In Johnson County case number AGCR091853, we won a jury verdict on Monday, 6/20/11.
The case was the rare assault case that we took on. Generally we keep our cases to drug/alcohol related matters, but this was a case where the defendant was truly not guilty of the crime as alleged.
The case was originally filed as an Assault with a Dangerous Weapon, but at the time of trial it had already been reduced to regular Assault.
The defendant had been in an argument with his roommates and had gotten tackled by one of them. The defendant went inside, locked the house, grabbed a bat and called 911.
When the police arrived, they saw the defendant with the bat, and after some questioning decided he was the agitator and placed him under arrest.
At trial we pointed out to the jury how the defendant’s story was the only plausible one, and how the other roommates’ actions were not indicative of persons that had been assaulted. And of course it helped when they all admitted that the defendant never hit anybody or even swung the bat except when he was inside the house, alone. A key point was a quick cross examination of the arresting officer, who had believed that the defendant had indeed swung the bat at the roommates while he was outside of the house.
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty and the defendant was acquitted of all charges.