Fingerprints Don't Lie (But Sometimes They're Never Collected)

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Navigating the criminal justice system feels like walking through a minefield without a map. What evidence should police collect? Can an arrest alone derail your career? How do you find the right attorney when your freedom hangs in the balance?

The truth about forensic evidence might shock you. When police fail to collect fingerprints and other crucial evidence, they're not "saving the system money" as some claim. The real cost comes later—in lengthy court battles, wrongful convictions, and lives destroyed. I break down why fingerprinting drug containers could solve cases faster and more accurately, especially when multiple people had access. The police investigation forms the foundation of everything that follows, yet receives the smallest investment. More troubling is the suggestion that jurors should lower their expectations about proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Family violence charges become public record immediately upon arrest—not conviction. Your employer can find this information with a simple search, and many professions require immediate reporting of arrests. Teachers, nurses, commercial drivers, and countless others face suspension or termination based solely on accusations. This devastating reality underscores why finding an attorney who pursues dismissals aggressively matters so much.

Choosing the right defense attorney might be your most crucial decision. Look beyond promises and focus on accessibility, respect, and specialized experience with your type of case. Can they be reached easily? Do they listen to your concerns? Have they successfully handled similar cases? Client reviews reveal patterns that brochures won't. No-contact orders present another complex challenge, particularly in family violence cases, where modifications depend on victim input, court tendencies, and case specifics.

Have questions about your specific situation? Reach out through the contact information in the show notes. Your future deserves a thoughtful, strategic approach with someone who understands what's at stake.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi and welcome back to another episode of what to
Expect when You're Arrested.
This is your host, seanHendrickson, here from the Sean
Hendrickson Law Firm, where wehelp good people like you avoid
the devastating consequences ofcriminal charges.
Today, we've got a fewdifferent things that we are
going to talk about.
One of those things, I heardsomething earlier this week on a
different podcast that I wantedto address, but there are also

(00:26):
some other topics that we weregoing to talk about.
I want to talk about how youcan decide when you're looking
for a criminal defense attorneyand what to look for.
We are also going to talk aboutwhether or not a family
violence charge could affectyour job, and we'll also talk
about whether or not you can geta no contact order dropped when

(00:49):
you're being charged with acrime.
The first thing that I wanted todiscuss I was actually
listening to something earlierthis week when a jury trial is
over, the lawyers and judges allhave the opportunity to go in

(01:11):
and talk to the jury just aboutwhat it was that influenced them
to make the decision that theydid.
They'll get any critiques, anypointers, answer any questions
and different things like that,and in this situation, one of
the jurors mentioned that theythought that there should have
been more forensic evidence.
There should have been morefingerprints or DNA or whatever

(01:35):
other types of forensic evidencethat they thought there should
have been.
And after CSI and differentshows like that, then we all
wanna see more forensic evidence.
We want to see something morethan just basically testimony
that something happened.
And in a lot of situationsthere's not that much forensic
evidence that is collected atthe time of an alleged crime.

(01:58):
And what this person said inresponse to that juror who
wanted to see more forensicevidence was that you can't
expect the police to get all ofthis evidence in every case
because it would essentiallybankrupt the entire system, that
if the police went out andcollected every single piece of
evidence, they could did all theforensics that they could.

(02:20):
There just wouldn't be enoughmoney to go around.
And I really disagree with thisstatement for a couple of
different reasons.
First off, when the police aredoing their investigation, when
they do decide to arrestsomebody, then that person is
going to have prosecutors anddefense attorneys working on

(02:40):
their case, and we all know thatlawyers are not cheap to come
by.
There's going to be a judgewho's in charge of the courtroom
and a lot of money is goingthere, and if this person's case
doesn't get dismissed, they'relikely either going to be on
probation or end up in jail orprison, and so there's so much
money that we're spending onthese cases anyway.

(03:02):
And if the police aren't doingwhat they need to be doing to
collect evidence, then we arerisking innocent people going to
jail or being charged andconvicted of crimes that they
didn't do.
The police are probably thelowest paid on this whole scale,
and asking them to do, you know, fingerprints on a case is not

(03:22):
that big of an ask when you'reputting so many other resources
into this case after that arrest.
Now, there's not going to beforensic evidence in every case.
If this is a case where youknow somebody punched another
person, then that's not going tobe a case where you're going

(03:44):
around and getting fingerprints,although there may be other
types of evidence that could becollected.
But one thing that I can thinkof in particular is in drug
cases.
We see drug cases all the timewhere there are multiple people
in the car or there's somethingfound in a car, like in the back
seat, and it's just the driver,and one of the things that the

(04:04):
state has to prove is that thatperson knew about those drugs,
that they were intentionally inpossession of those drugs, and
one easy way to do that would beto fingerprint whatever the
drugs were found in either thebag or the box or whatever
container it was, to see if thatperson's fingerprints were on
there.
Because if they can't provethat that person intentionally

(04:28):
or knowingly was in possessionof those drugs, then they may
not have a good case.
And if we took fingerprints insituations like that, really it
wouldn't cost that much extramoney to do fingerprints in a
situation like that and it wouldreally help to determine
whether this person actuallyknew that they were in
possession of those drugs.
If it's somebody else'sfingerprints that are on there,

(04:51):
then the state's case is a lotworse and we know that maybe
that's a case that ought to getdismissed.
Compared to a case where theperson's fingerprints are on
there, then it's a much strongercase and much less likely to
last a long time in litigation.
It's probably something that'sgoing to plea out relatively
quickly and be a lot fewerresources put toward prosecuting

(05:18):
a case like that.
The other reason that I reallydisagree with this statement is
because it seems to be tellingjurors that they need to lower
their expectations that thepolice and that the state

(05:39):
shouldn't have to raise to thatburden of proof that you believe
that they should have in orderto prove something up, that you
should believe that that, beyonda reasonable doubt, is a lower
burden than it actually is.
If you're expecting too muchand the state can't show you all
of that forensic evidence, thenyou should still be fine with
finding this person guilty,compared to a case where they

(06:02):
may not have all of thatinformation.
Ultimately, I think what I'mtrying to say is that I think
that it's important for policeto do a proper investigation and
collect whatever evidence isrelevant and is going to help

(06:23):
them, you know, prove that theperson that they're charging is
actually the person whocommitted this crime or actually
did commit a crime, and notargue that jurors should just
have a lower expectation whenthey're making a decision about
whether or not somebody's guiltyor not guilty.
Now, one other thing I wantedto talk about is whether or not

(06:59):
a family violence case is goingto have an effect on your job,
and the short answer is that yes, it is going to have an effect
on your job when you're arrestedand charged with any crime,
especially a family violencecharge.
That information is all goingto be public information.
Here in Bexar County, thedistrict clerk has a website
where you can look up people'scrimes and what they're being
accused of and all of thedetails about that crime what

(07:21):
court it's in their court dates,the outcome of that case, who
their attorney is.
You can find out all of thosedetails, and so, even when
you're just arrested, beforeyou've been found guilty or
before your case has beendismissed, all of that
information is available, and alot of employers want you to
report any time that you'rearrested, especially if you're a
nurse or teacher or even a busdriver or a lot of different

(07:43):
jobs want you to tell them aboutthat as soon as possible and
just based off of that arrest,they could fire you or suspend
you or make other decisions,even before you're found guilty,
and so it can immediately havean impact on your job and,
depending on the outcome of thecase and whether or not you can
get your record cleaned up, itcan have a huge impact on

(08:05):
whether or not you get jobs inthe future Because, again, it's
all public information andthat's why it's always my
recommendation to find somebodywho is going to fight for that
dismissal and knows how to getcases like yours dismissed, so
that you've got the best chanceof having that case dismissed,
so that you can get anexpunction and clean up your
record later on, so this chargedoesn't follow you around for

(08:28):
the rest of your life.
Now that brings us to the nexttopic is how do you choose an
attorney?
When you're looking for acriminal defense attorney and I
understand some of the problemswith that because I've been in
that situation myself even thebest attorney is going to have
people who end up going to jailor prison, and the worst

(09:03):
attorney is still going to havecases that get dismissed.
And so you can't just base youropinion on whether somebody is
a good attorney or not justbased off of an outcome of a
case that they had.
And what I tell people firstoff is look at those attorneys
who you're able to get incontact with relatively easily.
You don't want to be stuck witha voicemail that doesn't get
returned.
You want to talk with somebodyand either be able to talk with

(09:24):
that attorney quickly or to havean appointment set up for you
to talk with that attorney andmake sure that attorney actually
shows up to that appointment.
And when you do meet with them,you want somebody who's going to
treat you with respect, who'sgoing to listen to what you're
going through and answer yourquestions.
Because when you're goingthrough this, there are going to
be things that come up whereit's important to get your side

(09:47):
of the story and it's importantto let you know what's going on
with your case, because it'sstressful enough just being
charged with something.
But if you've got an attorneywho's not answering those
questions and not letting youknow what to expect, it makes
everything so much morestressful than it has to be.
And the other thing that Ireally recommend that you do is
look at that attorney's reviews.

(10:08):
What do their previous clientshave to say about them?
If they are mostly greatreviews that talk about how
great that attorney was, both incommunication and results and
everything else, then that's agreat sign.
But if you've got an attorneywith a lot of bad reviews or
people talking about how hard itwas to get in contact with them
, that may not be a greatattorney for you to go with.

(10:31):
And, lastly, you want somebodywho knows how to handle the type
of case that you handle, andnormally, I'm going to recommend
that you go with somebody whojust does criminal defense, or
at least mostly criminal defense, and handles a lot of the type
of case that you're beingcharged with.
I handle a lot of familyviolence cases and a lot of DWI
cases, and I know how to handlethose cases and get a good

(10:53):
result.
I don't know how to get a goodresult in sexual assault cases
and murders because I reallyhaven't handled many of those at
all, if any, and so I would notbe a good attorney to hire in a
situation like that.
And so you want to talk abouttheir experience in the type of
case that you have.
What are the results that theygenerally see on those types of

(11:14):
cases?
Kind of regardless of the facts, just kind of overall people
being charged with whateveryou're being charged with and
just listen to them and make adecision about whether or not
this is somebody who you thinkis gonna be able to get you the
result that you want to havehappen.

(11:36):
Lastly, I wanted to talk aboutwhether or not you can get a no
contact order changed whenyou're being charged with a
crime.
There are two different typesof no contact orders that could
be put in place.
One is an emergency protectiveorder.
Those protective orders have acertain duration.
Usually it's about a month ormaybe two months, but they've

(11:57):
got a specific deadline andthey're going to prevent you
from having any contact withspecific people and in a lot of
places it's also going toprevent you from going to that
person's home or job, whether ornot they are there or not.
The other type of no contactorder is going to be no contact
just as a condition of probateof bond.
So when you are on bond thejudge can put certain conditions

(12:21):
related to that bond and one ofthose that we often see,
especially in family violencecases, is saying that you can't
have any contact with thealleged victim and that is not
going to have a specificduration, it's going to last as
long as your case lasts.
So it's going to be there untilyour case gets dismissed, until
it goes to trial or until youdecide to accept a plea on that

(12:44):
case or until the judge makes adecision to change that bond
condition.
And that's what we are workingon in a lot of situations is
working on getting it to where,instead of the no contact, we've
got no harmful or injuriouscontact so you can have contact
with that person as long as thecops don't get called out.

(13:05):
Essentially, the first thingwe're going to do in a situation
like that is reach out to thatalleged victim to find out
whether or not they want that nocontact order changed.
Because if they want that nocontact order in place, the

(13:25):
judge is going to keep that inplace because that's the judge's
priority is making sure thatthat person is safe.
They don't want to put them ina situation that they don't want
to be in and from there, if theperson does want that no
contact order changed, thenwe're filing a motion, getting
affidavits, reaching out to thestate to see if we can get them
on board to agree to that motionand ultimately approaching the

(13:47):
judge or setting that for ahearing so that we can try and
get that no contact orderchanged.
Ultimately, it's going to be upto the judge and some judges
are more likely to agree tothose changes than other judges.
So it's really going to dependa lot on what court your case is
in, along with the facts of thecase, your criminal history and
kind of other factors like that.

(14:13):
I hope that all this informationhas been helpful for you.
If you have any questions.
There's a link in the noteswhere you can actually send me a
text message.
You can always text me there.
I'd be happy to answer anyquestions that you have on one
of our future podcasts.
Just know that I can't actuallytext you back.
That's kind of a one-waytexting line.
Or you could always email me orgive me a call.
We'd be happy to answer anyquestions that you have.

(14:35):
Our phone number is there inthe podcast notes along with a
link that you can use toschedule a consultation directly
with me without even having togive us a call.
Just click on that linkschedule a consultation.
They're free and we'd be happyto discuss your case with you,
let you know what to expect andto let you know what the game

(15:03):
plan would be if you'd like usto help you out on your case.
I hope you have a great day.