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Stafford County Robbery Lawyer

Robbery charges are taken seriously in Stafford County, and conviction can carry serious penalties and consequences. If you are facing charges, it would benefit you to have the help of a Stafford County theft lawyer who has handled serious cases such as robbery before. There are many different ways a robbery trial can go, and having an attorney who has worked on many cases can ensure a strong defense is built.

In order to build a defense that can give you a positive outcome, you need a Stafford County robbery attorney on your side who knows what to expect when facing a quality opponent in court and can protect your rights throughout the process.

Penalties and Consequences

Robbery is considered a felony offense. If the person charged is convicted, not only will they go to prison, but upon their release, they will have a violent felony on their criminal record. This carries a variety of negative consequences, including the loss of the right to vote, the loss of the right to bear arms, and extreme difficulty in obtaining sustainable and valuable employment in the future.

If a person is convicted of robbery in Stafford County, the statutory penalty is five to 40 years in prison. The maximum penalty under Virginia law for robbery is 40 years in prison. If someone is charged with robbery and convicted, the jury will have the opportunity to send them to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Proving Robbery

Robbery in Stafford County is considered an act of theft accompanied by the use of force or threat of force. It is the act of taking an item or money that does not belong to the person who took it, without the consent of the owner, and using force or the threat of force to accomplish that goal. For a person to be convicted of robbery, they must prove that another person achieved larceny by the use of force or the threat thereof. The prosecutor must prove all of these elements of robbery to sustain a conviction.

Robbery is considered a more severe crime than theft, as robbery is theft plus the additional use of force and aggravation. Robbery is considered a violent felony and will always result in harsher consequences for the person alleged to have committed it, thereby making it important that anyone accused consults with a Stafford County robbery attorney as soon as possible.

Gathering Evidence

Some of the common types of evidence for a robbery defense might include defense in alibi, which means that the person was somewhere else, doing something else, by the time the offense was allegedly committed. This often comes up in cases where the person charged with the crime denies involvement of any kind. Attorneys will need to find out where that person was at the time the offense was alleged to have been committed, so they can prove they were not, in fact, the one who committed the crime.

The initial information robbery attorneys in Stafford County look for is what their client was charged with and all of the specifics surrounding it. Beyond that point, they will need to fully investigate the charges as well as the facts and circumstances surrounding that charge.

Plea Deal Considerations

After fully investigating the case, if the lawyer develops the opinion that the prosecution is able to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, it often makes sense for a person to take a plea offer from the government at that time.

If a person goes to trial for robbery, and that trial is by jury, upon the finding of guilt, the jury is going to recommend the sentence be somewhere between five and 40 years. However, if the person has no prior criminal history of any kind, this sentence would likely be harsher than what they would get if they pleaded guilty to a judge.

If a jury recommends a sentence, it is unusual for a judge to tamper with that sentence, which means the person will get at least five years in prison. However, if a person pleads guilty to a judge, the judge will determine the person’s sentence based upon the recommendation made by the Virginia sentencing guidelines.

The Virginia sentencing guidelines for a person with no prior criminal history will result in a recommendation for less than five years in prison. For that reason, a person who pleads guilty will almost always get a lighter sentence from a judge than they would from a jury. If it looks like the government is able to prove their case, it is advisable for a person to take a plea deal under circumstances where the penalty under the sentencing guidelines comes up to less than five years, and an experienced Stafford robbery attorney can help someone taking these considerations.

Benefits of a Stafford County Robbery Attorney

The consequences for a robbery conviction can be severe in Virginia. For that reason, a person accused will want somebody that has dealt with a robbery case before and is familiar with the types of evidence that are necessary to prove the government’s case beyond a reasonable doubt and the ways that a person could potentially challenge those types of evidence.

Robbery charges often have a wide array of types of the evidence that the government can use to convict someone. Things like out-of-court identifications, which are always subject to close scrutiny by an attorney, fingerprint evidence, and surveillance video evidence, are all types of evidence that can be introduced at a robbery trial. There are certain ways to challenge each of those types of evidence. For that reason, having somebody that has been through it, has seen that kind of evidence, and knows how to fight against its admissibility is important when facing a robbery charge.

Experience can be used as leverage to gain an advantage over the prosecution in a number of different ways. Having the experience of dealing with prosecutors and their tactics in robbery cases is critical to ensure that a defendant is not bullied into taking a deal they would not otherwise take.

Contacting an Attorney

A Stafford County robbery attorney can utilize their level of experience to help their clients by knowing best how to respond to various tactics which might be employed by a prosecutor. experience is the most important element and quality that a person should look for in a Stafford County robbery lawyer when facing a robbery charge. Even if a person is only charged with theft, it is still an offense which will stay on a person’s record for the rest of their life and could prevent them from being able to get a good job down the line.

Therefore, if you are facing robbery charges in Stafford County, you should utilize the services of an attorney who can build a proper defense and give you a fighting chance for a positive outcome in your case.

A person should contact a robbery lawyer in Stafford County as soon as they are arrested. These cases take a long time to investigate and a long time to prepare and the more time you give your lawyer to help you, the better.

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