Let the record show…
An appeal is not a new trial. Let me repeat that – an appeal is not a NEW TRIAL. As simply as possible, the purpose of an appeal is to review the court proceedings that happened in the original trial and determined if the law (criminal procedure as well as criminal law) was followed correctly. An appeal can deal only with the matter shown in the “record.” The “record” includes only: (1) the papers in the trial court’s files and (2) a court reporter’s word-for-word record of what happened in the courtroom. The Court of Appeal cannot consider facts outside the transcripts. No criminal attorney can make them do this either. The appeals court does not hear witness testimony and doesn’t view any new evidence. The Court of Appeal has no power to decide “questions of fact”, such as whether you are guilty or innocent, or whether a certain witness was lying, or what a particular piece of evidence proves. Decisions like those are made only by the jury or trial judge. That’s why it is important to have a competent criminal defense attorney represent you in the original case so that you don’t have to deal with the very difficult process of overturning a decision.
The Court of Appeal has no power to recommend what your sentence should be, so long as the sentence you actually received is one allowed by law. The Court of Appeal cannot simply change your sentence because it does not agree with it. An appeal attorney or criminal lawyer cannot motion for a sentence modification either. The Court of Appeal deals with legal questions. It decides whether the trial court proceedings followed the law. For example, it might decide whether certain evidence was correctly admitted, whether the jury was properly instructed, or whether the trial judge gave adequate reasons for choosing a particular sentence, and other questions of those types. If the court of Appeal finds that the proceedings were conducted correctly, the judgment is “Affirmed,” which means your conviction and sentence will not change. Even if the Court of Appeal finds a legal error was made in the trial court, your judgment will be affirmed unless the court finds “prejudice”-that the error made a difference in the trial. This is a very difficult thing for an appeals attorney or any criminal defense lawyer to prove. But if a criminal attorney is successful in proving that “error” and “prejudice” did exist, then your case will be “reversed (in part or in full) and sent back to the trial court for a new trial, a new sentence, or some other proceeding to correct the error. Some mistakes can be corrected by the Court of Appeal itself, without sending the case back.
If you or a loved one is reading this, it probably means that you feel like the system has failed, your belief in the justice system has failed and your criminal attorney has failed.
When you’re going through the criminal process, you feel like your innocence is going to be the key for the bailiff to release the shackles that now feel like just another accessory you wear.
The sad truth is that by the time you find out how the system really works, this nightmare that you thought you were going to wake up from is now the reality of your life. I always think the best way to go is to hire a knowledgeable criminal lawyer to represent you from the start. But I know that’s not always the case. If so, our appeal attorneys are not miracle workers, they’re not magicians, but most importantly they’re not incompetent. They are highly skilled criminal defense attorneys that know what to look for, they know what steps were missed, they know the questions that should have been asked, what evidence was overlooked or not admitted, what the jury should have been told, and most importantly what your criminal attorney should have done in the first place.
For more information on appeals visit http://www.uscourts.gov/courtsofappeals.html.
