Criminal Appeals

CRIMINAL APPEALS LAWYERS – SEEKING TO OVERTURN WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

A criminal appeal is a right awarded to a defendant who receives an unfavorable verdict or outcome in a previously-heard trial. The criminal appeal process provides defendants with the opportunity to contest his or her conviction to a formal appeals court.

The Basis for Criminal Appeals

Successful criminal appeals are not based on the assertion that a jury should have found in favor of the defendant. Instead, successful criminal appeals are based upon material errors or wrongful conduct at trial that resulted in harm to a defendant, such as:

a judge wrongly applying the law, such as failing to properly instruct the jury on the elements needed to be proven for a conviction;
a material error being committed in some aspect of how a trial was conducted, such as the wrongful introduction of evidence that should have been excluded; and
some other prejudicial error, such as deliberately excluding the members of a particular class from serving as jurors.

Effective appeals require precise and painstaking efforts to show both the legal errors or wrongful conduct that occurred and how a defendant’s right to a fair trial was violated. In the appellate brief, the lawyers for the appealing defendant will set forth the “relief” (or corrective action) being requested. In some instances, the relief may be overturning a conviction, a request for a new trial, or the defendant’s freedom.

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