Fair trial- Decider between accused and Convict.
Updated: Jul 21, 2020
Amidst the pandemic scare the Wadhwan brothers were arrested on grounds of money laundering in the ‘Yes Bank Scam.” With the CBI inquiry in process the criminal trial of the case will shortly be conducted in the court of law wherein, the criminal defence attorney will be the only person to help them out.
Without intervention from the Reserve Bank of India the Yes Bank failin would have caused a domino effect with a collapse of economy being the end result.
The collapsing markets after the COVID-19 pandemic often made analysts compare the current events with the real-estate bubble of 2008 and The great depression of 1930s. This along with a bank failure is a perfect recipe for the economic crash as in the case. Historic crash of 'Lehman brothers' which led to 'Bank run' is one such event. There is a coincidence here that 'Lehman brothers' being the fourth largest investment bank of United States and 'Yes bank' being the fourth largest private sector bank in India.
Understanding the role of Attorney
The criminal defence attorney who defends the accused in criminal trials can be either private or public. Private attorneys like Mike G Law are those who are engaged privately by the accused whereas, in case of failure to do so, the accused is provided with a public attorney to defend his case. In fact, under Article 39A of the Indian Constitution, every person has been given the ‘Right to free and compulsory legal aid’ in the case of his/her inability to engage a lawyer due to economic constraints.
To understand the role played by the criminal attorney, let us take an illustration – suppose that a person A is caught by the police with a possession of the stolen property, and he is aware of the source. In that case, he has, in fact, committed a crime of receiving stolen property. Now, does he still have the right to defend and right to bail? The Foremost thing to note is that, according to criminal Procedure code, it is the duty of the police to inform accused about his rights (Miranda rights) immediately after being arrested and including his right to consult a lawyer. In fact, it is advisable that a person should not make statements or admissions before consulting the criminal attorney. The Rule against Self-Incrimination further allows the person not to make any statements or give any evidence which later can be used against himself in the court of law. However, it is necessary that a person should make full and frank disclosure of every fact to his lawyer, so that the lawyer will be in a better position to help him. The lawyer can then privately investigate the matter and must have thorough knowledge about various laws, and the loopholes in it by which he/she can save his/her client from conviction by bringing out the truth.
pardon or lesser punishment of his/her client. An attorney like Mike G Law can play a pivotal role here. Wherever possible, and permitted by law, the lawyer should try to compound the offence that is trying to settle the matter out of court Even in cases where the accused is finally convicted the role of the lawyer is great in making arguments for securing as less punishment for his/her client as possible.
Conclusion
To conclude with, all this depends on the argumentative skills and abilities of the lawyer as each criminal case is different based on its facts. Thus approaching a skilled criminal defence attorney is must, otherwise as said by Perianne Boring, ‘Applying criminal law, to the exchange of bitcoins, on behalf of ransomware victims would create a morally shocking result of revictimizing a victim’
Special thanks to 'Ankita Raje - an aspiring lawyer' for her research on this article.