Here is a typical kind that I handle in Michigan for clients charged with MDOP.
Name: Brian
Age: 45 years old
No prior criminal history
Profession: Teacher
Brian reaches out to me about a recent incident involving a neighbor. Brian is a family man who has never had issues with the law but doesn’t get along with his next-door neighbor.
He has two children and has been teaching at the same high school for 20 years. He loves what he does professionally but is now charged with Malicious Destruction of Property. He is worried about losing his job and having a criminal record due to an isolated poor choice.
Once Brian reaches out, I confirm his age, criminal history, his job, if he holds any licenses through the State of Michigan, such as a CPL, CDL or professional license. We then get into the details of the case.
Brian has been frustrated that his neighbor has been leaving his gardening tools on the sidewalk. Brian has tripped over these tools in the past and is worried that his kids can’t safely ride their bikes with tools laying around.
When this happened in the past, he would either storm away furious, but leave the tools, or toss them back onto the neighbor’s property. This last time, he was so mad to see the tools on the sidewalk that he snapped one of the tools in half and tossed them onto the neighbor’s grass. He went into his home and started making dinner for his family.
About an hour later, he got a knock at the door from the local police department. The neighbor had witnessed what happened and showed the police video footage from his security camera. Confronted with this information, Brian was honest and admitted to breaking the tool, but tried to give the backstory to the police; they did not care, issued Brian a ticket and left.
So, this is quite common. A client who respects the law, works hard, is a good family man, who is law abiding and generally gets along with everybody. If you told any of Brian’s friends that he was charged with a crime, they would be shocked. But this is how people get in trouble with the law.
Someone comes home after a long day, is frustrated about something, feels justified in their actions, and acts out in an irrational manner, which at the time doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when they reflect back, they realize how short-sighted their decision was. The neighbor appears to be wrong doer here; he leaves out his tools on a regular basis, and “deserved what happened”. Morally, maybe, but the law charges Brian.
The police did not care to hear Brian’s story, and Brian is now left with his entire future in jeopardy. Here is how we approach this case in a proactive fashion.
We are dealing with facts where my client is 100 percent guilty of the offense. We likely don’t have any viable defense here. He purposely destroyed someone’s property without permission.
The police had no interest in the background of the case, and a prosecutor may not care either. How do we change this?
We need to take the focus off the five seconds of lapse in judgment here. Brian’s future should not be determined by this flash in time. That’s not equitable; nobody was injured, tools can be replaced, and Brian genuinely feels bad about what he did, and 100 percent regrets what he did. The problem we run into is “words mean very little” when we go to court.
As a former prosecutor I would review the case and know that Brian clearly broke the law, and there’s punishment for that. I would also picture Brian as an angry person who does this all the time, I have no idea that he is a teacher, with a family and no prior history. The prosecutor will never go outside the four corners of the police report without Brian and his attorney being proactive.
As Brian’s attorney, I recommend that he sit down and meet with a counselor. Someone who is professionally trained in mental and emotional health, who can help Brian best understand what triggered his reaction. It’s important that Brian fully understand what built up to his rash choice to break the neighbor’s tool.
It’s also important that this third-party professional have a chance to meet Brian, and can put together a full report for our case. A report that highlights his past, present and his future plans. It carries more weight for this counselor to lay this out in an evaluation, vs me as his attorney.
To be able to say a counselor met with Brian, and here’s why it happened, but also the counselor has determined that stress from work, and a continued triggering by the neighbor’s behavior lead to this incident. The counselor recommends that Brian come twice per month and continue to express his feelings, and work toward better conflict resolution.
We have now made sense of the case for the prosecutor and provided the “other side”. Nobody wants to hear from Brian, because it sounds like a bunch of excuses. Having an attorney go in there and say all this is hot air too, but I’m not trained to evaluate Brian’s mental and emotional help and help him deal better with conflicts.
Brian is no longer a “wild card”. He is no longer someone unpredictable with an assumed history of violent acts of destroying property of others. We have made his family, career and lack of past criminal history relevant, and provided context and a future plan to ensure this does not happen again. We also realize that breaking the law should carry a punitive measure, and we certainly don’t want that to be jail or 24 months of court supervision. There is no alcohol or drug use here, and we would like to avoid expensive testing.
We decide to do two days of proactive community service with a local charity as a way to give back and put positive vibes back into the community. Breaking the neighbor’s property was a negative act, so we do our best to counteract that.
We of course fully agree to replace the gardening tool, even buy the neighbor a better version of the tool if he chooses. We are willing to write an apology letter and have no further contact with the neighbor if that is their desire as well.
With all of these positive vibes in the case, and our willingness to make things right, the prosecutor is now in a position to justify working with us on an extraordinary outcome.
Because all courts, prosecutors and judges are different, I don’t want to get into any specific outcome, but based on what we did for Brian so far, I would be confident that the prosecutor would give us a path to potential dismissal, the ability to move forward without a criminal record, and for the judge to our proactive work without the need to impose jail, or any long-term court supervision. We may be in a position where we continue our progress with the counselor, pay the gardening tool, and have no further incidents during a short period of time; if we achieve all of that, we have given Brian a true second chance of redemption.
Brian has learned a valuable life lesson that you need to think twice about your decisions, even if they feel justified, or you’ll get away with doing it. Assume the worst could happen and learn how to deal with conflict going forward.
We have no turned Brian’s case into a success. Things happen for a reason, and without this run-in with the neighbor, something worse may have happened in the future without this intervention.
Brian in the end created a manageable outcome for himself, because he was open to be being proactive, and took steps to address the underlying issues before being told to do so by a prosecutor and judge. He realized that despite the stress, anxiety and worries during this case, that he is in a better position to go forward as an educator, family man, and member of the community.
Name: Brian
Age: 45 years old
No prior criminal history
Profession: Teacher
Brian reaches out to me about a recent incident involving a neighbor. Brian is a family man who has never had issues with the law but doesn’t get along with his next-door neighbor.
He has two children and has been teaching at the same high school for 20 years. He loves what he does professionally but is now charged with Malicious Destruction of Property. He is worried about losing his job and having a criminal record due to an isolated poor choice.
Once Brian reaches out, I confirm his age, criminal history, his job, if he holds any licenses through the State of Michigan, such as a CPL, CDL or professional license. We then get into the details of the case.
Brian has been frustrated that his neighbor has been leaving his gardening tools on the sidewalk. Brian has tripped over these tools in the past and is worried that his kids can’t safely ride their bikes with tools laying around.
When this happened in the past, he would either storm away furious, but leave the tools, or toss them back onto the neighbor’s property. This last time, he was so mad to see the tools on the sidewalk that he snapped one of the tools in half and tossed them onto the neighbor’s grass. He went into his home and started making dinner for his family.
About an hour later, he got a knock at the door from the local police department. The neighbor had witnessed what happened and showed the police video footage from his security camera. Confronted with this information, Brian was honest and admitted to breaking the tool, but tried to give the backstory to the police; they did not care, issued Brian a ticket and left.
So, this is quite common. A client who respects the law, works hard, is a good family man, who is law abiding and generally gets along with everybody. If you told any of Brian’s friends that he was charged with a crime, they would be shocked. But this is how people get in trouble with the law.
Someone comes home after a long day, is frustrated about something, feels justified in their actions, and acts out in an irrational manner, which at the time doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when they reflect back, they realize how short-sighted their decision was. The neighbor appears to be wrong doer here; he leaves out his tools on a regular basis, and “deserved what happened”. Morally, maybe, but the law charges Brian.
The police did not care to hear Brian’s story, and Brian is now left with his entire future in jeopardy. Here is how we approach this case in a proactive fashion.
We are dealing with facts where my client is 100 percent guilty of the offense. We likely don’t have any viable defense here. He purposely destroyed someone’s property without permission.
The police had no interest in the background of the case, and a prosecutor may not care either. How do we change this?
We need to take the focus off the five seconds of lapse in judgment here. Brian’s future should not be determined by this flash in time. That’s not equitable; nobody was injured, tools can be replaced, and Brian genuinely feels bad about what he did, and 100 percent regrets what he did. The problem we run into is “words mean very little” when we go to court.
As a former prosecutor I would review the case and know that Brian clearly broke the law, and there’s punishment for that. I would also picture Brian as an angry person who does this all the time, I have no idea that he is a teacher, with a family and no prior history. The prosecutor will never go outside the four corners of the police report without Brian and his attorney being proactive.
As Brian’s attorney, I recommend that he sit down and meet with a counselor. Someone who is professionally trained in mental and emotional health, who can help Brian best understand what triggered his reaction. It’s important that Brian fully understand what built up to his rash choice to break the neighbor’s tool.
It’s also important that this third-party professional have a chance to meet Brian, and can put together a full report for our case. A report that highlights his past, present and his future plans. It carries more weight for this counselor to lay this out in an evaluation, vs me as his attorney.
To be able to say a counselor met with Brian, and here’s why it happened, but also the counselor has determined that stress from work, and a continued triggering by the neighbor’s behavior lead to this incident. The counselor recommends that Brian come twice per month and continue to express his feelings, and work toward better conflict resolution.
We have now made sense of the case for the prosecutor and provided the “other side”. Nobody wants to hear from Brian, because it sounds like a bunch of excuses. Having an attorney go in there and say all this is hot air too, but I’m not trained to evaluate Brian’s mental and emotional help and help him deal better with conflicts.
Brian is no longer a “wild card”. He is no longer someone unpredictable with an assumed history of violent acts of destroying property of others. We have made his family, career and lack of past criminal history relevant, and provided context and a future plan to ensure this does not happen again. We also realize that breaking the law should carry a punitive measure, and we certainly don’t want that to be jail or 24 months of court supervision. There is no alcohol or drug use here, and we would like to avoid expensive testing.
We decide to do two days of proactive community service with a local charity as a way to give back and put positive vibes back into the community. Breaking the neighbor’s property was a negative act, so we do our best to counteract that.
We of course fully agree to replace the gardening tool, even buy the neighbor a better version of the tool if he chooses. We are willing to write an apology letter and have no further contact with the neighbor if that is their desire as well.
With all of these positive vibes in the case, and our willingness to make things right, the prosecutor is now in a position to justify working with us on an extraordinary outcome.
Because all courts, prosecutors and judges are different, I don’t want to get into any specific outcome, but based on what we did for Brian so far, I would be confident that the prosecutor would give us a path to potential dismissal, the ability to move forward without a criminal record, and for the judge to our proactive work without the need to impose jail, or any long-term court supervision. We may be in a position where we continue our progress with the counselor, pay the gardening tool, and have no further incidents during a short period of time; if we achieve all of that, we have given Brian a true second chance of redemption.
Brian has learned a valuable life lesson that you need to think twice about your decisions, even if they feel justified, or you’ll get away with doing it. Assume the worst could happen and learn how to deal with conflict going forward.
We have no turned Brian’s case into a success. Things happen for a reason, and without this run-in with the neighbor, something worse may have happened in the future without this intervention.
Brian in the end created a manageable outcome for himself, because he was open to be being proactive, and took steps to address the underlying issues before being told to do so by a prosecutor and judge. He realized that despite the stress, anxiety and worries during this case, that he is in a better position to go forward as an educator, family man, and member of the community.
