Preparing For a Maryland Federal Child Pornography Case
Being accused of child pornography in Maryland can be an intimidating and frightening prospect and carry severe penalties including significant jail time. For this reason, it is important that those accused are as prepared as possible in court. Below, a Maryland federal child pornography lawyer discusses some of the things you can expect, and how hiring experienced legal representation can help.
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What Should Everyone Know About Federal Child Pornography Cases?
What everybody should know is that in child pornography cases they will generally be entitled to a trial by jury. The jury decision will have to be unanimous and the prosecution will be held to a very high standard when proving an individual’s particular charges in a case of a violation of the child pornography statute.
How Can An Attorney Help Prepare Me For a Child Pornography Trial?
One of the most important things that your lawyer will want to know from you how it was that the images or other evidence was seized from your person, whether you consented to its seizure, and what, if any, witnesses were present at the time that it was seized who might be able to assist us in challenging any constitutional violations of this procedure.
The other thing that your lawyer is going to want to prepare you for is to testify, if that is something that you make a mutual decision to do. If there are issues with the prosecution’s case, and you have the ability to represent to them a story that is different, it may ultimately be in your best interest to testify in that case and your attorney will prepare you for that as well.
What Are Some Constitutional Issues That Can Come Up In a Child Pornography Case?
Constitutional issues that come up for all these issues are associated with search and seizure of somebody’s property or premises. If a person’s computer or phone was searched without the proper authority by the government, that would certainly be grounds for suppression, and if somebody’s home was searched without the appropriate procedures, that would also be an option for our defense to introduce in a particular case.
There are obviously a number of other constitutional issues that could come up. Perhaps the most important one is associated with the evidence gathering and improper search and seizure, which of course all fall under the Fourth Amendment of the constitution.
What Should You Look For When Hiring An Attorney?
You want to make sure that the attorney that you’re working with has a relationship not only with the prosecutor’s office but also with the court system and the judges in the particular jurisdiction. So much of what happens with these kinds of cases has to do with the place that you are and the relationships that you have with the parties involved in trying to expedite the process and make sure that it goes as smoothly as possible.
You want to make sure that you work with an attorney who has a good team behind him. Attorneys that have law clerks, investigators, and other support staff available to research important pieces of information that come up are certainly going to be helpful in making sure that your defense is the best defense that you could possibly receive.
Somebody who doesn’t have access to investigators and law clerks may not have the ability to go through and actually uncover every single potential defense or lead that needs to be investigated in handling a case like this.