a beard but then suddenly say the person they saw was short, blond, and clean-shaven.

Though this can be a strong defense, it’s best to avoid using this strategy without your attorney present because if there is sufficient proof that you were the individual present, then this can be used as evidence that you were lying.

8. Lack of Probable Cause

Probable cause is required for police to perform a search, which is why this defense is most commonly used in DUI and drug cases. If the police violated your rights by stopping you and searching your vehicle without probable cause, anything they found is inadmissible in court. When enough evidence is suppressed from a case, the charges may be dropped entirely because the prosecution lacks enough proof against the defendant.

9. A Reliable Alibi

If you can prove you were somewhere else when a crime was committed, it may be difficult for the prosecutor to still prove you committed the crime. Your alibi must be reliable though, or the prosecution can weigh your questionable alibi against the evidence they have against you.

10. You Changed Your Mind

The abandonment or withdrawal defense argues that while you initially considered doing a criminal act, you walked away before the crime occurred. A good example includes someone conspiring to participate in a burglary but then changing their mind while the plan was still being developed.

11. Questioning Witness Testimony

Eyewitnesses are often the cornerstone of a criminal case —providing critical evidence to help prove the victim’s guilt. At least 77,000 people are arrested every year based on testimony from eyewitnesses. Unfortunately, the mistaken identification of perpetrators was responsible for around 69% of all wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence.

While humans rely on information stored in our memories, our memories are not fully accurate records of what really occurred. Emotions, especially those associated with trauma, can dramatically influence our memories. Often, eyewitnesses are certain of events, but just because someone feels certain about what they witnessed doesn’t mean their account is reliable.

8 Less Common, But Highly Effective Legal Defenses

Some defenses may not be used as frequently as they cannot be used in most situations, but they may still be very effective. Here are 8 less common defense strategies:

1. Acting Under Duress

If you were forced to commit a crime because someone threatened to take your life or someone else’s life if you did not, you acted under duress and can use this as your defense strategy.

2. Involuntary Intoxication

If you were under the influence of a drug you did not choose to take (because someone spiked your drink, for example), you cannot be responsible for what you did. You could use this defense against driving under the influence charges if someone gave you alcohol and told you it was just fruit punch or if you didn’t drink at all but became drunk due to auto-brewery syndrome.  Alternatively, involuntary intoxication could also excuse crimes, such as battery, if you were given a drug that made you hallucinate and react violently to a perceived threat that didn’t exist in reality.

This defense does not usually apply to cases where you chose to take alcohol or drugs. However, even voluntary intoxication of drugs or alcohol can be a defense to a specific intent crime, such as first-degree murder, if it caused the defendant to act without full awareness of his actions.

3. Entrapment

A commonly misunderstood aspect of criminal law, entrapment occurs when a police officer pushes someone into committing a crime they would not have otherwise. The last part is the most critical part of entrapment, as simply presenting someone with the opportunity to commit a crime is not entrapment. To be against the law, an officer must pressure someone into breaking the law.

4. Unconsciousness

The unconsciousness defense can only really work in cases where a defendant has a history of sleepwalking, but it essentially says that someone who was asleep at the time they committed a criminal act cannot be legally held responsible for their behavior. As medications with sleepwalking as a side effect are being released and prescribed with increasing frequency though, these situations are becoming far more common.

For example, if your lawyer can show you were completely asleep when you stabbed your spouse, you couldn’t be charged with the crime, even if you killed them. Similarly, if it is well documented that you act out your sexual dreams because you suffer from sexsomnia, this is a strong legal shield against any sex crime.

5. Necessity Due to an Emergency

Sometimes you must break the law because not doing so would cause greater harm. While this is most commonly used as a traffic crime or DUI defense to excuse someone driving in a dangerous manner, it can also be used in property crime cases. As an example, if someone with a gun was chasing you, you may be legally justified in breaking a neighbor’s window and illegally entering their home if it was done to escape this potentially lethal threat.

7. The Statute of Limitations Expired

If the supposed crime took place a long time ago, you might be able to argue that the statute of limitations has expired, and therefore, you are no longer subject to criminal penalties under the law. Note that there is no statute of limitations on murder and, as of 2017, sexual assault.

8. Consent

Most commonly used in sex crimes cases, this defense can also be applied in other situations. For example, if you are accused of stealing someone’s property, but the rightful owner let you keep or borrow it, you are not guilty. Similarly, consensual BDSM is not considered domestic violence, even if someone leaves cuts or bruises on their partner.

The Defense Most Attorneys Won’t Use

While the insanity defense is perhaps the best-known defense strategy to those outside the legal profession, it is one of the least commonly used and least successful defenses.  This article goes into more detail as to why most criminal lawyers will rarely turn to the insanity defense.

Don’t Use any Defenses Without Talking to a Lawyer

If you have been accused of a crime and wish to plead innocent, do not say anything to the police until your criminal defense attorney is present. Remember that anything you say can later be used against you in court and that wrongly using a defense strategy or choosing the wrong defense could end up hurting your case later on. To schedule a free consultation with experienced lawyer Peter M. Liss, please call (760) 643-4050.