Video - El abogado Darryl Stallworth explica por qué su trayectoria jurídica antes de la defensa penal lo diferencia de sus competidores

Ray Hrdlicka - Presentador - Attorneys.Media

Your history… where you started.  Let’s go back for the beginning.  When you started, out of law school as a district attorney, a prosecutor, and you hear many attorneys starting that… “I ended up in the PD’s department”…the public defenders’ department.  But you went as a prosecutor.  How did that change your, let me say, change…how did it help your practice today being in that role when you first left law school?

Darryl Stallworth - Abogado de Defensa Criminal - Alameda County, CA

It’s one of the most valuable parts of my practice.  Because when I decided to become a prosecutor, I wanted to be in a place where I had some discretion… where I would be able to review a case, charge a case, decide whether or not I was going to go to trial, or how it’s going to be resolved.

Now, I didn’t do that from day one.  I had to develop the experience in going to trial.  I had to get familiar with whether or not a witness was credible.  I had to understand the trustworthiness of an informant.  I had to understand DNA, forensics, fingerprints, guns, ballistics.  It was a fifteen-year education that taught me just about everything you could ever understand and learn about being a lawyer.

So when I made the decision to leave the DA’s office and do a little civil work at first.  And then I got all these calls from people who needed help with defensa penal.  It wasn’t a big jump for me to figure out, in this case, doesn’t really make a lot of sense.  I don’t think the prosecutor understands that they’d got some problems here.

I give the football analogy.  I played quarterback for fifteen years, and then I played safety. I knew all the plays. I knew what the quarterback was thinking.  I knew how to set it up.  I knew how to defend it.  I also understood that in order to help my client, I needed to get the prosecutor to understand and appreciate the totality of the circumstances.

And having had 10,000 conversations with defense attorneys over the years, I knew what resonated with me as a prosecutor.  So, when I sit down at the table with the prosecutor, I give them what I needed to know when I was a prosecutor so that I can help my client.   And that’s something you don’t get unless you put that time in, and unless you’ve been able to understand why a prosecutor might give your client a break.  Why a prosecutor might consider a lower sentence.  I give them what I needed to have when I was a prosecutor.  And it’s been really helpful for my clients.