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Unusual Defenses for Your Criminal Charges and How to Apply These Defenses

23 November 2016

Tracy Roberts

In criminal law, laws can be changed or overturned in a court as often as there is a substantial amount of evidence or a unique precedent. Unusual defenses do not occur everyday, and there are only a certain percentage of cases that can use these lesser-known approaches to criminal defense. Here is more on these unique defense approaches and how you may be able to apply them to your case.

Technology and Defense Laws

Crimes involving technology and personal or virtual defense are constantly evolving, almost as quickly as technology itself. If the charges against you involve a tech crime that currently has no legal precedent, it could be argued that you were operating outside the known limits of the law. With no laws governing the actions taken by you that led to your crimes, it may be possible for the court to reduce or eliminate your charges until such a time as laws can be created to govern the actions you took. While this may get you off the hook for some punishment now, the law could catch up to you later, and that means that the judge could hear your case again under these new laws and new punishments. At any rate, this may be a defense worth looking into with your criminal-defense attorney.

Experimental Medicine

If you are a doctor accused of causing a patient harm or death via very new and experimental treatments, you may want to explore the laws governing your actions. Sometimes if a medical procedure or experimental treatment is so new that there are no laws governing its execution, the courts have to decide whether you actually did anything wrong. In addition to providing documentation that the patient agreed to the treatment or procedure prior to becoming comatose or dying, your lawyer can argue that until there are other laws that clearly define what happened and define it as criminal behavior, you are free and clear (or should be). Medical science advances almost as rapidly as technology, and that is why crimes under either of these fields is often a gray area for the courts.

Incompetence Because of a Newly Discovered Disorder

New diseases and disorders are being discovered, diagnosed, and named all the time. Many of these have physical, emotional, or psychological components that cause people to act or behave in ways they would not otherwise choose to behave. If you are diagnosed with a fairly new disease or disorder for which there is little information yet, this may be something your lawyer can use in your defense.

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