Our firm represents a lot of clients who are charged with domestic assault and a lot of those matters go to trial. I’m here today to talk to you about how to win these cases. What are the strategies we employ to win a trial. And this is not to be confused with how to drop a charge address assault charge. I cover that in another video where which arguments we use to get the crowd to hopefully withdraw charge or diverted charge that out of the out of the system for domestic assault. So I’m talking about a case it’s actually the head to trial. How do I win that case? What do I do? Well, first and foremost, it starts with me receiving all of the disclosure from the crown attorneys office, I need the complainants video statement, the police notes, the occurrence reports, photographs, you name it, I need every scintilla of evidence that the police gathered that they’re going to give the crown attorney which the crown attorneys required to provide to me as part of their disclosure obligation. That case that for that obligation is rejoicing against Stinchcomb, which stipulates that defense counsel on candidate needs to get everything in the police hands in their hands in order to properly defend the case. Once I have that, that’s kind of the defining documentation, which is going to be read my roadmap for property defending this case, I’m going to get all those police reports I get to read them I’m going to I’m going to watch the videos and I’m going to analyze those for hours. I’m thinking to formulate my opinion about the strengths and weaknesses of the crowd’s case based on those documents. And I’m going to start my meetings with the client after that it’s if this has to trial i mean it’s the first meeting is one of many many long arduous hours meeting with the client or preparing for trial but the very first meeting is I received their version of events as well. And but first I review the police reports with them and then get their version that’s and now I’m in a position to tell them what their odds of winning are frankly, I know about the case now I’ve got everything I need. There might be some missing disclosure, but we’ll get that to but hopefully we have enough disclosure to at least formulate an opinion if we don’t we get further disclosure and finalize it. So the client is going to tell me one of many things they’re going to tell me a I did it and I just want to plead guilty which is a topic for another video. To get the best lightest possible below I said Look, I didn’t do this i a i was acting in self defense, for example, be it was a consensual fight, we were just slapping each other in the kitchen. We were mad at each other. And we both agreed to slap each other a few times. See she’s got motives to lie for all of these things. And frankly, I can review those motors with you. And they’re very clear and obvious. Or de she’s completely making this up but also as motives to lie. And I’m going to talk a little bit about motive saliva domestic assault context, you know, to defend a criminal charge, defense counsel never has to prove motives to lie. But motive, showing motives to lie in any criminal trial on a complainants part is a very powerful thing. It greatly assists in creating reasonable doubt. And motors to lie often occur in domestic assault situations. I mean, you’ve got a situation where, let’s say, and I don’t mean to say it’s just husbands or boyfriends who are the accused, it could be the wife too. But let’s take the case of a husband where who’s been caught committing adultery. Pretty powerful motor for light and mixing up, they’re angry, they want revenge. Let’s talk about how you want to get them booted out of the house to control the divorce and custody proceedings. That’s the best way to control those proceedings is to make up a lie this, you know, this goes on people. You know, there are false complaints out there. I’m sure the majority of domestic assaults are are legitimate, but they’re all false complaints. You know, revenge motives, anger, you name it, there’s a plethora of potential motives to lie. And we if there are those motives, particularly custody battles, that are going on a divorce proceedings, and there’s an assault in the midst of those. That’s a powerful tool and we can create Reasonable Doubt just using that as well. So again, you don’t have to have a motive to lie but it helps and we can explore we challenged the the complainant at trial regarding those motives and put them to him or her and, and suggests they’re making the story up. So now what we do, we’ve got the client who’s now got their opinion, they’ve given me the verbal version of events. Now I want them to review that disclosure carefully on their own make notes for me, provide me a written statement. chronological order in as much detail as possible. I then, again, ongoing meetings with them where I review that statement, we make revisions to it based on their version events, I may refresh their memory. We’re adding all the details. Because they rarely get the all the details in the first draft, we might go through multiple drafts of that statement. That becomes my document in conjunction with the police reports and the witness statements to properly prepare for trial. I know what I know what the clients going to say on the witness stand, and often they have to testify in a domestic assault trial. I know what the complainants gonna say. Now how can I challenge this complainants veracity their their credibility it’s called veracity, truthfulness, or reliability, whether accurate, I formulate my mind. What are the weaknesses in your case? What are the most lie? What are the improbabilities? What are the consistencies? What are the matters that don’t accord with logic and logic and common sense? And then I formulate themes from my cross examination planned around all these documents with a view to showing the complainants version events is not accurate. Now you have to realize it in a domestic assault situation is usually a he said she said case. And the burden of proof is in the accused favor. The burden of proof is on the crown to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. This is not a civil lawsuit. That’s a very powerful burden. And if you properly prepare your client to testify, even if the complainant sounds good on the witness stand, you have a good chance of winning frankly, a good lawyer will prepare hours and hours that client to testify. In the months leading up to trial. Typically I will meet with my client at least three times to prepare their testimony for many, many hours. The first time they meet with them, I guarantee very few people do a good job I need to correct the what they’re saying. In the sense you’re not saying it properly. You know, winning a criminal trial has nothing to do with who’s telling the truth. I hate to say that winning a criminal trial has to do about prepared witnesses. A truthful witness including my clients, and believe me, many are falsely accused people and unprepared truthful person is going to get destroyed by a good criminal lawyer absolutely destroyed. We do this for a living. Many complainants will take the witness stand. They’re not prepared. I prepared for hours. I’m here challenging every aspect of their testimony. I’m catching them in consistencies. I’m putting motives to lie to their them. I’m showing they’re not reliable, they were drinking. There’s divorce proceedings, it goes on. And it’s difficult for a person, even a truthful witness is difficult to withstand a good defense counsel, there’s no question if they’re prepared properly, and they’re truthful. Even that might be difficult to stand a person who’s expert at cross examination. So you’re trying to create reasonable doubt, you’re trying to show that that person may not be telling the truth and you don’t have to destroy them. You’re not they’re being aggressive. You’re you’re putting polite questions in a way that leaves a witness down a garden path where you want to take them, you’re pointing out inconsistencies to them, you’re challenging them, you’re showing the judge that they are not credible and reliable, and you only have to create a reasonable doubt. So you know when that complainant leaves the witness stand and you know, there’s evidence may be in tatters if it’s completely in tatters in the sensor not credible, reliable at all. You might decide not to call your your client that’s a tough choice. So you don’t know what the judge is thinking. If your clients properly prepared, frankly, you don’t have to worry. You know, a lot of you know a lot of people a lot of defense. clients who get destroyed in the witness stand by the crown, were not properly prepared. Frankly, it’s your job it’s my job to repair the client properly, get them ready and withstand a clever cross examination so I’m always confident putting my client on the witness stand there are rare situations where I feel the complainant was completely destroyed and I won’t call them but unless they’re at that complete destroyed level you don’t know what the judge is going to do. And these are tried and true techniques for challenging witnesses mean you can be textbooks up this but it’s a it’s an art form that needs to be developed. It’s not a science but it’s a feel it’s technique. It’s confronting them it’s it’s I came describe what if you watched a good criminal where it goes through a cross examination you you know, but it’s all about preparation. I mean I just don’t show up and start talking at these things I have prepared for hours and even if the complainant is very smart person, I can assure you if they’re not properly prepared and they’re up against a good lawyer it’s no contest that there’s there’s absolutely zero contest because they’re not they don’t do this for a living. But you know, I have come up against complainants who are very well prepared and that’s a different ballgame. Now they might come across well and you know sound pretty credible but even on that case, your client can still win that trial if it’s a he said she said because Are they? The judge has to listen to them to if they sound equally compelling? Well the judge that’s a that’s a very definition of reasonable doubt. There’s there’s a, there’s no injuries. There’s no corroborating evidence in many cases, even if there are it was in self defense. So the client testifies Look, it was consensual, we slapped each other Look, this mark in my face mark in her face. It was self defense, she came after me, I slapped her. There’s a small mark there. She’s making this up. There’s divorce proceedings. She’s actually accused me of doing this and that hitting the children as well. And she’s now controlling the divorce proceedings. I’m not saying these cases are easy to win. But they are winnable in the hands of a good lawyer. There’s their strategies to do it. There’s a lot of preparation hard work. And the bottom line is a he said she said domestic assault can often be one in the hands of a good lawyer. And your most important play when you’re charged with domestic assault, if you want to win is to hire a lawyer who’s committed and passionate. It’s got the expertise and the experience to actually win at trial because not all, not all Criminal Lawyers actually even do trials. You know a lot a lot of them some criminal justice resolve case you need to find a trial lawyer and that’s how to win a domestic assault case. Thank you for watching our video, we are absolutely committed to bringing you the best possible criminal and DUI educational videos. If you found this video helpful, please like it and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you’ve been charged with a criminal offence in Ontario and require our services, please click on the link in the description below.
