If you want to give yourself leverage during negotiations with prosecutors, or if you want to position yourself for successful litigation, then you have to have a command of the facts and an understanding of the weaknesses in the prosecution’s case.
There are several ways to do this, including by scrutinizing the evidence at hand, addressing witness credibility, and securing expert testimony. But another powerful strategy you can use is deposing the prosecution’s witnesses.
Deposition basics
A deposition is the taking of sworn testimony outside of court and before trial. The purpose is to discover what information the witness possesses and to give a sense of how they’ll testify at trial. The attorney taking the deposition will have wide latitude to ask questions here, which gives your defense the opportunity to look for avenues of attack in your case.
The benefits of depositions
There are several ways a deposition can be helpful to your case. These include:
- Finding out information that you otherwise wouldn’t have known.
- Pinning the witness down on their testimony so that you can then attack their credibility and reliability at trial if their testimony changes.
- Blocking the witness from testifying at trial if they fail to appear at the deposition.
- Discovering new angles of attack when addressing the prosecution’s case.
Deposing the prosecution’s witnesses can thus be a powerful way to build your criminal defense. Don’t overlook the value of this strategy in your case.
Leave nothing to chance in your criminal case
You don’t want to walk into court not knowing what’s going to be said against you. You can prevent that from happening by carefully building your case and taking relevant depositions. There are other strategies that you should consider utilizing, too, which you can discuss with your attorney. Hopefully then you can find a path forward that protects you from the harsh penalties sought by prosecutors.