Lately I’ve noticed an uptick in clients who educate themselves on the legal process and who send me court opinions that favor their particular argument. Honestly, many clients understand legal research better than I did after my first year of law school (a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point). I’ve never been one of those lawyers who believes I don’t need to listen to my clients or consider arguments they make. Yes, there are a LOT of lawyers like that, and they don’t seem to get the results they could if they just listened and incorporated information from their clients into their arguments. After all, in most instances the clients are far more aware of the situation and the intricate details of a situation. While you can get up to speed, you will never understand everything that happened as well as your client (most of the time). I’d implore attorneys to consider their client(s) part of the ‘legal team’ such that their voices are heard. Not only will the likelihood for success in the eyes of your client(s) improve, but so too will your relationship with your client and their trust in you, a key issue for criminal defense cases.

Where things start getting complicated is when clients begin sending me cases that have fact patterns very similar to theirs or that seem to relate to the type of issue the client believes should be contested. For example, say the client’s car was searched without consent or a warrant. A client may find a case that finds a similar fact pattern where the search was deemed invalid. While I know the client is trying to help, unfortunately, most of the time the cases are not what we would call ‘binding’ on the judge in our case. While they may offer some insight into arguments we could make, if the information provided is not binding, a judge does not need to consider it. So, what is binding, what is persuasive and what is useless?

Say you are charged in federal court in St. Louis. Your case may start (and likely will) with a magistrate judge who are tasked with completing all pretrial events (i.e. motion and bond hearings, etc.). Once a case gets beyond the pretrial issues, it is usually sent to a district court judge for a guilty plea or a trial. If that particular district court judge analyzed a situation similar to your client’s and issued an opinion stating the law is on your side, then mentioning that matter in a brief supporting your client’s argument is a good idea. However, say another district court judge in the same court ruled on a different case similar to how you hope your judge would. While you would certainly bring that case to your judge’s attention, he or she would not be required to follow it.

What is binding on your judge? Any judge higher than yours in the same circuit or any Supreme Court opinion would be considered binding. Most often clients send me cases they’ve read from some state, seeking to prove their argument is correct. Except in very limited situations, state law has no bearing on a federal criminal case. For example, say a client is charged in a federal court in Texas and has a motion to suppress evidence pending on the case. Assume the motion hearing itself is completed but the judge asked the parties to submit a brief supporting their respective positions. Clients who want to help, particularly if they are in jail and have time, will do research looking for a similar situation. Indeed, many states have laws that differ from each other and, at times, from federal law. While it may be tempting to argue cases like that, in all likelihood your judge will not be moved at all by them. In short, most of the time, state law has no place in a federal argument. Instead, judges will only be bound by cases in the same circuit or from the U.S. Supreme Court. At the federal level, district courts are organized into circuits comprising multiple states. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals oversees district courts in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and North Dakota. Thus, any ruling from the Eighth Circuit would be binding (required to be followed) on your judge if your case is in one of the courts it oversees.