A Juvenile Criminal Case Has Exceptional Outcome: Client Story

A teenaged young man and his parents came to our office for help. The young man had been at a party in the fall of 2018 where he was attacked and beaten by several other young men. This young man and his parents had pressed charges against his attackers.

As our conversation went on, it was revealed that the men attacked him because they had been told that our client had inappropriately touched one of their female friends a couple of weeks earlier. My client was adamant that he had done nothing of the sort.

Once our client began the process of pressing charges against the attackers, the young woman who had claimed my client was inappropriate with her texted our client and threatened to go to the police with allegations against him if he did not drop the charges against his attackers.

He continued to press charges against his attackers and the young woman made good on her threat and sought to bring charges against our client.  We needed to defend our client against allegations that he had inappropriately touched this young woman.

Because our client was young and had a clean record, he was offered the chance to use a Restorative Justice program instead of charges being formally filed. The Restorative Justice program is a mediation where the parties involved air their grievances and talk through the issue to reach a resolution. Usually when the Restorative Justice program gets involved there are no charges against the accused. Our client was adamant about his innocence and refused to participate in the Restorative Justice Program, which would require him to admit committing the acts alleged.

Although formal charges had not yet been filed, our office was hired to investigate what really happened.  We spoke with several witnesses and located helpful evidence. As a result, we were able to demonstrate for the District Attorney that our client should not be prosecuted.  We negotiated an agreement that he would not be arraigned/prosecuted on any charges if he stayed out trouble and completed certain simple conditions for a period of six months.

This was an exceptionally good outcome because there is no record of these allegations against our client. We were able to get such a good result for him because we were involved early in the process. The sooner you reach out for legal advice the better your outcome is likely to be. Because we were involved from the beginning, we were able pursue an investigation and work with the District Attorney so that he was never prosecuted for any charges.