Finding a way to beat your charges must be your number one priority, which means choosing the right lawyer. How do you do that?

Look for someone with the right kind of experience. Obviously, you want a Fort Worth criminal defense attorney. Someone who has been practicing law for several years. Brandon Fulgham and his firm have experience that goes beyond this.

One of the main reasons that people choose the Fulgham Law Firm to represent them is the fact that they have an uncanny knack at understanding how prosecutors think – because they are a team of five former prosecutors.

Before becoming a Tarrant County criminal lawyer, all five attorneys worked as a Tarrant County prosecutor. Their job was to put together solid arguments designed to build a strong case. Now they use that very knowledge to anticipate and prepare for the strategy that prosecutors are likely to use against their clients.

Fort Worth Criminal Attorneys

The state of Texas is tough on crime, and nowhere is that more true than in Tarrant County. If you are charged in or around Fort Worth, you can be sure that law enforcement officials and prosecutors will do everything in their power to secure a conviction and punish you to the full extent of the law. Depending on the specific crime or crimes you are charged with, this could mean facing years in prison, high fines, the loss of professional licenses, and restrictions on your rights, such as not being able to vote or own a gun.

The consequences do not stop there either. A criminal conviction may mean the loss of your job. It can tear your family apart. It can destroy your reputation and your ability to live a normal life – even after you have paid your debt to society.

Many people think it is not worth fighting less serious charges, but this is a mistake. Even misdemeanors can have serious negative consequences that make your life harder. Moreover, if you ever find yourself on the wrong side of the law again, having a previous conviction on your record – “minor” or not – will likely mean facing additional penalties.

You need criminal attorneys on your side who understand how things work in Tarrant County and know how to mount an aggressive defense. Someone who has the experience and skill needed to give you the best chance at a positive outcome, and who will give you the attention you need and deserve. Because you are not just a case – you are a person.

Our team of attorneys are experienced in everything from Public Intoxication to Murder.  We have handled thousands of cases including assault, domestic violence, drug, and theft offenses.  While we handle every type of criminal offense, we get a lot of calls regarding someone learning that they have a warrant out for their arrest, or a detective or investigator is calling them, and they don’t know what to do. Hopefully, this information below will give you a better understanding of the process and what to expect.

Fort Worth or Tarrant County Detective Has Called You?

If you have received a phone call from a Fort Worth or Tarrant County detective, you need to speak to an experienced and aggressive criminal defense attorney that can guide you through this process to protect your rights. A detective has called you and asked you to speak to him? He wants you to answer questions regarding an incident you know nothing about. Should you speak to him? Let’s examine the cost-benefit analysis of the decision-making process that you should make with your criminal defense lawyer.

What could happen if you allow the investigator to interrogate you?

First and foremost, please understand that everything you say, even the innocent statements, will be used against you. It is very tempting to believe that a detective will meet up with you and allow you to tell your story and hash it out to a conclusion that allows you to go back home with no concerns. Unfortunately, this almost never happens. To the contrary, if a detective is calling you asking for a meeting to discuss allegations, there is a very high probability that he has gathered evidence sufficient to make him believe you have committed a crime.

Most detectives are trained to make you feel like they are on your side and that you have nothing to fear. They want you to believe that if you are transparent with them, they will drop the investigation. If you choose to speak to the detective, you should expect to be recorded and interrogated. A criminal interrogation involves the detective asking you closed-ended questions that require a yes or no answer. Many of these questions will start with the detective reminding you that he already knows what happened and that it will only get better for you if you tell him what he already knows. This is a tactic that detectives are trained to use to make you feel you have no other choice. If you answer these unfair questions, it will be used to establish probable cause to obtain an arrest warrant and criminal charges.

What Can A Criminal Attorney Do For You If You Received A Call From A Detective?

Hiring an experienced and aggressive criminal defense attorney is the smartest thing you can do if you have received a phone call from a detective. Why? As we have already discussed, if you do the talking, the detective will twist your statements and use them against you. If you exercise your Sixth Amendment right under the U.S. Constitution to hire an attorney, your criminal lawyer can convey all the answers to the detective’s questions, while protecting you from those answers being used against you. Everything a criminal defense lawyer says to the detective is hearsay and inadmissible in court.

What if there was no evidence to establish probable cause and the detective is only trying to get you to say something to get you arrested? Your criminal lawyer can protect you from being wrongfully arrested by acting as a firewall between you and the detective to ensure the detective will have to develop probable cause only from the evidence he has collected.

Warrant For Your Arrest? What Can You Do?

Has a Fort Worth or Tarrant County detective called you and informed you that you have an active warrant for your arrest? You need to immediately contact a Fort Worth criminal attorney to develop a plan to either keep you out of jail or minimize the time you will be in jail to process the warrant.

You have two options to clear your criminal arrest warrant in Fort Worth:

1. Schedule a time to turn yourself in at the Tarrant County Jail located at 100 North Lamar Street and be prepared to post your bond after book in. In this scenario, you should be prepared to turn yourself on a weekday and, ideally, as early in the morning as possible. Your criminal defense lawyer should be able to contact your detective and find out the exact charge and recommended bond amount. At this point, you can coordinate your bond arrangement with a trusted bondsman that your criminal defense attorney can help you with so that you know that you will be released from jail.

2. Contact a Fort Worth criminal defense attorney that has surety with Tarrant County and request a possible waiver of magistrate or “walk through.” Under this option, rather than having to pay a bondsman the price of a bond, you only pay your criminal attorney to post your bond and you do not waste money by having to pay twice. Additionally, you shield yourself from an unsavory bondsman that may place onerous conditions of reporting and check-ins that could jeopardize your freedom if there are small communication problems. How does this work? You can only qualify for this option if your detective issued a warrant with a set bond amount, as opposed to a recommend bond. A recommended bond will require your criminal defense lawyer to contact the detective to obtain the arrest warrant affidavit to submit to a Tarrant County magistrate do determine if the magistrate will allow you to process a walk through. However, if you have a set bond, you will meet your criminal attorney at the Tarrant County jail and you can process your active warrant without having to go to jail (this assumes your offense is a qualifying offense – must not be a sex-based or domestic violence-based crime).

What if your friend or loved one was arrested and already in the Tarrant County jail? You still have the option to contact a local bondsman and have them post the bond or you can contact The Fulgham Law Firm and we can help you in several ways. Is the bond set for your friend or loved one too high? If so, we can file a motion to set reasonable bond and request an immediate hearing to try to save you money by not having to pay a high fee for posting an unreasonably high bond. Additionally, if your friend or loved one needs to be bonded and you do not want to have to pay both a bondsman and an attorney, we may be able to assist you with the bonding of your friend or family member.

Upon completing your book in and book out process, what happens next? In Fort Worth, you can expect that the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office will file the criminal case and you will receive an initial appearance court date. There is only two primary purposes for an initial appearance court date: determine if you are hiring a criminal attorney and to determine if you need additional bond conditions. If you have retained a criminal attorney prior to your court date, there is a good chance your criminal defense attorney can get you excused from this court date. However, if the court believes that your criminal offense is serious enough that you need additional bond conditions, your criminal lawyer can be present to argue that the bond conditions may be too restrictive or unreasonable.

After completing your Initial Appearance setting, we must then determine if your charge is a misdemeanor or felony crime. Misdemeanor crimes take a very different process and procedure compared to felony charges. For instance, misdemeanor crimes will be immediately staffed to one of the county criminal courts and scheduled for a court date to begin negotiations. Your misdemeanor criminal attorney needs to get access to your police reports and videos and share the nature of the charges and evidence with you as soon as possible so that you can partner together to begin preparing a defense strategy.

For instance, in Tarrant County, the average time to resolve a misdemeanor case can range from three months to twelve months, depending upon the nature of the misdemeanor crime and if there is an alleged victim involved. Misdemeanor crimes generally carry a punishment range of up to one year in county jail and up to a $4,000 fine. If you are a first-time offender, it is critical that you do not take a misdemeanor conviction on your criminal record.

If you are facing a felony charge in Fort Worth or surrounding cities in Tarrant County, Texas, it is important that you have a strategy for your defense because felony crimes carry the possibility of hefty fines and a prison sentence. Felony crimes in Texas follow a different path than misdemeanors. After being released from jail on a felony case, the next step is for the Tarrant County District Attorneys’ Office to file the felony case and staff it to a Grand Jury attorney.

The Grand Jury is a panel of citizens tasked with the responsibility of reviewing every felony case to determine probable cause exists. In fact, Texas criminal law requires that every felony in Texas be indicted by a grand jury. A grand jury attorney with the prosecutor’s office has the responsibility of presenting approximately 40 felony cases per week to a grand jury for authorization for indictment.

So how can a criminal defense attorney help with the grand jury process? Normally, if you do not hire a criminal attorney, the grand jury will only hear one side of the story as presented by the grand jury attorney with the prosecutor’s office. In this situation, the grand jury will only hear a one-sided perspective and most felony cases are true billed and indicted by the grand jury and staffed with a felony district court. However, if you retain an experienced and aggressive criminal defense law firm like the Fulgham Law Firm, we can request an opportunity to present evidence to the grand jury to possibly reduce or dismiss your felony case.

The grand jury has three options when hearing felony cases:

1. True Bill the felony case – this is the same thing as approving an indictment. Essentially, the grand jury has found there was sufficient evidence to establish probable cause for the felony case.
2. Reduction of the charges to a lesser misdemeanor offense – under this scenario, the grand jury reviewed the evidence and determined that a lesser misdemeanor offense was more appropriate to approval. In this situation, the felony case is dropped, and a new misdemeanor case is staffed with a county criminal court and a docket schedule is created.
3. No Bill – this is the goal when making a presentation to a grand jury. By obtaining a No Bill, you have a received the equivalent of a dismissal and your fight to exonerate your name is over. In fact, if your felony case is no billed by a grand jury, you will be eligible, after the expiration of the statute of limitations, to have your criminal record expunged.

If your misdemeanor or felony case proceeds further with subsequent court dates, the Fulgham Law Firm has some very specific goals for every client we represent:

1. We seek to keep you out of jail – the goal of every client we represent is to ensure that you maintain your freedom. Whether it is a first offense DWI or a felony case where you have several prior convictions on your criminal record, we seek to negotiate a resolution to your criminal case that provides you options to stay out of jail or prison. This is important because far too many criminal attorneys are quick to give up when their client is facing a prison offer. We understand that maintain your freedom is one of the top priorities for your criminal defense attorney and we take the very serious at the Fulgham Law Firm.

2. We seek to get your criminal case dismissed – one of the top goals of the Fulgham Law Firm is to prevent our clients from being convicted of a crime, regardless of whether it is a felony or misdemeanor offense. Being convicted of a crime can come with devastating consequences to your life. If you receive a felony conviction, you could find it very difficult to maintain or find employment. You could also lose the right to vote, the right to serve on a jury panel and the right to hold certain Occupational licenses (Nurse, Doctor, Lawyer, etc.). We understand that you must take care of your family and protect your good name and we will work tirelessly to resolve your criminal case in a manner that prevents you from being convicted of the crime.

3. We seek to clear your criminal record – maintaining your freedom and preventing a criminal conviction is important, but the goal for the Fulgham Law Firm remains that you can clear your criminal record so that you can say that you have never been in trouble for a crime. This is especially important for first-time offenders. It is important to understand that there are two ways to clear your criminal record: expunction and non-disclosure. Expunction allows you to have your criminal record destroyed and you are permitted to deny that the arrest or charges every took place. To qualify for an expunction, you must have had your criminal case resolved by either a dismissal, no bill by a grand jury, dropped to a Class C misdemeanor deferred or a not guilty verdict by a jury at a criminal trial. Another option to clear your criminal record is a non-disclosure. A non-disclosure is a way to clear your criminal record by sealing your arrest and criminal case records. To qualify for a non-disclosure, you must have received a deferred adjudication for a qualifying criminal offense, and you must have successfully completed your deferred adjudication. After waiting the required statute of limitations, your criminal defense attorney can file to get these methods approved. To qualify for these options, you need a criminal defense lawyer that knows these rules and can negotiate a result on your criminal case that gives you the option to take advantage of these options to clear your criminal record.

CHARGES FORT WORTH DEFENSE ATTORNEY BRANDON FULGHAM CAN HELP YOU FIGHT – AND BEAT

When searching for a defense attorney to help you protect your rights and battle against your charges, it is vital that you pick someone who not only possesses a general track record of success, but also has success handling the specific crime or crimes of which you have been accused.

Why? Because Texas criminal law is complex and nuanced. There are several defense strategies that may work well against assault charges, but they will do nothing to help you avoid a fraud conviction.

Do not make the mistake of selecting someone with to narrow a focus though, because often during the judicial process, further investigation can lead to additional charges.

For example, you may initially be arrested for a DWI, but when law enforcement officials start poking around, they discover illegal drugs, unregistered weapons, or stolen goods in your vehicle. Those are separate charges that a lawyer who specializes only in DWI may not know how to help you with.

Because of this, your best bet is to work with someone who focuses on criminal law in your area, so they possess both the depth and breadth of knowledge you need. BRANDON FULGHAM HAS SUCCESSFULLY HANDLED ALL KINDS OF CRIMINAL CASES IN TEXAS.

Look for someone well-respected. Brandon Fulgham has an Avvo rating of 10/10 and is considered a Top Attorney in Criminal Defense. The National Trial Lawyers has named him to both their list of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers and to the Top 40 Under 40. Fort Worth Magazine has named him to their Top 100 Attorneys list. This type of recognition matters because it tells you that Mr. Fulgham’s peers in the legal community believe he is doing an outstanding job.

The most important recognition to Brandon Fulgham, though, comes from his clients, who have left glowing reviews of his work all over the web.

Look for someone with a winning track record. Ultimately, this is what it comes down to. When your life and your future are on the line, you want someone who has proven they can get the job done. One look at Mr. Fulgham’s track record makes it clear that he knows how to get his clients the best possible outcome and finds ways to get charges dismissed, dropped, or reduced.

Of course, there is one more important thing that you absolutely need from your criminal lawyer:
experience specific to your situation.

CONTACT THE FULGHAM LAW FIRM

What is the biggest mistake you can make in this situation? Waiting to hire the best criminal lawyer.

Simply put: the more time your criminal defense attorney has to craft your strategy, the more likely you are to end up with a positive outcome. If you delay, you not only give the prosecution more of a head start, but it is possible that you may lose out on certain kinds of evidence that are time sensitive.

Do not take that risk. Get in contact with our Fort Worth office right now to set up a free initial consultation with Mr. Fulgham. The Fulgham Law Firm is a team of Former Prosecutors with over 80 years of criminal law experience and over 500 criminal jury trials.