Defense Strategy for a Burglary

[VandalSavage]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: NC

Alright this is kinda different than usual but I have a mock trial I am supposed to take part in tomorrow. We haven't learned anything but the professor is trying to test out the waters by throwing us in the deep end? Regardless of whether or not you agree with their method of "teaching" I do want to learn how to defend this guy in a court of law so I have the details of the case, witness statements and the defendant statement. I'm the Defense Attorney.

The information is provided below. Now note, I am not trying someone to write up the case and win it for me, I am in need of someone to explain the basic premise of the laws behind the criminal case. As the defense attorney I am trying to get my defendant off the hook for the alleged crime..

My guy is the defendant Robert Nichols.

Here is what I have so far:
- I've decided to try to paint the "driver" Manny as the actual criminal and my defendant as an unassuming guy who was taken advantage of at the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm just trying to see if I have a case to get my guy off the hook and how would I do so. I know this is rather outside your guys' norm but I would appreciate any help?
- The Police witness seems to be their key witness since she's in an expert role? How would I discredit an authority figure?
- There is inconsistencies in the car owners statement? He mentions a flashlight and seeing the men but claims later he can't see the color of the suspect's clothes?

I have pictures of all the witness statements including my defendants but I don't know how to put them in a spoiler and rather not flood the thread with two large pictures. Please let me know how to make a spoiler?

EDIT: Here is the frontside linked on Imgur - https://imgur.com/FCHNaTc
Backside - https://imgur.com/3PeakzK

Again, i would appreciate any help and am interested in learning about this case.

Again, I do respect if helping out on homework or not real cases is not allowed here. In that case, someone can take down the post. I would like to state I am not just mooching off of you guys. I would genuinely like to know whether or not a defendant can claim not guilty because he was a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time

[Taxing Matters]

The strategy that a defense attorney uses to defend his/her client depends on what evidence there is in the case — both the evidence the state has as well as what is available to the defense. The basic idea is to look for potential weaknesses in the state’s case that can be exploited to cast reasonable doubt. You, as the defense attorney, do not have to prove your client innocent. Rather, the state must prove the defendant guilty.

Start by looking at the elements of the crime that the state must prove. Here, it appears that the state has charged your client with stealing a car. So the state must prove that your client participated in the theft, either as a principal or as an accessory to the crime. The witness statements do open the door to your argument that Manny was one of the thieves, but identifying him as one of the thieves does not itself get your client off the hook. Why? Because there were two people the car owner saw near his car shortly before the theft occurred, suggesting that two people were involved in stealing it. So while Manny might be one of them, your client Bob could have been the other. So instead, using the approach you want to use, your focus is not so much on Manny's role as the thief but rather highlighting that your client met Manny after the theft and had no idea the car was stolen. You’d want to try to show that the car owner’s identification of your client as potentially one of the two guys is not reliable enough to pin the theft on him. That’s done in your cross-examination of the car owner to draw out just how little he actually saw and remembers of the appearances of the guys he saw. Then when you present your case, focus on drawing out things that would help show that your client only met Manny at the restaurant, not before. I can't give you the details of how to do all that, you need to work that out for yourself.

Here is a key tip for presenting a case at trial: decide on the story of the case you wish to convey to jury and then build your case to effectively tell that story. Provide a good beginning, middle, and end to the story and present your evidence to tell the story in order and in a way that the jury can follow along. Ideally the evidence will flow like a good book, telling the story you want the jury to believe. So you don't want to jump around with your presentation, e.g. don't start in the middle of your story, then go to the beginning, then to end, as that makes it harder to follow.

[VandalSavage]

The strategy that a defense attorney uses to defend his/her client depends on what evidence there is in the case — both the evidence the state has as well as what is available to the defense. The basic idea is to look for potential weaknesses in the state’s case that can be exploited to cast reasonable doubt. You, as the defense attorney, do not have to prove your client innocent. Rather, the state must prove the defendant guilty.

Start by looking at the elements of the crime that the state must prove. Here, it appears that the state has charged your client with stealing a car. So the state must prove that your client participated in the theft, either as a principal or as an accessory to the crime. The witness statements do open the door to your argument that Manny was one of the thieves, but identifying him as one of the thieves does not itself get your client off the hook. Why? Because there were two people the car owner saw near his car shortly before the theft occurred, suggesting that two people were involved in stealing it. So while Manny might be one of them, your client Bob could have been the other. So instead, using the approach you want to use, your focus is not so much on Manny's role as the thief but rather highlighting that your client met Manny after the theft and had no idea the car was stolen. You’d want to try to show that the car owner’s identification of your client as potentially one of the two guys is not reliable enough to pin the theft on him. That’s done in your cross-examination of the car owner to draw out just how little he actually saw and remembers of the appearances of the guys he saw. Then when you present your case, focus on drawing out things that would help show that your client only met Manny at the restaurant, not before. I can't give you the details of how to do all that, you need to work that out for yourself.

Here is a key tip for presenting a case at trial: decide on the story of the case you wish to convey to jury and then build your case to effectively tell that story. Provide a good beginning, middle, and end to the story and present your evidence to tell the story in order and in a way that the jury can follow along. Ideally the evidence will flow like a good book, telling the story you want the jury to believe. So you don't want to jump around with your presentation, e.g. don't start in the middle of your story, then go to the beginning, then to end, as that makes it harder to follow.

I appreciate your response @Taxing Matters

I chose the following course of action. I tried to reason that due to mere presence, the state's case was too weak to convict Bob of car theft since he claimed he was just a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I did read your response at with the definitive goal in mind to prove that there is no reasonable belief that my client was present at the time when the original car theft took place. In light of this, I targeted the car owners statement claiming that since a flashlight was being used, it is reasonable to say it was dark outside which most likely messed with the way the car owner saw things leading to an incorrect identification of my client and instead was solely based on the fact that he was with Manny when the car was found. Is that permissible in a court of law? Can we make such inferences? I believe it's called circumstantial evidence but I was hoping you could confirm if I am using it correctly?

The second part of what I focused on was as you said the restaurant meeting. I claimed that if it took 15 mins to get out Bob's order he would have had to come early to wait in line to get a spot to place his at 8 pm leaving him little time to actually be present with Manny at 7:45 to steal a car. Furthermore, I singled out the restaurant owner's statement that he saw Bob first and then "at a later point" he saw him start chatting with Manny. I want to explicitly state that this points to them meeting at the restaurant and not knowing each other before! Is there a way to solidify this claim with other evidence from the case?

Finally, I did want to know if I am using "mere presence" appropriately and what court cases established that. Your guidance is much appreciated. Thanks