Defendants who go to trial take a big risk, even though every defendant has the right to a fair trial, and even though all you have to do is show reasonable doubt about whether you committed the crime or whether the police and prosecution followed the law in arresting you and prosecuting your case. Do you really want to say, “I didn’t do it,” when there is ample evidence that you did?  Not all defenses are “I didn’t do it” defenses; some are “I did it, but I am not guilty” defenses. One such category of these defenses is procedural defenses, where you claim that the state violated the law, such as by searching your property without a warrant or questioning you without giving you a chance to meet with an attorney or without notifying you of your right to remain silent.  Another type of “not guilty even though I did it” defense is an affirmative defense. To find out more about affirmative defenses and whether they are applicable to your case, contact a Tulsa criminal defense lawyer.

Types of Affirmative Defenses

An affirmative offense is one where you claim that you committed the action that the prosecution is accusing you of committing, but despite this, you are not guilty of the criminal charge that you are facing. These are some examples of affirmative defenses:

• Consent – Some crimes involve a defendant doing something without the alleged victim’s consent. For example, it is theft if you take someone’s property without their consent, but it is not theft if you take someone’s property after they give you permission to take it. Likewise, sharing a sexually explicit photograph without the consent of the person depicted is illegal, but sharing the same photograph when the person depicted has given you consent to share it is not always illegal.
• Duress – You claim that you committed the act only because someone coerced you to do it under threat of violence or legal prosecution. If the person who induced you to commit the action through duress was acting in his or her capacity as a law enforcement agent, this is entrapment.
• Lack of criminal intent – In this type of affirmative defense, you argue that, at the time you committed the act, you were unaware of what you were doing or lacked understanding of right and wrong. The insanity defense falls under this category, and so does the involuntary intoxication defense. Although these defenses get a lot of publicity because they sound so far-fetched, they are rarely used, and they do not always work.
• Self-defense – You can be acquitted of charges of a violent crime if you can show that you committed the act only because of an immediate threat of serious injury or death.

Contact Tracy Tiernan About Criminal Defense Cases

A criminal defense lawyer can help you understand the types of defenses, including affirmative defenses, that may be applicable in your criminal case. Contact Tracy Tiernan in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to discuss your case.