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In every criminal test, the defendant faces a critical strategic decision: to testify or not to testify. Those outside the criminal justice system tend to view this decision in simple terms, believing that the innocent will take the stand and tell their side with the story while those with something to hide will not. Experienced criminal lawyers know the decision is much more complex and rarely has anything about guilt or innocence.

Testifying is fraught with peril for almost any defendant. Guilty or simple, if the defendant takes the stand, the case will likely turn on his performance for a witness. With so much at stake, the pressure on this defendant is enormous. One false step and he or she could lose his case. During cross-examination, a skilled prosecutor will attempt to confuse him and twist his words to produce it appear that he is lying. If he's a bad public speaker or obtains nervous and says the incorrect thing, he may appear guilty despite the fact that he's not. If the jury is turned off by his tone and demeanor, or simply doesn't such as him for inexplicable motives, the defense may hardly ever recover.

Apart from your impression the defendant would make during his testimony, the mere act of testifying can have the unintended effect of lowering the responsibility of proof. In some sort of criminal case, a conviction requires proof beyond a decent doubt, the highest standard of proof within our legal system. When the only real evidence presented comes in the prosecutor, the jury discusses whether the prosecutor has met that high pressure of proof. Once your defendant testifies, however, jurors tend to focus solely on which they believe, the defendant or the alleged sorry victim. Rather than weighing the prosecutor's case with extraordinarily high standard of proof beyond a good doubt, the jurors usually tend to weigh the defendant's story with prosecutor's or the victim's account. This effectively lowers the typical of proof to an issue approaching a preponderance standard (more likely than not) and dramatically reduces the chances the defendant will win the result.

Finally, in some circumstances, there is truth to the widely held belief that the defendant who chooses to never testify is hiding some thing. Court rules normally limit the research admitted at trial compared to that which bears directly to the alleged crime. Evidence of uncharged misconduct together with prior criminal convictions is usually excluded for fear that jurors who face such evidence will convict the defendant since they believe him being a bad person rather than because they have been presented proof that he actually committed the loaded crime. If a opposition testifies, however, he may open the door for the utilization of such evidence by your prosecution. Knowing that evidence of prior bad acts may well prejudice the jury against him, the defendant may decide not to testify to be able to avoid any risk involving exposing the jury to help such damaging evidence.

Because of all the risks involved when some sort of defendant testifies, many criminal defense attorneys advise their own clients, regardless of identified guilt or innocence, to never testify unless absolutely required. This advice frustrates the countless defendants who desperately want to proclaim their innocence to your jury. Most criminal defense attorneys have discovered the hard way, nevertheless, that it is usually much safer to strike the prosecutor's case than to put on one of your own.

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