Preparation is the key to your freedom and reputation.
In criminal cases, pace is everything. The sooner your lawyer finds out precisely what occurred, the sooner specific investigative and strategic decisions can be made for your protection. An appropriate defensive course of action undertaken early on can often wrest "control of the case" from the prosecution and level the playing field for you.
The quality you can bring to this mix is the truth: tell your lawyer all of it--the best, the worst and the ugliest. The time it takes your lawyer to determine everything the State (or Government) might have in its file against you is lost time--that neither you nor your lawyer can recover. The key is to shorten the learning curve for your lawyer to get command of the facts. The lawyer who knows the most about your case will be the most powerful man in the courtroom.
In any serious case, a polygraph can be the Defendant's secret weapon--but it is no better than the competence of the examiner and the Defendant's commitment to be candid with him. Interrogation by our examiner is intense and exhaustive, and because of that, we never hear anything for the first time in the courtroom, when we have only seconds to respond. Make no mistake--a successful polygraph on a crucial fact can save even the deadliest case.
We often suggest psychiatric examination by a forensic expert. In serious cases, we only accept evaluation by the State's Death Penalty psychiatrist. He has the experience and credibility to blunt prosecution prognostications of dangerousness and recidivism. Over the past thirty-two years, he has performed over 12,000 psychiatric examinations of persons charged with felony offenses. If his psychiatric evaluation of you is favorable, the result of your case will likely be favorable.
The U. S. Department of Justice has verified that alcohol and drug abuse or chemical dependency contributes substantially to the vast majority of criminal cases. Accordingly, we often recommend drug or alcohol treatment. Our preferred choice is one particular out-of-state facility, and it is eminently affordable. We recommend it because time and time again, it has proven successful medically and strategically.