If you believe you may be under investigation for a crime, you shouldn’t wait until charges are filed before you contact a top criminal defense attorney. You lawyer can provide you with advice on how to proceed during the investigations and let you know whether or not to answer questions for the police. On top of this, he can start working on pre-file investigations before there are any formal charges against you, so you can ensure your rights are protected while the police perform their investigation. Additionally, your lawyer can start fighting the criminal charges before they are even filed by working to uncover evidence on your behalf.
What are Lawyer Pre-File Investigations?
A pre-file investigation is any investigation into a crime prior to the filing of criminal charges. Most of the criminal investigations performed by law enforcement take place at this point, before they even make an arrest. But you don’t have to wait for the police to arrest you or the District Attorney to file charges in order to take action. When you hire a lawyer early, he can start his own pre-file investigation to uncover information to support your criminal defense against these crimes, which can have a dramatic impact on your case later on.
While not all cases require a full investigation, Peter M. Liss has a strong working relationship with skilled private investigators in San Diego for those that do. A good pre-file investigation often can turn up evidence that will prove your innocence before the police can even collect enough evidence to convince the district attorney to file criminal charges.
Why Get Preemptive Representation?
If you act quickly to fight charges before they are filed, you may be able to avoid being arrested altogether. In many cases, top lawyers can perform pre-file investigations to gather enough evidence to show that you are innocent long before the police believe they have gathered enough evidence to file charges against you.
Additionally, just because charges haven’t been filed doesn’t mean the police will not ask to interview you as a suspect. In fact, this is a good idea because in many cases when law enforcement agents talk to people they believe may be involved in a crime, they perform “informal interviews” that do not require them to read the suspect their rights. They often do this by acting like they don’t suspect the person they are questioning, but just want more information to help solve the case. Even innocent-sounding questions may incriminate you if you answer.
Hiring a defense attorney early can help you ensure that you can cooperate with the police to provide answers that may help their investigation without incriminating yourself if charges are filed later on. This is particularly true if you want to help them solve the case but don’t want to end up having your answers turned around against you later if they believe you may be a suspect.
What if the DA Still Presses Charges?
Even if the prosecution files criminal charges against you in spite of the evidence on your behalf, the information uncovered through a pre-file investigation will continue to help you as you fight the accusations against you, so there is no downside to protecting your innocence from the start of the police investigation.
Anyone who believes they may be the suspect in a criminal investigation should contact criminal defense lawyer Peter M. Liss at (760) 643-4050 or (858) 486-3024 as soon as possible in order to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss how he can help you preemptively fight your criminal charges before they are even filed.
