Mid-20s Man Found Not Guilty of Criminal Homicide

Recently, a young man in his 20s was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and third-degree murder. He had other charges of criminal conspiracy to commit homicide, criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, and robbery. He was accused of planning and participating in an attempted robbery of the victim, who was a drug dealer. The people accusing him of criminal homicide were his ex-girlfriend, one of the victim’s friends, and one of the people with whom the client planned the robbery.

Given a limited criminal history of simple assault committed two years ago, the man came to us worried about his future. Unemployed after being arrested and jailed while he waited for his case to go to trial in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, he wondered what could be done. Since homicide is a first-degree felony, he faced a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole if convicted. He hired us to handle his case because of our extensive trial experience in the Pittsburgh area. At trial, we were able to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses to show their bias against our client. We also were able to employ the prosecution’s own evidence against them to show that our client could not have been one of the people who actually robbed the victim.

We represented our client on seven court dates. After a full, week-long jury trial, our client was found not guilty of criminal homicide, avoiding a life sentence in prison.

Case results depend upon a variety of factors unique to each case. Case results do not guarantee or predict a similar result in any future case.