Any amount of time in prison—especially when you’re innocent—is too much time. Try 18 months. Our client claimed his innocence from Day One, but prosecutors went ahead and charged him with 20 counts of sexual contact with a minor.
Icky, right? That’s what most people say about sex cases.
But “liberty and justice for all” means liberty and justice in the unpopular cases, too, and one week before trial, we got the case dismissed and our client was set free to reunite with his family.
Living Behind Bars
So our twenty-something client whiled away 18 months behind bars and his niece continued to accuse him of sexual misconduct. Based on her allegations, prosecutors brought 20 felony counts, and in a case such as this one, the judge did not allow him to post bond and go free until trial.
While he was stuck behind bars, we dug up the exculpatory evidence we needed to make his case. A big one was polygraph testing. Sex cases often come down to “he said/she said,” and in this one, it took two separate polygraph tests—with two different polygraph examiners—to get at the truth.
Our client passed both, as well as an extensive series of psychological tests. The results of the polygraph tests, along with other contradictory evidence, began to show that the niece was lying.
Eventually she admitted she was lying.
Our client had never made any sexual advances.
In fact, he did not have any illegal sexual contact with her – and prosecutors dropped the case.
As much as lawyers complain about being lawyers, this is the kind of case that makes us truly overjoyed, not just because it makes us feel good as lawyers, but because it has a tangible, positive impact for people who have been accused of serious crimes.
The Bottom Line
Not everyone accused of a sex crime is, after all, guilty, and even those who are guilty deserve to have their side of the story heard. No innocent person should ever need to spend time behind bars.
It’s beyond unfortunate that anyone must ever serve time for a crime they did not commit. For these people, a lawyer is often the only person that can and will help them.
