What to Expect When You're Arrested (in San Antonio)

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

• Sean Henricksen Law Firm • Season 2 • Episode 4

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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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Sean Henricksen Law Firm

sean@seanhenricksen.com

210-405-6410

106 S. St. Mary's St., Ste 445

San Antonio, Texas 78205

www.seanhenricksen.com

Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome back to another episode of what to Expect when You're Arrested. This is your host, sean Hendrickson, here from the Sean Hendrickson Law Firm, where we help good people like you avoid the devastating consequences of criminal charges. Today, we've got a few different things that we are going to talk about. One of those things, I heard something earlier this week on a different podcast that I wanted to address, but there are also some other topics that we were going to talk about. I want to talk about how you can decide when you're looking for a criminal defense attorney and what to look for. We are also going to talk about whether or not a family violence charge could affect your job, and we'll also talk about whether or not you can get a no contact order dropped when you're being charged with a crime.

Speaker 1:

The first thing that I wanted to discuss I was actually listening to something earlier this week when a jury trial is over, the lawyers and judges all have the opportunity to go in and talk to the jury just about what it was that influenced them to make the decision that they did. They'll get any critiques, any pointers, answer any questions and different things like that, and in this situation, one of the jurors mentioned that they thought that there should have been more forensic evidence. There should have been more fingerprints or DNA or whatever other types of forensic evidence that they thought there should have been. And after CSI and different shows like that, then we all wanna see more forensic evidence. We want to see something more than just basically testimony that something happened. And in a lot of situations there's not that much forensic evidence that is collected at the time of an alleged crime. And what this person said in response to that juror who wanted to see more forensic evidence was that you can't expect the police to get all of this evidence in every case because it would essentially bankrupt the entire system, that if the police went out and collected every single piece of evidence, they could did all the forensics that they could. There just wouldn't be enough money to go around.

Speaker 1:

And I really disagree with this statement for a couple of different reasons. First off, when the police are doing their investigation, when they do decide to arrest somebody, then that person is going to have prosecutors and defense attorneys working on their case, and we all know that lawyers are not cheap to come by. There's going to be a judge who's in charge of the courtroom and a lot of money is going there, and if this person's case doesn't get dismissed, they're likely either going to be on probation or end up in jail or prison, and so there's so much money that we're spending on these cases anyway. And if the police aren't doing what they need to be doing to collect evidence, then we are risking innocent people going to jail or being charged and convicted of crimes that they didn't do. The police are probably the lowest paid on this whole scale, and asking them to do, you know, fingerprints on a case is not that big of an ask when you're putting so many other resources into this case after that arrest. Now, there's not going to be forensic evidence in every case. If this is a case where you know somebody punched another person, then that's not going to be a case where you're going around and getting fingerprints, although there may be other types of evidence that could be collected.

Speaker 1:

But one thing that I can think of in particular is in drug cases. We see drug cases all the time where there are multiple people in the car or there's something found in a car, like in the back seat, and it's just the driver, and one of the things that the state has to prove is that that person knew about those drugs, that they were intentionally in possession of those drugs, and one easy way to do that would be to fingerprint whatever the drugs were found in either the bag or the box or whatever container it was, to see if that person's fingerprints were on there. Because if they can't prove that that person intentionally or knowingly was in possession of those drugs, then they may not have a good case. And if we took fingerprints in situations like that, really it wouldn't cost that much extra money to do fingerprints in a situation like that and it would really help to determine whether this person actually knew that they were in possession of those drugs. If it's somebody else's fingerprints that are on there, then the state's case is a lot worse and we know that maybe that's a case that ought to get dismissed. Compared to a case where the person's fingerprints are on there, then it's a much stronger case and much less likely to last a long time in litigation. It's probably something that's going to plea out relatively quickly and be a lot fewer resources put toward prosecuting a case like that.

Speaker 1:

The other reason that I really disagree with this statement is because it seems to be telling jurors that they need to lower their expectations that the police and that the state shouldn't have to raise to that burden of proof that you believe that they should have in order to prove something up, that you should believe that that, beyond a reasonable doubt, is a lower burden than it actually is. If you're expecting too much and the state can't show you all of that forensic evidence, then you should still be fine with finding this person guilty, compared to a case where they may not have all of that information. Ultimately, I think what I'm trying to say is that I think that it's important for police to do a proper investigation and collect whatever evidence is relevant and is going to help them, you know, prove that the person that they're charging is actually the person who committed this crime or actually did commit a crime, and not argue that jurors should just have a lower expectation when they're making a decision about whether or not somebody's guilty or not guilty. Now, one other thing I wanted to talk about is whether or not a family violence case is going to 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 arrested and charged with any crime, especially a family violence charge. That information is all going to be public information. Here in Bexar County, the district clerk has a website where you can look up people's crimes and what they're being accused of and all of the details about that crime what court it's in their court dates, the outcome of that case, who their attorney is. You can find out all of those details, and so, even when you're just arrested, before you've been found guilty or before your case has been dismissed, all of that information is available, and a lot of employers want you to report any time that you're arrested, especially if you're a nurse or teacher or even a bus driver or a lot of different jobs want you to tell them about that 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 have an impact on your job and, depending on the outcome of the case and whether or not you can get your record cleaned up, it can have a huge impact on whether or not you get jobs in the future Because, again, it's all public information and that's why it's always my recommendation to find somebody who is going to fight for that dismissal and knows how to get cases like yours dismissed, so that you've got the best chance of having that case dismissed, so that you can get an expunction and clean up your record later on, so this charge doesn't follow you around for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1:

Now that brings us to the next topic is how do you choose an attorney? When you're looking for a criminal defense attorney and I understand some of the problems with that because I've been in that situation myself even the best attorney is going to have people who end up going to jail or prison, and the worst attorney is still going to have cases that get dismissed. And so you can't just base your opinion on whether somebody is a good attorney or not just based off of an outcome of a case that they had. And what I tell people first off is look at those attorneys who you're able to get in contact with relatively easily. You don't want to be stuck with a voicemail that doesn't get returned. You want to talk with somebody and either be able to talk with that attorney quickly or to have an appointment set up for you to talk with that attorney and make sure that attorney actually shows up to that appointment.

Speaker 1:

And when you do meet with them, you want somebody who's going to treat you with respect, who's going to listen to what you're going through and answer your questions. Because when you're going through this, there are going to be things that come up where it's important to get your side of the story and it's important to let you know what's going on with your case, because it's stressful enough just being charged with something. But if you've got an attorney who's not answering those questions and not letting you know what to expect, it makes everything so much more stressful than it has to be. And the other thing that I really recommend that you do is look at that attorney's reviews. What do their previous clients have to say about them? If they are mostly great reviews that talk about how great that attorney was, both in communication and results and everything else, then that's a great sign. But if you've got an attorney with a lot of bad reviews or people talking about how hard it was to get in contact with them, that may not be a great attorney for you to go with.

Speaker 1:

And, lastly, you want somebody who knows how to handle the type of case that you handle, and normally, I'm going to recommend that you go with somebody who just does criminal defense, or at least mostly criminal defense, and handles a lot of the type of case that you're being charged with. I handle a lot of family violence cases and a lot of DWI cases, and I know how to handle those cases and get a good result. I don't know how to get a good result in sexual assault cases and murders because I really haven't handled many of those at all, if any, and so I would not be a good attorney to hire in a situation like that. And so you want to talk about their experience in the type of case that you have. What are the results that they generally see on those types of cases? Kind of regardless of the facts, just kind of overall people being charged with whatever you're being charged with and just listen to them and make a decision about whether or not this is somebody who you think is gonna be able to get you the result that you want to have happen.

Speaker 1:

Lastly, I wanted to talk about whether or not you can get a no contact order changed when you're being charged with a crime. There are two different types of no contact orders that could be put in place. One is an emergency protective order. Those protective orders have a certain duration. Usually it's about a month or maybe two months, but they've got a specific deadline and they're going to prevent you from having any contact with specific people and in a lot of places it's also going to prevent you from going to that person's home or job, whether or not they are there or not. The other type of no contact order is going to be no contact just as a condition of probate of bond. So when you are on bond the judge can put certain conditions related to that bond and one of those that we often see, especially in family violence cases, is saying that you can't have any contact with the alleged victim and that is not going to have a specific duration, it's going to last as long as your case lasts. So it's going to be there until your case gets dismissed, until it goes to trial or until you decide to accept a plea on that case or until the judge makes a decision to change that bond condition. And that's what we are working on in a lot of situations is working on getting it to where, instead of the no contact, we've got no harmful or injurious contact so you can have contact with that person as long as the cops don't get called out. Essentially, the first thing we're going to do in a situation like that is reach out to that alleged victim to find out whether or not they want that no contact order changed. Because if they want that no contact order in place, the judge is going to keep that in place because that's the judge's priority is making sure that that person is safe. They don't want to put them in a situation that they don't want to be in and from there, if the person does want that no contact order changed, then we're filing a motion, getting affidavits, reaching out to the state to see if we can get them on board to agree to that motion and ultimately approaching the judge or setting that for a hearing so that we can try and get that no contact order changed. Ultimately, it's going to be up to the judge and some judges are more likely to agree to those changes than other judges. So it's really going to depend a lot on what court your case is in, along with the facts of the case, your criminal history and kind of other factors like that.

Speaker 1:

I hope that all this information has been helpful for you. If you have any questions. There's a link in the notes where you can actually send me a text message. You can always text me there. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have on one of our future podcasts. Just know that I can't actually text you back. That's kind of a one-way texting line. Or you could always email me or give me a call. We'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Our phone number is there in the podcast notes along with a link that you can use to schedule a consultation directly with me without even having to give us a call. Just click on that link schedule a consultation. They're free and we'd be happy to discuss your case with you, let you know what to expect and to let you know what the game plan would be if you'd like us to help you out on your case. I hope you have a great day.