A top federal defense lawyer is often asked whether he frequently engages in federal criminal jury trials. Clients ask about this level of experience for several reasons. Clients sometimes hear or read that a federal defense lawyer does not actually go to trial on a regular basis. That is certainly not the case with Leonard Trial Lawyers and federal defense lawyer Michael Leonard. Indeed, Mr. Leonard is known as a federal defense lawyer who is willing to challenge federal prosecutors and take cases to jury verdict. More importantly, Mr. Leonard has experienced an unsurpassed level of success as a federal defense lawyer in taking federal criminal cases to jury verdict. Mr. Leonard has obtained complete not guilty jury verdicts in six different federal criminal prosecutions in Chicago alone. By complete, that means not guilty on all counts and all charges. In other words, each and every one of those defendants has been able to walk out of the courtroom as a free man. In Mr. Leonard’s recent seventh such not guilty jury win, in a multi-count Medicare fraud case, the defendant was found not guilty of the charges, except the jury remain deadlocked on another count – causing a mistrial with respect to only that count, but not impacting the not guilty counts. When a defendant is found not guilty of a count, he is not guilty of that count for all purposes. Eventually, that case did not even go to re-trial on the mistried charge because the federal prosecutors in that case agreed to a “time served” sentence. Thus, the defendant, who had been briefly in custody when he was first federally charged for several months (and then got out on bond the rest of the time), walked entirely away from the case without serving any time in the BOP.
It is of course important for clients to retain a federal defense lawyer who has actually won – and wins – not guilty jury verdicts in federal criminal prosecutions. Sometimes, federal defense lawyers obtain a “count” of not guilty, yet their clients were convicted on some or all of the remaining charges. For sentencing purposes, these are quite often no “win” at all.
If a federal defense has only ever entered into pleas of guilty on behalf of federal defendants, he or she may not possess the expertise and experience to take a defendant’s case to jury trial in federal court.
It is important for clients to retain a federal defense lawyer who has extensive jury trial experience in federal criminal matters. Federal defense lawyer Michael Leonard at Leonard Trial Lawyers offers that depth of federal jury trial experience.
Written by Michel Leonard
Leonard Trial Lawyers
November 18, 2022